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Inside Politics
Trump: I Had "Every Right" To Interfere With 2020 Results; Trump Posts Videos Of Gold Star Families Who Invited Him To Arlington National Cemetery Defending His Visit; Hostage Families Call For Government To Reach A Hostage Deal; Dana's Book Explores Parallels Between 1870's And Today. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired September 02, 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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[12:33:00]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump's litany of legal issues is far from over. And in a new interview yesterday, the former president teased a sorry not sorry defense for his role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
CNN's Kristen Holmes is live with the latest. Kristen, what did he say?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana, look, this is something that he said a version of multiple times before where he essentially says that he is being accused of interfering with the election when he had every single right to question the results of the election.
However, there was one little issue with what he said in the interview yesterday, and it was the fact that he left out the word accused of. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted and your poll numbers go up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, if you talk to his senior advisers, they say again, this is something that he has said before, he just didn't say the accused part. But, Dana, legally, this could cause some gray areas for Donald Trump. We know his team is preparing for a hearing in that case. We just saw the superseding indictment from Jack Smith in that January 6th election interference case.
And clearly, this is not something that his team wants to have on their plate at this time as we head into these last days of the election, getting closer and closer to November. They want to kind of put all those legal issues in the rear view mirror. Comments like this don't really help with that effort.
BASH: I mean, you're talking about the legal. I'm thinking that, as we speak, there are ads and videos being cut by Kamala Harris and all the Democrats with that, and I'm surprised we haven't seen it yet.
Thank you so much, Kristen. Appreciate it.
And now to the latest on Trump's highly controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery last week. His campaign was rebuked by the U.S. Army over its use of video and images from the visit, where he met with the families of service members killed in the Kabul airport bombing three years ago.
[12:35:04]
He was invited by the families, but the question is the politics around it all. On Saturday, Vice President Harris attacked Trump for the incident saying, quote, "This is a man who is unable to comprehend anything other than service to himself."
Trump responded by posting a series of videos from Gold Star families who say they invited Trump. And they want him to celebrate their loved ones who they say are dead because of the Biden administration's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our kids were murdered because of your administration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were not at Dover for the dignified transfer. And no time have you reached out to me to offer your condolences, to offer thank you for Kareem's (ph) sacrifice and service.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have 13 families who have been waiting over three years to so much as get a phone call.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: My panel is back. And Arlette, the Trump campaign is obviously leaning into it. There's not a controversy that Donald Trump has not been involved in that. He didn't double down on, triple down on, it's the Roy Cohn Playbook that he has followed for decades and decades.
My question for you is the Harris campaign and how they are dealing with this. I mean, my understanding is she decided to weigh in over the weekend. They were being asked a lot about it, understandably. Knowing that this is policy wise and politically, like we talked about, it is a sore spot for the Biden administration. No question about it.
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean --
BASH: Not Arlington, of course, the -- SAENZ: The Afghanistan --
BASH: -- the Afghanistan withdrawal.
SAENZ: Yes. And the Biden campaign was long dealing with Trump trying to use the deaths of those Americans in Afghanistan against President Biden. And what they're trying to do now is directly tie Vice President Kamala Harris to that as well.
I think the fact that Harris and also Biden didn't immediately come out and say something relating to Trump's Arlington visits, shows that they were trying to take a beat, trying to decide how to respond specifically to the controversy around that. You see Harris trying to show that -- or argue that it shows Trump's sole commitments to serving himself instead of others.
But this issue of Afghanistan is something that they will have to navigate going forward. If you look back at President Biden's poll numbers when these deaths occurred, he never really recovered --
BASH: He didn't.
SAENZ: -- from those in his favorability ratings. And so, we'll see whether voters are actually going to take this into consideration when they're heading to the ballot box in November. But for the Harris campaign, this is something they will have to grapple with as Trump continues to try to tie the Afghanistan policy to not just Biden, but also directly to Harris.
BASH: And Isaac, I want you to listen to what Tulsi Gabbard, who is a Democrat who endorsed Donald Trump, also a veteran herself. Was at Arlington with him said in response to my question to her on State of the Union yesterday about the concern by other family members, other than those who weren't there, but whose loved ones graves were there and used for political purposes were quite upset about.
Listen to her response.
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TULSI GABBARD, TRUMP TRANSITION TEAM: Kamala Harris put this statement out yesterday saying that she stands with these families, she stands with the military and with veterans. You only have to look at the response that came from the Gold Star families of these 13 service members of how offended they were by that statement, given she has not made any effort, not on that third anniversary or any other time to call them directly to offer her condolences and even apologies for their decisions that led to the loss of their loved ones.
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EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: For Harris, this is a tricky thing because she wanted to, in 2021, be associated with being very involved with the decision. She said that to you when you asked her about it in the earlier interview with her then. But she wasn't really that deeply involved with it. And now that it's the politics of it, it's how do you show that you were a connected member of the administration, but not so connected that you were -- you're tied to what is obviously a still problematic spot for them.
The other thing, though, that I think is worth paying attention to as we get into the political back and forth here is the grief of these families is real and the anger that they have about their sons being killed is real. There's also that the Trump campaign did something where they violated the law.
They lied about what happened. They have said that they have footage of this that they have not released. So, there is the big Afghanistan situation and what happened to these Marines. But then there is another time where Donald Trump broke the law, insulted people, lied about it, continues to lie about it, continues to hope that that gets swept into the controversy and the political back and forth.
BASH: Real quick.
[12:40:12]
MARIANNE LEVINE, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, and I think it's worth noting that a big reason why this is still in the news is because there was an altercation between two of his campaign aides and a worker at the cemetery who the Army, in a very rare statement defended.
And so, a big reason we're even having this new cycle right now is because of that initial incident that is now kind of become a bigger topic about Afghanistan. But the seed of this is really the fact that they had two campaign aides who had this altercation with the cemetery worker.
BASH: And again put out this video, as you said, which is not supposed in several places, which is not in compliance with the law or the rules.
Everybody, thank you so much.
Up next, it's painful to listen to, but words all of us need to hear from the parents of one of the remaining Israeli-American hostages being held by Hamas.
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[12:45:39]
BASH: Today, the hopes and prayers of the family's enduring suffering beyond comprehension. Sear this image into your brain. Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, forever wounded. Hours ago, they said goodbye to their only son, Hersh.
But in a day colored by pain, you can still see hues of hope. You see the sticker there on Rachel's shirt, the one that reads 332? She is still counting the days the hostages have been held by Hamas, and she is still hoping that those who remain in captivity can escape the fate dealt to her son by terrorists.
Listen to the families in interviews and public statements during the most trying moments of their lives, and they are begging anyone who can hear to save those who can still be saved.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know the Israel people are going out in large numbers and calling the government to do what their job is, to bring the hostages home. 101 hostages left and they're dying there. And every day is huge risk for each one of them. So we urge him to do what he's tasked to do in Israel.
But just as well, we are calling on our leaders here in the United States to do what they're tasked to do. We're calling on President Biden, on Vice President Harris to do everything in their power to reach a deal and bring the hostages back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have to seal the deal. Enough is enough.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. They need to bring the hostages back home. That's it. It's 11 months. We don't have time. Like we saw on Saturday what happened. They murdered them over there.
So they need to understand. That's why we urge them since the beginning that it's -- they don't have time.
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BASH: No, they do not
Coming up, a cautionary tale of "America's Deadliest Election," and it's full of controversies that will sound eerily familiar. I have a book out tomorrow, and my co-author is my guest next.
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[12:52:18]
BASH: A tale of two candidates, a bitterly divided election. No one will concede. Violence ensues, chaos for months and months. No, I am not talking about current times, the 2020 election, and God forbid, where we are in this election, but rather, an election in the year 1872 in the state of Louisiana that would have drastic implications and impact on American history going forward.
And there are an awful lot of parallels to today. It is a subject of a new book, "America's Deadly Election" that I coauthored with David Fisher, who joins me now. Hi, David. Nice to see you. I want to start --
DAVID FISHER, CO-AUTHOR, "AMERICA'S DEADLIEST ELECTION": Good morning to you.
BASH: -- with some of those parallels. And these are just some of the parallels from the 1870s in Louisiana to today. January 6, there was chaos on that date. Questions over election certification in the United States Congress and what the vice president's role is. Calls to hang a political nemesis. More than one assassination attempt.
And I have said I'm embarrassed that I didn't know more about this part of history because it is so consequential when it comes to the South in particular and civil rights in the South. And I'm going to read part of why it is so important.
"The Supreme Court's decision in U.S. versus Cruikshank was among the most significant ramifications of Louisiana's 1872 election and the Colfax massacre," which is something that murdered 150, more than 150 black men.
"The ruling would play a significant role in shaping American history and impacting millions of lives for nearly a century. The ruling left it entirely to the states to choose how and when civil rights would be enforced. It was up to state governments, legislatures, and courts to regulate race relations. And so they did, relegating black Americans to the back of the bus, underfunded and under equipped public schools and segregated seating in public venues."
The direct line between this election in 1872 to what we saw, the Jim Crow South, is remarkable, David.
FISHER: It's, you know, we all know the phrase, those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. This is history shouting at us. Pay attention, pay attention. There are -- you know, we would talk about it while we were working.
We would find these parallels. You name it. Border problems, Second Amendment questions, civil rights, on and on and on.
[12:55:07]
An assassination attempt in which the victim said he heard the shot, felt the bullet go whizzing by his neck, in his case, and raised his hand. Almost word for word. It's astonishing. And what we did, as I'm explaining to your viewers, is we've divided the books essentially into two parts.
The first part are all of those astonishing parallels, and we all -- we can parallel them to what is happening literally today. But the second part is what's going to happen. And in that case, it was others (ph), it was something called the Battle of Liberty place --
BASH: Yes.
FISHER: -- which nobody knows about (INAUDIBLE) battle in the streets of Orleans.
BASH: Well, they will --
FISHER: And this is the -- I'm sorry.
BASH: Sorry. No, I'm sorry. We're out of time, but we will keep talking about it, David. They will know about it after they read our book, which is available for pre-order now. It was such a pleasure working with you. You are a gem of all gems, "America's Deadliest Election".
Thank you so much, David.
Thank you for joining Inside Politics --
FISHER: Thank you.
BASH: -- on this Labor Day. CNN News Central starts after the break.
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