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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Moments Away: Trump Takes Questions From Reporters; Analysis: Electoral College Ratings Shift In Key Swing States; Now: Trump Speaking To Reporters. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 15, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:11]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Well, I actually went on her social media shortly before we ran the story and some of the comments were just unnecessary. You got to dance to the beat of your own drum. She clearly did.
Thank you so much --
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We very much appreciate your company.
THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts in just a few seconds. Stay with CNN.
(MUSIC)
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Phil Mattingly, in for Jake Tapper.
And we start today with the breaking news. In just moments, Donald Trump is set to hold a news conference and take questions from reporters at his home in New Jersey. Now it's not exactly clear why the former president decided to hold the event today. It was announced a few days ago, exactly what he wants to discuss though.
If you look at what's on your screen right now, there are groceries. It seems economic related. There are props.
However, in recent days, allies have urged Trump to stay on message especially after his news conference last week that went like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have somebody that in my opinion is more incompetent.
Kamala, who by the way, is worse than Biden. And she's actually not as smart.
Of course, there'll be a peaceful transfer and there was last time.
Nobody was killed on January 6, but I think that the people of January 6 were treated very unfairly.
You know, with Hillary Clinton, I could have done things to her that would have made your head spin.
If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech -- same number of people, if not, we had more.
In history for any country, nobody's had crowds like I have. And you know that.
I haven't recalibrated strategy at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Now, today's news conference also comes just one day after a Trump event that was built about a speech on the economy. And while he certainly did talk about the economy, he also said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Vote Trump and your incomes will soar, your savings will grow, young people will be able to afford a home, and we will bring back the American Dream bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: The scripted. And then there were the unscripted like these personal attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: That everything Kamala Harris touches turns bad. It all turns bad.
What happened to her laugh? I haven't heard that laugh in about a week. That's why they keep her off the stage. That's why she's disappeared. That's the laugh of a crazy person.
You know why she hasn't done an interview? Because she's not smart. She's not intelligent.
She can't solve the problem because she is the problem, she really is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: As for the vice president, she spoke at an event today with President Biden, their first joint appearance since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed his vice president, while the focus of their rally was about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, Biden also use the opportunity to take a jab at Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me tell you, what our project 2025 is, beat the hell out of him.
(CHEERING)
BIDEN: I mean it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: And today, we're also getting confirmation about when the candidates will actually face off in a debate, the Harris campaign announced it has agreed to a Harris debate on September 10 with the possibility of another debate before the election after that. Both campaigns have also agreed to a debate between Governor Tim Walz and J.D. Vance in October.
We lead things off with CNN's Alayna Treene, who is at the Trump event in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Alayna, what are you hearing at this point from Trump and his team ahead of this news conference?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, I think you laid it out pretty well, Phil, you're exactly right. This message today is supposed to be about the economy. Now, I'm told that Donald Trump is going to deliver remarks before that question-and-answer with reporters and his goal is to focus on the economy, to hammer Kamala Harris on inflation and specifically try to tie her to Joe Biden's policies on the economy, specifically when it comes to high grocery prices and the strain that people are feeling on their walls.
And I do want you to look behind me. You can see a lot of props that Donald Trump and his campaign of laid out, different groceries, et cetera. That is to further emphasize his overall message and look, last night, we heard this as well. There's no question that this week, Donald Trump wants the focus to be on the economy and for his speech in North Carolina and for Donald Trump, I should say, he was pretty on message and focused for the former president. It was a smaller venue, a smaller crowd.
And he spent a lot of time trying to hammer again, Harris on this issue, knowing that she is going to lay out a new economic policy tomorrow in North Carolina. Now, I'm interested to see what happens with this press conference. We know that Donald Trump as you mentioned, tends to riff, tend to go off script. That's specifically true when he answers questions from the press.
So looking to see whether or not he actually stays on message today and is heeding the advice of many of his allies or telling him cease the personal attacks on Kamala Harris, begin talking about the things that we know you polled better on, including immigration crime, and the economy.
Now, Phil, I also just want to put your attention to some other news we got today from Trump world, which is that he is bringing on a series of new Trump allies to his campaign. I think the biggest name you will recognize is Corey Lewandoski, Trump's former campaign manager, he was actually with Donald Trump from the start. Join that campaign back in June of 2015, has remained close to the campaign, but not an official part of it until today. He is back on we're told. And, look, I mean, they say that this has nothing to do with shaking
up the rest of the campaign. Both Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Donald Trump's senior or co-campaign managers our still on the team, they actually put out a statement supporting Lewandoski and the other higher. So, some news for you there. I'm sure he gets some questions about that today, too -- Phil.
MATTINGLY: All right. Alayna Treene, go prep for this press conference. Thanks so much for your time.
My all-star panel joins me now.
Kristen Holmes, let me start with you.
This is inside baseball stuff. We all like talking in figuring out and reporting out staff stuff will get to the issues that will be addressed in a moment, but I think my question is when you talk to Democrats, they look at the Trump campaign team and say what they've done over the course of the last year plus has been disciplined, has been impressive and has certainly put him in the position to have a pathway to the presidency. Is this an issue with his co-chair people, bring in Corey Lewandowski? Or something else here or just adding?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think two things can be true at once. I think that this comes at a time in which there are a lot of concerns about Donald Trump's campaign. And we are hearing this from outside allies. We know Kellyanne Conway, his previous campaign manager went to Bedminster, I believe two weeks ago, sat down with Trump for a number of hours and talk to him about her concerns.
It's not just her. We're hearing it publicly, too. We're hearing his own allies go on the airwaves and begged him to stay on message. They continue to reiterate this is now a different campaign. Kamala Harris is a very different candidate and there needs to be some kind of change.
Now that being said, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles as of right now, are keeping their jobs. Donald Trump himself put that out on social media after this was reported, he said they'd been doing great. They're going to continue to lead the team that right there is probably the most important thing you need to hear in case anyone was deterring this layering or that Corey was going to be over the umbrella.
But also Corey Lewandoski doesn't fit in the Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles mold. He is completely separate and I will remind you, he was Donald Trump's first campaign manager, not his 2016 full time campaign manager, who was fired after a year, brought in because of negative news headlines. He is not the most popular person in the more mainstream area of Donald Trump's orbit.
However, there's been a lot of top among these 2016 loyalists, bringing them back and trying something new particularly after we've seen this change at the top of the ticket the increased enthusiasm and the boost in poll numbers.
MATTINGLY: We were we were so much younger then, fewer children, more sleep. And everything seems to come back full circle.
Scott Jennings we have heard over the course of the last, actually, since the last news conference Republicans who desperately want the former president to win in November and desperately, I think thought about three weeks ago that he was very clearly on that pathway say please stay on message. I guess my question to that is like I feel like I've been hearing Republicans say that since 2015, he is who he is on some level.
What does that mean to stay on message?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it means I think what they're going to do today, my understanding is the press conference is going to be heavily focused on the issue of inflation. I've been told he's got a bunch of items that he's going to sit out on a table and talk about how much more expensive they are today.
Inflation, food prices, the cost of living -- this is still the number one issue in the campaign. It is the number one thing dragging down the Biden/Harris job approval and people are quite angry about the economic policies of the current administration versus what they now view at more favorably from the Trump administration.
So, if today, he focuses on inflation and cost of living and how Biden and Harris have failed. And now, he can get the country back on track. That will be an on message day and that's exactly what Republicans because want to see and want to hear.
MATTINGLY: Do you think he can do that?
JENNINGS: Yeah. I know he can do it. I've seen him do it. Look, he put a tight frame around Hillary Clinton in 2016. He put a tight frame around Joe Biden and ran the man out of the race of a 50-year profession. He had to quit his own profession because Donald Trump, put such a collar on him.
So, yeah, I've seen him do it before and I think he can do it. I hope he does.
MATTTINGLY: Max, I think one of the interesting things is you watch how the Harris campaign has tried to needle him, right? Like they are very cognizant of trying to pull him up off message, and on some of them, you can even look at the statements, the very kind of benign everyday statements they're putting out, including one from the campaign today.
It reads into the top: Today at 4:30 p.m., Donald J. Trump, loser of the 2020 election by 7 million votes, will hold another public meltdown in Bedminster, New Jersey. These remarks will not be artificial intelligence, but they certainly will lack intelligence.
Is this like an effective strategy? Does it matter or is it purely to try and draw him into where he was a week ago?
MAX ROSE (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: But it certainly effective. I don't think it's necessarily compassionate to the fact that Trump and the entire MAGA movement are going through a pretty severe stages of, you know, political grief right now.
The -- look, even today, there are hosting a press conference on affordability at a country club resort that their candidate owns. I mean, talk about hypocrisy, and other detachment from where actual voters are. The truth of matters is that this is not as simple as getting the old band back together. It's not as simple as just staying on message.
The truth of the matter is that Donald Trump has always been unhinged, particularly during his political life, and he has always been crazy. There's absolutely no changing that. The only time he is successful is when he has something tangible enough to distract the electorate from.
And now that's clearly not the case. He's facing a new campaign with incredible political momentum and discipline. And I don't think some type of lackadaisical, weird press conference that he puts together today or any other day is going to change that.
MATTINGLY: It'll be fascinating to watch, particularly, and I joke with the props, like it keeps him on message when he's talking about specific things, and clearly, this is an issue they want to talk about.
We saw Democrats, Sarah Matthews, talking today about prescription drug prices, which is a direct result of a legislative achievement of President Biden. And the Biden/Harris administration, but you also heard President Biden say this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The guy we're running against, what's his name? Donald Dump or Donald whatever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: That's like aggressive for Biden who doesn't usually like, do you think things like that. Does this get under -- you worked for the former president. Does this actually get under his skin? Is this the type of stuff the rattles him?
SARA MATTHEWS, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: I don't know if this is necessarily the type of stuff that rattles him. I think it's an a good laugh line or applause line at a rally from Biden. And like you said, it's kind of uncharacteristic of him to go to name calling. That's definitely more of Donald Trump's mantra, but I do think that the Biden-Harris team has been very disciplined in their messaging.
I think with Harris when she came on, it actually really shifted what their message was, which is we're not going back and it's a forward- looking message. And that's the kind of thing I think that they need to focus on. I don't know if kind of getting down into the weeds with Donald Trump and doing the name calling is really going to get under his skin.
But I think what we'll get under his skin is if they stay disciplined and don't take the bait, we've seen Donald Trump try to bait them into fights over Harris's racial identity, things like that. They just need to stay above the fray.
MATTINGLY: The issue areas that they succeed on in polling have not actually changed even though the polling has changed, the economic polling. In particular, I think has been very surprised rising is tightened between Harris and Trump.
How did they break through what has clearly been a great couple of weeks for Democrats. But I think even Democrats will acknowledge, this isn't going to last for the next 85 days.
KRISTIN DAVISON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Sure. I mean, you saw it with President Biden name-calling today. That doesn't sound like the campaign of joy that they've been bragging about running. It sounds like a campaign that's on its last fumes of a honeymoon period.
And so, I think they really do need to stop. And, look, today, they're touting the celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act. It's like standing outside of a house on fire with a bucket that's half full, they caused it. So the Medicare that they're pushing 8 million seniors are paying more today because of the Inflation Reduction Act. Medicare Part D plans are few and far between and it's all because they cause it.
So they're going to go out there now and try to recreate and pretend like they didn't cause the problem, versus, you know, Americans know in their everyday lives are not better -- they're not better than they were four years ago. And that's the case that the Trump team needs to make.
So even though we're talking about props and a press conference and is he going to stay on message, we're still talking about inflation and the fact that Americans are still paying more today than they were four years ago. And it doesn't matter what chart, that's one of the big things that Biden campaign did wrong in the beginning. They hold up a chart and said things are going better.
And that's what Donald Trump has always done better than anyone else. He talks to the people and they feel like he hears them.
MATTINGLY: Go ahead.
NATASHA ALFORD, HOST, THEGRIO WEEKLY: I'll say, I see it a little bit differently. So we have watched Donald Trump effectively be a bully for years, right? He's made offhand comments. He's insulted people personally. I feel like the Harris campaign is -- it's feeling itself as the kids say, right?
I think people love the energy. I -- they saw that press statement that they put out, that he's going to be rambling today. I mean, people want it plain spoken, and they want to see some fight in them. The whole taking the high road, sort of talking about democracy, talking intellectually. It wasn't exactly connecting with people on a heart level.
[16:15:01]
And I think there are people who are sort of tired of the negative partisan culture that Donald Trump has continued to promote. And so they like to see a little fight in Harris and Walz and Biden -- I mean, he deserves a moment to hit back. He gets -- he gets to now continue as president and not worry about campaigning as much. And so he gets to speak his mind.
I think people actually like it.
MATTINGLY: I knew -- when you mentioned the kids, Max Rose was like, I know. Senior youth adviser, Max Rose.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTINGLY: He's the table's vibes guy.
ALFORD: Their matching energy.
MATTINGLY: All right, we got a lot more to get to.
Everybody, stick around. We're waiting for this press conference. It's a big event this hour, Donald Trump taking questions from reporters. That's just moments away.
Also ahead, the analysis showing a political shift in three specific battleground states since this race became between Harris and Trump.
Plus, past comments by Senator J.D. Vance about women causing a stir. What he said in 20 -- in a 2020 podcasts that's drawing brand new attention.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:04]
MATTINGLY: We are back and you're looking at live pictures from Bedminster, New Jersey, where we will hear from Donald Trump in just a few moments as he takes questions from reporters, yes, those are props.
Now, the math to get to 270 electoral votes and win the 2024 presidential race is shifting in three key states. Updated ratings from the Cook Political Report shows this, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada change from leaning Republican to toss up. That in and of itself, those three states, 33 electoral votes.
I want to bring in Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Amy, the decision to do this, why you guys decided to make this change? What does this mean for the race kind of big picture?
AMY WALTER, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR IN CHIEF, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Yeah, I think what we've seen in these last couple of weeks since Harris has been moved to the top of the ticket, is that the Biden 2020 coalition, the coalition that did give Biden a win in those three states that you mentioned, as well as the so-called blue wall states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, that coalition seems to be coming back together, coalescing around Harris in a way that it wasn't around Biden and that's especially true when we think about younger voters, voters of color, who make up a significant part of the overall electorate in so Sun Belt states.
MATTINGLY: I have to ask you, you posted something on X that I've been thinking about constantly the last several weeks. But you posted it, so you get credit for it, and I will try and take credit after the fact of having similar thoughts with Amy Walter.
WALTER: Sure.
MATTINGLY: Nebraska, and its second congressional district people are not paying attention to the fact that there are a lot of pathways, including just the blue wall states, that literally end up at 270 on the dot if Democrats win, that one electoral vote. Explain that to people.
WALTER: Yeah. So Nebraska and Maine are the two states that award Electoral College votes by the person who won the state gets a certain number of electoral votes. But you can also get an electoral vote for winning one of the congressional districts. Now Donald Trump has been really successful in northern Maine, which is the second congressional district. In Omaha, Nebraska, which is the second district of Nebraska, Biden carried that in 2020.
Now, that's exactly right. Your point is that -- to your point, if the Harris campaign and winds just those blue wall states, so loses all of the ones we just talked about in Nevada and Georgia and Arizona, but wins Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, they are at 269 electoral college votes, give everything else to Trump that he won back in 2020, he's at 269 electoral vote.
So we, literally, Omaha being the difference maker here in terms of who would be president of the United States if indeed that if the electoral college map made it, there, just, its also a district as you well know, Phil as somebody who covers the hill that is represented by a Republican. Its one of those swing districts Democrats have been trying to wrest it back from Republican Don Bacon for some time now, hoping that the energy of a presidential election will help them do that.
So as I said, pound for pound, if you want to really be in the center of the universe. Yes, Pennsylvania is going to get a lot of attention as it should. But, but don't sleep on Omaha.
MATTINGLY: Yeah. And as you noted, as well --
WALTER: It's a great city. It's a great city to hang out.
MATTINGLY: Great city, great town, held the World Series. There is no better sporting event to attend. Amy Walter as always, my friend, thank you so much.
WALTER: You're welcome.
MATTINGLY: Well, let's dig in further as to where the election sands in this critical moment. We've had to Kristen Soltis Anderson and Celinda Lake, both pollsters tracking opposite sides of the political divide.
Kristen, as we await Donald Trump in this news conference, I think my question is, there's so much talk about the coalescing the Democratic coalition, about the momentum of the Harris team, can you just for clarification purposes, Donald Trump still very much has multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes. When you look at the actual polling right now, right?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. It feels like we have had an enormous amount of whiplash in the last few weeks. You came out of Milwaukee and Republicans were feeling on top of the world, they really felt like Donald Trump was almost inevitable, whether through Americans having goodwill toward him in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Republicans convention that at least for the first 30 minutes of Trump's speech seemed to be going pretty well.
But things have changed so dramatically and I almost wonder if people have overcorrected in their exuberance now after feeling like there was no way Democrats are going to win with Biden at the top of the ticket, have now swung to thinking, oh, Harris has all this enthusiasm, she's got this in the bag.
[16:25:15]
And that's absolutely not the case. There are still a lot of voters out there, not as many as there were before, but some who really don't like either candidate, who are still going to be decisive in this election. And Harris still is not very well-defined to many -- very, very many voters. There's a real chance that the Trump team, if they can get their act together well, well see at this press conference, but can define Harris negatively and attach her to the policies that voters don't like from the Biden administration. He's still very vulnerable this November.
MATTINGLY: You know, Celinda, one of the most fascinating things from a polling perspective has been looking at the numbers on the economy. There been such a dramatic divide between foreign President Trump's support on this and approval on this. And where President Biden had been, that has certainly tightened, and one case in particular, I'm thinking of the financial times, University of Michigan polling where Harris was actually ahead on that.
One, why and two, is that sustainable?
CELINDA LAKE, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Well, it's critical and in fact, we'd never won the presidential where we haven't been a head or tied on the economy, which we were at the end of 2020. And I think this is literally the best number out there for Democrats, although I agree with Kristen that this race is still very, very close.
But Harris has the momentum. She's laying out her economic plan today. People expect different things from her. People think she's in touch. They think she's a change agent.
And they think she's a fighter. Her ban, for example, on price gouging in food, extremely popular and people think a former AG will just nail price gougers to the wall.
So this is right in her lane, right in her personality and she just has to keep it going.
You know, to that point, Kristen, when you look at what's and I don't know if you guys can see it on your screens. If you have screens, you see the kind of props, the groceries that are where the former president will be speaking.
Does that when people see that the visual of that is it effective? I'm trying to see how people actually perceive the things that they're watching. You had the former president or the current president, the vice president, talking about drug prices and issue where Democrats constantly point out they pull very, very well on. What about this for the former president?
ANDERSON: Well, for the former president, it's an issue where he's very good one at television as an art, as making sure that people can see these visuals, that they can feel some sense of connection to them.
But it certainly the case that the issue of inflation is one that has really had done Democrats in political trouble over the last few years. The question is, will say saying, you know, Vice President Harris thinks she's going to take on price gougers. What does that policy actually look like?
Right now, the Harris campaign has been a really choose your own adventure kind of campaign where either she's been borrowing policies from Donald Trump. I'm not going to tax tip income type policies, or saying I'm going to go after price gougers. But the question is, how? Is it the sort of policy that's actually going to leave shelves a little bit barer, where people are going to be having supply chain issues, people remember that very clearly from early on in the Biden administration, not being able to get the stuff they needed at all at the grocery store.
So there is still a story Donald Trump can tell about how the economy he thinks would be better under him. Harris, but simply by kind of copying his messaging is making it closer. But we'll see if voters actually buy it.
MATTINGLY: Yeah. And obviously the Harris campaign with a speech tomorrow.
LAKE: Well, you know --
MATTINGLY: Go ahead, Celinda, real quick. LAKE: Well, I was going to say the thing about it is people give her
credit as an AG and she has a record she took on private for profit education. She took on pharmaceutical prices. She took on banks.
So she has a record on that. She's gotten money back in people's pockets and she'll do it again.
MATTINGLY: Celinda Lake, ABD, always be defining, trying to get thoughts on that, certainly what you're hearing from the Harris team as they get ready for their economic speech from vice premier president tomorrow.
Guys, thank you, as always, really appreciate it.
LAKE: Thank you.
MATTINGLY: We are standing by to hear from the former president as he takes questions from reporters. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:33:53]
MATTINGLY: As we await the former president's news conference at Bedminster, we're going to talk about debates because there is an agreement or at least on one debate.
Let's get back to our panel.
The Biden or the Harris -- it's been a long month. The Harris campaign saying, yes, we will definitely have the September debate, the ABC debate. They are open to an additional debate if they say -- as they say, if Trump shows up for that debate. J.D. Vance, Tim Walz as well.
Trump proposed more. J.D. Vance proposed more. Why agree to just the one each?
ALFORD: Do it, right? This is Kamala Harris's moment. She's been visible, but there's so many people who don't know her. And so, each debate is an opportunity to get to know her, it's an opportunity to talk policy, but also to have like a fair fight.
I think a lot of people watched Biden and Trump. It felt like, oh, this, this is even feel fair. You know, Joe Biden couldn't even articulate some of their own successes.
So this will be a real conversation. I think people are ready for it, and she's ready for it. She's a prosecutor. If you've seen her in the Senate when she was grilling people, I mean, those videos have gone viral.
So people are ready. It's like -- it's like the NBA Finals. We've got multiple opportunities to see who comes out on top.
MATTINGLY: Scott Jennings, you're usually more partial to wrestling than the NBA finals. [16:35:04]
What's your read on that? Look, there's gamesmanship going on right now. There's no question about that, about where things stand on this.
JENNINGS: Yeah. It sounds like Harris is a little afraid to debate Trump several times. I mean, he put out more. She took less.
I'm a little flabbergasted to hear somebody say that it wasn't a fair fight. I mean, Joe Biden's only the president of the United States. I mean, he could have showed up and tried to do better, I guess. And then he got himself run out of the race.
The fact is they need to debate because nobody really does know her. She's never gotten a single vote for this office ever, and she's got a bunch of statements on the record from before that. Now, anonymous spokespeople are walking back and I think September the 10th maybe Donald Trump's best and only chance to really get at the heart of what she is all about.
Why is she running? What is her record? And what is she planning to do as president? Not a single one of us sitting here today could answer that question because she said nothing or at least very little about how she would operate as president.
For Trump, the September 10 debate looms huge. Only he can do it. She's obviously not going to submit to any media questioning or any serious questioning. So it's all on Trump shoulders.
MATTINGLY: Max, I mean, they've only agreed to one debate with.
ROSE: Yeah.
MATTINGLY: Potentially a second. There haven't been a sit-down interviews. There haven't been a ton of questions for the press.
What do you say to what's the point Scott's made?
ROSE: Oh, look, I'm certain they're going to agree to more debates. This is show business after all, so you don't just roll it all out at once.
But let's not forget that this campaign is only three weeks old. Now under no circumstances with my friend Scott, ever say, you know what things are going fantastically well for the Democrats and they deserve a -- deserve this, this is partisanship after all.
But when it comes down to this, what you will see from the Harris-Walz presidential campaign in the days, weeks, and months to come are a series of very robust policy rollouts speeches, interviews all the rest of it.
You will not do see that from Donald Trump. The guy is hanging out on his golf course. He's going to flee down to south Florida very soon. He will do intermittent in press conferences here and there. And then who go back to a rally every other week. This needs to be yes, of course, a fair fight and thus is deserving of
a fair comparison.
And you will not see Donald Trump hold himself to the standard that Scott and the rest of the Republican Party's apparently trying to hold Kamala Harris to.
MATTINGLY: I was just watching your face as you're listening to him.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTINGLY: Go ahead, Scott.
JENNINGS: I mean, what standard are you -- the standard by which we -- the standard by which they we expect the president United States to, I don't know, answer basic simple questions about what policies they're running on? Trump's out here doing press conferences. And Harris is interviewing with a running mate.
I mean, fair fight? We need to know more about this candidacy because of the way it came about and the fact that its never received a single vote ever in a primary.
ALFORD: Donald Trumps press conferences are full of lies. I think it was NPR that counted 162 lies and distortions in the press conferences. We've seen him unhinged, off the rails, doing personal attacks.
So there's not substance there. And will we talk about the Biden-Trump debate? Its not that Joe Biden didn't have substantive answers, his style, his performance, his delivery was poor and everybody saw that with their own eyes, and that contributed to why he is no longer running for president.
But we have to, we have to show the American people that it's not just about style, it is about substance. And so what were saying is this is an opportunity for a fair conversation. Let them both talk policy and let Americans decide.
DAVISON: But when you look at -- I mean, this is the second press conference said Trump has done in two weeks. Kamala has not done an interview.
ALFORD: It's Kamala. Kamala.
DAVISON: Kamala has not done an interview.
ALFORD: He wants us to say it wrong. I jut want to make sure. It's Kamala Harris.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVISON: You could go on about whether, you know, lies you want to outline, we're not getting, we're getting a revised reality from the Biden-Harris administration. They want to pretend like they didn't cause the problem does that we are seeing right now -- inflation, the crisis at the border, skyrocketing crime, the fentanyl crisis.
They had four years to fix it. She's been in office for four years. What has she done?
ALFORD: They didn't cause the crisis at the border. We have had a problem with immigration for multiple administrations.
I know, Scott, you want to laugh. I wish you were here so we could debate together. But this is a problem.
(CROSSTALK)
ALFORD: We're not giving them complex nuanced conversations about how these problems actually play out.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTINGLY: Can I ask real quick -- to interrupt you guys, but Kristen Holmes, when you talk to the campaign as they're thinking through this, because you're talking about every day, best sources are network by far the steps. So how were they thinking through on the substantive policy debates right now?
HOLMES: So two things. One, just to say what -- I'm going to get to the Donald Trump part of this, but just to say on the J.D. Vance thing because I think this is really interesting. They want as many VP debates as they possibly can.
And part of the reason that Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance is because he had been him debate. He thought that he was great on television. He thinks he's a bulldog and they think that he will do a very good job.
[16:40:04]
So they're going to continue to push that narrative, let's start there.
On Donald Trump debating, I do think there was a moment in which Donald Trump was considering not debating Kamala Harris at all. I think that a lot of his change in posture came after the fact that Kamala Harris hasn't been out there. She hasn't sat for an interview. She hasn't taken any questions.
And there are a lot of people who by the way would like to see Donald Trump not taking any questions and those are people who want to see him elected in November. They don't want them doing these kind of press conferences, but he and his team have come to the belief that it is important to continue this narrative to push that Kamala Harris doesn't want to debate, that she agreed to this debate on ABC, but that they didn't -- she didn't actually think that Donald Trump would show up.
And I'm telling you what I'm hearing from sources that an addition to that, that they will continue to push for more of this because they don't think that she will agree because they think that this is a narrative that they want to roll out. MATTINGLY: Well, we will now see as the former president -- his news
conference starting in Bedminster, New Jersey. Let's listen in.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- broke the border and broke the world frankly very destructive to the entire world because as we go, oftentimes the world goes. She destroys everything she touches and if she wins, your finances and your country will never recover. You're never going to recover a radical left person wants to put price controls all over the place, which will end up driving up prices, not down your prices.
Harris has just declared that tackling inflation will be a day one priority for her. It's going to be day one. But day one really for Kamala was three-and-a-half years ago. Where has she been and why hasn't she done it? Why hasn't she done it?
I hear her complaining all the time. She was the border czar, but she didn't do anything. She's the worst border czar in history. There's never been a border czar so bad.
She has been unbelievable in terms of her badness to some of our allies, some of our great allies. You know who I'm talking about.
Here is the record of economic calamity that Kamala is desperate for voters to ignore. She cast the tie-breaking votes that caused record inflation. She cast the votes. She's trying to blame Biden, as you know, so it was Biden, but I'm going to do a better job.
But it was her and if she wants to do a better job, she's still got five months left, right? But she can't do a better job, because she doesn't know how to, and she's a -- she's have a place in life where she wouldn't know what a better job is, going to destroy our country.
And as a result of Kamala's inflation price hikes, they've cost the typical household, a total of $28,000. These are numbers coming from government. They're not coming from me. $28,000 she's cost the typical household.
Kamala's inflation nightmare continues to cost the average American family 1,100 dollars every single month, $1,100 -- again, government numbers. You're paying $148 more a month on food. It's every month, average family, because Kamala and her ideas and Joe Biden, too, I mentioned him, but he sort of gonzo.
It all started with the debate. I should have been a little bit easy. Somebody said your debate performance was horrible. I said, why? Because you forced him out of government.
But I believe she'll be just as bad. I believe she's maybe in many ways is going to be worse because he wasn't really a radical left. But she is, she's real. He wasn't real.
So I think she's going to be in many ways, easier to beat than Joe Biden. What they did to him was disgraceful by the way, and it really is a threat to democracy. It was a coup by people that wanted them out and they didn't do the way, not the way they're supposed to do it. $129 more on energy and $241 more. This is all per month on rents, so you have that 148, 129, 241 and then many other increases. You add it all up. It's thousands and thousands of dollars that she and he have cost people.
The cost of a typical monthly mortgage has doubled since I left office and that number was about three months old from government. And now it's tripled. We had mortgage rates at around 2 percent, close to 2 percent, and they're now at 10 percent.
And you can't get a mortgage. So that means it's a lot higher than 10 percent. I guess it is whatever, whatever they want to give over the money and that's a lot more than 10 percent.
So when you think about double, they've actually quadrupled or more than that. Think of that quadrupled, which really kills the American dream for young people. Young people are being devastated by what they've done to our country.
[16:45:03]
Grocery prices have skyrocketed. Cereals are up 26 percent. Bread is up 24 percent. Butter is up 37 percent.
Baby formula was up 30 percent. Flour is up 38 percent, and eggs are up 46 percent. And many items are up at much higher rates than that.
Now, Kamala is reportedly proposing communist price controls. She wants price controls that if they work that go along with the two, but they don't work. They actually have the exact opposite impact and effect.
But it leads to food shortages, rationing, hunger, dramatically more inflation. Their Inflation Reduction Act, by the way, was a disaster. It's what caused the inflation. Their Inflation Reduction Act was a con job.
They actually admitted that it wasn't really for inflation that they did it. They don't know why they did it, but they named it the Inflation Reduction Act, which was a very nice name, got approved based on that.
Unfortunately, people didn't understand it. I understood that. I said that's going to cause tremendous inflation and it did, among other things, like energy. She's running on the Maduro plan, we call it the Maduro plan, like something straight out of Venezuela, or the Soviet Union.
This announcement is an admission that her economic policies have totally failed and caused really a catastrophe for our country and beyond that, a catastrophe in the world, a little bit unrelated, but not totally unrelated.
We have wars breaking out in the Middle East. We have the horrible war going on with Ukraine and Russia. All these things would have never happened that was president would have never ever happened. And they didn't happen.
Since Harris took office, car insurance is up 55 percent and they just announced it's going to be substantially higher than that within the next week. They expect big increases in car insurance. It's out of control, and insurance generally.
Thanks to Kamala's war on American energy, electricity prices are up 32 percent gasoline prices are up 50 percent and going higher.
Meanwhile, real incomes are down by over $2,000 a year. So they're the incomes for people or down $2,000 on average year, government numbers. The typical American has seen a 4 percent pay cut under Kamala and Biden, crooked Joe, crooked Joe Biden.
Credit card debt has exploded by 50 percent under Harris to a record high is now at a record high, never been anywhere close.
Since March, and by the way, people are going to have to start paying that and its not going to be a pretty sight for the next period of time. It could be a substantial time. Since March of 2022, the average middle-class household has lost $33,000 in wealth. How about that? $33,000, it's average.
In July alone, 350,000 people were added to the unemployment rolls, it's a lot of people, 350,000 people added to the unemployment rolls. And think of that, that's in one month, that's in July.
Virtually, 100 percent of the net job creation in the last year has gotten to migrants you know that? Most of the job creation has gone to migrants. In fact, I've heard that substantially more than -- beyond -- actually beyond the number of 100 percent is a much higher number than that. But the government hasn't caught up with that yet, but virtually right now as of the time they did this virtually 100 percent of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants.
Harris gave work permits and Social Security numbers to more than 3 million illegal immigrants to steal jobs from American. So think of that, and, you know, they're having a lot of problems with Social Security.
I'm going to be the one to save Social Security, but they have a lot of problems with Social Security because under their system of putting all of these people into it, it's going to blow up and fail. If she's elected, Social Security will fail. It will be a blow up like you've never seen before. It'll be the bankruptcy of the entire system probably the nation itself.
You don't have to imagine what a Kamala Harris presidency would be because you are living through that nightmare right now. And it is a nightmare. It's a nightmare and you're going to stop inflation, but were going to have a crash and we're going to have a crash like 1929 crash if she gets in.
You saw a gentleman yesterday who got up one of the top analysts in the world, frankly. And said that if Trump is elected, he predicts that he's predicting you have a stock market crash like 1929. He also said the only time and the only reason the stock market has gone up, even though it had some bad moments recently, but I think will take I think it will take a substantial lead.
[16:50:06]
You saw the polls coming out today. We're leading in most of the polls, but you have a -- I have a lot of friends over this. I don't think they're reporters, however, are they?
This was supposed to be for reporters. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
When I left office, I handed Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy with no inflation. The 30-year mortgage rate was around 2 percent, gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. We actually had many months where it was lower than that, but we hit one 187, which was a perfect place, an absolutely beautiful number.
Real income surge by more than $4,200 a year when I was president. Harris and Biden blew it all up. If Kamala wins the election, the worst is yet to come. You'll have a real problem in the future because people don't respect her and the world.
People don't respect her in the economy. Economists are laughing. They can't even believe this is happening to our country and she wants to change a free enterprise type country into a communist type country. That's what she knows.
She's considered far more radical than Bernie Sanders. That's all you have to know. Far more radical, and she picked somebody that's far more radical than Bernie Sanders. He approved a bill recently, tampons and boys bathrooms. He wants tampons in boys bathrooms.
It's terrible. It's terrible. But that's the person that she picked. Surprising pick to me, I was shocked.
He's also got one of the worst run states. Many people are leaving the state, sixth most, and from her state, (AUDIO GAP) she destroyed -- as attorney general, she destroyed California along with Gavin Newscam and she -- San Francisco, you know, is a great city 15 years ago now, it's considered almost unlivable. You can't live there and what they've done to that great state with a beautiful weather like this, where they have this weather all the time.
And they have the ocean. They have the sun, they have everything good. But what they've done to it as a shame, and she's going to do the same thing to our country. It was the policies.
They had a recent article and I didn't know this, but you're allowed to rob a store as long as it's not more than $950. Has everyone ever heard of that? You can rob a store and you have good sleeves going into stores with calculators, calculating how much it is. Because if its less than $950, they can rob it, not get charged. That was her that did that.
Harris is campaigning on the largest tax increase in American history, including ending the Trump tax cuts. One of the largest tax cuts ever in our country's history, and working with families that gigantic capital gains tax hike, they want an a new wealth confiscation tax. It's called wealth confiscation tax which is going to make all of her supporters -- you know, she's got some supporters that are wealthy people because -- they're stupid people, but they're wealthy people.
She said that a 70 to 80 percent tax rate is, quote, a bold idea that should be discussed and studied 70 to 80 percent. She co-sponsored legislation to abolish very popular private health insurance, which 150 Americans rely on, dumping everyone onto inferior socialist government-run healthcare systems with rationing and deadly wait times, while massively raising your taxes.
She wants to take away your private health care. There are many people in this country who spent a lot of money on private health care. It's the best health care in the world, by the way. But they want to do it. They worked hard to make money and they want to do it.
Under her, you're not going to have private health care plans anymore. And you can be a wealthy person or middle income person and you want to spend on a really good planned better than a government planned could be, far better.
And you're not going to be allowed, you're all going to be thrown into a communist system. It's a communist system. You're going to be thrown into a system where everybody gets health care. It's -- you wait for your doctor like ten months, 12 months, 11, once you get to see some of these plans, how they work in other countries, it's disgraceful.
So, private health care has gone. She wants it out. Now, she could change on that and she might change in that. She's changed on everything. But I said, why are you changing? I actually was asking somebody that knows or why she changing.
She had these policies and ideas for years and years and years and very solid on.
[16:55:01]
All you have to do is go back and look at your tapes, which many have been discarded because they don't want -- discarded by the fake news because they don't want people to see what she said just a year ago and two years ago.
I've never seen anything like it. Even my statement on waiters, waitresses, caddies, a lot of great people, people that drive cars no tax on tips, all of a sudden out of the blue, she comes out, I always months ago, I said that, and she came out and she said no tax on tips.
She could have at least said, you know, President Trump had some great ideas, but one of the ideas was no tax on tips. I think it would have been nice and people would have accepted that. But she just came out like it was hers and she never had it. In fact, just the opposite the IRS is all set up to really go after people that make tips and they passed legislation and signed executive orders, making it really hard on waiters, waitresses, and that was very recently. That was just before I made the proposal. They were really going after people.
So they're lying when they say that this is what they want to do because their legislation which everyone knows and their executive orders were extremely tough. They also put 88,000 new IRS agents and that can go and harass everybody. She wants to close dozens of existing power plants, causing rollbacks of power in our country.
You can have brownouts blackouts, the likes of which you've never seen, and plunging millions and millions of people into poverty. That's going to put them into poverty. And then I could have heat. They're not going to have air conditioning.
She wants to close dozens of existing power plants, so maybe shell change that too. But she's got a lot to change. Almost everything she's ever said, she's got to change. Nobody's ever seen and that's why we're here. Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
She wants to abolish coal, oil, and natural gas. Eighty-four percent of U.S. energy supply and it's the coal and the natural gas -- clean coal I call it and oil natural gas that create electricity.
And by the way, I'm a big fan of electricity. If were going to go with the A.I., if we're going to do that, I don't know if you know, but we need twice the amount of electricity currently supplied for everything to the entire United States of America.
So to be competitive on A.I., I was talking to Elon Musk, we had a great discussion the other night I agree, he said a big problem is getting the approvals to create all of that energy, all of that electricity has -- specifically electricity and you're going to need that for other forms of modern business, too, and I'll get it done, but other people aren't going to be get it done.
You're going to -- they're not going to be able to get it done. As border czar and she was the border czar, she was -- I don't know if she was proudly called border czar, but that's what crooked Joe Biden called her. She's the border czar, everybody said it.
And then about two weeks ago, she didn't want to be called the border czar anymore. She said, oh, I was never the border because it doesn't matter. She was the person responsible for the border. And she never went there.
She went to a certain location once, but I would have gotten there and take my family to dinner there. That was not a place that is going to the border, a place with no problem.
As border czar, she allowed 20 million people and I believe it's higher than that. People say 13, 14, 12, 10, but now they're all up to around 12, 13, 14. They have no idea because you have millions and millions of what they call gotaways. The gotaways. Gotaways are people that pour into our country. We have no idea who
they are. That's the worst of all.
But she allowed at least 20 million people to invade our country and she wants to give them all citizenship and free government health care and let them raid Medicare and Social Security, which will again, she will destroy Medicare. She will destroy Social Security.
And, frankly, there's nothing she can do about it once this happens. There's nothing she can do about it. She called for abolishing ICE.
These are great patriots who are tough, tougher than anybody this audience, some of those people I know him over there, some of those men and couple other women, to be honest, they're tough as hell, but they don't want to fight MS-13. I've seen it. They go into Long Island, has a lot of -- had a lot, we got -- we got them out.
But now, they're coming back because of weak policy and because of things that she wants to do like defund the police. You know, she wants to defund the police.
Now, she has since said -- no, no, I don't want to do that anymore. The one thing I see with politicians, they always go back to where they were. She wanted to defund the police and she wanted to abolish ICE.
I was going to say that these ICE people are incredible Patriots. They're tough as hell.
And they go into a pack of MS-13 gang members, the toughest in the world, probably the toughest gangs in the world.
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