Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Event/Special
Harris Baits Trump in Contentious First Debate; Interview with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) about Trump and Harris Debate; Pennsylvania Voters Weigh in on Debate. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired September 11, 2024 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:09]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: We are live in Motown Philly breaking down the historic and fiery first debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. It began with a somewhat awkward moment perhaps. A handshake initiated by the vice president, followed by 90 minutes of tense exchanges. Harris often forcing Trump on the defensive. He took the bait every time as they sparred over some of the biggest issues in this election, including immigration and abortion and the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump's plan would actually explode the deficit. 16 Nobel Laureates have described his economic plan as something that would increase inflation, and by the middle of next year, would invite a recession.
You just have to look at where we are and where we stand on the issues. And I'd invite you to know that Donald Trump actually has no plan for you because he is more interested in defending himself than he is in looking out for you.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's just a soundbite. They gave her that to say. Look, I went to the Wharton School of Finance and many of those professors, the top professors, think my plan is a brilliant plan. It's a great plan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: As the debate continued, Vice President Harris repeatedly appeared to get under former president Trump's skin as she tried to knock him off message. Even mocking something quite close to Trump's heart, his campaign rallies and the size of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see, during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer, and what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.
And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your -- and your desires.
TRUMP: She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's bussing them in and paying them to be there, and then showing them in a different light so she can't talk about that.
People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The night capped by some breaking news welcomed by the Harris- Walz campaign. Taylor Swift formally endorsing Harris and Walz for president and vice president.
The first results of our instant poll of debate watchers have just come in and David Chalian is going to join us now to break it all down.
David, tell us more.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, Jake, and as you noted this is a poll of debate watchers. This is not a poll that represents the overall population, although in partisan breakdown it is pretty close to what the overall registered voter population looks like in the country. But it is a poll of those people that watched the debate. So just keep that in mind as we get to these results.
Our first results here in our exclusive flash poll, who won the debate? The overall number here overwhelmingly Kamala Harris did. I'm going to look at my e-mail here, 63 percent. You see there on your screen say Kamala Harris won the debate, only 37 percent say Donald Trump won the debate. And that is quite different than the expectations going into this among this group of debate watchers in this poll.
We asked folks going into the debate, who do you expect to win the debate? Well, it was 50-50, 50 percent expected Harris, 50 percent expected Trump to win the debate. That was before the debate. And we just showed you where it ended up afterwards, 63 percent to 37 percent.
And take a look at this, Jake. This is a complete reversal from what we saw in June. Compare these numbers to Biden. In June you see that it was 67 percent to 33 percent, two-thirds thinking Trump won only a third thinking Biden won a complete reversal in just a few months. As this race has completely changed so too has the assessment of debate watchers about the Democrat and Republican debate performances this 2024 presidential election -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. David Chalian, and while no doubt this debate will not be quite as consequential as the last one, it does seem as though, Dana Bash, that at least according to the instant polls of debate watchers, people think that Kamala Harris resoundingly won.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: And defied expectations based on what people thought beforehand and afterwards.
[00:05:03]
As David was saying, we have to be careful with instant polls and what is really going to matter is how this sinks in and ripples through the pool, very small but important pool of undecided voters, but I think the only thing that you need to know about how Donald Trump realizes that this went was to see his behavior and performance, the fact that he came into the spin room and he was not very happy.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And citing a bunch of numbers, of polls that he said he won. No clue where those numbers came from. And he was asked about it in the spin room and didn't give an answer. But I also think, you know, Harris, there were some risks here for her tonight. And she had a lot of work to do. And I'm thinking about earlier when we were talking and I was struck recently in the last couple of weeks just watching Trump in his normal campaign world on the stump, in interviews, and he is progressively slowing down.
He's progressively not able to really even make his own normal kind of cases that he would make about all sorts of issues. And that was on display tonight. I mean she was really helped by Trump just not really being able to kind of take it to her on virtually anything. And in a way, her biggest weakness might have been that when you give her something that she's not prepared for, she may or may not be able to address it.
But Trump never did that. He only gave her things that would be very obvious that he would say on the debate stage. And I think that's one of the main reasons that she was able to just kind of quite impressively actually take a lot of preparation and just spit it right out on that debate stage, almost exactly probably the way her advisers wanted her to. And Trump just wasn't nimble enough to even respond to that.
TRAPPER: Right. He, you know, dove into his little pit of grievance and --
PHILLIP: And he's aging and it shows. It's showing on the debate stage. It's showing on the campaign trail.
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: One of the things that presidential debates have done over the years is that at times when people have had doubts about a candidate, usually the challenger in this race, you could argue they're both incumbents or both challengers, and it has erased the stature gap. In 1960, Nixon was the vice president. The criticism of John Kennedy was that he was too young, too callow, too inexperienced.
After that first debate that went away because people thought at the very least that Kennedy showed that he stood up and was Nixon's equal and perhaps his superior. 1980, Jimmy Carter, a lot of concern. Was Ronald Reagan too big a risk? And after that debate, people were reassured. They didn't like Carter particularly, and they were reassured we can take this jump into Reagan.
In "The New York Times" poll over the weekend, three times as many people said they needed to know more about Kamala Harris than said that about Donald Trump. And I got to think for a lot of that, 28 percent of Americans, that they were reassured by what they saw tonight. So I think that it gives permission to support her for people that had doubts.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there's two things I noticed. One was the word that Senator J.D. Vance used, the word platitudes when he talked to Kaitlan Collins about how he describes the ability of Vice President Harris to articulate her platforms. It's what is demanded of the incumbent versus what was actually provided by a former incumbent. She is expected to talk in very granular detail. Trump had many, many bald assertions, and yet he believes that he was successful in that endeavor nonetheless.
The other issue is, is this important idea of managing expectations. She has described herself from the very get-go since she's actually taken the top of the ticket as the underdog, in part because Democrats do not want a performance like this to have people believing there's no reason to lean in. They can lean out. Everything's in the bag. They know there is still the uphill battle of trying to overcome a number of factors.
So I think in many ways these are polls show you that even though this was a successful endeavor I think arguably and objectively for the vice president, she still has to overcome this -- I can't tell what the language and coding it is to have her define herself still.
TAPPER: No question that winning a debate is not the same thing as winning an election and there are still many days to go, many miles to travel.
Let's go now to Kaitlan Collins, and Kaitlan, you just caught up with former president Trump, not generally seen as a baller move for a debater to then go to the spin room afterwards. What did he have to say?
[00:10:03]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Jake, he was in here. He was speaking to reporters. We grabbed him just for a quick pull aside to get his reaction to how he personally thought the debate went. The first question I asked him was something that I have been hearing from people inside Trump's orbit about him taking the bait when Harris was clearly trying to get under his skin, a strategy we knew she was going to employ on the debate stage.
Here's what Donald Trump told me about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Some of your advisers are worried that, excuse me, that you took the bait from Kamala Harris tonight. What would you say --
TRUMP: The debate tonight, this was my best debate. We had a 92 percent rating in one poll. We had an 86 percent rating in another, we had 77 percent in another. We won every one of the polls that came out tonight. And there were quite a few of them.
COLLINS: You were asked if you would veto a national abortion ban, and you did not say yes or no. What is your answer to that?
TRUMP: All you have to do is check it. It was a perfect answer on abortion and I've done a great job on that and I brought our country together. Thank you.
COLLINS: Yes or no?
(CROSSTALK)
COLLINS: Will you debate Harris again?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: That was former president Donald Trump earlier as he was exiting the spin room.
And joining me now, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, a surrogate of the former president.
You heard Donald Trump there talking about the debate. Would you say that Donald Trump won this debate?
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): He had a very strong performance, no doubt. I thought the two moderators were absolutely biased and two things that you walk away with. Number one, we know who Donald Trump is. Four years with Donald Trump, we had very low unemployment. We saw seven million jobs created, two-thirds going to minorities and to women. We saw HBCU funding hit a record level and made the funding permanent. We frankly saw research on sickle cell anemia accelerated.
What we didn't see in this debate was who is Kamala Harris? We've seen her change her position time and time again, and tonight we have no clarity on her position. She's now for fracking when she was against it. She now wants a border wall when she was against it. The border czar herself certainly did not go to the border for three plus years.
She's had three years to tell the American people who she is. And we still don't know who she is. Where does she stand on the number one issue the American people care about, the economy inflation, the cost of living? We don't know.
COLLINS: Well, and does it bother you that Donald Trump won't say where he stands on a really important issue, which is abortion?
SCOTT: Actually, he's been very clear on the issue of abortion.
COLLINS: But why would he not just yes or no tonight? SCOTT: Well, here's what he said. It is a state's issue. The American
people are solving that problem state by state by state. Exactly where the echo chambers around the country wanted the issue. What we did not hear was Kamala Harris answer the question, does she support abortions in the third trimester, the seventh, eighth and ninth month? She refused to answer that question. We have one candidate who is absolutely crystal clear that the voters in the states will make the decision. Roe v. Wade is gone, and one candidate who would not say, I refuse to have late-term abortions.
COLLINS: Well, she didn't say where she believed the restriction should be. And he did not say --
SCOTT: She said she wanted to go back to Roe v. Wade, which would allow for abortions up until the day of birth.
COLLINS: And he did not say, which of course you know is rare and doesn't really happen, but he would not say about vetoing a ban. But the poll -- the debate overall and how it went, CNN conducted an instant poll, 63 percent of people said they thought Harris won, 37 percent said that they thought Trump won.
Going into this, I know it was a conversation about focusing on policy versus the personal. He got into the conversation again about Harris's race and saying that he read that she turned black.
SCOTT: Actually the moderators brought that topic. Yes.
COLLINS: But did you think he handled that effectively?
SCOTT: Listen, I'm a black man. I think it's insulting to have a conversation about who I am or who he is or who she is. That has been solved by the parents who birthed her. So from my perspective, what we should do is what the American people want us to do. Talk about them and their issue, their future, their challenges that they face today, and the hopes that they have for their kids tomorrow.
As we focus on those issues, the American voters will have clarity on which candidate they want leading us for four years.
COLLINS: Do you think Donald Trump did enough of focusing on the issues and not the personal tonight?
SCOTT: Listen, I think he did a really good job of focusing on the primary issues that the American people care about starting with two. Number one, the economy, and number two, the border. Without any question, we've seen the greatest, the largest invasion of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border in my lifetime and in the history of the country, from what I understand.
We also know that 70,000 Americans have died of fentanyl because of ports of entry and our southern border. And number three, when you have hundreds of thousands of people coming from countries that are adversarial to America, we should assume we have sleeper cells in our country. Those are the issues the American people are talking about, plus the economy. [00:15:01]
COLLINS: And you're obviously a senator on Capitol Hill. You were there when Donald Trump was in office the last time, and he wanted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He was asked again about that tonight if he has a plan now to replace the Affordable Care Act. He said, I have the concepts of a plan.
Do you know what that looks like?
SCOTT: Well, what we've heard and what we know for certain, with great certainty is that competition across state lines actually reduces the price, allowing for small businesses to gather together and have association plans. We've seen that already work throughout the country. That reduces your rates by about 30 percent. So what we already understand is that the framework that's been developing for a number of years that we haven't had a chance to implement would reduce the cost of health insurance and create greater access.
What we know about Obamacare is it's incredibly expensive even with federal subsidies. So we still have a number of Americans, a high percentage of Americans who are still on -- find Obamacare unaffordable because it is.
COLLINS: And we've seen those subsidies be expanded.
Senator Tim Scott, thank you very much for joining us.
SCOTT: Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
COLLINS: Jake, obviously, a very busy evening here in the spin room tonight.
TAPPER: Next, we're going to get more reaction from our focus group of voters from here in Pennsylvania. We're digging into the moments that stood out to them from tonight's debate. Plus additional results from our instant poll. Much more ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:20:52]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Harris-Trump presidential debate in Philadelphia is now history, and Americans are digesting what they heard and whether it's going to impact how to they vote.
I want to get some more results from our post-debate instant polls. Our political director, David Chalian, is back with us.
David, what else are you learning?
CHALIAN: Yes, Anderson, this is a poll of debate watchers, not of the country overall or the electorate, obviously, but it's not that partisanly -- in a partisan way different than what we see broadly among registered voters. This is really interesting. Among the candidates' favorable and
unfavorable ratings, take a look here at what we found. Before the debate Harris's favorable rating was at 39 percent. After the debate, among these debate watchers, her favorability rating went up six points to 45 percent. Donald Trump actually ticked down two points among these debate watchers from 41 percent favorable to 39 percent favorable.
That's about roughly the same. That's not a 2 percent tick down there. It's not huge. But I do want to note, Kamala Harris's uptick driven a lot by independent voters. She was minus 17, more unfavorable than favorable among these debate watchers, going into the debate, and independent debate watchers, they were plus nine for her favorability coming out of the debate. So a big movement change on her favorability with independents.
Take a look at when we asked debate watchers about the confidence in the candidates to lead the country, the ability to lead the country, and the confidence that debate watchers have in that. This is really interesting because even though she was the clear winner in the debate among debate watchers, take a look, 32 percent say a lot of confidence in her, in her ability to lead the country and 36 percent say that about him.
She's a little bit better among those who say some confidence in the ability to lead the country. If you add the allotment of some together, they're both at 54 percent, and so they're quite even on this score, which I think is pretty interesting.
And then who had a better plan for solving the country's problems? Harris won on this score among these debate watchers as well. 42 percent say Kamala Harris had a better plan for solving the country's problem. That's compared to 33 percent who said Trump.
And look, Anderson, 22 percent, 1 in 5 of debate watchers says neither of these two had a good plan for solving the country's problem. That not necessarily double haters here, obviously, but that seems to be a target audience for both of these candidates to talk to and explain their plans to over the next eight weeks.
COOPER: Yes. Interesting. David Chalian, thanks so much.
John King, what do you make of those numbers?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, number one, it tells you we entered the debate in a very close, competitive race, and we'll leave the debate in a very close competitive race. However, however, advantage Harris on a couple of very significant points. David Chalian noting that where she jumped up was among independent voters.
We knew coming into this debate that the largest audience of people, the largest percentage of people who said they were open to changing their mind were people who self-identify as independents or as moderates. So the middle of the American electorate, the people who live in the suburbs, the people who maybe voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, aren't, you know, incredibly partisan. They're looking for solutions. They're looking for pragmatism.
So the fact that her movement was among independents, who had the better debate about solving the country's problems, she came into the debate at a deficit with Trump on the economy. It's a different question, that question of solving the country's problems, but it shows she made progress with people. Are you a president? Right. That was her biggest challenge. Nobody knows the vice president, whether it's Mike Pence or whether it's Dan Quayle or whether its Al Gore.
You know, you're trying to rise from vice -- whether it's Joe Biden. You're trying to rise from president to vice president. You have to prove I'm ready for the first job. It is clear, it is clear that she cleared that bar tonight. Now that does not mean that she's not still in a very competitive race. But if her progress tonight was among independents, now the question is, can you carry that momentum forward.
We count votes eight weeks from tonight. Still close, still competitive. But in an election that we all expect is going to be decided on the margins, tonight anyway, the question is, can she hold it? She moved the margins that matter.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know that one, that one graph of capability to lead the country, the fact that they're basically dead even, I mean, think about where we were seven weeks ago.
[00:25:09]
Would you have predicted that seven weeks later that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump would be polling evenly? Donald Trump, a former president, you know, and whatever you think about him, there is a presumption that goes with the fact that you were president, that you know the job and so on. You know, so I do think that she filled that -- she checked that box tonight. She looked like a president on that stage.
There's not a lot of elasticity in this electorate. So I wouldn't expect huge movements here. But this isn't going to be a race that's won that way. It's going to be won incrementally. She took an incremental step forward.
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So I'm a little bit surprised by that, by those numbers because this is as good as it's going to get for Kamala Harris, presumably. I mean this is, you know, Donald Trump's presumably worst nightmare that you could have. If you're a Trump supporter you watch this tonight, you say he didn't talk about any of those kitchen table issues like Alyssa was talking about, right?
It was grievances. It was rearview mirror. Not windshield. It was all the bad stuff. And yet he's still tied, right? We're still right there. We're still neck and neck. And it's going to come down again to the people in Erie County, Northampton County, Macomb County, Michigan. The question is, are 50,000 people swayed in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania? Were they swayed tonight? Are they going to be swayed the next eight weeks? Because that's where they are. That's strictly to 75,000. And did those eat away, as John points out, are those independents, were those swayed enough to come over and stay there for the next eight weeks?
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Maybe, maybe not. But his iceberg is melting, I'll tell you that. Like she did well by herself. You're right, it's going to be clawing for it. It's going to be clawing for it. But you know, he did a lot of stuff that was -- we haven't even gotten to. It's just horrible. He wouldn't say that he wanted Ukraine to win. You think about that.
It's a very easy thing to say that you want a democracy, that we've rallied the world behind that. That frankly people in Pennsylvania, munitions being made there, are going to help, gas that's being fracked there, is going to help. He wouldn't even stick up for the Ukrainians in Pennsylvania when Pennsylvanians are helping us win there. He did terrible.
URBAN: Well, he could have more clearly, absolutely stated, look, I would not sign an abortion bill if it came across my desk. He got into the nitty-gritty about not 60 votes in the Senate.
COOPER: On abortion, let's actually play what both of the candidates said on the topic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.
I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted, pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that.
A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don't want that.
TRUMP: What I did is something for 52 years they've been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states and through the genius and heart and strength of six Supreme Court justices, we were able to do that. Now I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I believe strongly in it. Ronald Reagan did also. 85 percent of Republicans do. Exceptions very important. But we were able to get it.
And now states are voting on it. It's the vote of the people now. It's not tied up in the federal government. I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it. And the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it. And I give tremendous credit to those six justices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, I thought that was probably one of her best responses in the debate, and what Donald Trump did that we didn't play there is in that response he threw people under the bus. Threw his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, saying, we didn't talk about whether or not he would veto a national abortion ban. He threw Kansas and Ohio under the bus. He said those were liberal votes.
Last I checked, Ohio, my home state, and Kansas are pretty red. But the American public are not actually where Donald Trump and the Republican Party want to go on abortion. But what I think she also did was, in this debate on abortion, on many issues, was, you know I'm the coalitions person. She talked to different parts of her coalition. We know women are going to be critical. This is the first presidential since the fall of Roe.
We actually don't know if it's going to carry over. I think it will still be a top of the ticket issue but so Donald Trump talks about -- she went to a sorority party. Let me tell you, as a person who is a part of a black sorority, that was offensive to black people who know the history. It's not a party. It's a public service organization. So she didn't go there and talk about it, but she talks about, you know, the Central Park Five when he baited her there.
[00:30:04]
She talked about Cheney. I know we probably all were, like, watching Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney endorsed, because we follow this every single day. But some people probably didn't know he endorsed.
That speaks to those Republicans in Erie, Pennsylvania, that you still talk to. And then the independents, showing again, yet, he can't be a mature adult and not scream when he gets upset about crowd size.
COOPER: I just want to go back to Kaitlan Collins. She's with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut -- Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Yes. Anderson, thank you so much.
We have Senator Murphy here. We were obviously talking about the debate and how -- how everyone thought it went.
Obviously, it is clear Vice President Harris was able to get under Donald Trump's skin. She clearly was trying to do so by talking about his -- his crowd sizes and whatnot.
But the polling we've seen shows that a lot of undecided voters want to know more about her and her policies. Do you think she did enough to stake out ground on that for voters tonight?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I do, and I -- I think she did that in two ways. First, she did talk about the specific policies, whether it's her plan to invest in building more housing, whether it's her work to try to increase tax credits for families with children. She obviously endorses and supports the bipartisan border bill, which would do a lot to fix the problems at the Southern border.
But I also think there's probably a lot of voters that, you know, just hadn't seen Kamala Harris in a setting where she could look commanding, where she could appear as a president.
And that's what she looked like tonight. She was presidential. She was commanding. She was in charge of that stage.
So, I think voters do want to hear more from her on policy specifics. And I thought she did a good job of articulating how she's going to invest in the middle class, grow the economy from the middle out.
But I just thought she looked like a president, and Donald Trump kind of looked like a puddle by the end of that debate. There was only one president on that stage, and it was Kamala Harris. And that probably answers some of the most important questions that voters have who don't know her that well.
COLLINS: There was a moment where -- where Donald Trump was talking about his assassination attempt on his life. I want everyone to just listen to that moment. Obviously, there was over -- almost two hours of debate.
I just want everyone to listen to what Donald Trump had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is the one that weaponized, not me. She weaponized.
I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy; I'm a threat to democracy. They're the threat to democracy with a fake Russia, Russia, Russia investigation --
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: We do have a lot to get to.
TRUMP: -- that went nowhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: That moment there in the middle, where he said, I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that people in your party have said about him.
What's your response to that?
MURPHY: Well, I think it's a deeply reckless, irresponsible thing to say. That answer was in the context of a litany of crimes that he had committed, crimes that he believes he didn't commit, that he's being pursued for because of a political -- political agenda of the president.
The reality is, is that it's been Donald Trump from the very beginning of his presidency that his celebrated and instigated violence in this country, leading to the disastrous assault on the Capitol.
So, I think the issue of violence and who instigates violence will likely be a big issue in this campaign. But it has been Donald Trump consistently who has celebrated violence, who's endorsed violence, and who continues, even in this debate, to apologize for those that attacked the Capitol, resulting in the death and injury of dozens of law enforcement officers.
COLLINS: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you for joining us in the spin room, where everyone comes to hype their candidates. It is obviously getting a little bit quieter in here, Anderson, now.
COOPER: All right, Kaitlan, thanks.
We're going to take a quick break. Coming up, we're going to hear more from our focus group of voters in Pennsylvania, including what they thought of that moment the former president accused migrants of eating pets. We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:38:14]
TAPPER: We're back in Philadelphia, getting reaction to the Harris- Trump presidential debate. According to our exclusive instant poll of debate watchers, most viewers believe that it was a win for Vice President Harris.
Now let's hear again from voters in Erie, Pennsylvania, tucked in the Northwestern corner of this beautiful commonwealth. CNN's Phil Mattingly is with our focus group in Erie -- Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a bellwether county, Jake, that every election watcher will be paying attention to on election night.
It's why we wanted to talk to the people behind us who came into this night undecided, maybe leaning one way or the other, but not officially knowing where they were going to vote.
Their reactions to the debate itself tracked with what we saw from the instant poll: nine out of the 13 said they thought the vice president won the debate.
We've been actually tracking their reaction from inside the debate. We had dials that were showing where they thought positive or negative.
We're going to show you a piece of sound right now from a particular moment that drew a very specific reaction. Now, where you see red lines, that's a Republican reaction. Where you see blue lines, that's from a Democratic reaction. The purple line is independent. You'll see them on the bottom of your screen, and it's a moment that a lot of people are talking about. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame.
As far as rallies are concerned, as far as the reason they go is they like what I say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: And the reason why we picked that sound out to ask our group about is, one, it definitely elicited a significant reaction, as you can see in the lines below, as you were watching that.
[00:40:02]
But also, I received a number of questions from family members and friends, asking what this was actually all about, which was also a response that you had when you were watching it. Correct?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct. I had not heard anything about it before, so I thought it was just another one of these kind of crazy things that he comes up with that kind of turn me off, I would say.
MATTINGLY: When we were talking about it beforehand, you mentioned that it also kind of had undertones of something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. What really bothers me about it is what I -- the underneath message I get from that. As a pastor, I hear kind of the -- dismissing the other, keeping the other away, giving bad impressions about other people. And I just -- I don't -- I don't buy that.
MATTINGLY: You know, Jake, what's been interesting talking to this group is, again, a number of them decided, after watching the debate, where they wanted to go: some to the former president, some to the vice president.
But also, there's still a number of them that are undecided. And I want to go to another pastor on that.
Ray, you mentioned when we were talking, you have not made up your mind yet. What are you going to be looking for in the next 50-plus days?
RAY, UNDECIDED VOTER: Looking for more clarity in their decision making and their policies. They have -- both have some negative and positive response. But I need more.
And so, on my part, the only thing I can do is just pray and ask God to give me which one that he would like to be in the office. And that's what I will go with.
MATTINGLY: Yes. You, as well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Me as well. I just came in, and clarity was one of the things that, you know, we had mentioned that we wanted, that we were looking for.
In this debate, we just didn't see that. We didn't find that. So, we're looking for more information, more facts, things like that to help us decide. MATTINGLY: From those of you that are here, with the time we have left, who believes that those types of answers will be coming? Do you need to see a second debate? What would you like to -- we've talked. You had some really great points about the lack of education policy in this debate itself. What do you think needs to happen to get answers?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we need to hear more interviews. I think debates just don't cut it. There's not enough time for people to really get into the specifics of what they can and can't do, and there's no time to be fact checking at the same time.
I mean, you got our -- our dials, our reactions to things, but we don't actually know what's true. And what's not without having the time to actually fact-check things.
I think, you know, getting to see interviews and having journalists fact-check them on the spot or, you know, be able to follow up with questions where we can actually understand what's going on. Like, that's -- that's what I need. That's what I need to know.
I -- I just want to know where they actually stand on things. And not just hear pretty sound clips.
MATTINGLY: And want a second debate?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do want a second debate, but what I would be interested in seeing in a debate is if you could focus on one or two questions. Don't put in a ton of questions. Have one or two, and just have them stick to those, so they can actually lay out what they would do. Because there's just not enough time with the, you know, ten questions that are asked.
MATTINGLY: And I think we also -- and I haven't asked them this, but have a firm commitment that they will all be coming back to stay very late into the night, if we have a second debate.
So right? Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
MATTINGLY: Good on that.
Now, this was great. Very substantive, consequential conversations going on. One that I'm sure will continue for the days and months ahead. Back to you guys.
TAPPER: Thanks so much, Phil. Really appreciate it.
And let me resume with my panel here, because Abby Phillip, these voters, a lot of these voters are calling for exactly what you discerned some of the Democratic politicians in interviews were saying, which is Kamala Harris needs to talk more about the plans that she has for people and you know, however well she did tonight.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, listen carefully to people who support Vice President Harris, who are her allies. Just tonight after -- before or after the debate, they're all kind of saying the same thing.
She needs to be out there more. She needs to -- to resolve those lingering questions that some voters have, that voters in that focus group had.
And this idea that the campaign had that I've talked to a lot of their advisers about, that she doesn't really need, you know, whatever the mainstream media -- this isn't about the mainstream media, right? This is about how do you best reach people who are searching for answers.
And that last woman that we heard from in the focus group, I think that's an important perspective that gets lost when there's a lot of spin about we're just going to go straight to the voters.
A lot of regular people understand that there's a role that is played when a candidate sits in front of somebody who asks them questions and follows up to make sure that they have a clear understanding of what's going on. And that hasn't happened.
She sat down with Dana, but more needs to be done. And I think you're starting to hear a lot of Democrats starting to say, OK, now's the time. Four weeks or eight weeks left, and the polls are showing very clearly that voters want to know more about her. And there's an opportunity there.
[00:45:08]
WALLACE: Jake, I think that the CNN instant poll speaks exactly to this point. Overwhelmingly, people thought that she beat Trump.
But when it became the question of what -- who do you favor more or how that -- who do you think could run the country, much more muted.
And I think that they do need to -- she opened the door tonight, but I think she needs to come through that door. She needs to explain herself more.
Interestingly enough, she seems to realize that, because she has already -- her camp has said that they want another debate. Interestingly enough, Trump was on FOX with Hannity.
Hannity said she wants a debate. Do you? And he said, why do I want another debate? He said, the only reason she wants it is because she lost tonight. It's like a boxer who lost and wants a rematch.
TAPPER: Anyway, coming up. Thanks, Chris. More from our instant poll of debate watchers nationwide. Did what they heard from the candidates tonight change their minds about who to vote for in November? Back in a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:50:34]
COOPER: Tonight's heated Harris-Trump presidential debate is setting the stage for the final eight weeks until election day. Early reaction from voters suggesting Vice President Harris may get --
have momentum. We've got another round of results from our instant poll of debate watchers. David Chalian has the numbers -- David.
CHALIAN: Yes, Anderson. One of the questions we asked these debate watchers is that classic question of who do you think cares about people like you, if you will?
And take a look at these results from our instant poll. Who better understands problems facing people like you? Before the debate, 39 percent said that about Harris, 43 percent Trump. And look at how that flips for Harris.
After the debate, 43 percent of the debate watchers say that she understands problems facing people like them; 40 percent say that about Trump.
Now, this is margin of error stuff, but you can see directionally that she made up some ground in that category.
That is not true when it comes to the economy. And this shows, even though she won the debate overwhelmingly in the minds of the voters, look at the economy here.
Who would you -- who would better handle the economy, is what we asked. Going into the debate before the debate, 37 percent said Harris; 53 percent, Trump.
After the debate, again, margin of error stuff here. But numerically, she lost a little ground. Thirty-five percent said so after the debate that she would better handle the economy; 55 percent said Trump. And we know that is one of his strongest suits across the polling in this election, and he seemed to hang onto that piece in this debate tonight, according to our poll of debate watchers.
And finally, did the debate change your mind? Did the debate alter your presidential preference? Take a look at those bottom numbers.
Eighty-eight percent of Harris supporters said, nope, nothing here changed my mind. Only 78 percent of Trump supporters said that.
You see there, 17 percent of Trump supporters said they would reconsider their choice. Six percent said -- of Trump supporters that their mind is changed.
Now, we don't know how that's changed, necessarily. It's not necessarily to her.
But I just think it shows that bottom number, that 78 percent, 10 percent less than what Harris had, of his supporters say it has no effect.
But that means, you know, 23 percent there or so, 22 percent believe that this did cause them to reconsider or change their mind of Trump supporters. That's a higher number than it is for Harris -- Anderson.
COOPER: Thanks.
Alyssa, do you think this -- I mean, does this change anything moving forward now?
GRIFFIN: Well, listen, Kamala Harris on -- I counted -- four occasions, used the phrase there's more that unites us than divides us she made direct appeals to independents to moderates. She cited the Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney endorsements and was clearly trying to reach people who are disillusioned by Donald Trump. They're a little tired of the chaos.
They may have thought they were better off four years ago, but they don't like the general tone and tenor.
He at no point made that sort of ask to voters, of I want your vote. Here's why you should consider being with me.
So, I do think that there's some movement that you could see if she continues with that message going forward.
And her campaign has done something smart by already coming out and saying they're game for another debate. A, it means they know they won. But they also know that it's going to put him on his heels. He's going to look on the defensive if he doesn't end up agreeing to do one.
AXELROD: I mean, the thing that wasn't reflected in that -- in that -- that one slide was where voters who had no preference are going to go. And I think that's the real focus.
There is a sliver of voters -- It's small, but decisive, potentially -- who haven't chosen a candidate yet and have questions. The question is did she help answer those questions tonight?
If there was one shortcoming in what I thought was a -- was a commanding performance, probably her folks would have liked to hammer the economy even harder.
And I will say this. Back in 2012, when Barack Obama was running against Mitt Romney, on the day that he won, Mitt Romney won the category of who would -- who would best manage the economy, but Obama won who would fight for people like you in the economy. And I think that's what she's going for with her message.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: You hear that in how she delivered those kind of messages directly to camera. She was speaking in the second person. He was often speaking in the third. Donald Trump would do this; Donald Trump would do that.
And I think I'll be watching over the next couple of weeks. Does she do more interviews? With whom? What kind of formats? How do they manage the social media of tonight?
And even for Trump, how the surrogates are going to spend their time over the next couple of days. Are they still going to be mitigating something that is perceived to be a mess? Or are they going to -- are we going to see more people acting more aggressively on his behalf?
[00:55:07]
COOPER: Scott.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think if you want to hang your hat on something for Trump, it's the economic numbers. I said I thought he won the first 15 minutes. It was largely about the economy.
And so, there's still a built-in belief by most voters that it's been mismanaged by Biden and Harris. And so, if you're Trump and you're trying to take something positive out of this, it's that that built-in vibe of they just didn't do a good job on it. You have to understand that and not get away from it.
No. 2, obviously, millions of people watched this. A lot of people didn't watch it, and a lot of those people who didn't watch it and may see nothing about it, are some of the people that Donald Trump's campaign needs to turn out.
The disengagers, because they're not going to be persuaded by this. That's still a big part of the Trump strategy. And I don't think they'll be moved.
COOPER: That's all the time we have.
CNN's coverage of the Harris-Trump presidential debate continues after this break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
