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State of the Union

Interview With Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA); Interview With Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR); Interview With U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Interview With Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired September 08, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:52]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Face-to-face. Locked in a dead heat, the presidential nominees look to knock each other off their game.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm speaking.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Such a nasty woman.

BASH: What to expect Tuesday night from someone who debated Harris. Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg joins me exclusively next. And Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman will be here.

Plus: switching sides. It would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

FMR. REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris.

BASH: Will that encourage other never-Trump Republicans to follow?

Trump supporter Senator Tom Cotton joins me exclusively.

And unsafe at school. As Georgia grieves the victims of a school shooting, new questions after the family says the alleged shooter's mother called the school with a warning. How can these shootings be prevented? Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock is ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is getting ready for a critical debate.

In two days, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will take the stage in Philadelphia. And the new CNN poll of polls out this morning shows that their first and perhaps only presidential debate could not be more consequential.

The race between Harris and Trump is neck-and-neck, with no clear leader. And while a new poll shows Harris outpacing Trump with women, younger people, and black and Latino likely voters, Trump maintains strong support among men and older likely voters.

Harris is already in Pennsylvania in formal debate prep facing off against a stand-in playing Trump, while Trump's preparations are, as always, more informal. His advisers hope he will stay on message against Harris, who may try to needle him. But Harris also will look to answer voters' questions about her policies.

Here with me now is someone who has debated Kamala Harris on stage, 2020 presidential candidate for the Democratic primary back then Pete Buttigieg.

Thank you so much for being here.

So there is a "New York Times" poll out this morning, and it says 28 percent of likely voters said they still need to learn more about Harris. Only 9 percent say that about Trump. What does she need to do at the debate to fill in those blanks?

PETE BUTTIGIEG, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Well, I think the main task will be to make sure Americans understand the difference in visions and are reminded that they already agree with her on the issues that matter most to them.

But that's going to be challenging. I have competed with her for the Democratic nomination, and I had the honor of being involved in her debate preparations against Mike Pence. She is a very focused and disciplined leader.

But it will take almost superhuman focus and discipline to deal with Donald Trump in a debate. It's no ordinary proposition, not because Donald Trump is a master of explaining policy ideas and how they're going to make people better off. It's because he's a master of taking any form or format that is on television and turning it into a show that is all about him.

But the less we're talking about him and the more we're talking about you, the better it's going to be for the vice president, because she has laid out an agenda, things like making sure that our tax code is fair and protecting a woman's right to choose, that is, of course, the opposite of Donald Trump's agenda, which has been around tax cuts for the wealthy and his record of destroying the right to choose.

It's, again, an extremely challenging task in the face of all of the distraction, whatever outrageous things he does and says, because they will require a response. And yet you can't allow him to change the subject from the difference between his very unpopular set of policies and record and her vision for Americans' future.

BASH: I want to get to a couple of issues that are almost certain to come up, but you just mentioned that you were debating her and that you learned from that.

What did you learn? What should we expect that you experienced, as somebody who was jousting with her? [09:05:03]

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think about intellect and focus.

She's somebody who is extremely smart about getting to the core of an issue. That's what made her so effective as a DA, as a prosecutor, then as attorney general, and, of course, as vice president.

And one of the things I remember from those debate preparations when I was involved supporting her team four years ago was, any time some issue area or topic came up and we were kicking around statistics, ideas, arguments, she would always take it back to the question of, OK, how is this going to affect somebody at home?

And I think that's especially important right now with some of the issues at stake right now, for example, the Trump economic plan. Economists estimate that will cost about $3,900 for a typical American family going forward and really supercharge inflation.

But it's not going to be about getting into the niceties of economic modeling. It's going to be bringing that to the kitchen table and why people in their everyday lives will be so much better off with her in charge, growing small business, delivering a fair tax code, importantly, getting us a way forward on childcare affordability.

She has a plan for expanding the child tax credit, making sure that we have paid family leave in this country, two things we would have right now if Republicans weren't blocking them. And as we saw when Donald Trump was asked about childcare the other day, it wasn't clear whether he even understood the question.

BASH: I want to ask about Afghanistan, which is almost certain to come up in this debate, and, in particular, the chaotic withdrawal under the Biden administration from Afghanistan that left 13 service members dead.

In 2021, the vice president told me that she was the last person in the room on that decision and she was comfortable with the outcome. I want to make clear that was before the actual withdrawal happened, just after the decision was made.

Tomorrow, we expect the House Foreign Affairs Committee to release the findings of its three-year investigation into what happened. How does Kamala Harris defend what we all saw?

BUTTIGIEG: First of all, of course, I haven't seen what's in the report coming out tomorrow, but I do have a question about what they're doing over there.

If they have had three years to assess what happened, why are they delivering a report after Labor Day in a presidential election year? I think it really feeds in to a sense that this is something they're using as a political football.

Look, this administration made the decision not to allow this war to be inherited by a fifth president and to end that conflict. And this is on my mind a lot in September, not just because of the anniversary of the withdrawal, but because it was September 10 years ago that I left Afghanistan.

And when I left, again, 10 years ago, 2014, they told us we were some of the last troops, that they were turning out the lights, only to find that it passed on to another presidency and another presidency after that.

What's, of course, most at stake right now, as is true in any election, is our future. And what is going to be the future of American national security? Do we have adults, grownups in charge who understand the stakes, or do we have people who are incapable of taking even the most serious issues seriously?

And I think it's especially revealing and important that, among Trump's own advisers and appointees who have gone on to denounce him, to talk about him in scathing terms, to make clear that he has no business being president, so many of them come out of the national security side because they saw up close how dangerous it was to have him in charge of American national security and military affairs.

BASH: Well, let me ask you about something that you mentioned. You said that the timing of this report is political.

Couldn't both things be true, that it is political and politically advantageous for Republicans because the withdrawal was such a mess with regard to how -- not whether the U.S. should come out, but how it actually happened? And it is a political problem for the Biden administration?

Even privately, the people I talked to admit that. So how does Kamala Harris address that, since she was vice president?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think however you view the things that are going to emerge in the report, what's clear is that this -- America's longest war needed to be brought to an end.

And the question at stake in every presidential election is what's going to happen next. She is clear about the need to make sure that a place like Afghanistan never again becomes a haven for attacks on the homeland.

That's a counterterrorism policy and posture that is different from an open-ended presence over there, but also with all of the threats that America faces, whether it's making sure that Afghanistan is never again base for an attack on the homeland, whether it's what's going on in the Middle East, whether it's what's happening with China, whether it's the latest evidence of Russian interference in our own affairs or any number of other issues.

[09:10:05]

We need to make sure that the next president of the United States is somebody who is equipped to handle that with a view toward what is best for the American people and what is best for America's troops, not somebody who is obsessed with what is best for him, which I think is exactly what we're going to see on display from Donald Trump in the debate in a couple of days.

BASH: Pete Buttigieg, thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming on this morning.

BUTTIGIEG: Same here. Thanks very much.

BASH: And up next: A former Republican vice president says he is voting for Kamala Harris. Trump backer Senator Tom Cotton will be here to talk about that and much more next.

And it's likely to be the most important place on the map this November, Pennsylvania. I will talk to John Fetterman, the senator from Pennsylvania, about the state of the race there coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:18]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

We are counting down to the Trump-Harris debate on Tuesday, a big test for both candidates with such a tight race and early voting already starting this month.

Here with me now is a supporter of Donald Trump's, Republican Senator Tom Cotton.

Thank you so much for being here. Nice to see you in person.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Thanks, Dana. Good to be with you.

BASH: I want to start with some of the endorsements that Kamala Harris got this week, particularly from former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, the former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney.

We were talking before in the break. I covered the Bush/Cheney administration. I traveled a lot with Dick Cheney, one of the most conservative Republicans alive today. It's really remarkable that he endorsed a Democrat. What does that tell you about Donald Trump?

COTTON: Well, it is a remarkable time in politics. You have Dick Cheney endorsing a Democrat and you have a Kennedy endorsing a Republican.

I think what it tells us is that there's a lot of ferment in American politics. But, in the end, endorsements are not going to make the difference in this race. What's going to make the difference is their records. This is a very unusual presidential election.

We have a former president running for office, first time in more than 100 years. People remember that, when Donald Trump was in office, prices were low, wages were high, we had peace and stability around the world.

Kamala Harris, as vice president, has brought us record high inflation. We have a wide-open southern border and we have war everywhere you turn around in the world.

So, I know that endorsements sometimes make news, but most Americans are making their decisions based on the records of these two candidates. People remember that we had good times with Donald Trump. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have brought us very bad times.

BASH: I hear you about endorsements. We don't really know the impact that they have all the time. RFK Jr. hasn't had -- been in an elected office.

Dick Cheney was vice president of the United States for eight years. He was a senior member of the House. He was chief of staff to Gerald Ford. He worked tirelessly to advance Republican policies for a long time. You don't think his endorsement of a Democrat with that kind of pedigree is going to make a difference with the swing voters?

COTTON: No, Dana, I really don't.

BASH: Or never-Trump voters who weren't sure about Harris?

COTTON: Well, I mean, some of this is probably that Donald Trump beat his daughter in her last election by 39 points.

I think most Americans are going to look at this race and compare the records they have. Again, it's a very unusual race when you have a president who served in office, who brought good times to America, and you have Kamala Harris, a San Francisco liberal, who has brought to America exactly what you see in San Francisco as well.

BASH: I want to turn to a very different topic, and that is something that the Justice Department said this week. They detailed a Russian government effort to stoke divisions in the U.S. using front organizations and social media prominent right-wing influencers like Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson, who have ties to Tenet Media.

That's a company that the Justice Department says was being funded by Russian operatives. You sit on the Intelligence Committee. How worried are you that right-wing influencers, people who do have an impact on their constituents, are being funded, either directly or indirectly, by the Russian government in order to make an impact on this election?

COTTON: Well, first off, Dana, we haven't been in session, so I haven't seen any intelligence about this matter. I have only seen the allegations I have read in the newspaper.

People should not knowingly take money from the government of Russia or Iran or China or any other adversarial nation to try to influence the election. But I also think it's fair to say that a few memes or videos in the vast sea of political commentary is not going to make much of a difference in this election, nor has it in past elections as well.

What did make a difference in the last election is the lies about Hunter Biden's laptop that more than four dozen former intelligence officials lied about in the middle of that campaign. And most networks, including this one, bought that lie hook, line and sinker. That did make a difference in the election.

But I think a few videos or commentaries, which again, you shouldn't do if you're out there in the business of commentating on elections, is not going to make a difference in the vast sea of commentary we see.

BASH: It sounds to me like you're downplaying the fact that Vladimir Putin is using people like Dave Rubin, whose show you went on in February, as a tool for his propaganda.

COTTON: So I'm not downplaying Vladimir Putin's designs or Xi Jinping's designs or the ayatollahs' designs to try to influence our election.

[09:20:01]

But using money, using money, using money to try to promote memes or videos on the Internet is not exactly going to make a huge difference. Again, you shouldn't knowingly do that. I don't know if any of these people knowingly did it.

BASH: Have you -- do you know young people who they -- some people only get their information from those memes and videos.

COTTON: But, Dana, what really would be catastrophic is if a foreign government, say, hacked into the voter registration system during voting, or hacked into election machines and erased votes, or turned off the electricity in a big city on Election Day.

Those are things that are serious threats. A few videos and memes...

BASH: Are those active threats? Are you worried? Is that...

(CROSSTALK)

COTTON: I am worried about those kind of threats, sure.

BASH: Is that based on what you're being briefed on?

COTTON: It's based on the vulnerabilities that all of our infrastructure around the country has. That worries me a lot more than a few videos or memes.

Again, this is the kind of thing that foreign governments like Russia does, and no one should knowingly and winningly partake in it. But it's really not all that consequential in the grand scheme of things.

BASH: I want to ask you about another topic that is very much in the news this week, and that is the shooting in Georgia.

We have all been seeing the texts, the heartbreaking texts, especially as parents, of students saying "I love you" to their parents, students using their shirts off their backs to try to save their teacher.

Republican vice presidential nominee said after the shooting -- quote -- "I don't like that this is a fact of life," adding, "We don't have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in."

Do you accept that school shootings like this are just a way of life now?

COTTON: No, absolutely not. And J.D. Vance doesn't either. He said that he doesn't want them to be a fact of life.

And, this week, the Associated Press got caught distorting that quote from him so bad that they had to retract it. But here's what we also know about that shooting, even as we're still gathering all the facts. It wasn't as bad as it might have been because there was a police officer on the school premises that was able to neutralize the shooter.

Kamala Harris wants to take police officers out of school. She said it in the past. That's her position. It's not surprising because she's consistently taken positions against law enforcement throughout her career as a San Francisco liberal.

If that police officer hadn't been there, if Kamala Harris had gotten her way, many more students and teachers might have been killed.

BASH: She was attacked when she ran for president in the Democratic primary. They were calling her Kamala cop because she was the opposite of what you were saying.

But I just want to stay on this topic of school shootings, because you're right, it could have been so much worse. And they do have measures in place in this school. But the fact that there are mental health problems -- and we don't know exactly what was going on with this 14-year-old, 14 -- but there are mental health problems all across the world right now.

It's bad. The difference between other countries and this country is that it is being expressed with gun violence. Is it not time to figure out a way to mitigate that part of the equation, when it is affecting our children so often?

COTTON: Well, I think one way to mitigate that is to enforce the laws we have on the books. Donald Trump did that. We had a severe crackdown on criminals using guns.

Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have taken office, they have deprioritized that. They haven't focused on enforcing the laws that we have on the book. They focused on trying to take guns away from law- abiding citizens. That's not going to solve our crime problem.

What will solve our crime problem is actually cracking down on gun crimes. They have directed U.S. attorneys in many cases not to pursue gun charges because those gun charges come with stiff mandatory minimums, which Kamala Harris opposes.

BASH: So are these some of -- I mean, do you see any action in the offing at all in the wake of this once again, or is it just going to be enforce the laws on the books?

COTTON: Well, again, enforcing laws on the book is one way to stop gun crime. Another way is to keep police officers at schools.

Many schools across the country have police officers, but Kamala Harris and her friends on the radical left were successful in getting police officers out of many schools during the BLM riots in 2020 and what followed.

BASH: So Congress won't do anything?

COTTON: Well, look, most law enforcement happens at the local level. These police officers are not federal agents.

They're local police department officers. But, again, Kamala Harris and her friends on the radical left who oppose law enforcement, they wanted to get them out of schools. That's one way -- it's not the only way and it's not a silver bullet, but that's one way to help protect these schools, among many others.

BASH: Before I let you go, if Donald Trump wins, do you want to be defense secretary?

COTTON: I'm focused on Donald Trump winning, just as he's focused on winning. There's plenty of time for him to put together a great team after the election, which I know he will.

BASH: Somehow, I had a feeling that was going to be your answer, but I thought I would try anyway.

Senator, thank you so much for being here.

COTTON: Thanks, Dana.

BASH: We really appreciate it.

And Vice President Harris is in Pennsylvania for debate prep. I will talk to Senator John Fetterman about the race for every vote there next.

[09:25:00]

And then the tragic high school shooting that we were just discussing, I will speak with George to Senator Raphael Warnock ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Pennsylvania may end up choosing the next president. The race there is a dead heat. And, on Tuesday, presidential candidates will meet in Pennsylvania for what could be their only debate.

Here with me now is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

Thank you so much for being here, sir.

Kamala Harris is already there this weekend preparing for her debate against Donald Trump. You greeted her on the tarmac in Pittsburgh. What do you think she needs to do to win over key voters in Pennsylvania?

[09:30:06]

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Well, I mean, I really want to just point out that I haven't said anything different since back in 2016.

Back then, as the surrogate for Secretary Clinton, after my campaign, and now in '20, in now of 24, it's going to be very close. It's going to be very close. And we have to do everything that we possibly can to make sure and have the conversations with -- all across Pennsylvania in all kinds of rooms that may be hopelessly red kinds of counties, but it's going to be the -- won on the margins.

And I have always maintained that. And that's what happened in 2016 that Trump won. And then, of course, Joe Biden won by 80,000 votes. So I have been predicting this is going to be close regardless. And that's where we're at now. And that's why I'm committed to showing up all across Pennsylvania.

And people understand it's all about the choice, the choice. And it's not about policies or who has more money or talking about scandals or things -- kind of thing. People all have to ask themselves, what kinds of the next four years do we want? Do we want that kind of chaos and that kinds of -- absolute kinds of reckless and bizarre behavior from Trump?

Or do we want four more years of getting us through a pandemic and standing with our allies, like Ukraine or Israel, through all of that? And by any metric, our economy is the world's, absolute world's envy on that.

So I'm proud to stand with Joe Biden, and I'm absolutely proud to stand with Vice President Harris. And I also wanted to say that it's going to be a straight-up debate. She's going to do great, of course, but Donald Trump will be good too. I mean, we can all remember he wrecked all of the Republicans. He's a good debater.

But, at the end of the day, I don't believe this debate's going to be definitive because it's going to come down to this choice, and it's going to be close.

BASH: Senator, you have been saying nonstop a version of what you just said about going into the rural, redder areas of Pennsylvania.

But my question is, when you go in, what do you say? How do you convince those voters? And Kamala Harris will be effectively going in on this debate stage. What does she need to do to change the dynamic and make it less of a neck-and-neck race for the voters that you're talking about that she needs in your home state?

FETTERMAN: Like I said, she has an amazing career, and she definitely is a new way forward.

But if you like some of the kinds of things that Trump, the way he speaks, the kinds of things that he's done, the kind of record that he had as a president, and that kind of division, and that kinds of cruelty, and it's like, that's a stark choice, regardless of whether it was Biden or was Hillary Clinton as well.

Pennsylvania is always going to be close. And that's where we're at now. And it is a very, very stark choice. This isn't about nuance and it's about who is putting out the latest white papers and the kinds of obscure things. And that's why people -- I think a majority of Pennsylvanians are going to decide, hey, I want four years of order and fairness and unity and a different way forward.

And I don't think they want the kinds of dark days and chaos that Donald Trump provided for our nation.

BASH: I want to ask about what you were saying when Joe Biden was still running -- excuse me -- after the debate. You were one of his biggest defenders.

And you called the idea of replacing him the dumbest "blank" I have ever heard and said that walking away from Biden effectively was helping Trump.

Do you still believe that that is the case? Did that bear out, given where we are now?

FETTERMAN: No, but where I was that is that I do believe fundamentally that Joe Biden would have beaten Trump, and it was going to be very close, and I have always predicted that as well too, and now Harris.

And, again, she's had an amazing run so far and we're raising record amounts of money. And she's had an incredible all kinds over the last six weeks. But, right now, it's -- here we are, and it's going to be close. And it comes down to that very same, very stark choice.

I have said this. I challenge anybody, pull up anything that I have said about this -- kinds of elections all the way back eight years ago. I have said that it was going to be close, when everybody thought that Hillary Clinton was going to pull it away, and she wrecked him. She actually wrecked Trump objectively on the three debates.

And people thought that Joe Biden was going to win by three or five points, and I didn't think that was going to be the case. And, of course, we know how close that is. And now with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, it's going to be close to well too.

And I do believe she is going to prevail, because a majority of Pennsylvanians are going to decide that we won a new way forward and we don't want that kind of mess, this absolute chaos kinds of a thing.

[09:35:14]

BASH: Finally, I have to ask about something that is very specific to your state, but could be really consequential.

And that is President Biden reportedly set to block Japan's Nippon Steel from a $15 billion deal to acquire U.S. Steel. U.S. Steel gave a dire warning this week that blocking the deal would risk thousands of union jobs, even threatened to move their headquarters out of Pittsburgh.

Would this hurt union workers in Pennsylvania?

FETTERMAN: Well, that's appalling. The CEO has not behaved in any kind of an honorable way ever since.

I found out about that sale actually on your network. I was like, wow, what's going on? I mean, look here outside this window right there. That's -- the steel mill is right there. He was willing to throw all of these men and William -- excuse me -- women under that as well too.

And now I have been very clear throughout this. I'm going to follow the union. I am going to follow whatever they want. If they actually now come out in favor of this, then I'm going to support that. But if they're now against that, I'm going to support that too, because we -- and I'm always going to be on the right side for standing up for the union workers and the kinds of union jobs.

And I do fundamentally believe that steel is a national security issue.

BASH: So do you believe that President Biden should go ahead and block the sale?

FETTERMAN: Where I'm at, like I said, it's like, I am following the steelworkers. I always have. I made that commitment as a candidate. And I'm honoring that.

Now, as their senator, as a guy that actually is a member of the steel community -- I live across the street from that mill right now. And now what is the right thing and the best thing for the union workers and for these communities? And I support that. And that's why I'm going to continue to stand with the workers.

BASH: Senator John Fetterman, thank you so much for your time this morning. I appreciate it.

FETTERMAN: Thank you.

BASH: Up next: Hillary Clinton's advice to Kamala Harris on debating Donald Trump. We're going to get into that pretty remarkable stuff that she said. And we're also going to look at whether or not it's going to work.

My panel joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:12]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: ... who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. And that little girl was me.

TRUMP: Such a nasty woman. HARRIS: Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking.

TRUMP: Let me talk. Quiet.

HARRIS: America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we're going to put food on their table.

TRUMP: Look at those hands. Are they small hands?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Ah, memory lane. It's so nice to take a stroll every once in a while.

Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

We are just days away from the presidential debate in Philadelphia. My fantastic panel joins me now.

Bakari, I'm going to start with you, because you are a longtime supporter of Kamala Harris. I'm guessing you have a little insight into what she's planning. Go for it.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know if I have any insight, but if they are listening to me or Doug or anyone else, I would say you cannot get into a pissing match with Donald Trump, because he just brings a more full bladder.

I mean, you have to be magnanimous. You have to be presidential. You have to disregard him as being petty, as being small. And she has to reassure the American people that she is not the chaos that Donald Trump brings.

I think it's going to be a very good night for her, regardless of the spin afterwards. I think people are going to see a clear contrast. I mean, that's what I expect. Just be magnanimous. Make him look as small as possible. That shouldn't be that difficult.

BRYAN LANZA, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: She's going to look very liberal, and that's hard to be small when you're very liberal.

I think you have seen the polls recently that came out today, even the polls that came out last week. She's not the change agent, and she's now being viewed as radically liberal. That's what Donald Trump's going to talk about. He's going to compare his record as president to Joe Biden's record as president, and just show how dangerously liberal these policies have affected everyday families.

And you will probably see the most content-heavy, with respect to policy, that we have ever seen in a debate. I think we're probably going to have...

(CROSSTALK)

SELLERS: Record? From whom? From Trump?

(LAUGHTER)

LANZA: Yes, it's -- the record is clear. He wins the economic record. He wins the immigration record, and he's going to talk about those things. And families are suffering. I mean, families are struggling to make payments every month.

Families are extending their credit as a direct result of this Biden administration. The country wants change, and they don't think she's the change.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And the reality is, you shouldn't underestimate Donald Trump. He's now done more presidential race -- debates, I should say, than anyone in history. And he's somebody who came up on television.

He's a communicator. He's somebody who's used to speaking to a mass audience. If he can stay focused, and he stays to the core issues, economy, border, it's a good night for him. But we have also seen the world in which he shouts out the Proud Boys, or he talks about Hannibal Lecter, or he gets into name-calling. That could go against him.

To Kamala Harris, she needs to look presidential. We're incredibly backwards as a country that we have never had a female president. So for a lot of people seeing somebody up there who's a woman who might be our first female president, she needs to seem commanding. She cannot get to in the weeds on policy.

She needs to talk about it, but can't get sidetracked. Big picture, how will you demonstrably make people's lives better? How will you turn the economy around? If she can do that and not get rattled by Donald Trump, it'll be a good night for her.

DOUG THORNELL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Offense, offense, offense for the Harris team.

[09:45:02]

It's not about prosecuting a case against Trump. It's about her talking about the issues that middle-class families care about. How do we grow the middle class? How do we strengthen the middle class? When I have looked at a lot of testing on ads, in the -- her convention speech, when she's talking about middle-class families and their goals for the future, she does exceptionally well.

And framing this about the future versus the past is going to be very important for her. Trump is a very unpredictable debater, to say the least, but what typically happens with him is, he starts actually fairly disciplined.

After 15 minutes, he goes back to chaos and he wants to create a chaos situation in this debate. And then, sometimes, he runs out of gas. I have seen that in both his Republican debates and against Biden. If she can control the thermostat in that room, if she can control the argument, if she can talk to the American people, almost put Donald Trump aside, he -- she will win. And I have seen -- I think she has the discipline to do that. I think

she did that in her convention speech.

BASH: OK, so you all have advice and predictions.

I want to read to you what Hillary Clinton, which, as you said, debated him three times during the 2016 race, said in an interview, which to me was just remarkable that she talked about this so openly on the record.

"She," of course, Harris, "just should not be baited. She should bait him. He can be rattled. He doesn't know how to respond to substantive, direct attacks. When I said he was a Russian puppet and he just sputtered on stage, I think that's an example of how you get out a fact about him that really unnerves him."

SELLERS: I mean, that's so true. And that's why I kind of laughed when my good friend Bryan talked about the fact that it's going to be policy, substantive.

I mean, direct attacks against who he is, not only the character of the man, which we know is lacking, but also where he lacks substantively on policy -- we just heard this week a response on, how are you going to do affordable childcare? That response made absolutely no sense to anyone. It didn't make sense to our children, right? I mean, it was just a word salad.

He is diminished. He's not the same person he was even when he debated Hillary Clinton. And the fact is this. If you take out Joe Biden of the last debate that they had, you had the second worst debate in American history. The problem is, Joe Biden was probably the worst debate in American history.

LANZA: Look, I think the struggles that Harris has with this is, as is -- when you start playing in the mud with Donald Trump and sort of being that aggressive, being offensive and throwing these insults that they want to do, you're now in the mud with us.

And we're very comfortable being in the mud. We're very comfortable.

FARAH GRIFFIN: I love that you own that, Bryan.

(LAUGHTER)

LANZA: It's just where we are. It's where we are in politics. It is the mud. And we're very comfortable being in the mud.

And the way I see Harris has to win is, she almost has to be the opposite of Trump, right? She can't play the dirty games. She can't do the fake news. She can't do all these things that sort of we've excelled out over the years, that's changed politics, because if she goes in there and comes out with the white suit of sort of not lowering your -- as you say, to our game, that is a win for her.

BASH: But what do you mean the white suit? The white suit...

(CROSSTALK)

LANZA: Well, yes, she's claiming to be the opposite. Her campaign's taking the high road on personal attacks, right? You know, whenever she's brought up some of these issues...

BASH: So you mean like the white knight?

LANZA: Yes, the white knight.

And the thing is, is, when you engage, it's very hard to stay the white knight because you look weak after the third or fourth insult.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, and I think people forget one of the greatest frustrations voters and I think undecided voters have with Donald Trump is he often makes his issues front and center.

And the more that she's dealing with you're a felon, and your X, Y, and Z, it's not talking about what voters care about, what personally impacts them, to be elevating and focusing on issues.

(CROSSTALK)

THORNELL: It's avoiding the chaos.

And I think there are two issues that she can do very well in terms of what Hillary Clinton's advice were, abortion and Social Security and Medicare, two really important issues to voters that she needs to do slightly better on, those 45 to 65 and older voters, where Donald Trump has a record on Social Security and Medicare, in terms of calling it a Ponzi scheme, in terms of cutting it, in terms of wanting to raise the retirement age.

These are things that a lot of voters don't know about. And so if she can sort of drive a policy conversation around her overall values and what she's going to do to make cost of living lower, it's going to be problematic for him, because he doesn't have really any answers.

BASH: I just want to -- while we have a little bit of time left, Dick Cheney, the fact that he endorsed, I'm just -- I'm obsessed with this as somebody who covered him.

I just -- I still can't -- my jaw is on the table that he endorsed a Democrat. You heard Tom Cotton kind of blow it off, saying endorsements don't matter.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Noted RINO Dick Cheney.

(LAUGHTER)

FARAH GRIFFIN: It's incredibly significant.

So, statistically speaking, there are undecided voters who very likely voted for a presidential ticket that Dick Cheney was on. Dick Cheney is an internationalist who cares about American leadership abroad. And Ukraine is on the ballot, continuing support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. That is something that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have not committed

to continuing, and, of course, fundamentally, the Constitution, wanting to overturn elections, and what his daughter Liz Cheney has been standing up for.

So I'm not surprised by it, but it is kind of wild to think that Dick Cheney is endorsing...

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Yes. I mean, I'm surprised by it. He could have said nothing.

THORNELL: Yes.

SELLERS: But there are two -- there are two points.

The first is that Kamala Harris has a huge coalition that she's building. You have Bernie Sanders and AOC all the way to Dick Cheney. I mean, who would have thought that would be the case?

[09:50:05]

And then I had our crack research center at CNN pull all the former presidents and nominees for presidents who were supporting Donald Trump, and they came back with an exhaustive list, Sarah Palin.

BASH: Yes.

SELLERS: Like, that's it.

LANZA: Yes, but, listen, at the end of the day, if you look at the data, and I think the data ultimately drives the conversation, Donald -- where Cheneys, where these Republicans, where they're going to have the highest strength is going to be trying to influence Republicans to sort of move away from Donald Trump and to vote for this -- and to vote for Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump right now is getting 93 percent of the Republican vote. So what real impact are they going to have, other than a panel discussion, and maybe appealing to...

(CROSSTALK)

FARAH GRIFFIN: The undecided voter.

(CROSSTALK)

SELLERS: It's permission, right?

THORNELL: Yes, that's right.

I mean, look, we're talking about around the margins here.

SELLERS: That's right.

THORNELL: In a race, your poll has -- or CNN has a very tight poll. All the polls are tight.

BASH: Yes, all of them.

THORNELL: If she can carve out 0.5, 1 percent, that makes a big difference.

And, to Bakari's point, it is giving permission to some of these Republicans who are sort of traditional Republicans or independents who lean right that, you know what, it's OK. I'm vouching for her. So that's why it helps a little bit.

BASH: We're going to have to leave it there. Great discussion. Great to see all of you. See you in Philadelphia.

We're going to turn to a very big story this past week, another deadly shooting. Are they an unfortunate fact of life in America? That's what J.D. Vance suggested.

Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock does not agree. I'm going to talk to him about that horrific shooting in his state next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:08]

BASH: The shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia. Will anything change?

I asked Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Senator J.D. Vance is calling for more protection for schools. He said -- quote -- "I don't like to admit this. I don't like that this is a fact of life. But if you're a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets."

What's your reaction to that?

SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): It's not a fact of life. It's a fact of American life. And we Americans have to ask ourselves, why does this keep happening here?

And the least we can do is stop hiding, because, literally, we're telling our children that, when this happens, the best we can do is tell you how to hide. Think about the trauma we're visiting upon our children. And he talks about hardening our schools and making them secure.

Well, the reality is, this is happening in spas. It's happening in shopping malls. It's happening in houses of worship. It's happening in medical clinics. What are we going to do, turn the whole country into a fort?

Let's put forward reasonable, commonsense gun laws, the same way we did with ensuring that people are safer in their cars. We can do the same thing with guns. This is not a debate between those who believe in the Second Amendment and those who do not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Coming up at noon, more of my interview with Senator Warnock, so stay tuned for that.

And, on Tuesday, join us for special coverage of the ABC News presidential debate simulcast. That is at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

Thank you so much for spending your Sunday morning with us.

Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.