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Inside Politics

Biden Unlikely To Replicate Trump's Transformation Of Courts; Harris And Trump Nearly Tied In Battleground State Polls; "Rising Star" Congressman Quit After Family Threatened. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 29, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:11]

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden is on track to appoint more judges to the bench than his predecessor, but the chances of Biden replicating the level of Donald Trump's successes are unlikely. And here's why. While Biden is on track to appoint more low level judges than Trump, Trump appointed more appeals court judges.

Not to mention three Supreme Court justices, and that conservative transformation of the highest courts is halting key parts of Biden's liberal agenda. And just yesterday, the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration's student loan relief and repayment plan. And earlier this week, a federal judge in Texas paused Biden's program that offers legal status to the spouses of U.S. citizens.

CNN's Justice Correspondent Jessica Schneider joins me now. Jessica, nice to see you.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Manu.

RAJU: So what is the significance of this, of the Biden's attempt to obviously get more liberal judges on the bench, but just overall? Put us in perspective of the transformation that's underway.

SCHNEIDER: Well, as we saw from President Trump's presidency, we see just how consequential judicial nominations are. And to be sure, President Trump is really -- sorry, President Biden is really making this final push to the finish as he ends out his term. In fact, just yesterday, the White House nominated three more district court judges to the federal bench.

So, you know, in the end, President Biden will actually have appointed more federal judges than the former President Trump. But as you mentioned, President Trump's picks are a lot more consequential. So our team has been crunching all these numbers led by the incredible Tierney Sneed. And what they found is that President Trump actually nominated a lot more circuit court judges.

And why does that matter? Well, circuit court is sort of the appellate level above the district court and their precedent can be binding unless it's overturned by the Supreme Court. So a lot of what they say can affect what's going on throughout the entire nation. You know, President Trump, he named a number of circuit court judges more than President Biden has so far and probably will before the end of the term. And what's also significant is that President Trump actually flipped three of the circuits to become Republican leaning.

Once President Biden got in office, he flipped back one of those circuits, but still, you know, President Trump, he flipped the 11th Circuit that is based in Atlanta, it encompasses Florida, Georgia. And just in the past few months, that 11th Circuit has really -- they've stopped voting rights for ex-felons. They've also upheld state restrictions on gender affirming care.

So it's really the circuit court level that has this broad effect, just as much as the Supreme Court. And President Trump was able to make a lot more inroads than President Biden so far has been.

RAJU: And, of course, it's a lifetime appointment --

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

RAJU: -- so they'll come open very often. And when they do, the president raises to confirm some of the post. There's a Democratic Senate until the end of this year. We'll see if it lasts for two more years.

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

RAJU: There's a Democratic president until the end of the year. We'll see how long that lasts as well. Now that Joe Biden has this finite time in office, how many more judges can we expect to try to fill before the end of the year?

SCHNEIDER: Well, it looks like he's got about 30 pending so far for actual approval and then getting on the bench. I mean, the numbers that we're seeing is that Senate Democrats are saying that so far, 205 total judges have been confirmed that Biden's White House has nominated. That includes 159 district court nominees, 43 circuit court nominees.

But as you'll see, I mean, President Trump had, you know, just about 10 more, which you might not think makes a difference, but it actually does, especially when he's able to flip some of these circuits. What President Biden and his team are really stressing is the diversity of their picks.

They're saying that they have focused on placing more women of color onto federal benches. And then notably a really good stat from our team. President Biden has named more black women to the circuit court, those very influential appellate courts than all other presidents combined.

[12:35:04]

So they're saying it's about the quality, not the quantity, but in the end, President Trump's picks are probably more consequential.

RAJU: Yes. And under reported story with just such huge, huge consequence.

SCHNEIDER: Absolutely.

RAJU: Great reporting, Jessica Schneider and our colleague Tierney Sneed.

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

RAJU: Thank you for bringing that.

And coming up, in a deeply divided country with an evenly split electorate, how can Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaign actually break through? Well, I'll talk to a Republican and Democratic pollster next.

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[12:40:03]

RAJU: The state of the 2024 race is tied. We are truly a 50-50 nation, something reflected in just about every national and swing state poll, including these latest polls of the battleground Sun Belt states. It's basically dead even in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. So just how can either campaign actually break through and build an advantage?

Well, Democratic pollster Tom Bonier is here and joins me now to try to answer that question. Tom, thank you so much for joining me.

TOM BONIER, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Great to be here.

RAJU: Really appreciate it. So this is really quite remarkable just how divided this country is, how -- we're 50-50 and almost every single one of these polls showing within the margin of error. No clear leader here. So what percent of the electorate do you actually think is persuadable at this point in some of these key states?

BONIER: Well there's two elements of persuasion that we really have to focus on when we think about this race and how close it is. One is the traditional form persuasion. People just haven't made up their minds yet. It's hard to imagine that anyone is really there at this point, given the stakes of this election and the polarization. But there is a not insignificant share of the electorate who truly hasn't made up their minds.

The other element of persuasion that I think is perhaps even more important is the persuasion of people are on the fence of do I vote or not? Am I going to come out to vote in this election? That's a even bigger chunk of the electorate. And when you're seeing some of these swings in the polls that we've seen over the last few weeks, a lot of that is actually the second category. It's these turnout voters who are persuadable about this choice of voting or not.

RAJU: What percentage would you say are those people who are thinking about sitting on the couch or actually going and showing up at the polls? BONIER: Somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of the electorate fall into that category. So it's -- we're talking about tens of millions of voters. It's a big number.

RAJU: Yes, and that shows you why they're investing so much on the get out the vote efforts. We're seeing the Vice President also in Georgia. She's making that a big push. As you see, as a Democratic pollster, how do you see the most effective strategy for the Harris campaign? Is it the Sun Belt route, through Georgia, through Nevada, North Carolina, or should she focus primarily on those blue wall states of Wisconsin, of Michigan, Pennsylvania?

BONIER: Well that's really the great position that the Harris campaign finds itself in, is they don't have to pick one path. When we looked at before President Biden withdrew from the race a little over a month ago, there was really only one plausible path. The Sun Belt seemed to be off the table. The polls there didn't look good.

And so we were talking about scenarios that could be electoral college tie. If the President swept --

RAJU: On a good day. I don't like the best but a good day.

BONIER: Yes. And needing to get the one electoral vote from Nebraska. And so that was obviously a challenging position. What we've seen since Vice President Harris has taken over at the top of the ticket, these Sun Belt states just roared back. And so Georgia, Georgia was a state you mentioned wasn't polling. It wasn't looking very good for Democrats.

And now in the average of polls, Vice President Harris is winning in Georgia. Same thing with Nevada. There's a big reason for that. These are young states and they're states with a lot of voters of color. These are the voters who were on the fence prior to the candidate change, and now we're feeling a lot of enthusiasm.

RAJU: Does it make sense -- so look, some of the polling from yesterday, from the Fox News poll, tested what's happening down ticket as well. That talk about -- obviously, there's a major race for both the House and the Senate. It looked at some of the Arizona Senate candidates, the Arizona Senate candidates, the Nevada Senate candidates, and showing in the North Carolina gubernatorial race.

In all of these races, the Democrat is up by double digits, well outside the margin of error, even as Harris and Trump are within the margin of error. Does that make sense to you as a pollster?

BONIER: You know, it's something we've been seeing, especially since the 2022 elections and the Dobbs decision. Republicans have been nominating candidates in these races that they look at the map and they should have been winnable, right? That's why they believe they would take back the Senate two years ago and they didn't.

They're nominating candidates that are just outside of the mainstream, and so Democratic candidates -- RAJU: So voters are thinking split ticket voting. Because split ticket

voting hasn't really happened as much in the Trump years. It's actually been pretty rare, particularly in Senate races.

BONIER: You're right. We potentially could see more split ticket voting in this November election in those states, especially in those competitive Senate states. Again, you mentioned Arizona, Nevada, there are some others even in the blue wall states where you're seeing the Democratic Senate candidates are incredibly strong, and frankly, the Republican candidates aren't.

RAJU: Speaking of -- there's some of the numbers here and Harris versus Trump on some of the issues here. This is according to the same Fox News poll asking voters in those battleground Sun Belt states about how they view these two candidates.

On abortion, Harris winning. Harris winning also on health care by double digits, but on immigration, still a sizable Trump advantage there. And then the economy, the all-important issue of the economy, still an eight-point lead. So how can Harris win with Trump if he continues to maintain this lead over her by outside the margin of error on the economy specifically?

[12:45:15]

BONIER: Well, first of all, the point is mix there. We have seen polls in the last two weeks that have actually shown Vice President Harris coming into the lead on the perception of who's better equipped to lead on the economy. That's a big change because President Trump did have a much more substantial lead there.

On immigration, look, Republicans have run this sort of fear tactic campaign that it's the last few months of every campaign. It just isn't -- doesn't seem to be working at this point. They've seen that President Trump and Republicans torpedoed the actual common sense legislation in Congress. And so, I think that's why you're seeing those numbers a lot closer at this point than they have been in previous elections.

RAJU: All right. OK. We'll see. It must sort of -- there'll be many more polls coming out in the days ahead in the aftermath of the Democratic Convention as well. Get a sense of where this race is. And it may change also after Labor Day.

So Tom Bonier, thank you so much for joining me today. Really appreciate it.

BONIER: Thanks for having me.

RAJU: Yes.

And next, a rising star in Congress called it quits after his family was threatened. What does that say about the state of our politics?

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[12:50:43]

RAJU: It was a stunner on Capitol Hill when Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, suddenly decided to resign this past April. He was widely seen as an up and coming Republican, a committee chairman, with a long future in GOP politics. And he had said little about his abrupt resignation.

But in a new Washington Post op-ed, David Ignatius details a night last December when a sheriff got an anonymous call claiming Gallagher had been shot in the face. And that his wife and two young daughters have been taken hostage. A SWAT team raced to his Green Bay home to find the family safe. All a cruel hoax.

Ignatius writes, "When a talented, sensible politician like Gallagher decides to quit to protect his family, you know that something is badly wrong."

My panel is back. Carl, you cover Capitol Hill with me. What do you make of this?

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I mean, it's terrible. It's a real deterrent to being in public office. And we've done stories at the Times about the increase in incidents against members. Susan Collins told me last year about, you know, someone just breaking a window in the back of her house in Maine.

And the difference is, you know, before you're a congressman, you're in your district, you run into a disgruntled person at the grocery store, and they might give you a hard time. Now it's like a risk to your family, and it's physical threats, and damage, and being swatted. I mean, it's hard to be in Congress right now, and I think, you know, people have to decide to make this sacrifice.

And Mr. Gallagher, who really was considered a big up and coming Republican star, decided he'd had enough.

RAJU: Yes, he was considered running for Senate. Decided not to do that. Could have had any number of positions in the GOP. And this is what Ignatius says according to -- in his piece, he says, "Make no mistake. Gallagher is very conservative. But he fears that conservative values aren't the defining point for Republicans any longer. How can -- how conservative you are cannot be measured by loyalty to the party or the president." That's what Gallagher told Ignatius.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think that Gallagher, the former congressman, is speaking to a pattern here, which is that essentially, if any Republican steps out of line and goes against former President Donald Trump, be it like Gallagher on border issues or on January 6th.

RAJU: He voted against impeaching Mayorkas.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Right. Yes --

RAJU: And criticized Trump after January 6th. BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right. And so, any little step out of line with what Donald Trump says the party should be in line with then he's attacked and he talks about in that article also that, you know, he heard from Trump supporters we're going to pursue you, you betrayed us.

And that is a pattern here, which is that if Donald Trump targets you and says that you're doing the wrong thing and that you're somehow not Republican because you don't align with him, then a lot of his supporters take that and we saw that manifest on January 6.

RAJU: Yes.

BARRON-LOPEZ: They take that and they target and there's death threats towards lawmakers, towards judges, towards election officials.

RAJU: But he was no squish. I mean, he was one of the more conservative members, he's a defense hawk, he was in line with Republican orthodoxy on pretty much everything. He voted against impeaching Donald Trump twice, but that, you know, these type of more establishment Republicans are a dying breed in Trump's GOP.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: He's everything -- he's representative of everything the Republicans say they want to be. So that is what is so confusing about this episode. But I think the viability of Congressman Gallagher or people in that ilk is going to be entirely dependent on this election.

If the former president loses, then Republicans will reassess, probably try to find their way back. And he would be welcomed into the party because they will need to lean into some of these districts where they still need Democrats, right? He had a lot of friends on the other side of the aisle. But if the former president wins, well then that sort of cements the current reality.

RAJU: Yes. If the former president loses, that debate after the election will be something to watch.

HULSE: Yes, that'll be a fascinating one and --

RAJU: It'll be, do we work more with Democrats? Do we become more like Trump? That's going to be the fight.

HULSE: I mean, they've had those autopsies before, and then, but it doesn't always work out the way you think that it would work out.

RAJU: Not so much. I remember that one after Mitt Romney lost as well. That listened very much. Thank you guys, thank you guys for joining me.

[12:55:03]

And another reminder, tune in tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, the most anticipated interview of the year. Vice President Harris, Governor Walz sit down with my great colleague, Dana Bash, for their first joint interview. And one more thing when Dana, of course, she was been moderating debates, she's been interviewing presidential candidates, and of course, she anchors this show every day, but she also co-wrote a book. It's called, "America's Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History." It's by Dana and her co- author, David Fisher. It's out next week and you can pre-order it today.

Thanks for joining Inside Politics, I'm Manu Raju. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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