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Laura Coates Live
Trump Accused Fed Of "Playing Politics" With Rate Cut; Diddy Denied Bail, Again; Harris Blames "Trump Abortion Bans" For Deaths Of Two Women; Harris Twang Drives Republicans Crazy. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired September 18, 2024 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
NAYEEMA RAZA, SEMAFOR CONTRIBUTOR: You get lots of international content. But it is a decline in American soft power and a decline in our coming together.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: All right. Nayyera?
NAYYERA HAQ, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE SENIOR DIRECTOR: I mean, this is also not that serious, but I do think people need to understand that this season of "love is blind" is now based in D.C., and this is not at all what the dating pool in D.C. looks like.
(LAUGHTER)
The suits are way too fitted. The titles are normal. Usually, a title that you would run into in political D.C. would be something like special assistant to the advisor of muckety-muck, and the first question in a dating scenario would be, oh, who do you work for? So --
PHILLIP: Harsh.
HAQ: -- I just don't want anyone to think that this is what -- this is fantasy reality television.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, thank you very much. Thank you for watching "NewsNight: State of the Race." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight on "Laura Coates Live," defying reality. Donald Trump makes a campaign prediction that not even his own supporters are buying. Plus, Diddy is not getting out before his trial. A judge denying him bail again. So, what exactly will his life be like in that Brooklyn jail? I've got a special guest who has been there, who is going to join us. And 48 -- 48 days to go until the election and Donald Trump's path to 270 seems to be, well, expanding, at least according to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are going to win New York.
(APPLAUSE)
And that's the first time in many, many years that a Republican can honestly say it. And we're going to do it. We have to do it. We do it, and the election nationwide is over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: You heard him. He thinks the state he lost by more than 20 points in 2016, and by the way, in 2020, is in play. He dedicated a nearly two-hour rally on Long Island tonight to make that very case. And in the immortal words of "Dodgeball" --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON BATEMAN, ACTOR: It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: Look, who knows if the Trump campaign is serious about New York, and I don't have a crystal ball, but they may want to get serious about what people are calling the actual battleground states. Quinnipiac tonight has Vice President Harris up 5 in Pennsylvania, also in Michigan. It's razor-tight in Wisconsin. And as my friend, Harry Enten, likes to tell us, if she were to win all three, Trump's goose is probably cooked. The usual caveat applies, of course. That's just one poll.
But the campaign, it got another jolt today. It was pretty big news. The Fed all but declared victory in the war on inflation. They finally cut interest rates, this time by half a point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIR, UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE: The U.S. economy is in a good place, and our decision today is designed to keep it there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: The U.S. economy is in a good place. Well, if voters start to feel that in the world of felonomics (ph), it could maybe boost Harris. Now, Trump has said that he wants interest rates to come down if he's reelected. He thinks that lowering borrowing costs would also be good. So, he must be happy, right?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I guess it shows the economy is very bad to cut it by that much. Assuming they're not just playing politics, the economy would be very bad. Or they're playing politics. One or the other. But it was a big cut.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, the Fed says it's actually not playing politics. And apparently, neither are the Teamsters. For the first time since 1996, the powerful union has decided to sit this one out. No endorsement for a presidential candidate. And that's going to end a nearly three decades long streak of Teamsters backing Democrats for president. Is that good or bad then?
A lot to get to with my panel for tonight. We have associate research scholar and lecturer in politics and public affairs at Princeton University, Lauren Wright, CNN contributor Leah Wright Rigueur, and CNN political commentator Jamal Simmons. This is pretty astounding news tonight, and you're welcome for the "Dodgeball" reference.
LAUREN WRIGHT, ASSOCIATE RESEARCH SCHOLAR AND LECTURER IN POLITICS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I laughed really loud at that.
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: Yes. Well, thank you.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If you dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: You're watching a lot.
(LAUGHTER)
This is your movie. All right. I think "Zoolander" is probably next on your list, isn't it? I know, we'll probably have the same shops. I'll begin with you because you had the best movie reference.
Jamal, a big interest rate cut, pretty big. It was the first time since March, I think, of 2020. And you got these favorable poll numbers that are out right now for Harris in some of the battleground states. And notably, the race is very competitive on issues of the economy and also immigration in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan. So, what do you think the Harris campaign is thinking tonight?
[23:05:00]
SIMMONS: I think they're in a good mood because this is going to help keep the economy moving. It's going to probably bolster some consumer confidence. Here's one of the things that happens in the polls: The polls are saying, when you ask people how they're doing personally, they say they're doing pretty well. But you ask them about the economy, about the future, they seem to be a little bit more hesitant.
So, if they get any energy that says, oh, well, maybe things are going to go well, one thing that might happen that really could have an impact in the short term is if they get any break on mortgage rates. People who are out here trying to buy a house, mortgage rates are higher. If those mortgage rates tick down a little bit, that's going to help people try to get into a house, and that could be very helpful for the economy.
COATES: And we tie that so much for good or bad reasons, the American dream. I mean, I say for good or bad, given the history of things like redlining and banks deciding who is a worthy candidate to give loans to, et cetera, but it's still part of the American dream.
SIMMONS: The thing about it, it is also big because it also spurs everything, like you buy a house, you got to furnish a house, you got to fix the house, so Home Depot goes up. All the things go up at the same time. This is why real estate is such a major part of our economy. And if that happens, it's going to help in the short term the Harris campaign.
COATES: Well, Lauren, you know, on the Fed rate cut, just last night, I mean, Trump was promising that he will get interest rates down. That was his promise.
WRIGHT: Right.
COATES: Today, he says, though, that a cut means the economy is bad.
WRIGHT: Right.
COATES: You really can't have your cake and eat it, too. I bet he's wondering if the voters, though, will buy that.
WRIGHT: You know, I will take the pessimistic side for Harris. I'll just be really conservative in that particular way. The danger for Democrats is celebrating this too much, especially when she has drawn a contrast with Trump and said, our White House will be totally independent of the Fed. We have nothing to do with them. We don't direct them. We don't tell them what to do. And voters won't feel this likely for 12 months. It's baked into a lot of the financial projections already.
And, you know, I think what Jamal said is pretty charitable. I think people are angry about the economy. They're not just feeling wishy washy, and they're still blaming that on Biden and Harris. So, I don't think it'll really change anything.
COATES: This might be why, in many ways, they keep talking about it, because of the underdog, right? They get both campaigns hoping when they see these tight polls. They actually probably like the fact that voters go, oh, it is tight, I must turn out to vote. If it was already a land fight (ph) one way or the other, people might say, you know what, then maybe you don't need me to participate in this, and that's problematic for any campaign.
But, Leah, part of the campaign has gone away from the broader context of immigration. And now, it has been more nuanced on this ridiculous, absurd -- just hateful lie that was spread in Springfield, Ohio. And Trump is promising tonight he's going to visit there in the next two weeks or so. And he's also still attacking Haitian migrants that are there. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: No, no, we're getting them out of our country. They came in illegally. They're destroying our country. We're getting them out. They're going to be brought back to the country from which they came.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, first of all, you know that the Haitians who are in that community are there legally under the TPS program. But he is a dog with a bone in this instance. Why? Why would he go this tactic?
LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, POLITICAL ANALYST AND HISTORIAN: Well, first of all, I have to fully -- full disclosure. I am biased. I have a Haitian last name. So, the idea that I might be deported or I might be sent back is a little -- is a little terrifying, but it's also very typical Donald Trump. It is hogwash. That's not going to happen.
The people that we're talking about in this town are here legally. In fact, they are brought specifically in to bolster the economy, the sagging, you know, Rustbelt economy of Springfield, Ohio where manufacturing has all but died and the current residents won't live there. It has exploded in other ways because of problems with infrastructure and housing and things of that nature.
And what we're seeing is something that Donald Trump is really good at doing, which is exploiting fear and exploiting anxiety. And so, he has found consistently, really over the last eight years, that fear, anxiety, and exploiting that and speaking to that actually works incredibly well.
You know, there's a real irony in the fact that he gave this stump speech in Uniondale, Long Island today. Uniondale, New York. Why? Because Uniondale has a massive Haitian immigrant population.
COATES: Hmm.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: First, second, third generation Haitians. So, to be surrounded by that and to be dumping on that while also knowing that these are the same people that you are -- you know, that you are surrounding yourself in, is really, I think, a cheap political ploy that for Donald Trump has consistently played small dividends. And so, I think we'll continue to see him play this up.
We'll continue to hear him mention these references to Haitian migrants, to eating cats, to eating dogs, to, you know, kind of make this as a political ploy. Why? It's not about finding solutions to the anxiety and the fear, it's about exploiting the anger, the fear, the pre-existent tensions in these communities over and over and over again.
[23:09:59]
COATES: I mean, it's also costing the community at Springfield money that they don't have. They want to talk about issues related to having their resources be taxed. I mean, not in terms of the actual taxation, but really that they don't have everything they need for the influx of people, but instead they're spending money on things like having to have safety mechanisms in place for schools and hospitals and beyond. It's nonsensical to me. But then again -- go ahead.
SIMMONS: I mean the biggest challenge for me on this is we elect a president not just to lead us in the good times, but to also take care of the bad things and to keep order. Here's somebody who knows that order is being -- disorder is being caused right now because of his words. He knows there are closing schools, he knows they have to do security, he knows people have been attacked. They can't have community meetings. And yet he continues to do it.
So, it tells you that when we think about who we're choosing to lead us, do we actually want somebody who foments disorder at a moment where people are looking just to have safety and security for their families?
COATES: Well, he will say, I'm sure, that he doesn't think that he's to blame. He's -- he is -- he is -- you know what? I'm not going to make his case.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm not going to help you out because I -- it's fine. It's good. Make your own cases. I'm not a prosecutor anymore. But let me ask you this, Leah, on this point because there was a moment talking about leadership, what people look at in leadership.
Something I find very striking and odd right now is this emphasis on whether Kamala Harris is a biological mother. There was a moment last night with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she had a comment to make about comparing her own life and how her kids make her humble. And then she compared it and said, well, Vice President Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. Second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, did respond to this tonight. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG EMHOFF, SECOND GENTLEMAN: They said that somehow, because Cole and Ella aren't Kamala's -- quote, unquote -- "biological children," that she doesn't have anything in her life to keep her humble, as if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Lauren, try to make sense if you can of this.
WRIGHT: I can't.
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: What am I missing?
WRIGHT: It's just such a losing argument. COATES: Yeah.
WRIGHT: And the thing is, Republicans do have the advantage on immigration, on the economy. There are smart, fair critiques Donald Trump could be making of Kamala Harris's very controversial policy platform. Instead, he's doing these personal attacks. He's, you know, on race, on gender. He's going in the opposite direction of the conservative movement. They try to de-emphasize personal identity and the factor it plays in your life and your challenges and your outcomes.
And so, I can't make sense of this from a strategic standpoint, from a person to person standpoint. There's nothing in my expert background that can make heads or tails of it. It's just bad politics.
SIMMONS: Laura, this is close to what Leah was saying earlier, that for Donald Trump, it's not about de-emphasizing people's personal characteristics. He has been doing this from the very beginning, from the moment he came down the escalator. Remember when --
WRIGHT: It's embarrassing for Republicans, is what I'm saying.
SIMMONS: He has talked about the Mexican judges that can't take care of him or can't judge him.
WRIGHT: Right.
SIMMONS: He has talked about all these questions that really get at identity because in his mind, it appears -- who knows what's inside Donald Trump's mind? But we know what he says. In his words, he's saying that the real Americans are the ones who are like the people who follow him, and everybody else is not really a real American.
COATES: Well, what about what's not being said? Because I am really intrigued by the absence of an endorsement from the Teamsters tonight. I mean, this is the first time in really three --
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: That's a big deal.
COATES: It's a very big moment, especially because the trend has been to support Democrats and now saying, never mind, we're not going to support anyone right now. Translates to me that they're not going to support the Democratic candidate. Why is it such a big deal in the overall landscape of politics not to have the teamsters endorse anyone right now?
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: So, I should say, we should qualify that, though, because the Teamsters Black Caucus came out and said, oh, no, we are endorsing Kamala Harris.
COATES: Hmm.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: And we want to be very clear that there are very big divisions and splits within the Teamsters organization at large. This is a vote of no confidence in our leadership. And I do think that there are a couple of things going on. There are severe splits. When we look at polling that has been done over the last three months, consistently, the teamsters have shown, based on gender, based on race, based on geographic region, very sharp divisions in this split between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Before that, it was Joe Biden.
One of the other things, too, though, that we're seeing is that Sean O'Brien has consistently tried to find an entryway into the Republican Party. Why? Because he says he wants a seat at the table. It's an interesting -- I think it's an interesting argument to make. It's leverage politics, essentially. You know, he can -- one of the things that the Teamsters has pointed out is that the Democratic Party, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have been very, very good for unions, exceptionally good for unions.
[23:14:58]
And what they are concerned about is that if Donald Trump is reelected, that actually he will be very bad for unions. Sean O'Brien's argument is, I want a seat at the table. I think what he doesn't quite understand, though, and what those Teamsters I think who support Donald Trump don't understand, is that leverage politics very rarely work.
COATES: Hmm.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: We're talking about a political candidate who sat down with Elon Musk a few weeks ago and celebrated the idea of being able to fire people and fire workers and get around unions. So, this is fundamentally anti-union, but I do think what we are picking up are sizable demographic, racial geographic class differences that have been roiling the Teamsters for a very long time.
COATES: You know, the idea for many people who are activists, the idea of leverage politics not working, is very demoralizing. Whether it's accurate or not, I mean, it's the idea that it might not be the case. And speaking of unions, I want you to get your point in. But speaking of unions, Donald Trump must have heard me say, make your own case.
(LAUGHTER)
Because I want you to listen to what he said on Fox just tonight. He's talking about Biden getting out of the race, Harris going in. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They said, Joe --
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Uh-hmm.
TRUMP: -- it's over, you're getting out. And he said, I'm not getting out, you're getting out. And they were very nasty, 25th Amendment and everything else. He got out. And they put her in. And she's somehow a woman.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Uh-hmm.
TRUMP: Somehow, she's doing better than he did. UNKNOWN (voice-over): Yeah.
TRUMP: But I can't imagine it can last.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, can it?
WRIGHT: I do think there are questions that are fair to ask Kamala Harris about her very active role behind the scenes with Joe Biden as a trusted advisor, as someone who was the last decision maker in the room, and who my data shows has been the most active vice president ever from a public appearance standpoint. She blew Mike Pence out of the water with her speeches and ceremonial duties and everything else. So, I'll set that aside.
COATES: Yet you heard the woman reference, too. You heard the woman reference. How'd you settle? Go ahead.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Yeah. I mean, Trump's idiosyncrasies, I'll never be able to fully explain, unfortunately. On the union point, really quickly, I do think what Republicans did was smart here. They offered O'Brien a primetime speaking slot at the RNC, relatively costless action that clearly got them a benefit. He asked to speak at the DNC. He did not get it. It's a huge deal. They have two million members, if you count their retirees, who turn out to vote 70% of the time. That's not a group that you want to alienate.
Frankly, the lack of curiosity by Democrats about why they're hemorrhaging working class voters, I think those are interesting questions they need to ask. Why is Trump so appealing to the rank and file? Why does he have some firefighters, buildings, unions? He has -- majority of unions are with Harris, but he's making some inroads there that are interesting.
COATES: Well, we'll have to wait and see what more he has to say about that very notion. Stand by, everyone. Thank you so much.
There's news as well about Sean "Diddy" Combs. He was denied bail again. He's going to stay in jail until his sex trafficking trial. And by the way, there's no date for that trial. Right now, it's indefinite. We have details on what it's like inside the Brooklyn Detention Center, where he will be held, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COATES: The gilded and glamorous life of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs looks nothing like where he is sleeping tonight, inside of a notorious federal jail in Brooklyn. Diddy lost his bid for freedom today in his federal sex trafficking and racketeering case. A judge rejecting his bail proposal as -- quote -- "insufficient," even though it included $50 million and a promise to only allow women inside his homes if they're members of his family or the mothers of his children.
Instead of awaiting trial in one of his mansions, Diddy is inmate number 37452054 at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The jail opened in the 1990s and holds about 1,200 inmates right now, most waiting to stand trial. But it has been plagued with problems like violence, staffing shortages, drug smuggling, lockdowns, and power outages. Even Diddy's lawyers highlighted the -- quote -- "horrific conditions of detention" in his appeal to free their client, knowing the jail is infested with drugs and calling it an ongoing tragedy.
Now among the dangers he cited, an inmate who was murdered there just over the summer, and four inmates have died by suicide in just the last three years. You can hear the desperation for some of the inmates when they yelled out of their windows to lawmakers during a visit two years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Help us! No commissary. Help us!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Few people know what it's like to be inside federal custody. But my next guest has an idea of what Diddy's life might be like right now. Joining me, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former fixer. He's also the host of the podcasts "Mea Culpa" and "Political Beatdown," and author of "Revenge: How Donald Trump Weaponized the U.S. Department of Justice Against His Critics."
Michael, thank you for joining us. First of all, I'm just -- it's jarring for people to hear the detainees and inmates screaming out for help and talking about commissaries and talking about what's going on there. I mean, you've gone from a New York City high rise, frankly, to jail during your federal trials. And I'm wondering, given the notoriety of yourself and certainly of Diddy, what do you think his experience in that facility is like?
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER DONALD TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: It's misery, to say the least. First of all, there are few places, like Metropolitan Detention Center, that are as dilapidated and in need of desperate repair and a complete overhaul, as MDC is. His life as he knew it in the $40, $50 million mansions, waking up in the morning to -- and I'm going to make this up, by the way, violins playing for him.
[23:25:03]
He has his chefs, he has his masseuses, he has his nutritionists, he has -- he has --
COATES: Freedom.
COHEN: -- what? Not just freedom, but he has -- he had a great freedom, living the life of Riley, living the American dream. Right now, when he wakes up, he's waking up on a steel bed with a one-and-a- half-inch mattress, no pillow, in an 8 by 10-foot cell that I can assure you is disgusting, with an aluminum toilet and aluminum sink that probably half works, floors are filthy. You have a plastic chair with an attached table to the wall. You have a locker for your clothes, assuming that they gave him anything greater than an orange jumpsuit.
And that's what you have. You have basically a 3 by 5 space within which to move around. Fifteen square feet to do your pushups, your sit ups. There are no books at the early part. So, he is really dealing with a lot right now. When he wakes up, he's staring at cinderblock- painted white walls as opposed to whatever the decor of his mansions.
COATES: You and I have spoken about the presumption of innocence that should be afforded to every defendant. This person, though, will not be released, pending trial. Even with that presumption, the judges have said already, no, he must be detained until. And we don't have a trial date set. So, the experience you describe is going to be what is happening until a trial is set and conducted.
And speaking of this entirety, as you describe this, I don't know if you saw this today, but the Fox Business anchor, Maria Bartiromo, she's floating a theory. It's a pretty wild one, in my estimation, that the timing of this arrest for Diddy was actually meant to distract from the apparent assassination attempt of Trump. Listen to what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS CHANNEL HOST: The timing of the P Diddy arrest, please, they must have had the P Diddy arrest on the shelf, waiting to take it off the shelf for when they needed it. And yesterday, boy, oh boy, did they need it, because the questions were spiking everywhere, as far as how it is possible that another assassination attempt happened, that another would-be assassin was within one -- you know, a couple of hundred yards of President Trump.
As we're all asking these questions, boom! They take P Diddy in. And now, we're all talking about that. Shake it off the front page. This strategy over and over again, I saw right through it as soon as it happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: What do you think about what she had to say in that conspiracy?
COHEN: I think Maria Bartiromo is an idiot. I don't believe for a second that the Southern District of New York sat with this case. And I'm not a fan of the Southern District of New York. I would love for there to be something like that, to hang, you know, somebody's hat over there.
I am no fan of the Southern District, but I can assure you that this has nothing to do with the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump to distract anybody from anything. This is an ongoing investigation. They brought the case when they brought the case, when they believed that they had enough evidence within which to present the case for the indictment and so on. That's how the system works. I will tell you, somebody who spent 51 days in solitary confinement, this is going to be a life-changing event for Diddy. Nothing that he ever thought was going to be as difficult as this because he's living, again, in conditions that he never thought that he would ever have to contend with.
COATES: Is it likely, based on who he is and your experience as well, that he would be placed in a solitary situation or that he'd have threats surrounding him?
COHEN: Well, that's why they're going to keep him in a solitary confinement situation. He's not capable of being in general population for several different reasons. First of all, the charges that are against him are ones that are not taken well in prisons. We're talking about abuse of women, potentially underage women.
And again, I like the point that you also brought up, which is in an innocent country, there's a presumption of innocence. And while we all have an opinion, whether you like Diddy or you don't, is irrelevant. We are not the jury. They're the ones whose decisions and their beliefs matter. The rest of us only have opinions on this.
And the truth is, like I said, there is a presumption of innocence and everybody should have that presumption of innocence in this country when being confronted with this type of charges and allegations.
[23:30:00]
COATES: Well, certainly, that presumption exists. The experience that he may be having in the facility, I think if people are concerned about that, it's a conversation that needs to be broader about the experience of all that would experience something similar, not just those whose names you know. Michael Cohen, thank you so much.
COHEN: Good to see you, Laura.
COATES: Ahead, a new report links the deaths of two women to Georgia's strict abortion law. Vice President Kamala Harris is pointing the finger at Trump and heading to Georgia to make her case.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:34:57]
COATES: Tonight, abortion front and center on the campaign trail after a report linked the deaths of two women in Georgia to the state's strict abortion law. Vice President Harris plans to deliver a speech on the issue in Atlanta on Friday.
The stories of 28-year-old Amber Thurman and 41-year-old Candi Miller, they are galvanizing people all across this country. Both women took abortion pills that they received from out of state because they couldn't have the procedure under Georgia's six-week abortion ban. Both women later died because their bodies did not expel all of the fetal tissue. A rare complication, but a complication that ProPublica reports was -- quote -- "preventable," according to the state's committee of maternal health experts in this instance.
In Amber Thurman's case, ProPublica reports she went to a hospital in pain, waiting for 20 hours before doctors began to operate, and died during surgery. Candi Miller never made it to a hospital. Her family says she didn't go because of Georgia's abortion law. She died in her own bed. Her three-year-old daughter by her side. Both women died in 2022. The cases are only now coming to light, which raises the question, how many other cases are out there?
COATES: With me now, Congresswoman Nikema Williams, a Democrat from Georgia, vice chair of the Democrat Women's Caucus, and a member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus. Congresswoman, I'm trying to push down my emotions about a three-year-old little girl beside her mother in a bed when she dies. These stories, they are more than heartbreaking. And we've named two women. How many more like Amber, like Candi, are possibly suffering and possibly dying?
REP. NIKEMA WILLIAMS (D-GA): That's the thing, Laura. We hear about this three-year-old little boy who was in bed next to his mom, and then the six-year-old little boy who now has to grow up without his mother.
COATES: Hmm.
WILLIAMS: And these were preventable deaths. But in Georgia, like so many other states across the country, because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade and Republican governors like my governor, Brian Kemp, signed really strict abortion laws into effect, like in Georgia, it's a six-week ban, before most women even know that they're pregnant.
We told them -- I was in the state Senate when Georgia's abortion ban passed, and we told them that women would die because of these bans. And they didn't believe us. They thought we were exaggerating and we were just trying to get our voices heard. We wanted our voices heard.
And Laura, I like to be right, but this is the one time that I wish I didn't have to say, I told you so, because women are literally dying. Georgia already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. Black women die from complications of pregnancy-related deaths more than women in third world countries in Georgia. But yet here we are. Over half of our counties in Georgia don't even have an OB-GYN.
But yet we signed -- well, we signed this law into effect knowing that experts, doctors testify that women would die because of this. Doctors are afraid that they'll be jailed for giving women the care that they need until they're on the brink of death, and that's what we're seeing play out.
COATES: There's an added layer to all that you said as well for somebody like Candi Miller, who I understand had severe chronic medical conditions, and her family says that she never went to the hospital because of Georgia's law. But is this particularly causing women to fear seeking out the care they need, particularly those who are already potentially advocates for their own health? WILLIAMS: So -- and that's the other thing, women could even be prosecuted because you can even show up for complications from a miscarriage and it could be investigated. But that is what we're living under in Donald Trump's America where his Project 2025 agenda would make this possible in all 50 states. Not just here in the deep south, we're seeing this all over. And then we're also seeing women who are having to travel to other states to get abortions, that these providers in other states are being overwhelmed.
That's what happened in one of the cases in Georgia. She couldn't get a rescheduled appointment after driving four hours to get to North Carolina, which now also has a bad effect. But this is the reality that we're living under in Donald Trump's America. That's why it is so important that people, especially in states like Georgia, battleground states where every vote matter, show up and make their voices heard at the ballot box.
[23:40:02]
Kamala Harris is fighting our reproductive freedoms. She'll be back in battleground Georgia on Friday, talking about this very issue, bringing this directly to the voters that are impacted most. What we know is that this issue transcends partisanship. It's not about Democrats or Republicans, rural versus urban. This happened, kind of deaths happen, right in Metro Atlanta. I gave birth to my son at the same hospital that one of the women died at.
COATES: Oh, my goodness.
WILLIAMS: So, this is something that transcends full access or race or partisanship, and we have a president on the ballot who will fight for us. And I think women are paying attention. We're going to show up in force, and we're going to elect a leader in Kamala Harris who will be a president for all Americans, not just the people that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are seeking to bring on to their team.
COATES: For the reasons you describe, in a way, all of this feels close to home when states are in charge of deciding what the next steps are after the Dobbs decision. And certainly, both campaigns are looking at this issue as one that is triggering for a wide political spectrum.
And you mentioned the governor in Georgia, Brian Kemp. A spokesperson for the governor saying Thurman and Miller -- quote -- "would likely both be alive today if partisan activists and so-called journalists had not spread such egregious misinformation and propaganda that fostered a culture of fear and confusion." He's pointing the blame elsewhere, not on the laws themselves, but on those he believes perpetuated some false narrative that then led them to feel fearful of what the truth was. What is your response to the governor?
WILLIAMS: Brian Kemp understands that he signed this law into effect. He was warned that experts told him what would happen if he signed this law into effect, and he did it anyway. Brian Kemp and Donald Trump are responsible for the deaths of these women. And we have a choice on the ballot. It is a clear contrast. Voters need to show up and elect Kamala Harris as president because she will fight for our reproductive freedoms. She will fight so that no other woman has to go through what these two women in Georgia have been through.
These families are now in mourning because they've lost these women, and their children who were already here need their parents with them. And yet because of Brian Kim and Donald Trump, these two women are dead. More women, I'm sure more stories will come out because we're only starting to see the impact of what happened two years ago when Trump's abortion ban went into effect in Georgia.
So, it pains me to see what the narrative will be and what will continue to come out in the days to come. But I'm sure there are more because, again, more than half of our counties in Georgia don't even have an OB-GYN. Brian Kemp, our governor, still has not expanded Medicaid to get women the care that they need. So, he needs to take the blame for signing this law into effect and understand that the advocates were making sure that we could raise the alarm because we knew what was at stake. Brian Kemp signed this into law, anyway.
COATES: As you describe it, just thinking about all the different people and moments that failed both of these women, it's overwhelming to consider. You've identified two who you believe are responsible. I'd be curious to hear what their responses are from here out. Congresswoman Nikema Williams, thank you so much.
WILLIAMS: Thank you.
COATES: Next, it's the Kamala Harris twang Republicans love to hate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And you all helped us win in 2020, and we're going to do it again in 2024.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, people are talking about this so-called twang and a cadence change. Why are the driving Republicans so crazy? Tonight's take is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COATES: All right, tonight's take comes to us from Elizabeth Spiers from "The New York Times" who writes this headline: The Real Reason the Harris Twang is Driving Republicans Crazy. Now, in this piece, she argues "Conservatives find her accent infuriating for one very specific reason: because they buy the negative stereotypes. They associate Southern accents with less educated working-class people who, if they're white, might be racist -- and that's a demographic that conservatives cynically regard as their property" -- unquote.
Now, Republicans pounce each time she seems to change the way she talks based on her audience. Here she is talking about the same topic on the same day. But in the first clip, she's in Detroit. The second? Pittsburgh.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: You may not be a union member. You better thank a union member.
(APPLAUSE)
For the five-day work week, you better thank a union member for sick leave. You better thank a union member for paid leave. You better thank a union member for vacation time.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank unions for sick leave. Than unions for paid family leave. Thank unions for your vacation time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Now, conservatives would look at this difference in her cadence, in her delivery, and they would point to what they think is evidence of Harris's lack of authenticity. It has become, frankly, one of their most popular attack lines. Look online. They even used it to attack her race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She happened to turned Black. And now, she wants to be known as Black. So, I don't know. Is she Indian or is she Black?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, she's both. That's what biracial actually means. Jamal Simmons and Leah Wright Rigueur are back with me right now.
[23:50:02]
Jamal, we were -- people have had these conversations about politicians being chameleons, trying to adapt and read and know thy audience. How often have you heard the read the room references? But this is being talked about as -- what was that old phrase? Ebonics or Black English or different phrases.
SIMMONS: Yeah.
COATES: In fact, linguist John McWhorter says Harris is sometimes speaking in -- quote, unquote -- "Black English." He calls it code switching, we know what that means. And he connects it to this quote from Maya Angelou where she writes, "We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with, 'That's not unusual.' But in street, meeting the same situation, we easily might say, 'It be's like that sometimes.'"
Well, what does it be like right now?
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: What it'd be like right now is Donald Trump trying to make a bigger broader point. He's making the point that you can't trust her. That's fundamentally what he's trying to do. You don't know what she's saying, you're not sure where she's going, you know what she stands for, look at what she said in 2019, look at what she is saying now, and he's using this argument to go at something that's more of a gut punch, because that's how he fights.
He doesn't fight up here, he fights in here. And that's what he's trying to do, capture people at this moment, like, what's she really doing? What's she really saying? Now, the truth is that we all know people do this all the time.
COATES: Uh-hmm.
SIMMONS: Everybody does this, right? Everybody goes into a room and they kind of try to fit in. I remember one time sitting in a restaurant and my friend asked for a cup of tea at like a small place, and I said, what kind of tea do you want? And she said, you can have hot or you can have cold.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: It's all we got here, right? So, you learn at some point, like, I'm not at the place where I can get my chamomile, you know, decaffeinated. This is the thing that Donald Trump is sort of saying. It doesn't matter that it's a shallow argument. He's trying to go at people's imagination about her, and then he's going to make a bigger point about her and whether or not she should be president.
COATES: But is it imagination, Leah, or is it playing into a stereotype that there is only one way to be a particular race? Like there is diversity, there is eccentricity, there is eclectic nature of everything. There's one way to be Black. There's only one thing you can do. And by her, they believe, talking a certain way, it's so unfamiliar as to be unauthentic -- inauthentic, excuse me.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Let me tell you something. The last thing I want is some white man making decision about what authentic blackness actually is. And I think that's where we are. I also have to ask, you know, do Republicans, does Donald Trump actually know any Black people? I think this is one of the reflections of a kind of cultural ignorance that repeatedly comes up over and over again, and we've seen it especially in this election.
So, I think Jamal is exactly right, right? This is about trust, authenticity. You can't trust her. She's a chameleon. But it's also about the fact that they actually don't understand black institutions. They don't understand black cultural markers. You know, this is the same person who said, oh, she went to some silly meeting, some silly sorority meeting, not realizing that -- COATES: Sorority party.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Right, sorority party, not actually realizing that BGLOs, Black Greek Letter Organizations, are a multi-million-member institution that have a long history, including a long political history, in this country. So, it's actually much more than just a little party. The same person who didn't really understand what historically black colleges and universities actually were, where they exist, how they're funded.
And yet here you have someone who is a member of -- who went to an HBCU, who is a member of both an auxiliary Black Greek Letter Organization but also an actual Black Greek letter Organization, and is part of a civic organization for Black women.
COATES: Well, you know, this take, and I think it's important when you've raised, Leah, especially the take of Elizabeth Spiers, also seemed to talk about that Republicans are furious because it seems like a shtick that might get the voters they would like to go to her and said to them. And she talks about it, essentially, that it's a schtick that they believe she's using to get a working-class base. And that is problematic if the strategy is to open your tent to who you took for granted or thought was already on your side. Do you see this sort of code switch that they perceive as actually code for those voters belong to us?
SIMMONS: I'm sure they believe that, but it also betrays how they campaign. They're not actually campaigning on issues. Everyone keeps saying Donald Trump seems to focus on the issues. The reality is the issues aren't on his side because the voters he's trying to convince aren't interested in the things he's promising.
And instead, what Kamala Harris is talking about are things that people actually do want. They do want to have a child care tax credit. They do want to make sure that unions are taken care of. They do want to make sure that there's going to be -- we're going to have more infrastructure spending, we're going to build out the American economy.
[23:55:00]
Those are the things that her campaign is built on, but they're not really campaigning on that.
COATES: Yeah.
SIMMONS: They're campaigning on sound of her voice, what does she look like. I mean, they're going after things that really are not about substance.
COATES: And by the way, really quickly, other candidates have been accused of being chameleons. This is reading differently, though, when it's Kamala Harris instead. Why?
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Well, because she's a woman.
COATES: Hmm.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: We don't have these conversations about Tim Scott. Tim Scott got up on stage with Donald Trump and quoted Fannie Lou Hamer in order to endorse Donald Trump. He said, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, right? And in the words of an old Negro spiritual. So, we don't really say that about them. We didn't say it about Barack Obama, which is really interesting because that is very much an argument that could have been made.
COATES: Well, criticized him a little bit. Jon Stewart, he was adopting an accent (ph) when, I think, he was in Puerto Rico at one point. Tim Walz is accused of being folksy. There are moments, but your point is well taken, that this is an elevated moment right now where this is focused on for a very different reason. And something tells me that those who know the code know exactly why.
(LAUGHTER)
Jamal, Leah, thank you both so much. And thank you all for watching. "Anderson Cooper 360" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
