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CNN Live Event/Special
Kamala Harris Faces Undecided Voters At CNN Town Hall; Harris Says, Trump's Reported Praise Of Hitler Is Serious Issue; Harris Faces Voters Less Than Two Weeks Before Election; CNN Covers The Presidential Town Hall; CNN Fact-Checks V.P. Harris' Claims. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired October 23, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:04]
KAMALA HARRIS (D), U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've traveled the country. I know that we can invest in a clean energy economy and still not ban fracking, and still work toward what we need to do to create more jobs and create U.S.-based jobs in a way that will be globally competitive.
On the issue of law and order, as you mentioned, I think there's just a whole lot of misinformation, to be honest with you. I have personally prosecuted very serious crime. It's how I started my career. I spent most of my career as a prosecutor, not in Washington, D.C., and as my first priority, had -- and remains as a first priority to me, the safety of the American people.
So that has not changed. And sadly, I think that there is a bit of misinformation, if not more than a bit. But I'm glad that you raised the subject so that I can address it.
COOPER: You...
HARRIS: But -- but -- but just, if you don't mind, just let me just finish.
COOPER: Sure.
HARRIS: Because I think the -- the -- the spirit of your question is really important, and I'm glad you raised it. Our country deserves to have a president of the United States who is not afraid of good ideas and does not stand on pride. If a perspective needs to be informed by different points of view to build consensus and to have a common-sense approach, I'm never going to shy away from good ideas. And I'm not going to feel the need to have pride associate with a position that I've taken, when the important thing is to build consensus to fix problems.
I believe in fixing problems. I love fixing problems. And so I pledge to you to be a president who not only works for all Americans but works on getting stuff done. And that means compromise. And it doesn't mean compromising your values or your principles, but it does mean working to get stuff done. And I pledge to you, I will do that. COOPER: Just to be clear, though, what he's referring to, and you point out, too, when you were running for vice president in 2020, you were not talking about banning fracking, but...
HARRIS: No, no, I -- no, Anderson, I pledged that I would not ban fracking.
COOPER: Right, I know. You said you would not ban fracking.
HARRIS: Correct.
COOPER: You know, you had said in a 2019 town hall, "There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking." In 2017, you were talking about Medicare for all. You talked about, in 2019, you raised a hand in a debate about if border crossings should be decriminalized.
Are all of those issues which -- those are not your positions now -- are all those issues that you're saying, through consensus and getting stuff done, you have evolved on?
HARRIS: Well, no, let's take, for example, the issue of Medicare. My point has always been that access to healthcare should not just be a privilege of those who can afford it; it should be a right for all people.
So that is why I have worked on doing what we have done to, one, allow Medicare to negotiate against the big pharmaceutical companies to bring down the costs of prescription medication. We've -- we've achieved that in terms of capping the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month, capping the cost of annual prescriptions at $2,000 a year for seniors.
But my plan, moving forward, based on that very principle that I've always had, is, as president, to have that cap be for everyone and not just for our seniors.
The work that I have done that has been about recognizing the importance of dealing with border security, that has never changed. As I said, I have prosecuted transnational criminal organizations. That I did for years, before I ever ran in 2019.
COOPER: I mean, you did raise your hand saying in a debate, when asked if border crossings should be decriminalized. But obviously that is not your -- your position?
HARRIS: I never intended, nor do I -- will I ever allow America to have a border that is not secure. I believe we need to deal with illegal immigration, There needs to be consequences, which is why part of my plan that I have outlined -- and, again, please go to KamalaHarris.com. Sorry to throw a website on you, but why not?
(LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: And you will see that part of my plan includes what we need to do to actually do more as it relates to putting resources in, including increasing penalties for illegal crossing. COOPER: And just finally, on fracking, you said -- you're clear you would not ban it as president...
HARRIS: No, I would not ban it as president.
COOPER: Right, I know you're -- you're clear on that. Do you think it is bad for the environment, though?
HARRIS: I think that we have proven that we can invest in a clean energy economy; we can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions; we can work on -- and sustaining what we need to do to protect this beautiful Earth of ours and not ban fracking.
COOPER: Time is short, so I want to get some more voters in. Taneisha Spall from Lansdowne Pennsylvania. She works as an education administration manager for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, registered Democrat who says she's leaning toward supporting you, has yet to make her final decision.
Tanisha, welcome.
TANISHA SPALL, EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION MANAGER, PA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: Thank you Anderson.
Thank you, Madam Vice President...
HARRIS: Thank you.
SPALL: ... for joining us this evening.
HARRIS: Of course.
SPALL: I appreciate that you did acknowledge that we are a country that is faced with problems and issues, with the Supreme Court being plagued with issues. Would you be in favor of expanding the court to, say, 12, so each justice has only one circuit court other than chief justice to assist in making judgments more balanced?
[22:05:12]
HARRIS: Well, to your point, I -- there is no question that the American people increasingly are losing confidence in the Supreme Court, and in large part because of the behavior of certain members of that court and because of certain rulings, including the Dobbs decision and taking away a precedent that had been in place for 50 years, protecting a woman's right to make decisions about her own body.
So I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the court and we can study what that actually looks like, but I do believe -- but again, let's just -- while you raise the point of the court, understand that, again, in 13 days, the American people will decide who is the next president of the United States. In 13 days, you will decide who is sitting in the Oval Office on January 20th.
And on one hand, you have in Donald Trump someone who has increasingly proved himself to be unstable, and who as we have established and the people close to him have established, he's unfit to serve, somebody who on January 20th, you can be sure will spend full time like we know and we've seen the image mentally of him sitting in the dining room off of the Oval Office watching for hours as people violently attack the Capitol. You can be sure because he has said he would weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies that you can look at a Donald Trump in the White House after January 20th, sitting in that Oval Office, plotting his revenge.
He has talked about the enemies within.
We haven't even raised that subject, Anderson.
The enemies within -- he's talking about the American people. He's talking about journalists, judges, nonpartisan election officials. He has talked about, as John Kelly has talked about, can he send the military after peaceful protesters?
And he's going to sit there unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list.
I'm going to tell you, my list will be a list of how I address and continue to address the issues that you all are raising this afternoon in the evening. It will be a to-do list about how we can impact the American people and lift up the American people and address some of the challenges that we continue to face.
COOPER: I want to get one last questioner in. This is Elkan Pleat. He's a student at Temple University, registered Democrat, leaning towards voting for you, has yet to make up his final decision.
Elkan?
ELKAN PLEAT, STUDENT AT TEMPLE UNIVERSITY: Hi. First of all, go Birds, and hi from -- I'm from Danville, California.
HARRIS: Oh, hi, Elkan.
PLEAT: But my question is, what is the proudest moment of your political career thus far, including when you were the A.G.?
HARRIS: Oh, that's a great one.
I've actually had a few. One of them is I as attorney general of California created what I named the -- Bureau of Children's Justice for -- and you may be familiar with that as a Californian.
And it was -- it was because I believe that frankly we still have a lot to do in terms of policy that impacts children, and an investment in the children of our country is an investment in all of us and our future, and that work has actually produced significant results. That has been a proud moment for me, was a proud moment for me to -- to do the work that we've been doing that has addressed issues like maternal mortality.
I mean, it's -- it's in response to an incredible tragedy but lifting up that issue in a way that we agree that America should not have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
So I have had the good fortune of -- in my life as a public servant knowing the impact that we can have, and I guess that is probably what motivates me most because I know we can make a difference. I really do.
And I do believe that the American people deserve a president who's going to be hardworking and, you know, will make mistakes from time to time, but is focused on you. And I think that is so fundamental in this election, so fundamental.
You deserve a president -- I believe the American people deserve a president who's saying, look, let's just be practical let's get things done and let's not be afraid of having a little joy to the point of, you know, what gives you -- what makes you feel good about your work.
Let's -- let's do it in a way that is grounded in optimism. You know, the thing that I think we all know about who we are as the American people, we are people who are ambitious. We have aspirations. We have dreams.
We are inherently optimistic, inherently optimistic.
[22:10:02]
And I -- I think people are exhausted with the idea that we're just going to be divided and angry instead of working on the problems and working together. And that's what motivates me, and that's what makes me proud when we're able to do that, so.
COOPER: Vice President Kamala Harris, thank you very much.
HARRIS: Thank you.
COOPER: Appreciate it, thank you.
HARRIS: Thank you, Anderson. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: And thanks for watching. Thanks to all the voters here. Be sure to join CNN on November 5th for "Election Night in America" right here on CNN. Jake Tapper and Erin Burnett pick it up right now.
(APPLAUSE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Anderson, thank you. You've been watching CNN's Town Hall with Vice President Kamala Harris and undecided voters less than two weeks from the election. A lot of tough questions for the vice president there. It seemed as though the voters were divided into three basic groups, liberals who had not heard enough from her, progressives worried that she was not progressive enough, and Republicans who are wary of Donald Trump and wanting to hear more from the vice president.
She focused a lot more on Donald Trump, I think it's fair to say, than she did on many specifics in terms of what she would do as president, but she did go into some of her plans for small businesses and the like. Of course, with only 13 days to go, and Trump and Harris fighting over these last few undecided voters and, in fact, trying to get undecided voters to even vote. We'll see whether or not she achieved what she needed to achieve this evening.
Dana Bash, your thoughts.
DANA BASH, CNN HOS: Well, I'll just tell you what I'm hearing from people who I have been talking to, and that is that if her goal was to close the deal, they're not sure she did that. And, you know, some people have asked if she being held to a different standard, maybe, but that's maybe the world that she's living in. And on the question of who she is, people are understanding that a little bit more, but what she will do, the question about her legislative priorities, name one, there wasn't one. You know, some more of her personality and her sort of character questions about your weaknesses or what mistakes did you make, not necessarily the answers there.
Having said that, any time that she can be in front of an audience and interacting with voters is a win as far as her campaign goes and they are very happy about that.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: I thought her drawing the contrast with Trump is something that she's been really trying to do in the last several weeks that we've seen, where she's gone after him as unstable, unfit for the presidency, saying he doesn't belong behind the seal of the office anymore after he suggested terminating the Constitution.
She had a new angle for that tonight, and that's because of John Kelly, his former chief of staff, coming out with his on the record comments yesterday, saying he met the definition of a fascist and that he's admired Hitler. That was something that she was within seconds of taking the stage and that first question from Anderson where she said that, yes, she agrees Trump is a fascist, where she took that moment and tried to really sharpen it and make news out of it from where -- you know, she's been talking about this for weeks, but tried to draw that contrast even further for a lot of people, including the people in this audience who are undecided and maybe have not heard those comments or aren't familiar with what John Kelly has been saying. I thought it was really interesting that she came out of the gate. And that was one of the first things that she was talking about the town hall.
TAPPER: Although, John, I do wonder, I mean, I think after eight years of Donald Trump, people are aware of Donald Trump's persona, his proclivity for controversy, his potential to offend and the like. And I wonder if you think maybe she did too much of what Kaitlan's talking about.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that is a fascinating question, is how do you balance it, right? How much time do you have with any voter, whether it's in a T.V. ad or it's in a town hall? In that time that you have, they're watching you. What is your priority, right? This is how much time I have, what do I want to tell you? How do I want to use that time? Donald Trump is more popular than he's been. He's now -- in this race, his political standing is higher in this race at this point than it was in 2016 or 2020. And so she does need to push Donald Trump down. That is her priority. She does need to push, just try to disqualify Donald Trump, try to remind people who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, who are thinking about going back to Trump because of their pre-COVID Trump economy nostalgia, or he's done the job before, and I don't know her, she needs to remind them of that. Then you got to quickly make that pivot.
And to Dana's point, I think she did some of it tonight. I was about to say she didn't do enough of it, and then I thought she closed very strongly with the values part. She did the, we, we the American people, but that's what voters ask you. Who is she, right?
The faith part was interesting. People at home might agree or disagree with it, but she talked about herself, what animates her, that she prays sometimes twice a day with a little smile.
[22:15:06]
You know, that's not an issue for voters. That's not taxes. That's not abortion. That's not spending. That's not national security, but it's who is your president when hard things happen. And people just don't know it. That may not be fair to her. She got the nomination in July. She's a vice president. People don't know a lot about their vice president. Some of this has nothing to do with her. It's with her job and who she is.
At the end, the value part, we get things done, pragmatic. Why does it have to be so partisan? There was some of it there. Where I think she fails sometimes is to connect it more to her policies, right? This may be my fault. I've done ten of these. So, I'm always living last prior campaigns and everything, ten elections.
You know, Bill Clinton ran on the same economic agenda she is. I'm going to raise taxes on the rich, and I'm going to cut taxes on the middle class. Democratic consultants at the time told him, don't do it. Don't raise taxes. Don't say you're going to raise taxes. They're going to say you're Walter Mondale. They're going to say you're Michael Dukakis. They're going to push you left. He had a brand where he could look people in the eye and say, I'm on your side. I'm fighting for the middle class, putting people first. That's the connection she has to make to that, that you can trust me.
BASH: Which is why she talks about her middle class upbringing all the time.
KING: The personal part is sometimes missing. And, again, it may be unfair to her to your point about a different standard, because she has not taken the time as vice president or they did not let her take the time as vice president to more develop her brand so that in crunch time you know who she is.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Yes. I mean, I was listening to the questions from the voters. And a lot of them centered around the same couple of concerns. I mean, they're worried that she's too liberal. They want to know how she might work with Republicans. What would Washington be like with Kamala Harris as president? And you heard her repeat time and time again, she wants to be practical. She likes common sense solutions. She's willing to work with the other side of the aisle. I thought that was actually what she needed to do tonight. She needed to say that. in response to some of these questions.
The thing I think that kind of got her tripped up at certain times was when certain voters were asking to drill down actually on some policy, and she didn't want to go there, didn't want to get into some specifics and you might understand why that is, but it's tough for her because I think that that comes across as evasive to some voters who are looking -- they just want to know, are my taxes going to go up if I make $500,000 a year or not? It's very tricky for her.
So, you know, I thought that, that they knew what they needed to do and she did it. But, but to your point, John, in a way, when she answered that question about what is my weakness, and the answer was basically like, I got a lot of inputs from a lot of people and I like a lot of information, her answers read that way. I kept looking for what is the 32nd summary of this answer, and sometimes she would get to it all the way at the very end. You know, it's really a kind of inverted pyramid sort of thing. She needs to get to that at the beginning.
COLLINS: That's why the immigration (INAUDIBLE) was so fascinating.
PHILLIP: So that people understand what she's really about.
COLLINS: Because you talk about the economy, immigration obviously is the other number one concern that voters have. And when Anderson was talking to her, it was actually your town hall, Jake, that you did with her in 2019 when she said that Trump's border wall was a medieval vanity project and that she would never support one, talking about legislation on Capitol Hill. And, obviously, the bipartisan border bill that she's talking about, you know, things change when you're actually in office and you're, you're governing, that she would support has money allocated for the border wall, which Anderson, you know, pressed her on. Do you now -- and she was saying it's the way that Trump was trying to get it, obviously promising Mexico would pay for it, but that's a really important issue for voters.
TAPPER: Let's listen in, because she's talking to --
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Can we have somebody follow up with this gentleman, please? Okay. Okay. Hi. Hi. Thank you for your question. Thank you for the time. Thank you, guys. Please. Thank you. Thank you for that.
And you know how I feel. This is the thing about the non-abortion. This is not a conversion, right? It's -- literally, no one should be judged on any level, and the -- it's just my point is the government shouldn't be telling people what to do. It is not about ever disputing or criticizing anyone's faith, ever, never.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)? HARRIS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We talk so much about the, the right of the woman in those situations. But there's another person.
HARRIS: right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that other person, sometimes it's oftentimes --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as it's not the government involved.
HARRIS: And that's the point. It's just that the government shouldn't be doing that, you know? But I appreciate you asking your question and raising the point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. And you have a role as a moral leader too.
HARRIS: Yes. Yes, that's right.
(CROSSTALKS)
HARRIS: Thank you all. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for the question, Jackson. Thank you all. Okay. Take care, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
TAPPER: All right. I'm sorry to interrupt getting some candid Q and A there. Obviously, she knows that the camera's on her, but still.
BASH: That was interesting.
[22:20:00]
I mean, for those of us who have -- you know, I think it's fair to say it's a privilege to be able to spend time with any vice president or presidential candidate, as we all have. That was more Kamala Harris right there having a conversation, which, again, is exactly what the campaign was going for with this town hall. It is not as easy when you're actually under the lights with the microphone knowing that it's a more formal setting and that was the informal setting.
TAPPER: And let me just take one second to acknowledge when we talk about whether or not she's being held to a different standard. I mean, Donald Trump, we invited Donald Trump to be here. This was supposed to be a debate night. She accepted. He did not. So, we said, okay, let's have two town halls. She accepted. He did not. The reason that we are not critiquing Donald Trump's performance at a town hall this evening is because Donald Trump did not agree to participate in a town hall here in Delaware County, and she did.
So, yes, it's inherently unfair. That said, we're journalists, we're going to keep talking about what we saw tonight.
BASH: And I'm glad you said that because when I just kind of glossed over saying, is she being held to a double standard, we don't know what Donald Trump's healthcare plan is. It is the concept of a plan. We don't know what a lot of his plans are for the future. We know basic things like tariffs and others, but that's just not his thing. And the idea of Donald Trump as a president, maybe people are giving him more leeway because of what they saw in the past with the economy, those who are very scared of what he could do in the future, they're already not voting for him.
But can I just really quickly say one thing about where we were before on immigration and the question that Anderson asked and pressed on based on that initial town hall that you had way back when about the border wall? She's not only vice president, but she's a former senator. And the answer to that is that's what we do when we compromise. We give a little, we take a little. I don't love a border wall, but if he's willing to do X, Y, and Z, that's what we're going to do. That's what --
TAPPER: But why doesn't she say that?
BASH: That's --
KING: I don't know. Quickly, to that point, I think sometimes what you see and what people who like her and support her see, and are trying to help her with, is inexperience. She ran in California. It's not competitive. She ran a short primary campaign in, what, 2019 and early 2020 and she didn't do very well.
TAPPER: Not even early 2020.
KING: And then she was the vice president of the United States, and you're out campaigning in pre-arranged groups and stuff. You know, what would Bill Clinton tell you? Losing an election made him a better candidate. Barack Obama was not a good candidate when he started running in 2007. His staff had to get him in the room and say, shorten your answers, make it more personal. Do what she just did.
That to me, I watch, when I watch politicians, it's do they grow? Are they better tomorrow than they were yesterday? Her decision to go in here and take the time, including the gentleman in the end, we couldn't hear it all, but he didn't like some of her answer, or thought she didn't quite --
TAPPER: Well, he's anti-abortion, he's pro-life.
KING: But she took the time to go over to him. Respect is a missing word in our politics. And so he's going to go home, he lives in a state where, you know, a couple thousand votes are going to decide the election. He's going to go home and say, maybe I still disagree with her, but she took the time to talk to me. That helps.
TAPPER: Well, and one of the points about this primary process and how there wasn't one is that the Democratic nominee did not have the opportunity to have -- I covered Obama in 2007 and there were some times and it's hard to even imagine just because he's one of -- you know, known for being one of the most brilliant orders of our day, but he was awful.
KING: There are people in Iowa who still joke, he's at their house party. TAPPER: He'd go to James --
KING: 15 years later.
TAPPER: He was petulant and he was annoyed. He didn't want to be there. And he and Axelrod and those guys had to kick him -- kick the snot out of him and say, what are you doing? And also like meeting those voters, honestly, it humbles you.
KING: She's trying to do something that's just never been done.
COLLINS: She also has an issue that she didn't have in 2019, abortion. The way she was talking about it up there tonight, obviously since Roe vs. Wade, talking about the women who have lived under restrictive abortion bans in states that have put these laws into place since Roe v. Wade was overturned. If immigration was one of her most uncomfortable issues, which it typically has been, abortion was one of her most comfortable issues on that stage tonight and talking about that. And that was the question that voter that she was speaking to at the end had saying she doesn't believe the government has a role in that.
And so that's been obviously, you know, one of the indicators that we've been watching in these closing days is just how high on the priority list that is for these voters who are undecided and persuadable.
TAPPER: Yes. One of the -- you talked about that when she was asked about her biggest flaw, and she talked about it and it was, oh, I like to get a lot of input from a lot of different voices.
PHILLIP: She thinks it's actually a strength.
TAPPER: Right.
PHILLIP: Other people think it's a flaw.
TAPPER: Yes.
PHILLIP: I mean, look, I think --
TAPPER: That's a tough question, by the way.
PHILLIP: It is a really good question. You'd be hard pressed to find a politician who would eagerly offer up a flaw.
But I do think that she answered it accurately. I mean, if people who work for her, and I've talked to a lot of them, she is a very deliberative person.
[22:25:02]
She really does kind of want to know all of the information and poll all of the different people who have different perspectives. If we want to tie it back to the performance that we saw here on this stage, this is what makes these types of moments challenging for Kamala Harris.
The thinking on her feet, the ability to sort of take something that maybe she's not sure exactly how it's going to come to her and pivot it in a way that really drives at her goals, she is improving in that respect. Growth, as John said, we've seen it since the beginning. And I think that's why we're seeing so much more of her, is that she is getting more comfortable out there and you can tell.
The thing is though. 12 days left. I mean, it's not a whole lot of time, but she's got to do that every single day, maybe three or four times a day until November 5th.
TAPPER: So, Erin Burnett, let me, let me tell you a quick little anecdote about the what's your biggest flaw story. So, one time in 2008, Obama and Edwards and Hillary were on a debate stage, and that was one of the questions, what's your biggest flaw? And Obama went first and he said, I'm really messy and my desk is a mess and it's awful. And then Hillary went, and she basically said, I work too hard. I work too hard for the American people. And then Edwards went, and he said, I care too much. I care too much about the American people. And then they went back to Obama, and Obama said, wait, hold on, I want to do mine again. I didn't know that we were supposed to give nonsense. Anyway, back to you.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Yes, it's like the old, when you prepare for an interview, you know, what's your, what's your greatest weakness? I just can't stop working. I don't know how to -- don't know self-care.
All right, okay, what stood out to you, David?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think it was a mixed night. Okay. I think she was very strong coming out of the gate and she obviously came with a purpose, which she wanted to -- they want to shine a focus on, you know, this latest chapter with the Hitler story of John Kelly, but, generally, anti-democratic behavior and the threat that represents. And she obviously was well prepared for that. She was very strong on, as she has been on abortion rights because she feels passionately about it.
She could be clinical on some of these economic issues. She was great on the long-term care for the elderly, to help people in the (INAUDIBLE).
BURNETT: So, the anecdote about helping a mother put on her sweater in her final days.
AXELROD: The things that would concern me, and then I -- she did one thing at the end that I thought was really important. The things that would concern me is when she doesn't want to answer a question, her habit is to kind of go to word salad city, and she did that on a couple of answers. One was on Israel. Anderson asked a direct question, would you be stronger on Israel than Trump? And there was a seven-minute answer, but none of it related to the question he was asking.
And so, you know, on certain questions like that, on immigration, I thought she missed an opportunity because she would acknowledge no concerns about any of the administration's policies, and that's a mistake. Sometimes you have to concede things, and she didn't concede much.
But I'll tell you something. John King mentioned Bill Clinton. No one's going to be Bill Clinton, but you do want to relate to the people in front of you. She didn't do a lot of that. She didn't ask them questions. She didn't address them particularly. So, she was giving set pieces too much. But she said something at the end that I thought should be actually a frame, if they want to go down this road, this is a great frame, she said he'll have an enemies list, I'll have a to-do list, and the to-do list is going to be the concerns you mentioned tonight.
I think that is a fundamental argument here. What are their respective motivations and who's going to actually work on the stuff that is going to impact positively on your life?
BURNETT: Right. You mentioned the question back and forth with Anderson about Israel and that was actually structurally in the way that this town hall was conducted. She talked about Gaza and then was talking about Israel and anti-Semitism, back-to-back, which I know stood out to you.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I think that she is running into an incredible challenge this cycle of you don't want to alienate Jewish voters who are heartbroken after October 7th. They want the hostages released. They want a ceasefire deal, and then the Gaza protestors who are critical in Michigan, where you've got a huge Arab population. And I worry that the fear to answer either side of the question makes her alienate both communities.
I thought that was one of the weaker moments. There's a direct way to answer the issues with anti-Semitism and, by the way, point them to a history of anti-Semitic actions by the former president, dining with an avowed neo-Nazi, Nick Fuentes, Charlottesville, his language after that.
I think those could have been a stronger moment. She's clearly very nervous.
BURNETT: She didn't bring any of those things up.
GRIFFIN: Yes, those are key constituencies.
But what I thought she did extraordinarily well is they clearly have data that this John Kelly story, the unfitness, the danger of Donald Trump is breaking through to people, because it was almost like, what was the score of the baseball game? And it was like, well, John Kelly and generals warned this. I think that they know that works with a swath of voters that are still gettable now because that came up in pretty much every other answer to that.
PHILLIP: She kept going back to it.
[22:30:20] GRIFFIN: And I do think it's powerful. And I would add personal stories. She shows a humanity that Donald Trump just doesn't have the same ability to convey. He certainly didn't take care of an ailing parent. He hasn't talked about that. He hasn't talked about his faith in great detail. He hasn't cited scripture or pride. Those are her moments where I think you see a little more of her and the public needs that.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, there were flashes. No, there weren't. There weren't.
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's generous of you.
JONES: You'll get your turn, brother. But there were flashes of the Kamala that I know, who is really a true public servant. She really does work for real people. And in the back of her mind, she is trying to figure out, how do I solve the problem? She sometimes skips, even in person, she'll sometimes skip the human part and get to the problem solving part.
But there were flashes of it. And I think the question, if you're at home trying to figure this out, you can ask, well, could she has done this, could she has done this better? Your job isn't to do town halls. Your job is to fight for people. Does she seem like somebody who is going to take seriously the problems of ordinary people and try to get an answer?
And I think that she -- think she passed that test. I think that the word salad stuff gets on my nerves. I think that some of the evasions are not necessary. But when she's talking about trying to get you a house, I believe her. She's like, look, I'm trying to get you to help for your mama who's sick. I believe her.
When she's talking about, I'm going to do what I can to bring prices down, I may not agree with those tools but I believe she's going to try to apply them. And so, I believe that this is somebody who actually cares about people and I think that she passed that test tonight. On the -- on how she did it and some of that stuff, some stuff got on my nerves, but I believe that she is going to
BURNETT: But you just got to these flashes. But then your follow up seems like a much more -- brighter endorsement.
JONES: Yes, yes. But I'm saying that there were flashes of the person. I didn't get a chance to say, I got interrupted. I got flashes of the person I know -- the flashes of the person I know that I've seen as a district attorney at the grassroots level in San Francisco fighting for regular people, giving young people an opportunity. So, one of those young people, by the way, is going to Congress. I know this woman, and there were flashes of that. And then some of this stuff, you know, it got lost in the sauce.
URBAN: I think Republicans would take another hour of Kamala Harris, we'd just press play, let her keep going. We'd pay for another hour to let her keep not answering the questions. I think Anderson's asking her, why haven't you done it? You've been there for four years. Why have you done any of this? And the word salad answer she gave to that was just mind-boggling. It made -- it's blown up the internet, her answer to that question.
I think the things that are troubling for people were her responses to, you know, Van said, what you going to do to reduce costs when they asked her at the beginning that we're hurting economically. She said, I'm going to prosecute corporations, right? That's not going to lower costs. How are you going to make things better for me? I'm going to prosecute people.
Trump bad is not a message that's going to -- is going to elect -- going to get her elected. Trump bad message, I disagree with you, Alyssa, there. I don't think it's going to happen.
GRIFFIN: You're referring to the bringing up the Hitler and Atlantic article.
URBAN: You have to bring something else, hey? Was she for a wall or was she against a wall? I couldn't tell from her answer, right? You know, Anderson kept asking her, well, listen, you laughed at the wall, but now it's in your plan. Are you for or against it? There was so much mishmash in there. I don't know what was going on.
I think it's very generous to say that she showed up, right? I think the key -- if she loses here in this race, people are going to look back and her team is going to say, we should have been doing this from the very get-go, because reps make you better, right?
And the more you do this, the better you get. She's still not at it. We're 13 days out from an election and everyone's hoping she is going to get better. "The Wall Street Journal" just came out with a poll while we were -- while this was going on. She's losing altitude rapidly. Rapidly.
JONES: If you believe that Paul.
BURNETT: Van, Van, but, okay. When Alyssa -- you had the conversation, you and Sunny and she said she wouldn't do anything differently than Biden. Okay, every interview she's done since has asked that very question. It's a very basic one. It got asked again tonight and the answer was, there was still not an answer to it. It didn't really feel.
JONES: Well, I think that the answer is she's talking about how she is different. And she talks about her biography in a way that I think does relate. I wish she would say, look, we did this and it didn't work. I would do this again. I'd like those kinds of answers better. I'm not sure this is a media environment that wouldn't punish those answers.
But what she does lean into is the things in her biography that are different, not only from Biden, but from Trump and frankly, anybody else. I don't know anybody else who's run for president who had to help their mom in the very intimate ways that she had to. AXELROD: You said some things that I think are really important. She talks about -- she hits the right notes on the economy and sometimes she does it well.
[22:35:04]
Sometimes, and I've said this before, when she's talking about abortion rights or when she's talking about the, you know, framework of our democracy and so on, she's passionate and persuasive. When she talks about some of these economic issues, it sounds a little like she learned, she speaks the right language, but from Berlitz. And you know, it would be really valuable to insert human beings into the stories, into the answers.
JONES: And when she does it, it's powerful.
GRIFFIN: Well, and I do think coming to a Republican ad near you will be the court-packing answer because it was a non-answer to something that's a very specific question, and that is something that, to Republicans, is a very un-native issue.
URBAN: It's also ending the filibuster, she said.
BURNETT: She said she was looking at it.
URBAN: She said she looks at stuff, she's looking at stuff.
JONES: Donald Trump says he's going to be a dictator, and you're worried about it.
GRIFFIN: It's going to eliminate income tax.
URBAN: Ending the filibuster is a big deal.
JONES: She's looking at it. She's studying things.
BURNETT: I love how everyone can see what goes on here during it, because fights have been going on the whole time.
URBAN: Your point was well taken, right? If you're going to be different than Biden and if your message is, turn the page, right, we're turning the page, like, you've got to give some specific answers.
AXELROD: She's talking about -- she's --there are a lot of Americans who want to turn the page on the kind of craziness that we've seen from Donald Trump, this kind of incessant divisiveness and focus on his political enemies and serve on the promises of the American people. When she said, I just want to repeat this again. I would love to hear this 100 times between now and election day.
JONES: I agree. I agree.
AXELROD: "He's got an enemies list, I've got a to-do list."
URBAN: You're a better campaigner than she is. They need you. AXELROD: She said it. I'm just repeating it.
BURNETT: "Wall Street Journal" just said, who is going to bring needed change in the sub of this poll? Forty percent her, 47 or 49, I can't read my number here for him. But you get the point though.
JONES: Look. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are not taking the same exam.
BURNETT: Yes.
JONES: I think it bothers people. They're not taking the same exam. He gets to be lawless. She has to be flawless. That's what's unfair. That's what's unfair tonight. They're not taking the same exam. Look, she has policies. She may not articulate them perfectly every time. She may not put the stories in the right places. But she's fighting for actual ideas that will help real people. And he's talking about people's penises. And so, they are not taking the same exam. And that's pissing people off. It's pissing me off.
GRIFFIN: Well, and I'm also old enough to remember that if your fiscal plans were actually said to bankrupt the Social Security Trust Fund in sooner years, Donald Trump's, that would be a campaign destroying issue, but we just gloss over things with Donald Trump. There's so much that's thrown at us, we just don't even digest it.
URBAN: I would just say this.
BURNETT: Okay.
URBAN: People must have such -- they just -- they don't believe her. Obviously, they just don't believe her at all because if they did then, she'd be soaring in the polls.
BURNETT: I mean -- her unfavorables in "The Wall Street Journal" poll that just came out are higher than his.
URBAN: Her unfavorables are?
BURNET: Okay.
JONES: By the way, nobody believes Trump, not even Trump.
BURNETT: I'm sorry. This will continue and then eventually they'll come back and you'll just, you know, it's like a soap opera. You're going to join right on in and it'll still be happening. Ahead, we're going to get a fact-check of the Harris town hall. We'll also get some live reaction from voters who were there in tonight's audience and their thoughts on whether they felt she answered their questions and whether she changed any minds. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:42:58]
TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN special live coverage. Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States and the Democratic nominee for president, just fielded questions from undecided and persuadable voters in this key battleground, Pennsylvania. One of those questions was how exactly a Harris presidency might be different than a Biden presidency.
The vice president told "The View" earlier this month that she couldn't think of anything that she would do differently, that she would just run it back, essentially. She later revised that. And here is what she had to say tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL NOMINIEE (D): My administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience. I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe that we have to actually take new approaches.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Some voters might ask, you've been in the White House for four years, you were vice president, not the president, but why wasn't any of that done over the last four years?
HARRIS: Well, there was a lot that was done but there's more to do, Anderson, and I'm pointing out things that need to be done that haven't been done but need to be done. And I'm not going to shy away from saying, hey, these are still problems that we need to fix.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: You know it strikes me what's interesting about the moment when right now is that we, in the media, are treating Vice President Harris like we treat a normal politician and we're critiquing her answers and we're talking about, well, she could have said this differently, she could have said that differently.
Meanwhile, the Republican nominee, literally, is talking about liberals being the "enemy within" talking about using the military to go after these people. His defenders say, oh no, he's talking about going after illegal immigrants or he's going after mobs in the street. And Trump will say, no, no, I mean going after the Pelosis, going after Adam Schiff, going after Democrats. And these campaigns are in two different universes.
COLLINS: Yes. You know what is a great example of that, Jake, is on that stage tonight, Vice President Harris called Trump a fascist, something she has not done before.
[22:45:05]
Obviously, she's only affirming what General Milley, his handpicked --
TAPPER: Former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.
COLLINS: -- that Trump handpicked to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General John Kelly, who was Donald Trump's longest serving chief of staff, he had several of them, obviously, had called him. That's why she was asked that question by Anderson.
And the former president is responding tonight. He just posted on Truth Social and I think we have what he said. He's saying that because of her polling that she's warped and that she is calling him Adolf Hitler. Now, that is what he says. She's increasingly raising her rhetoric going so far as to call me not to say that.
TAPPER: No, she didn't -- she did not say that.
COLLINS: Now, I should note, she did not call him Adolf Hitler.
TAPPER: No.
COLLINS: She said he's a fascist and J.D. Vance did once liken him to question whether or not he was America's Hitler. But just to be clear on, you know, what she did say tonight, but it does show how Trump is taking what she said on stage tonight and claiming she said that. It's not what she said, but she is trying to drive that message home.
And some people may say, you know, actually, immigration is a bigger deal, the economy is a bigger deal. I think she's trying to remind voters about this because as I was noting earlier, Betsy DeVos, one of Trump's cabinet secretaries who resigned because of January 6th, is now in donor meetings with him. It shows just how short-lived people's memories can be.
BASH: I also wonder why he has time to write a Truth Social post and not come here to talk to voters.
TAPPER: I don't think it's an issue of time, right?
BASH: Oh, you don't think so? No, but seriously, I mean, there is a lot of frustration in Harris' world that they feel like this is asymmetrical political warfare.
TAPPER: It's not just Harris's world. I mean, I heard from a Republican --
BASH: Yes.
TAPPER: -- tonight saying why, you know, Donald Trump wouldn't sit down with these voters and answer their questions, and nobody is saying, well, Donald Trump didn't have a three-point plan on student debt.
BASH: Well, we did.
TAPPER: Right.
BASH: We talked about the fact that he doesn't have -- he only has a concept of a plan and so forth.
PHILLIP: I mean, I just think that's the reality of this country. There's a large swath of this country that they're fine with what Donald Trump is saying that he's going to do. Mass deportation, for example, is the plan, right? Tariffs that pay for everything, that is the plan, according to Donald Trump, and a lot of this country is just fine with that. This is the difficulty that Vice President Harris has, is that you have to address both the need of --the legitimate need, honestly --
TAPPER: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- of some people in this room tonight, who just, they just want to know, like, what is my life going to be like, right? And maybe they don't like what Donald Trump has to say, but they just want to know what her answer is. But then, there's a whole swath of people who they're like, oh, what Trump is saying, that sounds good to me. So, I agree it's asymmetrical, but that is the race that she is running right now.
TAPPER: Yes.
PHILLIP: And that is why it's so hard for her --
TAPPER: It's also interesting because Democrats who are texting us all saying, oh, I wish she had done this, I wish she had done that, I wish she had done that. Republicans, Donald Trump comes out and says, we have an enemy within and we need to send the military after them.
PHILLIP: Yes.
TAPPER: Republicans are coming up with ways in which they have to create another reality in which he didn't say what he said.
PHILLIP: Or to justify it. I mean, they are justifying it, as well.
TAPPER: Everyone, stick around because next we're going to have Daniel Dale with a fact-check of the town hall, plus we're going to hear from the voters who asked her questions. We're going to see what they thought of her answers, legitimate questions, we'll see what they thought. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:52:58]
BURNETT: All right, Vice President Kamala Harris has just wrapped up her CNN town hall in Pennsylvania. Let's go to CNN's Daniel Dale for a fact-check on some of her statements tonight. Dan, you've had a chance to go through a lot of things that were said. What stands out to you?
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, there wasn't a ton to fact- check tonight, Erin. Vice President Harris' comments were mostly general or biographical, subjective, or just accurate. But she also made at least one false claim, one I'd call an exaggeration, plus a couple others that I think left out key context. So first, let's listen to a claim the vice president made about her policy shift on fracking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL NOMINIEE (D): I've been very clear we kind of dispensed with this in 2020. I'm not going to ban tracking. I did not, as vice president, in fact. as vice president, I cast the tie breaking vote that now has opened up more fracking leases.
COOPER: And you point out to when you're running for vice president, 2020, you were not talking about banning tracking. But --
HARRIS: No, no, Anderson, I pledged that I would not ban fracking.
COOPER: Right, I know --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It is not true that Harris pledged in 2020 that she would not ban fracking as president. Her campaign has explained that she was referring to her comments in a V.P. debate with Mike Pence. But here's the thing about that debate. Nowhere in it did Harris say she had changed her own previous 2019 support for a fracking ban.
What she did say in that debate twice was that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would not ban fracking himself. I have the quotes here. She said, "Joe Biden will not ban fracking," end quote. And then she said, quote, "Joe Biden will not end fracking. He has been very clear about that."
She didn't say Kamala Harris wouldn't ban fracking as president. That made sense at the time. He was the candidate. But contrary to her claim tonight to Anderson, she did not pledge until this year that she personally would not support a fracking ban. Now, let's listen to something she said tonight about former President Trump's border wall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Remember, Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it? Come on, they didn't. How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw is about two percent.
[22:55:01]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: It is true Mexico didn't pay for the wall. That two percent figure, though, is at least somewhat too low. Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail in 2015, 2016 that we need a thousand miles of wall and during his presidency, 52 miles of new wall were built where no wall existed before. So, even that is more than five percent of his pledge.
And he also built an additional 406 miles to reinforce or replace previously existing border barriers. Much of that replacement wall, guys, was significantly bigger and more daunting than the previous barrier so I think, you could argue it should count, too. Now, finally, let's play something the vice president said about Trump's 2017 tax cuts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS: Sadly, Donald Trump, when he was president, gave tax cuts to the richest to billionaires and big corporations which added trillions of dollars to our deficit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: It is absolutely true that according to independent analysts, the wealthiest Americans got the biggest benefits from those Trump tax cuts. So, this Harris claim is not false. But I think it's worth noting something she didn't mention, and that's that Americans of all income levels got tax cuts from this 2017 law.
The Non-Partisan Tax Policy Center found in early 2018 that the law, quote, "will reduce individual income taxes on average for all income groups and in all states". The think tank estimated that about 65 percent of households would get a tax cut in 2018, and between 60 and 76 percent of taxpayers in each and every state. So, yes, indeed, the rich were the biggest winners from Trump tax cuts, but it certainly wasn't just for the rich.
BURNETT: All right, well, Daniel, thank you so much for going through that and all those -- to go through the specifics that there were to make sure everyone understands the facts. Thank you. And we are about to hear from some of those voters who were in the room tonight. Did vice president sway them one way or the other? So, John King is with them. He's going to ask them. You're going to see all of that right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
