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Inside Politics

Harris Vs Trump: Crucial Debate Tonight In Philadelphia; Nearly $200 Million Has Been Spent On Ads About Harris In Last Month; Tonight Its Trump's 7th General Election Debate, Most Of Any Presidential Nominee In History; Obama Starts In New Harris Ad Hitting Trump On "Crowd Sizes"; Vance On 2020: "I would have Asked States To Submit Alternative Slates Of Electors". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 10, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good that we honor the sacrifices, and in doing so should make every effort not to politicize these sacrifices. This is an important ceremony to honor the parents of those who fell at Abbey Gate during that horrific suicide bombing. So it's good in doing this.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. And it's important to note this is a bipartisan ceremony. But you're absolutely right, General Hertling, we honor their sacrifice, we honor these families and we mourn with them and we thank them for what they do for this country, representing their family members. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thanks very much. And thank you for joining me.

I'm Jim Acosta. "Inside Politics" with Dana Bash starts right now.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Today on "Inside Politics" game time, just hours from now, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off in a debate that could define the final weeks of this deadlocked presidential race. And we have new reporting on both candidates' tactics on this crucial night.

Plus, change the way you speak about women. Nikki Haley is offering some blunt advice for the Republican ticket that needs to narrow the gender gap. But will Donald Trump fall into familiar habits on that tonight?

And the most important audience of all, CNN is asking undecided voters in must win Pennsylvania what they want to hear on the debate stage. One person's tip, tell us what you're going to do, not what the other person has done wrong.

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

After months of talking about one another, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are about to actually talk to one another. And it's all happening tonight on this debate stage at 09:00 p.m. Eastern inside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Tonight is each candidates chance to directly appeal to millions of voters before ballots go out. They likely won't have an audience this big again. CNN's new poll of polls show why both nominees have so much riding on tonight. It's essentially a tied race nationally and probably matters the most, which is these big battleground states. It is an especially high risk, high reward moment for Kamala Harris as she's had only been at the top of the ticket now for 51 days and many Americans are still learning about her.

CNN is on the ground in Philadelphia covering this massive day in politics from all angles. Priscilla Alvarez is following the Harris campaign and Kristen Holmes is talking to the Trump campaign and both have some new reporting for us.

Priscilla, I want to start with you. What are you hearing from your sources?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, sources are telling me the Vice President is expected to lean in on reproductive rights and needle former President Donald Trump over his muddled messaging on abortion.

Of course, the Vice President has emerged as a key voice on this issue starting at the beginning of this year and Democrats see it as a galvanizing issue for voters. But this is also an attempt by her and her team to capitalize on an edge that we've been seeing in the polls.

CNN polling recently showing that she has built on former -- President Joe Biden's lead on this very issue with an average of 27 percentage points, preferring her, women, over former President Donald Trump. And so the Vice President here is again trying to capitalize on this issue against the former President tonight.

Now, CNN is also learning that the Vice President is looking for advice elsewhere, and that includes from Hillary Clinton, who also debated former President Donald Trump. And so this has all been part of what sources have described to me as a robust debate prep over the last few days that is going to culminate in this first face to face encounter tonight, Dana.

BASH: Priscilla, thank you so much for that great reporting. We have some more coming from the other side of the aisle.

Donald Trump is notoriously reactive. You've got new reporting on what his aides are trying to do to prep him with how to respond to what we expect will be digs from Kamala Harris. What are you hearing?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right, Dana. And they expect some goading remarks from Harris. As you said, Donald Trump is notoriously reactive. And part of the belief among Donald Trump's team is that the reason that Harris's team wanted those mics unmuted was so she could get under his skin, so she could goad him into having one of these explosive moments that we know Donald Trump has had before.

Now, a number of aides and advisors have warned him against him, saying that this would be a huge problem for him, and also telling him that if he's going to react to use facial expressions, not to actually go out there and say anything. That he can make the same point using his facial expressions, but that anything he says could be used against him later in a commercial or played on repeat over and over again.

Now, it was really interesting, in a campaign call yesterday, Tulsi Gabbard was asked if the tone was going to shift Donald Trump's tone when he was facing off with Kamala Harris versus his debate with President Joe Biden and she essentially said no. But that is exactly what his team is worried about, not just his team, but his allies, that he's going to come out and be extremely aggressive.

They understand that his aggressive nature, that this kind of biting remarks that he makes is going to play differently with a woman, so they have stressed to him over and over again, do not respond. If you're going to respond at all, make sure your response is on your face, not an actual verbal response.

But obviously, Dana, there is only one person who knows which Donald Trump is going to show up on that stage tonight, and that is Donald Trump himself. We will see if he can heed this advice.

[12:05:00]

BASH: Yeah, and I think Donald Trump isn't necessarily always sure which Donald Trump is going to show up until he's there. Thank you so much, Kristen. Appreciate that terrific reporting. I'm now joined by other incredible reporters here at the table. Axios' Hans Nichols, CNN's MJ Lee and Aaron Blake of the Washington Post.

Happy debate day.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Happy debate.

BASH: It's very exciting.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: Glad to be here.

BASH: MJ, I'm going to start with you. You cover the Harris campaign for us. What more are you hearing from your sources?

LEE: Well, look, I think the Harris campaign is very much aware that for a lot of people tuning in tonight, it is going to be a first impression that the Vice President gets to make to an audience the size of which they may not get again before Election Day. I do think it is sort of the second and third impression that she might be making to some people that they might be even more focused on. These are the people who may have tuned in for the Democratic National Convention, maybe liked parts of what they saw, but are still undecided.

The other thing, I think, and this so goes without saying, it's very obvious, but I do think we should say it. They want to make sure that she can avoid a Rick Perry oops moment and frankly, a Joe Biden debate day. Right?

The fact that this debate that CNN hosted weeks ago ended up completely changing the trajectory was, obviously, because President Biden unexpectedly had a completely disastrous debate against Donald Trump. That is something that they expect they should be able to avoid by sticking to the talking points and landing some punches when the moments present themselves.

BASH: And Hans, I want to look at some extraordinary numbers. We have been talking about how much -- it's almost impossible to digest how much money is already in this race and how much the campaigns are raising. And one of the main avenues of spending this money for both camps, their campaigns and even beyond by their allies is defining Kamala Harris.

Just look at these numbers. Just in the last 30 days, $194 million of ads focused on Harris. And by the way, that's negative, but it's also positive. There's some bio ads that her campaign is doing. 69 million focused on Trump.

NICHOLS: Yeah. The amount of money that's coursing through the system, it's almost an overload. And this is to sort of MJ's point, it's hard for me to imagine there are voters in America that still don't have a sense of who these people are. Right?

And yet they keep coming up in focus groups, they keep coming up in polls. But both campaigns have really tried to use this last, say, five, six weeks to define Harris. You're seeing that a little bit in the polls. But this is her chance on a stage with Donald Trump to, I don't want to say introduce or reintroduce, but really make her case. And it's really the contrast that they want to focus on.

This isn't just about Harris talking about her agenda, it's her agenda compared to Trump's. And it's in the future tense. I just imagine so many times we're going to hear tonight from Kamala Harris talking about what she's going to do, not necessarily what she's done for the last three and a half.

BASH: Well, you asked, you know, you can't figure out who out there doesn't know about Donald Trump. I am with you. But 9 percent of people in The New York Times Siena poll said, and these are likely voters, said that they don't know it's -- there you go -- 9 percent say that they need to learn more about Donald Trump, but it's that 28 percent.

So just under a third of likely voters want to know more about Kamala Harris, which again, is totally understandable. Her campaign knows that and they appreciate that, which is a very big part of her strategy going into tonight.

AARON BLAKE, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah. And I think it's worth remembering, this is a moment that, you know, there are a lot of people who don't pay attention to these things until the very end. This may be the only thing that they consume until the final week of the campaign.

I do think that Harris has more at stake in this debate just because of that introduction factor. People might know a little bit about her but don't know a whole lot. They may have seen her speeches but haven't seen, for instance, your interview with her. I do think also, though, that Donald Trump has a lot at stake in this

debate as well because Kamala Harris is a popular politician right now. It's kind of rare that we see popular politicians right now. She's got a favorable rating that's generally a little bit higher than her unfavorable rating. And so he needs to bring her back down. It's not just the policy stuff. It's also the personal stuff.

And so I think that creates a dilemma for Trump where he wants to bring her down personally and kind of take a bite out of those vibes that she's gotten over the last several weeks. But sometimes when he feels the need to do that, he can bring things into these other areas that his campaign gets very nervous about.

BASH: Well, speaking of that, let's talk about the woman factor here, the fact that he is debating a woman, he did so in 2016. First, I want to play a little bit of sort of a taste of what happened in 2016.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She doesn't have the look, she doesn't have the stamina. I said she doesn't have the stamina, and I don't believe she does have the stamina. Believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart. Such a nasty woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:10:00]

BASH: Nikki Haley was on Fox yesterday, I believe it was. And she, of course, is somebody who did endorse Donald Trump, hasn't been out campaigning for her -- for him, rather. But some of her support in the primaries did come from women who did not want to -- Republican women who did not want to support Donald Trump. Listen to what she said about how Donald Trump should comport himself tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump and J.D. Vance need to change the way they speak about women. You don't need to call Kamala dumb. She didn't get this far, you know, just by accident. When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up, too.

The bottom line is we win on policies, stick to the policies, leave all the other stuff. That's how he can win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And, MJ, I know you have some new reporting on this element of the Kamala Harris debate prep.

LEE: Yeah, we just reported that one person Kamala Harris spoke with over the weekend is Hillary Clinton, who, of course, is very familiar with what it is like to go up against Donald Trump on the debate stage. It's incredible watching that footage from eight years ago of the former President calling Hillary Clinton nasty. That's a word that he has used this time around to describe Kamala Harris.

The campaign is preparing for all kinds of insults, derogatory comments, name calling, because they're going up against Donald Trump. As Kristen was saying earlier, he's the only person that knows exactly which version is going to show up. I do know that Clinton and Harris, over the weekend in their conversation, did talk about debate prep. I don't know exactly what was said.

But one thing that I was told is that when Hillary Clinton sort of looks back on those debates from eight years ago, she does think that the Vice President has a real opportunity tonight when she is going up against Donald Trump to allow him to self-destruct, according to one person I spoke with.

And that's basically this idea that less could be more when you're confronting Donald Trump. That if he is going off on a tangent or he seems to be unraveling, sort of letting him go down that road. And in some ways, she almost doesn't have much of a choice because of this muted mics rule that the campaign has made such a fuss about.

BASH: And as we prepare for this, each campaign is trying to get into the head of the other candidate. We mentioned how much money Kamala Harris in particular has, so she's a little money to play with, quite literally. Let's look at an ad that they are targeting to the airwaves in Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT: Here's a 78 year old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems.

TRUMP: Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd.

OBAMA: This weird obsession with crowd sizes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And before you answer that, I want to bring in the other side of this. A new Trump campaign memo saying, by shielding her, meaning Harris, of course, from the press, and insulting her -- insulating, forgive me -- insulating her from genuine interactions with the voters, they have set a high bar for Kamala to clear. Now that her honeymoon is over, the debate will be the first time Kamala will answer tough questions. I will take issue and exception with --

NICHOLS: Yeah, not true --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: -- personally, but go ahead.

NICHOLS: Well, I think MJ made this great point, which is less is more. And I don't want to -- I don't think we make Hamilton references anymore. But for those of us that still watch with our kids, you know, they're like, talk less, smile more. And that could be advice for both candidates tonight. As to getting inside of Donald Trump's head, you know, look, Donald Trump's lived rent free in a lot of people's heads these last eight, nine years.

I don't know how successful it is going to be to rile up Donald Trump, but I'm not going to make any predictions about what Donald J. Trump is going to do, whether or not he's going to say insults or not. I think we just have to watch it and see what happens.

BASH: Very wise.

BLAKE: The other thing I think is really important here is, I was looking back at the 2019 debates. You know, Kamala Harris hasn't debated since 2019, when she was a Democratic presidential candidate. Of course, Trump hasn't debated, except for against Biden this one time, this cycle.

Those early debates back then, she was the runaway winner in CNN polls, in other polls that were conducted. She has shown that she has an ability to succeed in this form, even though her campaign ultimately didn't amount to much.

BASH: And then, of course, she debated Mike Pence, which was a biggie.

All right. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, J.D. Vance is pushing a bizarre and racist conspiracy, claiming Haitian migrants are kidnapping and eating your pets. He also said how he would approach presiding over the election certification and it is not what Mike Pence did.

And later, Sarah Longwell will be here to weigh in on tonight's debate. What do Kamala Harris and her team need to do to win over Trump's skeptical Republicans. These are the voters she is talking to in focus groups.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

BASH: On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence refused to give Republicans the opportunity to overturn the results of a fair election. Yesterday, Donald Trump's new running mate said he'd have handled it very differently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you have overturned the election results?

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think it's -- let me take issue with the premise a little bit, Jason, because I don't think the argument was Mike Pence could overturn the election results. I think the argument was that Mike Pence could have done more --

[12:20:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So would you have certified? I'll ask her for the third again. VANCE: I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: To be clear, if Mike Pence had done that, it would have triggered a constitutional crisis, chaos, the likes of which we have not seen in 150 years. I want to dive into all of this with my incredible panel and just remind you all what Mike Pence said to me about his decision. He did this during a town hall in June of 2023.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Anyone who puts themselves above the constitution should never be President in the first place. And anyone who asks anyone else to put them over the Constitution should never be President again. I had hoped that President Trump would come around on our difference about that tragic day and about my role, and I still hope he does.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Well, he hasn't yet, Vice President Pence. And one other thing I wanted to point out, that's something that I learned in working on a book that is out now, America's Deadliest Election. It is about the elections in 1872 and 1876. In 1876, this very debate happened because several states who were completely, genuinely corrupt and full of fraud sent multiple slates of electors to Washington. And there was a debate back then, just like in 2021, about what to do.

And the question was, who would count the electoral votes? Republicans -- remember, these are Republicans who were the party of Lincoln. They insisted, Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution stated clearly, "The president of the Senate shall open all certificates and the votes shall then be counted."

Democrats countered that the Vice President's role was largely ceremonial, that it was constitutionally limited to opening the return certifications -- easy for me to say. And that he was given no discretion to make any determination about their validity. It is that last argument that won the day. Those were Democrats back then, but today they would be aligned with Republicans.

NICHOLS: Glad we solved that debate. Well, I'm so clear. Glad the constitution is clear on this.

BASH: But the President now twice is, or probably more than that, is that it is ceremonial. And this may sound very academic and people are like, why are we doing this again? It is maybe this time because J.D. Vance isn't the Vice President. He's not going to have that job. But if he wins in the future, he would.

NICHOLS: Well, it's academic until it's not, which is what we saw on January 6, three and a half years ago. Just listening to J.D. Vance and the sort of the juxtaposition being J.D. Vance talking the past tense, it's kind of the old, like the old line, if you're explaining, you're losing. Right? That seemed like a difficult argument for him to make.

And then listening to Mike Pence, which made me think, has Pence endorsed yet?

BASH: No.

NICHOLS: It seemed to me that like, oh, like, you know, and not to give our competitors too much of a heads up, but we should all be pressing on figuring out, is Mike Pence going to endorse? Because he was pretty crystal clear there. Like there was -- didn't --

BASH: For who you mean to endorse -- Kamala Harris?

NICHOLS: To endorse Kamala Harris, right?

BASH: No.

NICHOLS: It seemed to me that's the direction he was going in. Like, my phone may blow up with Pence supporters saying, what are you saying? But like, I listened to the mayor, I'm like, wow, I should have been in touch with his team, asking, oh, he said this, when's he going to endorse?

BASH: Maybe I'm going to eat crow on this. But he is so focused on an issue, abortion, that it's hard for me to imagine him endorsing Kamala Harris. But maybe I'm wrong.

BLAKE: I think what's really striking about that Vance clip that we played at the start is that, this is a question that Republicans have been asked a lot over the last four years. And generally we've seen very few Republicans step forward and say, I wouldn't do what Mike Pence did. I would do a different thing. They kind of talked around it and say there were irregularities. And a lot of people have questions about this, and I want to know more.

It's been four years now by which to judge whether this election should have been overturned. If there's not evidence for that now, you can talk about, you know, letting us have the debate over this. But that debate has been had. There's still not evidence to back that up. And, you know, the fact that J.D. Vance would be taking this position is a position that even three years ago would not have been something that we would expect even too many Republicans to take.

LEE: I mean, in some ways maybe were overthinking this. I mean, J.D. Vance is Donald Trump's running mate. You are constantly still continuing to sort of audition for the job when you are in that position.

You know, we heard him saying different things and taking different positions when he was hoping to be chosen. Now that he is in his position, I think the sort of accepted, you know, what he accepts when he is speaking in public, when he's doing interviews is that the boss, Donald Trump, is watching every word that he is saying.

[12:25:00] BASH: OK, let's talk about cats. Not cat ladies, but these memes that are going around, which are really, really viral, thanks to J.D. Vance suggesting, saying that Haitian migrants are eating people's pets, people's cats. You see there an example of what's out there and this is just one iota of everything that is out there on the Internet.

Today, the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican Party said in a post that, well, maybe this could have been a false rumor, duh. That this is out there. But in true Trump style, did not back away, double down. He said. In short, don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.

Aside from the everything that this suggests about racist overtones, just blatantly, when it comes to a political strategy, Hans, how is this helpful with the voters? The only -- not that all voters don't matter, but the voters that matter most right now, persuadable voters at swing states.

NICHOLS: The short answer is, I don't know. The sort of more tortured answer is that every day that the conversation is on immigration in some shape or form is a day that the Republicans want to have.

And so we, I think you're rightly pointing out the sort of ugly nature of these suggestions, but anytime the conversation is on immigration, it's not on a variety of other issues, and that's -- and all the polls indicates that's clearly what Trump and Vance want to litigate this election on the big immigration issue.

But, again, on the other stuff, I'm like, there's no good way to describe what they're doing other than sort of call it out for the racism than it is. I mean, there's no other way to talk about it.

LEE: Yeah, no, it's gross and inflammatory and it is race baiting, for sure. I do think there is a bit of a balancing act for the Harris campaign when they see something like this, sure, there's going to be an instinct to hit back and say this is nonsensical. It's not true. On the other hand, like, I don't think you want to add fuel to the fire and give more to this idea that is basically made up. I also do think that the people who are going to be inclined to believe that as a result of Democrats and their actions, their pets are going to get eaten by immigrants.

Like, I just don't think that those are necessarily the people that the Harris campaign is going to be targeting as gettable for them.

BASH: And it's also, I would say, even a judgment call for us. Like how much do you --

LEE: Yeah.

BASH: -- do you talk about something that is so ridiculous and so race based, but at the same time, because it's a thing that's out there, it's important to correct and put in context. Well, there's no context put in -- just to correct, period, full stop.

Everybody stand by. Undecided voters in a handful of battleground states hold the key to the White House. So what are they saying? You're going to hear it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]