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Inside Politics

Biden, Harris Holding First Big Joint Event Since He Left Race; Sources: Harris Now More Involved In White House Policy Planning; New CNN Poll Of Polls: Harris 50 Percent, Trump 49 Percent; Biden Admin: Seniors Will Save $15B In Out-Of-Pocket Drug Costs; Harris To Call For Federal Ban On Price Gouging To Lower Price; Hidden-Camera Video Shows Project 2025 Co-Author Discussing His Secret Work Prepping For 2nd Trump Term. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 15, 2024 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, the Trump ally behind project 2025 caught on tape. Discussing his secret work, preparing for a second Trump term, and saying the former president is, quote, very supportive.

Plus, President Biden and Vice President Harris will share a stage for the first time since she replaced him on the Democratic ticket. We'll look at their relationship headed into the Democratic convention. And did Donald Trump just admit defeat in the GOP's 15-year war on Obamacare? You're going to want to hear what he said yesterday about keeping the Affordable Care Act in place.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

It's been three and a half weeks since President Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Harris. Instead, in that time, she's rallied her party behind her and is closing the gap with Donald Trump in key battleground states.

In the latest CNN Poll of Polls, Harris actually holds a one-point lead. It is statistically insignificant, but it's a big change. Joe Biden did not lead in our polling average all year. Later today, Biden and Harris will appear for their first big event together since the switch up, and they're going to tout their work lowering prescription drug costs for seniors.

MJ Lee is in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, waiting for them to take the stage. MJ, you have some terrific new reporting on what is going on behind the scenes between the two of them and their camps as we wait for this -- this event to take place.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Dana, even just visually, this is about to be quite interesting. Of course, President Biden and Vice President Harris have spent a good amount of time together since the president dropped out three and a half weeks ago. But this is going to be the first time that we see the two of them on stage together at an official event, both of them giving remarks. And the topic of this event actually tells us quite a lot about the state of the election.

You know they are going to be talking about the Biden administration's work so far on trying to lower the cost of prescription drugs. This is an idea that is broadly popular across the country, particularly among older and more senior voters, a group that President Biden has actually tended to do quite well with.

And for Vice President Harris. Keep in mind, she is quickly learning a bit of a tricky juggling act, especially when it comes to the economy. You know, she is, of course, the number two in the Biden, Harris administration. She has to take responsibility for the different policies of that administration.

But at the same time, now that she's a presidential candidate, we are going to see her sort of pick and choose and navigate the policies that are going to help her, tell a compelling economic story. Because the reality is that when it comes to the economy more broadly, President Biden has not gotten the high remarks.

And so, there is going to be some sort of separation and distinction that we see the vice president try to show when it comes to the economy. As she is preparing to run against Donald Trump, because this is going to be one of the most challenging and important topics for her to navigate while heading into November. Dana?

BASH: MJ, thank you so much for that reporting. And I want to talk to some other excellent reporters who are here at the table. PBS NewsHour's Laura Barron-Lopez, Jonah Goldberg of the Dispatch, and Leigh Ann Caldwell of The Washington Post.

So, part of this story that MJ has on cnn.com with Betsy Klein, Kayla Tausche, Kevin Liptak is talking about the shift in dynamic inside the West Wing right now. The West Wing, a source familiar with the dynamics said, is more deferential to the vice president's side. Before it would have been, the president is announcing X thing. Now it's more of a conversation to make sure it makes sense for her too. What does that tell you, Laura?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's essentially necessary, right? Because she is the nominee now, and if there -- if President Biden is going to ultimately help her win in November, then it has to be more of a conversation, because she -- Donald Trump is going to attempt to tether her to anything coming out of the Biden administration. Even if a -- now she's trying to differentiate herself on the trail.

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And so, including her more in these conversations makes it so, it's easier for her to defend them ultimately, and say, this is where I'd like us to go, rather than just a one-sided conversation, which we know it has been for the majority of the term.

BASH: Jonah? JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I mean, it seems to me that it's some the overriding thing uniting the two -- can't call them two campaigns, right? But the vice president and the president is --

BASH: Their orbits.

GOLDBERG: Their orbits. The Venn diagram, basically the shaded part is about a sort of Hippocratic Oath approach to this is the first do no harm, right? And I think that's both good and bad. The honeymoon has lasted a lot longer than people expected. And so, why take a risk by doing the interview? Why take a risk by coming out and saying something controversial, or any of that kind of stuff?

I think they hit the point of diminishing returns on that. And now the Biden administration, you know, to Laura's point has to like very careful. You can't blindside the person that you're trying to pass the baton to here.

And so, how you socialize this stuff? How you communicate this stuff, so that Harris is capable of explaining the policy of the administration that she is supposed to be defending. We haven't seen something like this in our living memory, so it's going to be difficult.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking about that. Just imagine the dynamic inside the West Wing that has understandably. It's supposed to work this way, that it's the president and his aides who make the policy, the plans, the strategy, and then they say, oh, by the way, VP office, this is what we're doing.

And now, it should be on its head if they want to win, or at least be much more inclusive to want to put back up what I refer to at the top of the show, which is CNN's poll of polls. Harris 50 percent, Trump 49 percent. Leigh Ann?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF" NEWSLETTER: I mean, there has been a market shift in the polling since President Biden dropped out, not only in national polling, but also in swing state polling as well. And so, this is exactly why Democrats were worried about President Biden after the debate, because the polling had shown that he was so far behind, you know, by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump or President Biden had not been behind in a poll in 2020 throughout that campaign. He had not been ahead in a poll in this cycle. So now we're starting to see the Kamala Harris bump, and it's going to be dependent on her, if this honeymoon continues and she's able to continue this trend.

BASH: And they're doing it in kind of a pin prick fashion, strategically, what they're talking about today together, this first big public event together since he dropped out, is about seniors. And that is still a pocket of voters that he does pretty well with compared to her, at least, that was sort of the dynamic in the three weeks since we've seen the shift. So, it makes sense to be with him, to try to get his blessing and his help with the voters who like him and support him.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yeah. That's right. Because out of all of the different voting blocks that they were -- that make up the coalition that they were trying to build, seniors were one of the few of them that were sticking with Biden this year. Even as he was losing, you know, voters in different segments of the Democratic coalition. Be it young voters, be it you know, Latino men and black men at the margins. And we're seeing that Harris is starting to gain back more of the Democratic base, the traditional elements of it.

And so, of course, to be next to Biden, this is the one time she may want to appear alongside him. She may not want to be alongside the president very much throughout the rest between now and November. But when it's talking to seniors, that's an area he's done really well in the battleground states.

BASH: Let's dig in a little bit. We are going to see a big speech, we are told, from the vice president tomorrow laying out some of her economic plan, which they have been light on policy that is a sort of a hit from the Trump campaign, and they're not wrong about it. Maybe they deserve a little bit of grace, since they have a three-week old campaign.

But Jonah, what is noteworthy about what we are told, at least so far, that she is going to talk about Ebony Davis with CNN. Reported this morning that Harris is going to call for a federal ban on price gouging to lower costs in her first economic policy speech, populism.

GOLDBERG: Yeah. So, I'm going to put on my wonk hat for two seconds.

BASH: I love it. Don't ever take that wonk cat off.

GOLDBERG: Price gouging is basically a myth. This is utterly unpersuasive. Even, even, you know, liberal economists work for Obama. Will tell you that this is -- a lot of the stuff is just sort of silly. It's light on seriousness in all sorts of ways. But I think what unites this taking the wonk cat off for a second. What unites this with the event today, is where Harris is one of her real advantages of vis a vis Trump is this time-honored question cares about people like you.

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And so, doing the populist thing, talking about price gouging and all this kind of stuff as a way to say, hey, look, it wasn't the inflation that the Biden administration contributed to. It wasn't the supply chains that we kind of screwed up that drove up prices. It's these evil corporations that gives her something to pivot to. It's a very time-honored argument.

I don't think it has any merit, but what's getting conveyed is not the policy seriousness or unseriousness. It's the vibes. She cares about people like you, because these are the problems we face.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, it's Elizabeth Warren, it's Bernie Sanders, and it's also the populism on the right. I mean, it's kind of where they meet. You don't think there's any truth to the fact that corporate America in some pockets are raising prices because they can?

GOLDBERG: I think --

BASH: Not because they need to.

GOLDBERG: The implied solution for everybody who talks about price gouging is price controls. Price controls create scarcity, drive up prices. Greed is a constant in American in free market economics. What's different are the circumstances that we had during covid? And I don't think Biden deserves all the blame for inflation, but it wasn't supermarkets, which historically have one or two percent profit margins that were responsible for the increase in the price of bacon.

BASH: Let's listen to what Kamala Harris has said about this topic.

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: On day one, I will take on price gouging and bring down costs. We will ban more of those hidden fees and surprise late charges that banks and other companies use to pad their profits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, she's talking there about beyond supermarket, which is where people are really feeling it or have been.

CALDWELL: Yeah. There's a theme in all of her stump speeches. So, I was not surprised when price gouging was going to be central to her economic plan, because she's talked about it in each time. But the theme is, it's like, big guy versus little guy, right?

So, it's not just corporations and price gouging. It's big landlords unnecessarily raising rent. It's big pharma raising drug prices. And so, we are seeing this theme, and how she's going to tackle this. She's not talking about inflation directly or specifically. She's coming up about it through this lens.

BASH: So interesting. Really looking forward to see what else she says tomorrow. Everybody standby because up next, really revealing new reporting from the CNN investigative team. Here what a leader of Project 2025 says in his own words about active plans for a second Trump administration from Christian nationalism to deportation of undocumented immigrants.

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BASH: Project 2025, it's a group that produced a 900-page document about what a second Trump administration should do, on everything from how to deport undocumented immigrants to stacking federal agencies deep with MAGA acolytes. It's an extreme vision, one that the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from publicly. Now, in an explosive undercover video, we see and hear a co-author of Project 2025, a former Trump cabinet member, saying explicitly that Donald Trump quote, blessed the work he's doing now. He was secretly videotaped by a nonprofit journalism group.

Our senior investigative correspondent Kyung Lah is here with everything that you are picking up. Kyung, take it away.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, we've by now all heard about what you've laid out there, Project 2025 and how Trump says he doesn't know anything about it. Well, one of the co- authors of Project 2025 is a man named Russell Vought. He was not only on Trump's cabinet but was also in charge of the GOP policy platform passed at last month's Republican National Convention.

I want you to look at this hidden camera video. Vought, if thought he was talking to the relatives of a wealthy investor. But it turns out this meeting was set up and recorded by an undercover journalist and an actor for the Centre for Climate Reporting, a British organization.

He says, Trump's rejection of Project 2025 is just politics. And Vought explained, he's creating so called shadow agencies, getting regulations, memos and executive orders ready for action on the first day of a Trump presidency. He also believes in expanding presidential powers, and that the president has the authority to use the military to maintain law and order.

I want you to listen to how he talks about why Trump is publicly trying to separate himself from Project 2025.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you know, we only got about 350 different documents that are regulations and things of that nature that are -- we're planning for the next year, the next administration. And then you may say, OK, all right, DHS, we want to have the largest deportation. What are your actual memos that a secretary sends out to do it? Like, there's an executive order, regulations, secretarial memos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are the types of things that need to be thought through. So, you're not -- you're not having to scramble to do that later on. We were always going off of -- if Donald Trump was head of this agency, what would he do with it? What has he said? And then what do we know from the first term? And that's how we've been approaching this.

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He's very supportive of what we do. And know that we have an all manner of things that we do that's, you know, even unrelated to Project 2025. So, I see what he's doing is just very, very conscious distancing himself from a brand. And you're not going to publish those. No, they go straight to. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, they're a very, very close hold.

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LAH: Vought also talked about wanting to make sure America is a Christian nation and mass deportation is needed in order to save America. We did hear from Vought's group, a spokesperson for the group, downplay the video, and told CNN, it would have been easier to just do a Google search to uncover what is already on our website.

And said in countless national media interviews but thank you for airing our perfect conversation. Emphasizing our policy work is totally separate from the Trump campaign, as we have been saying. Dana?

BASH: Kyung, thank you so much for that. So, the question now is, yes, it is true that -- oh, I'm sorry, Kyung, I have one more question for you. I apologize. And this is about Donald Trump. He said he doesn't know about Project 25. And the question for you now is, did he approve of this?

LAH: Well, this is what we have heard from the Trump campaign. They have just told us that only President Trump and the campaign and not any other organization or former staff represent policies for the second term. But here is what we know further, Dana, about all this.

We know that Trump and Vought have spoken at various times, and the former president has adopted some of Vought's policy ideas. Two sources familiar with that relationship have told CNN. Vought says everything that he is working on comes from Trump's speeches and his promises for a second term. Dana?

BASH: OK. Now I'm going to thank you. Kyung, thank you so much. Really appreciate that terrific reporting. And the panel is here with me. And so, what I was going to ask you, Jonah, is about yes, Vought's spokesperson says that we have seen a lot of this. It is in black and white.

There are 900 pages of Project 2025. This is something that he is talking about as kind of a second phase, where they're actually trying to prepare for a second term, something that they could implement with lots of secret documents.

It's Donald Trump and his knowledge of and his understanding of it. And this is what struck me as new in these recordings, because he said in private, what insists that the disavowals from Donald Trump were merely, quote, graduate level politics.

GOLDBERG: Yeah. So, the one thing you have to acknowledge is that this is a -- whether that's true or not. That's exactly what Vought would say to a bunch of people who's trying to separate from a check, right? He wouldn't go in and say, I have no influence whatsoever with Donald Trump, and he's not going to do anything I'm going to do, right, because he is trying to sell your impact and your access.

That said, I think he's telling the truth, you know. I mean, it's the idea that Project 2025, and the Heritage Foundation and all those guys aren't closely tied to Trump world was just sort of ridiculous. I mean, Russ Vought might as -- well been receiving his mail at Mar-a- Lago.

And so, they threw -- you know, Trump realized that this was becoming bad optics for him. And they threw the Heritage Foundation and Russ Vought and Project 2025 under the bus so hard. They'll get a stuffed toy as a prize. But it doesn't change the fact. So, I think politically this helps Democrats, just insofar as it makes the denial seem less plausible and that's about it.

BARRON-LOPEZ: The denials aren't really credible because of the fact that Donald Trump talks about a lot of these policies on the stump. He talks about abolishing the Education Department. He talks about, you know, giving no funding to schools with vaccine mandates. He recently said that he was open to banning medication abortion, the mailing of it, reversing the FDA approval. That's all in Project 2025, so is mask deportations.

Russ Vought worked in the first Trump administration. Is likely on a short list to work in a second one, as our lot of the authors of Project 2025. They all expect to staff a second Trump term. So, this idea that there's this total separation just doesn't test -- like pass the --

BASH: He doesn't talk about other things like repealing LGBTQ+ equity policies. They proudly state men and women are biologically -- biological realities, and several other issues, including limiting access to medication abortion to seven weeks. That is something that he does stay away from.

CALDWELL: Yes. So, that's why Donald Trump has tried to distance himself because there are policies in there. In Project 2025 it is 900 pages long. It gets into very specific detail on a whole host of things, and it was becoming a political liability for Donald Trump.

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But like Laura said, there are many policies, including firing federal bureaucrats, which is central to Project 2025. If we're making the -- how the government works and making it more political into the mold of Donald Trump. But Democrats have used this as a very effective ploy against Republicans. It's funny.

I was talking to Republican delegates about this at the Republican convention. And so many of them said, yeah, I've heard about that. I know about this. But some of them told me, they heard about it from Democrats as how where it was -- where they were first tuned into it.

So, but Democrats aren't going to back down. We hear Kamala Harris use it on the stump. We hear congressional candidates do it as well. And Donald Trump is tied to this politically, whether he likes it or not.

BASH: Yeah. And then next time we talk, we can have a whole other conversation about Christian nationalism and how much he leaned into that. Again, very different, but very important conversation. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, off message and off the rails. Donald Trump seems to still be losing focus, despite insistence from those in his inner circle telling him to stay on message. And we have new reporting on how he is expanding that inner circle. That's next.

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