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Trump Formally Nominated for President; Trump Picks Sen. JD Vance as Running Mate; Interview with Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA): Republican National Convention and Unity of the American People. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired July 15, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: ... on a host of issues, including and especially the issue of immunity. But on the question that we just saw, the big issue, which is Donald Trump becoming for the third time the official nominee of the Republican Party. This is a moment for the history books, and this is a moment for this party to finally make its last tick towards being 100 percent the party of Donald Trump.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And as you were talking about McConnell, Dana, it just reminded me that the other thing that McConnell did for Donald Trump was, as Trump faced impeachment after January 6th, McConnell threw him a lifeline by not backing, actually convicting him of the charges against him. And it was that series of events in that time that led to this moment right here, where people who thought that Donald Trump was permanently politically damaged from what had happened in that time realized that he really wasn't, that he was going to be rehabilitated. You saw Kevin McCarthy go down to Florida.

And over the course of the last three years, Donald Trump has been building and building and building to this point where there is virtually no dissent anymore in the Republican Party about who is the leader of the Republican Party. And you heard actually Don Jr. saying, the greatest president, Republican president in American history. Oh, forget about Ronald Reagan.

You know, in a lot of the minds of a lot of Republicans today, that person is now Donald Trump.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: So I want to bring it back, if I can, to the fact that the running mate, the big news of the day is that the running mate will be Senator JD Vance, a Republican of Ohio, David Urban and David Axelrod, your thoughts on this?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, Jake, I think it really signals a big shift in the Republican Party. This is going to be a party of the hillbilly elegy. This is the this is what they're talking about with JD Vance is going to go out. You heard Don Jr. talking about he's going to go out and campaign for blue collar voters in Kentucky, western Pennsylvania. I think that's what you'll see Vance out really work in the hustings to kind of reshape. The party has been shifting, as we know, we've talked about this away from, you know, the kind of liberal northeast Republicans have now become Democrats and the Reagan Democrats have become Republicans.

And I think this pick signals a further shift in that direction for working class men and women in America. You are not only welcome in this party. You are the party.

And I think JD Vance's pick signals that and he's going to go out and do that. And also Vance has a foot in Silicon Valley. Let's not forget he -- I don't know who talked about this, but he helped secure the fundraiser with David Sachs. He's going to speak later. He was the pick of Elon Musk of lots of those.

TAPPER: Right. Peter Thiel is obviously a big patron.

URBAN: So he is. He's got a foot in in Appalachia and in Silicon Valley, which I think is really interesting and it is energizing. 2028, It's been wiped out. All those Republicans who are mentioned Nikki Haley, what it ran for president this time. They are done.

Youngkin, anyone who thinks they want to be president and Republican president in '28. Well, you're going to take this.

TAPPER: It's a long time.

I just want to go for '32 now and it makes you're pushing a big rock up a hill. Listen, if you're Donald Trump's pick --

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We don't know what's going to happen next week, much less in 2028 with a little less exuberance.

Let me. But I listen. You know, I forget which of the Trump boys said two things that I think very much go to the core of this choice.

One was he's good on TV making the case. Donald Trump approached this whole process like a casting director. He was watching these guys with you and others on TV to see who could bring the case.

And Vance was very, very good at that. But this point that Dave's making, there is a very narrow path for Joe Biden in this race if he has a path moving forward. That is to win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, places where John has been spending a lot of time.

JD Vance is a true populist. He talks about the damage of that globalization has done to these areas. He's for tariffs, heavy tariffs, you know, and he speaks the language of voters in those small towns and rural areas and working class communities in those states. If he can help them win those states, he can seal this deal --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I --

AXELROD: -- for Joe Biden.

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: I don't think we've talked about this yet, which is the facial hair issue, because at one point when people were discussing possibilities, one of the knocks on JD Vance was that he had a beard. He has facial hair. And supposedly Donald Trump hates facial hair.

And they said, well, he's not going to pick a running mate he has to live with for four years. He's got facial hair. And Trump was asked about it.

And he said, you know, I think he looks like a young Abraham Lincoln. And at that point, he had won the facial hair primary.

[15:35:00]

So maybe the fix was in for a long time ago.

TAPPER: Abraham Lincoln, by the way, famously unattractive to the point that somebody accused him of being two faced. And Lincoln said, if I were two faced, would this be the face that I picked? But obviously, very good. Abraham Lincoln.

Thank you so much.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Abraham Lincoln might also be on a list of other people's lists of greatest American presidents.

TAPPER: Right.

KING: But look, to David's point about JD Vance, I think it is interesting that he can go into those working class neighborhoods. That is his M.O. That is more proof of how this Republican Party. This is my 19th presidential convention, 21 if you count the Reform Party conventions.

This is a populist Republican Party. This is not Ronald Reagan's party anymore. It's not George W. Bush's party anymore. This is Donald Trump's party and is a populist Republican Party.

That is not the Free Trade Party of the old -- and not that Ukraine hasn't come up yet. It's not the where do we stand on the world stage? Republican Party. It is a new Republican Party. Number one.

I also want to say one other thing that hasn't been mentioned. It will not be the story by the end of the day. But a challenge when you have the convention is who wins the narrative. The Republicans dominate their narrative or the Democrats take things that happen here and turn them into a story.

The first words at Donald Trump's convention were spoken by Michael Watley, an election denier, a Stop the Steal guy. His nomination was seconded by Mike McDonald, the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, who is under state indictment for the fake elector scheme. JD Vance also played, not to the degree they did, played with the whole idea of Mike Pence should have allowed the debate about fake electors on the floor of the United States Congress. It would have been good for the country.

TAPPER: Yes, he wasn't a senator at the time. KING: Yes, right. But he should have allowed that debate. And so, again, the Republicans watching are going to say, oh, please, John, let it go.

Well, I would let it go if they would let it go. If they would say, sorry, we got caught up in the heat of the moment. We were so in so in love with Donald Trump. We've said the election was stolen.

But this new Trump Republican Party, this is a populist Republican Party, is also dominated by people who deny the basic facts and math of the 2020 election to this day.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, and also JD Vance is no Mike Pence at the end of the day. If we are sticking with what you are talking about here, because the role that Mike Pence played on January 6th was central to the outcome, ultimately, which is, you know, Joe Biden rightfully in the White House. And this is, you know, kind of pulling together and watching Mitch McConnell be booed.

He is obviously an elderly man now as JD Vance, 39, in that same body, which McConnell is now retiring from leading. It's going to stay in the Senate, but he's going to give up his title as Senate majority leader, says so much from a symbolic perspective. And while I do think, of course, David is jumping ahead to 2028, we are not we are not quite there yet.

It is this way. I mean, we've talked also about how Donald Trump values loyalty. He does not necessarily want to pick someone who's going to try to compete with him.

But what he is doing is making a decision here that says, I am going to choose the people who are going to be at the forefront here. It is going to be me who decides those things. And he seems to be willing to take this risk here. Because this on the one hand, and we heard Donald Trump Jr. down on the floor there say, well, my dad told me, you know, he goes, I can get kind of hot. Donald Trump Jr. says it's about himself. My dad told me, you know, we got to cool it down because obviously the rhetoric is what it is. So that's what's coming from the family.

JD Vance has not necessarily conducted himself that way.

TAPPER: Some of the quotes from JD Vance on the election just on that point, John King, he baselessly said, I think the election was stolen from Trump. He falsely said there were certainly people voting illegally on a large scale basis. These are things that both Trump's White House counsel, Trump's attorney general, court after court, election board after election board, governor after governor said are not true.

And it is also -- it is also worth noting that the very reason that Mike Pence is not only not his running mate, but not here at the Republican convention and not necessarily even voting for Trump is because of what happened on January 6th and the fact that Donald Trump, in his view, in Pence's view, helped put his life and the life of his family in danger during the January 6th insurrection.

Now that Donald Trump is officially a three time Republican presidential nominee, we expect his newly announced running mate, Senator JD Vance, to be nominated soon. There's much more ahead as our convention coverage continues.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: In Milwaukee, Republican convention delegates are buzzing about Donald Trump's newly revealed running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio. We expect Senator Vance to be formally nominated for vice president very soon. A source tells CNN we expect to see him as well.

The Biden-Harris campaign is now responding to Donald Trump's choice of Vance as his running mate. I want to go to Phil Mattingly with that. Phil, what do they say?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: You know, Edison, just about 10 seconds ago, Donald Trump Jr., one of the biggest advocates for JD Vance behind the scenes, walked by and around the same moment we got that statement from the Biden-Harris campaign from the chairwoman, Jen O'Malley Dillon. And in that statement saying Donald Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn't on January 6th, bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people.

It is a very lengthy statement on policy issues, on political perspective and on whether or not there would be a level of subservience to the former president should he win again.

I think when you talk to Democrats leading into this, there's some concern about the kind of Midwestern appeal that Vance, an Ohio senator who pushes populist policies and is considered one of the leading advocates for a new populist Republican Party on the policy front, what it would actually mean to that critical blue wall, those blue wall states.

[15:45:04]

One thing Democrats make clear, though, both in that statement from Jen O'Malley Dillon, but also in the lead up to this moment, they feel like there are significant areas where they plan to attack. They already are attacking. And certainly there will be more attacks on the policy, the politics and the vice presidential selection in the days and weeks ahead -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yes, Phil, thanks very much. Alyssa, what is the selection of JD Vance mean?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's -- it's a strategic gamble, but I think it speaks to just how confident the Trump campaign is. COOPER: Strategic gamble, why?

GRIFFIN: There are major vulnerabilities with JD Vance. You have tons of times that he's been on the record back when he was a never Trump or calling the most horrific names that you could about the now president.

COOPER: Referred to him as America's Hitler.

GRIFFIN: America's Hitler, among others.

But he is also someone -- his talent to give him credit. He's incredibly savvy. He can appear on mainstream media and give a coherent, eloquent version of MAGA and go toe to toe with the best interviewer.

But then he'll appear on extremely far right media where he said much more outrageous things that I'm sure Democrats everywhere are digging up now to portray him as the most extreme version of MAGA.

So there's going to be a big dump of some of the things he said on Steve Bannon's war room and elsewhere that I think the campaign needs to be ready for, whereas a Doug Burgum would be about as safe as can be.

However, JD Vance, I think, really resonates in key Pennsylvania. He's got the story. He's got that national profile. So there's some pros and some major cons.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think I think this is actually an energizing choice for Democrats because he -- Vance represents the places where, you know, Trump himself is most politically vulnerable. And remember, you know, Trump's unfavorables are very high. Like Trump himself is a -- has a lot of flaws.

And I think what Vance does is he underscores -- he underscores where Trump is on abortion. He obviously underscores this notion that, you know, our election shouldn't be free and fair and that people's votes, you know, shouldn't count and that ultimately you should get to decide if you don't like the outcome, if you didn't like it. So, you know, I think what Democrats are going to do here is use Vance as an opportunity to get back to messaging around Trump that has been successful.

I mean, if you look at the 2022 midterms, part of the success Democrats had was in painting Republicans as aligned with MAGA extremism. And what Vance does is give them an opportunity to go really hard at some of the things that people most dislike and find most off-putting about MAGA extremism. So I think for the Democrats, this is a little bit of a shot in the arm.

SCOTT JENNINGS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST AND CORPORATE PR ADVISER: So you think that the path back for Joe Biden with a 32 percent approval rating, following his debate performance, following all of his withered appearances, is to elevate a conversation about a senator from Ohio that most people have never heard of in the hopes that they will then abandon their already definite views of Donald Trump, the most defined politician in American history?

BEDINGFIELD: Define, but define it in a way who is unpopular. You've got to acknowledge that. You can.

JENNINGS: Who's unpopular?

BEDINGFIELD: Donald Trump is unpopular.

JENNINGS: More or less than Joe Biden right now. You can argue.

BEDINGFIELD: You can argue -- you can argue that Biden has an uphill climb. I have said on our air many times that I think he's got an uphill climb. You cannot dispute that Donald Trump himself is also an unpopular president.

And Vance underscores a lot of the things that people dislike about him.

JENNINGS: Listen, I think that this is an interesting choice. We're going to talk about it. The issue in this election for the Republicans is Donald Trump.

The issue is Joe Biden. These two guys are well defined. And the idea that mass amounts of voters are going to suddenly switch back to a president that they have lost all confidence in because of a pick of JD Vance to me is not accurate. I'll just say about Vance, I don't agree with some of the conclusions he's drawn in his political evolution. I know him a bit. I think he's a thoughtful guy.

I think his service as a Marine is important to him. I think he's a patriot. And I do think that this idea of him being able to go out in the media and make the case, you know, people make light of that, what Don Jr. said. It's important because what can the Democrats not do right now? The president of the United States cannot make the case. So if you have a ticket that can communicate and a ticket that can't, I'll take the one that can.

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, this is kind of like a be positive for a second because I'm not happy. But on the positive side, it's like a Clinton/Gore, right? Bill Clinton doubled down on Gore. We're both young Southerners. We both the same.

COOPER: Sorry, I'm just going to go quickly to Kaitlan, who has Glenn Youngkin.

GOV. GLENN YOUNGKIN (R-VA): Can you feel the enthusiasm in here? The Republican Party has come together and America is coming together around strong leadership. It's time for unity.

It's time for us to put the divisions down and march forward together as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: You were just quoting the Declaration of Independence as you announced your delegates, of course, for Donald Trump. You also mentioned his pick for vice president, J.D. Vance. There was a rumor going around that some donors are pushing for you.

[15:50:00]

But you're speaking here tonight at this convention, obviously, that has been altered by what happened on Saturday night. How have you changed your speech in light of that?

YOUNGKIN: Well, first of all, we are all in a moment of gratefulness, gratefulness that providence was felt on Saturday night and Donald Trump was protected. We also have incredibly broken hearts today for a hero who was killed and those that were injured. And so I've asked everyone to lift them up in prayer and their families.

Tonight is a night for unity. Tonight is a night to talk about the future, to talk about the spirit of opportunity and the spirit of hope that is flowing across this nation and to describe the opportunity that sits in front of so many Virginians and Americans for a life that is a life of opportunity. That is what I'll talk about tonight.

And I have to say we have seen the economy that Donald Trump will build because he's already built it once, an opportunity that unleashes all of those dreams and aspirations for all Americans. That's what I'll talk about tonight.

COLLINS: You speak of unity. Are you glad that former President Donald Trump has invited Governor Nikki Haley to come and speak to reach different swaths of the Republican Party?

YOUNGKIN: Absolutely. We have a big tent that is the Republican Party and we are filling it up. In Virginia, we were able to win the Hispanic vote and the Asian vote and more of the black vote that we've seen in recent history.

We can do this and this is our chance to not just bring together the Republican Party, which you see all over here, but bring together America. And I look forward to watching President Trump do exactly that.

COLLINS: Governor Glenn Youngkin, thank you for your time.

YOUNGKIN: Thank you. Thank you very much.

COLLINS: Anderson, back to you.

COOPER: Kaitlan, thanks. Van, you were talking about JD Vance.

JONES: Yes, well, this is a -- Democrats are frankly thrilled. I mean, they're happy because there's the dump that's coming on this guy. I mean, he has said horrific stuff about women. I mean, you're going to see JD Vance with a blowtorch taken to him.

But I feel sad about it because I had hopes that he would be a lot more like Glenn Youngkin. A Southern kid, went in the military, went to law school, wrote a book that was about translating Americans to Americans, that was about being a bridge builder. That's where he started out. And somehow that milk has curdled. He is now a toxic presence in American life. He's not a bridge builder. He's a barn burner. If you are in Ukraine right now, you're terrified. He's willing to throw the Ukrainians under the bus to Putin.

If you're a woman, you're going to be terrified when you see the stuff he said about women. If you're an immigrant, you're terrified. This guy could have been one of the great unifying presences.

And instead, he has become one of the most -- people don't know him yet. They're going to know him in 24 hours. This is a very dark moment for me.

Look, I'm a Southern kid. I went to the same law school as him and worked for CNN. So I watched this guy, and I had high hopes for him. He has become something that is not what he could have been. And he could have been a Glenn Youngkin, a unifier. He is a divider, and it's a dark moment, I think, for the Republican Party.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, so I want to second something that Alyssa was saying before. I think that, look, in 2022, when JD Vance was elected, he won in a state that Trump carried by, I think, eight points. He won by six points.

The incumbent Republican governor won by 25 points. So this is not a guy who even has, you know, the full spectrum of Republican gettable voters behind him. He's a narrow-casting figure.

And I should also say, and this is something that just doesn't get nearly enough attention out there. Gen X gets screwed, right? We've gone, we've now, Gen X is, that's it.

There are no Gen X politicians coming down the pike. He's a millennial. Kamala Harris is a very young boomer.

Joe Biden's silent generation. Donald Trump is silent generation. We've had boomers running out this country for a long time, and Gen X is just getting the shiv.

And I think it's just -- and we're the best generation, and we're getting screwed.

JENNINGS: If I may, on the gettable voters, it's not average, everyday, regularly participatory Republicans that is going to lead Donald Trump, if it happens, to a huge victory. It's going to be low- propensity or no-propensity Americans who have very little engagement with the electoral system, who like Donald Trump, but they need to be constantly communicated with in different ways than normal voters and normal -- the way that normal politicians would. I think this is where Trump is thinking on Vance.

He has this -- he is younger. I think your point is well taken. But he understands how to communicate, I think, with that lower-engagement voter that -- look at the polls.

The less engagement you have with American politics, the more you like Donald Trump.

[15:55:00]

And I think Vance may be something of an ambassador to that crowd, which, if they can increase the turnout, will --

GOLDBERG: I honestly just don't buy it. I mean, I agree with your theory of the case, that low-propensity voters are Trump's ace in the hole.

JENNINGS: Yes.

GOLDBERG: And I think it's kind of ridiculous the Republican Party defenestrated the most reliable voters in American politics, which were the old suburban Republican voters.

But that's a fair point. JD Vance does not actually speak Bubba very well, I don't believe. What he does very well is translate Bubba to intellectuals, which is not the same skill.

He's good at that. He's good at talking to Anderson Cooper and explaining what the white working class thinks. He's not really good at explaining intellectual stuff to the white working class.

GRIFFIN: Well, and I think in this moment, too, coming off of this horrific assassination attempt on the former president, and this notion that this is going to be a unifying convention, and we keep hearing it from the floor. And I'm hearing from people who are there who says, the atmosphere is unifying. JD Vance had the worst statement response. Basically blaming Joe Biden for what happened, blaming Democrats. A quick look through his Twitter feed is calling people scumbags, calling people words I'm not going to say on air.

This is a firebrand. He made a decision. We all know old JD Vance, and we know who he decided to be.

COOPER: As Republican delegates officially make Donald Trump the party's nominee for a third straight election, we're standing by for Trump's newly announced running mate, JD Vance, to make his first appearance. We'll be right back.

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