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Inside Politics
Undecided Jewish Voters in Battleground Pennsylvania Could Swing the Election; Vance Suggests Trump Administration Could Deport Dreamers; Harris Addresses Retired General Kelly's Accusations About Trump. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired October 23, 2024 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: -- whatever qualms they have with them are saying like, it doesn't matter, they're all liars. And Obama and everybody associated with Harris campaign, part of what they're doing also in these closing weeks is to say this matters. It matters not just in terms of whatever Trump might have wanted out of his generals to act --
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Right.
DOVERE: -- more like Nazi generals, or other big minded things about the Constitution --
BASH: It affects your life.
DOVERE: It's your life.
BASH: Yeah.
DOVERE: And it speaks to things like the grocery prices. And whether they can get there will be a lot of how this election is decided.
BASH: All right, everybody standby. We do want to remind you to tune in to CNN's Presidential Town Hall with Vice President Harris. It's moderated by our colleague, Anderson Cooper, and begins at 9:00 P.M. Eastern tonight only on CNN.
Coming up, they are a small portion of the population, but Jewish voters typically make up a really important part of the Democratic coalition, especially in must-win states like Pennsylvania. Is this year different?
AMANDA BERMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ZIONESS ACTION FUND: It may be anecdotal, but it's happening enough and for long enough over the past several months that I think it's a real phenomenon, that there are undecided Jewish voters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:35:33] BASH: Jewish Americans are a key and typically reliable part of the Democratic coalition. But this year, in the wake of the horrific October 7th attacks and as Jews face mounting anti-Semitism in the U.S., Republicans are trying to make inroads with Jewish voters. Is it working? I traveled to the Main Line in Battleground, Pennsylvania to explore that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: This is an app that you have --
PETER DEUTSCH, FORMER DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN: Yeah.
BASH: -- that tells you where the homes of the Jewish Pennsylvania voters --
BASH (voice-over): This leafy Philly suburb of Bala Kenwood [ph] has a sizable Jewish population, one that usually votes big for Democrats. The Trump campaign is trying to chip away at that.
BASH: You are walking the streets, knocking on doors?
DEUTSCH: I'm in Pennsylvania till November 6th.
BASH: To get Donald Trump elected?
DEUTSCH: To get Donald Trump elected.
BASH: As a Democrat?
DEUTSCH: As a Democrat.
BASH (voice-over): Not just any Democrat. Peter Deutsch is a former Democratic Congressman from Florida.
DEUTSCH: And I think Donald Trump has -- and the Republican Party have done things that the Democrats have not done, being aggressive against the outrageous and almost insane level of anti-Semitism on college campuses.
BASH (voice-over): The deep pocketed Republican Jewish coalition has a data-driven strategy to find Jewish voters open to Donald Trump like Claude Schoenberg and make sure they vote.
CLAUDE SCHOENBERG, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I thought Donald Trump did magnificent things, right? Starting with moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
BASH (voice-over): Only a block down the road at this exact moment, 'Jews for Kamala Harris' gather in a sukkah, a structure used during the weeklong Jewish Festival of Sukkot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And now, it is time to knock doors.
STACEY NEWMAN, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEER: The women, particularly Jewish women, we're talking to it, abortion rights is number one, right up there with Israel. BASH (voice-over): The Jewish population in America is small, little more than 2 percent. In swing states likely to be decided on the margins, all demographics matter and Pennsylvania is the battleground with the highest concentration of Jewish voters, about 300,000 according to data by Brandeis University.
HALIE SOIFER, CEO, JEWISH DEMOCRATIC COUNCIL OF AMERICA: The election is extremely close and the Jewish vote is an essential part of a winning Democratic coalition.
BASH (voice-over): Since the brutal October 7th terror attack in Israel and spike in anti-Semitism, many Jews in America feel unsettled. And the Republican Jewish Coalition is spending an unprecedented $15 million this cycle with ads like this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about Kamala?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Busy defending the squad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I bet (ph). Trump I never cared for but at least he'll keep us safe.
MATT BROOKS, CEO, REPUBLICAN JEWISH COALITION: You don't have to like Donald Trump, but Donald Trump will keep the Jewish community safe.
BASH: You don't have to like Donald Trump. That's -- that's quite a message.
BROOKS: Look, I think the -- I mean, that's the reality, right?
BASH (voice-over): Halie Soifer with the Jewish Democratic Coalition calls that cynical and misleading.
SOIFER: He's emboldened and incited and aligned with, and dined with anti-Semites. He also scapegoated the Jewish people.
BASH (voice-over): She's referring to this.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If I don't win this election, and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that.
BROOKS: I don't think he was scapegoating. I think he said it a little differently than I would've said it.
BASH: Well, are you telling me right now that if Donald Trump loses, he will not blame the Jews?
BROOKS: Yeah, I don't think it's going to be an issue because I think we're going to significantly increase the share of the Jewish vote.
STEPHANIE SPIELMAN, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I've unaffiliated with the Democratic Party because I feel that they left me. I hope to be able to rejoin them in the future. BASH (voice-over): Because she can't stand Trump, Jewish Pennsylvania voter, Stephanie Spielman is voting Harris, but feels despondent and politically homeless.
SPIELMAN: There appears to be an unwillingness to confront anti- Semitism on the left. BASH: And because of that, are you no longer a Democrat?
SPIELMAN: I'm no longer a Democrat.
BERMAN: There are an unprecedented number of undecided Jewish voters, and I hear from them all the time.
BASH (voice-over): Amanda Berman runs Zioness, a Jewish Democratic Group trying to convince Jews to vote Harris.
BERMAN: I think everyone understands the threat that Donald Trump poses both to democracy, which matters deeply. Jews only survive and thrive in societies that protect minority communities, and he has attacked every minority community.
BASH (voice-over): Daniel Weiss is her cousin and isn't yet convinced.
[12:40:00]
DANIEL WEISS, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I mean, I don't think either candidate really has come out and said what I want to hear.
BASH (voice-over): He met us with 10-year-old son, Marley (ph), at the Jewish deli, Hymie's, a Philly institution.
WEISS: Maybe a quarter of a mile down the road is a synagogue that my children pass twice a day on their bus. And on two separate occasions, within a month, someone decided to draw a swastika on the sign of the synagogue.
BASH (voice-over): Jewish Democrats are up with this ad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we do have a champion, a partner, and a defender of our community, our freedom, and our values in Kamala Harris.
BASH (voice-over): Trying to sway voters like Judy and Harry Willner.
JUDY WILLNER, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: If she was here right now, we were having a cup of coffee, I would say, so Kamala, what's it going to be -- especially the anti-Semitism, it's scaring the heck out of me.
HARRY WILLNER, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I am totally undecided.
BASH: Why are you so undecided?
H. WILLNER: I don't trust either candidate. I am very concerned. Of course, Israel's number one on my list. He is a horrible individual. I can't -- he doesn't shut up. Kamala, I'm not sure what she's going to do. I don't know what lever I'm going to pull when I go to the booth. I joke about it, I'm going to sign my own name, or we're going to move to Greenland, one or the other.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: We learned a lot on that trip. Thank you so much to Hymie's for hosting us. We absolutely recommend the Chocolate Regular (ph).
(LAUGH)
BASH: And coming up, J.D. Vance warns that a Trump Administration might deport the so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought here illegally by their parents when they were only children. We'll talk about that on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:46:10]
BASH: You're looking at live pictures of where Kamala Harris is going to speak just minutes from now. We're told she's going to respond to those scathing comments from Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff, John Kelly. We will bring you that live as soon as it happens. In the meantime, deporting Dreamers that is on the table in a second Trump Administration. Republican vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance said so yesterday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're curious if your Administration plans to deport DACA recipients or childhood arrivals.
SEN. J.D. VANCE, (R-OH) VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When you've got 25 million illegal aliens in this country, you've got to deport a lot of people, or you don't have a border anymore. It's just that simple. We also have to deport people, not just the bad people who came into our country, but people who violated the law coming into this country. We've got to be willing to deport them.
(CROWD CHEERING)
BASH: DACA recipients are individuals who were brought to the country by their parents when they were just children. An Obama-era Executive Order has shielded them from deportation, but Republicans have been trying for years to reverse it. There are currently an estimated 500,000 DACA recipients here in the United States.
My panel is back. Priscilla?
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, I will say three things about this. One, these -- DACA has actually been a quite bipartisan program. It has been supported by Republicans and Democrats in Congress. We were talking in the break that in polling has shown that voters generally support a pathway to citizenship.
The business community, my second point, employs DACA recipients because they can legally work and live in the United States. We have seen them file to the supreme court support for this population. And third, the Trump Administration did try to end DACA. And without those protections, they can certainly be deported. But these are immigrants who are brought into the U.S. as children. They are no longer children or young adults, some of them are much older now. But certainly, it is remarkable only because Republicans and Democrats have at the very least agreed to protect this population of immigrants.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWS HOUR: And I know DACA recipients who are married to U.S. citizens. They're a part of mixed status families. So if they're hearing this, how are their American citizen family members going to react to J.D. Vance saying that, because these are people that all they've ever known is America and being American essentially because they were brought here as children.
And again, to Priscilla's point, like the vast majority of polls show that Republicans and Democrats alike voters, not just the past history for lawmakers, but voters overwhelmingly support a pathway to citizenship for these people.
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: And we also overwhelmingly see that they contribute to the economy. These are people who've been educated here. They have jobs here. They pay taxes. They buy homes. I think it is not a winning issue for Trump.
DOVERE: We were talking in the previous segment about how many voters are voting based on the economy. That's where a lot of their minds are. But Trump has said that the number one issue for him is immigration. The plan here is very clear. He's talking about mass deportations, not just of DACA recipients, but of all sorts of illegal immigrants that he -- it could be millions of people. They have talked in really intense terms about what that would mean.
They haven't really gotten into the specifics of what a plan would be, whether it be going door to door. They were asked that -- Trump was asked that rather in the second presidential debate. But this is going to be a priority of a Trump Administration and it's another thing that, it does seem worthwhile to think about for voters as they go forward here, this is what it would be.
BARRON-LOPEZ: And conservative economists have warned that if these mass deportations are actually carried out, that it will cause the price of goods to go up.
BASH: Right. We got to sneak in another break. Thank you all for incredible discussions and hearing your reporting. Coming up, one shot or one opportunity to vote. We have a must-see moment from the Detroit rally last night with royalty in Detroit.
[12:50:00]
Eminem hit the campaign trail with Barack Obama. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BASH: Welcome back to INSIDE POLITICS. We are waiting for Vice President Harris to make remarks at her residence here in Washington. As we wait for her to do so, I want to bring in Jamie Gangel, who is still with me. So Jamie, we began this program by playing the lengthy remarks that "The New York Times" published, audio only, of John Kelly saying a number of things, including Kelly reporting that Donald Trump praised Adolf Hitler to him when Kelly was Trump's Chief of Staff.
[12:55:00]
GANGEL: Right. And that also he was asked and said that Trump did meet the definition of what a fascist was. I think it's important to note a couple of things. So, General Milley told Bob Woodward that he felt that Donald Trump is a fascist. General Kelly has said these things, about how dangerous Donald Trump is for many years now. This is consistent. This is not as if he's just coming out at the last -- at the last minute.
What is different is that he allowed the audio taping. And I think the real question is what cuts through? Will this make a difference with voters? And will other people like General Milley, General Mattis, General McMaster, will they all stand together at this point?
BASH: There were several clips that "The Times" published with the conversation that Mike Schmidt had with John Kelly. One that we didn't get a chance to play at the beginning of the program was what Kelly said about Trump's, from Kelly's perspective, disdain for troops, but specifically troops who are disabled. Let's watch -- or listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KELLY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: His not wanting to be seen with amputees -- amputees that lost their limbs in defense of this country, fighting for every American, him included, to protect them -- but didn't want to be seen with them.
He just could never wrap his arms around why people would do things selflessly. What's in it for them?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: And for John Kelly, this is not only personal because he gave his life to service in the military, became a four star. He lost his son in war.
GANGEL: Right. His son gave -- made the ultimate sacrifice. This has actually been -- General Kelly didn't say it there, but he has quoted former President Trump as calling people who died for their country, "Losers and suckers." He didn't understand why people did this. The other thing that we've heard from people like General Milley is that Trump wants personal loyalty. And General Kelly talked about this in the interview, Generals make -- give an oath --
BASH: Jamie, the Vice President is coming out. Let's listen.
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: So yesterday, we learned that Donald Trump's former Chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired four-star general, confirmed that while Donald Trump was president, he said he wanted Generals like Adolf Hitler had. Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution; he wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.
In just the past week, Donald Trump has repeatedly called his fellow Americans the 'enemy from within', and even said that he would use the United States Military to go after American citizens. And let's be clear about who he considers to be the 'enemy from within'. Anyone who refuses to bend a knee or dares to criticize him would qualify, in his mind, as the enemy within, like judges, like journalists, like non- partisan election officials. It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans.
All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is. This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room. And it is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump is someone who "Certainly falls into the general definition of fascists", who in fact vowed to be a dictator on day one and vowed to use the Military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.
Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable. And in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the --
