Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Harris And Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) Hit Trail To Packed Events In Wisconsin, Michigan; Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) Accuses Gov. Tim Walz (D- MN) Of Stolen Valor Over Record; Biden Says, Not Confident In Peaceful Transfer If Trump Loses; "NewsNight" Tackles State Of The Presidential Race 2024; Sidner's Guests Give Their Nightcaps. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 07, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, the new ticket storms the trail, while Donald Trump skips the circuit and leaves the stunts to his running mate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hopefully, it's going to be my plane in a few months.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Also, a chilling warning about a peaceful transfer of power in January.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: If Trump loses, I'm not counting on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Plus, J.D. Vance accuses Tim Walz of stolen valor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I wonder, Tim Waltz, when were you ever in war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: And is confronted with his own record.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I never said that I saw a firefight myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: And as the right says Kamala Harris bowed to anti-Semites --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That was because of the fact that he's Jewish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: -- the party fires back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): That's just absurd and dumb.
SIDNER: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Montel Williams, Marc Lotter, Ashley Allison and David Axelrod. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.
Good evening, I'm Sara Sidner in New York. Abby Phillip is off tonight.
Let's get to what America's talking about right now, the trail getting hot. On their first full day of campaigning, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz hitting packed rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan, and their opponents are working hard to define her new running mate, including the serious accusation of stolen valor. Here's one clip the Trump campaign is highlighting tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I've been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can do CDC research. We can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states. And we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Trump's running mate is taking issue with that statement. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: When the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably, and I'm very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.
He said, we shouldn't allow weapons that I used in war to be on America's streets. Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war? When was this -- what was this weapon that you carried into war given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq and he has not spent a day in a combat zone?
What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you're not.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SIDNER: All right, it's fact check time. After 24 years in the Army National Guard, Walz retired in May of 2005 and started his first political campaign. It wasn't until two months after he retired his unit received alert orders to deploy to Iraq.
In September that year, the unit goes to Camp Shelby in Mississippi to prepare for deployment. And in March, the following year, the unit deployed to Iraq for 22 months. Walz filed paperwork with the FEC as a candidate for Congress in February 2005, three months before he officially retired. It is true that Walz was never deployed to a combat zone as part of his service.
But let's discuss. And I want to start with our veteran at the table who is also known Kamala Harris for a very long time, Montel Williams. Thank you for being here.
MONTEL WILLIAMS, TALK SHOW HOST AND ACTIVIST: Thank you for having me here.
SIDNER: What do you think of this attack line and the use of the term, stolen valor, which is a very divisive term to be used against someone who served for 24 years?
WILLIAMS: You know, I came in a long time ago, back in 1974, Delayed Entry Program, went through the --
SIDNER: You went to the Marines, right?
WILLIAMS: I went through the Marine Corps, went through boot camp at Parris Island. When I came in, we were still extracting people from Vietnam. So, therefore, the National Defense Ribbon is granted to anybody that came in before 1975.
I didn't go to Vietnam, but I'm a Vietnam era vet, very proud of that, the fact that I put my life on the line at a time when it wasn't vogue for us to join and enlist in the service. And right now, I do a show that's called Military Makeover, where I go all over the country and we redo veterans' homes from the ground up, we have hundreds of people show up at those homes. When they do, there are veterans of every one of the last five wars, they show up.
[22:05:00]
Not one of them tries to divide the entire group of people over the fact that you might have been a cook, you might have been a special intelligence agent, which I was. But at the time, because I didn't go into combat, I still have the right to actually say I am a combat vet. I think with Walz, he has a right to say what he said. If he carried that rifle from the armory over to the practice range to qualify, he carried a weapon that is a weapon of war. So, I don't understand.
SIDNER: I'm curious, Scott, what you make of this. This is a very tender thing to be throwing around when someone has served for 24 years. And to be fair, J.D. Vance served for four. Neither one of them were in major combat. SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he wins in Iraq. I mean, J.D. Vance did go overseas, number one. Number two, I think we should all just acknowledge everybody who signs up to wear the uniform deserves our thanks and praise. That includes you, J.D. Vance, and Governor Walz. I mean, anybody who does this is an American hero, in my opinion.
I also think when you enter the arena of politics, your public statements and your record are subject to scrutiny. And I do think there's some evidence that Walz has at least embellished at times his record, to some degree. One thing on the fact check we're not talking about tonight is that when his campaign started for Congress, he did issue a press release acknowledging that he'd already been notified they may be going to Iraq. We're not talking about that much, but he knew it. He did get out and he did choose to go into politics. That's a fact you can say it's not bad or it's good or it's indifferent but that is a fact.
And so I think the Trump campaign Is going to pick over his record just the same way the Harris campaign is picking over J.D. Vance's record, which I don't know if you guys pick up the paper lately, but it's been a pretty substantial vetting and I think Walz is going to get his time as well.
SIDNER: David, how are people going to see this from the public's view most of the people in this country don't sign up for the military?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. 24 years is a lot of service. He signed up when he was 17 years old. He served for 24 years. I think people will honor that. And, you know, I honor J.D. Vance for spending four years in the military. I'm not going to demean him because he was a press officer in Iraq. He went, he served, good for him.
But I think what it reflects more than anything else is there is a kind of -- there is a flailing going on right now on the part of the Trump campaign to try and figure out how to deal with Walz because he made I think a strong impression last night. He's, by all measures, kind of the all American guy. He was a from a small town, school teacher, coach, and years and years of service to this country.
And, you know, I kind of think Americans are tired of this and this kind of politics. And --
MARC LOTTER, FORMER TRUMP 2020 STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: But the one thing I would say, I mean, David, I would disagree that they're flailing on how to define him. It's very easy. His record is even more radical and liberal than Kamala Harris hopes to be. So, it's a very easy record to attack.
In this case, though, I think what we're finding out is there's been a long history. There were attacks on George W. Bush's military career. There was obviously a lot of tax on John Kerry's military career by Chris LaCivita, who now runs Donald Trump's campaign. When you embellish that record -- and it's little things, not just whether you were carrying the weapon of war into war, but saying that you retired as a command sergeant major when you never achieved that rank because you didn't complete the school. You were promoted to it. But you had to complete the school, you retired, you go back down to E.H., you go back down to sergeant major, yet his biography still lists him as the Command Sergeant Major.
Little things like that though, start to add up over time, and I think when you're -- as we're --
AXELROD: Yes, you're right, that he retired before he could complete the course, so he goes back, but he did get -- he did go back. He did get -- but he did get -- the point of that, what he was a sergeant major, as I understand, I wasn't in the military, is that quite an honor in and of itself.
WILLIAMS: He gave 24 years of his life. At that point in time, if they sent -- I know people, a thousand of them who got orders to transfer to someplace that they didn't want to go and said, no, I'm going to get out.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Can I just say thank you for your service. Thank you, Senator Vance, for his service. And thank you, Governor Walz, for your service. And thank you for all the people who are serving our country now and who have lost people to war. I've lost a friend in the Iraq war. So, I understand I'm part of that J.D. Vance generation where we were the generation of the Iraq war.
It doesn't matter if you serve 4 years, 4 weeks, or 24 years. He served his country. If you want to attack him on his policy, attack him on his policy. This is not the greatest of America to go after somebody in this way.
[22:10:00]
And I do agree with David that it's picking at the worst part of what Americans are so sick of and I don't think it will end well. And I don't think it's what you need to win this campaign. If you think you have a good policy position, then run on that. Sure, he might've misspoke, but let's not hold if you want to hold a candle to your candidate and how he misspeaks sometimes, he called our veterans losers.
LOTTER: That's been debunked.
WILLIAMS: But the truth is it has not been debunked.
LOTTER: It's absolutely been debunked.
ALLISON: But here's the thing. Here's the thing. He didn't serve, and so he shouldn't talk about veterans at all. Okay?
WILLIAMS: And the truth is 1.3 million people a year sign up for our service. Less than 1 percent of this country defends this democracy. And the fact that he did so for 24 years, and if he decided he was tired at that point in time, I'm ready to go and change up, change it up.
ALLISON: And you should say, thank you.
WILLIAMS: Thank you.
ALLISON: Thank you for your service.
LOTTER: I would question anyone who questions his service. He served America. He wore the patch of the flag of the United States on his shoulder. He should be heralded for that. But do not embellish your record. Do not embellish your achievements to score political points, or you run the risk of getting called out.
JENNINGS: He is using his military record, though, to try to achieve a policy end, which is why I think this is being discussed in the campaign. He's using his service to then advocate for the gun control policies that he prefers. So, there is --
SIDNER: Weapons of war shouldn't be allowed on the streets --
ALLISON: Which most of Americans agree with --
JENNINGS: So there's a nexus between his military record, which we all agree exists, and what he's trying to do with it in the context of his political career. So, I do think it's a fair assessment of his words about it.
AXELROD: But doesn't that credential him? Because he was -- you know, he actually was an expert marksman. He was distinguished for that. And he also lost his -- he had hearing issues related to explosives that he worked with. He has standing to talk about what these weapons do. I don't know that's so outlandish.
ALLISON: And the reality is that 60 percent of Americans agree that we don't need AR-15s on our streets to go in and murder kids in their schools or in churches or in synagogues. And so if that's the policy debate you want to have had, but, I mean, that's not what we're having right now.
AXELROD: The thing I heard him advocate for was for universal background checks. I think he's been a strong supporter of red flag laws and some other steps that I think are supported by vast numbers of Americans, including many gun owners.
JENNINGS: Do you think he supports the Harris plan to have mandatory gun buyback programs?
AXELROD: Well, I haven't heard her articulate that plan in this campaign. I think what I've heard her articulate is universal background checks, red flag laws. That's what she's running on.
But, Scott, we've had this discussion before. If this is going to be a race about what someone said years ago, we're going to be talking about Donald Trump a lot.
SIDNER: Hold on. Let's go ahead and do that, because I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that Donald Trump avoided the draft because of supposed bone spurs, but he did talk about his feeling like he had been in Vietnam when he got on in the 1990s with Howard Stern and talked about the world of dating in the 90s. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Dating is like being in Vietnam. You're the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam.
If you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam, we have our own Vietnam. It's called the dating game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is your personal Vietnam, isn't it?
TRUMP: It is my personal Vietnam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is. You've said that many times.
TRUMP: I feel like a great and very brave soldier.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you're braver than any Vietnam vet because you're out there screwing a lot of women.
TRUMP: It's getting the Congressional Medal of Honor, in actuality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: How do Republicans defend the attack on Waltz when you have Donald Trump joking around but saying that it's like Vietnam out there when it comes to dating in the 90s?
JENNINGS: I mean, there's no defense of it other than to say, you know, here was a guy who was in the business of saying outlandish things in the media during his pre-political career. But, you know, there's obviously no real defense of it.
AXELROD: And I'm not sure he's gotten out of that business.
WILLIAMS: But, Scott, come on, please, sir, I have to tell you, I find that comment disgusting.
JENNINGS: Why?
WILLIAMS: To compare that to people who gave their lives?
JENNINGS: Oh, his comment, not mine.
WILLIAMS: His comment. To compare that to people who gave their lives, dating to that? I mean, I visit some veterans around this country who's left body parts in the field. Their families are still suffering 12 years later right now, and to make that kind of a statement.
And, again, if we're going to go back in time and look at comments from 15, 16 years ago, we don't need to do that. We need to start looking at right now today. You know, there's 114 armed conflicts going on around the world right now, 47 of them, plus in the Middle East, North Africa, 35-plus in South Africa, 7-plus South America. We need to have people in the White House that we can look at and think to ourselves, you know what? I'm glad that this person is going to be there at 2:00 in the morning when something happens. Maybe even the night we get bumped off the air because something happens.
JENNINGS: Do you believe we have that in the White House right now?
[22:15:00]
WILLIAMS: I believe we do, without a doubt.
JENNINGS: At 2:00 in the morning?
WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
ALLISON: You know, it's interesting, I mean, I find it disgusting too. Vietnam was a little before my time, but I do go to the Vietnam Memorial and I get to see my uncle's name that I never got to meet, because he died in that war.
The lasting impact of war is unending. It goes beyond generations, even if you haven't been alive. And to compare it to dating, it's just typical Trump.
WILLIAMS: It's disgusting.
SIDNER: All right. We're going to hang tight, because this conversation has been a good one and everyone's getting their points in.
Coming up next, President Biden makes an eerie prediction about what he thinks will happen if Trump loses this election.
Plus, see what happened when the crowd at the Harris rally started chanting, lock him up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: As attorney general of California, well, hold on --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
SIDNER: Tonight, a warning from President Biden and his first interview since he left the race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you confident that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January, 2025? BIDEN: If Trump wins, no, I'm not confident at all. I mean, if Trump loses, I'm not confident at all. He means what he says. We don't take him seriously. He means it. All the stuff about if we lose, there'll be a bloodbath is that will have to be a stolen election. Look what they're trying to do now in the local election districts where people count the votes that are elected. They're putting people in place in states that they're going to count the votes, right?
You can't love your country only when you win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right, back with my panel. Scott, I'm picking on you right now because I saw that head move with a just disdain.
JENNINGS: Sad.
SIDNER: What bugged you about what President Biden said?
JENNINGS: Well, first of all, where has the president been other than to roll out and do this interview tonight and offer up this absolute debunked comment about Donald Trump promising a bloodbath? This did not happen. I know it's an article of faith on the BlueAnon, fever swamps of the left. This did not happen. He was specifically talking about -- he was specifically talking about the automotive industry and the policies that he has versus the policies of the Democrats. Everybody knows it.
And for the president of the United States to go out, in my opinion, and try to convince half the country that we're going to effectively, what he's saying is we'll have a civil war if one side wins or one side loses is the height of irresponsibility, in my opinion.
So I don't agree with the way President Biden handled this tonight. Also, I have great confidence in the constitution and in the diffused system of elections that we have. The guardians of our elections is the diffusion among the county clerks, the volunteers, the secretaries of state, the people at the local level. That's why this works. It is very much alive and well, and I have a lot of optimism and faith in it. And he obviously does it, and I think it's wrong.
ALLISON: The problem is your candidate doesn't, though. The problem is that all of 2019 and 2020, he said that the election was suspicious and put the breadcrumbs down for January 6th to happen. The problem is he asked his supporters to come to the nation's capital, that then marched to the capital, and injured police officers and chanted not just to kill Nancy Pelosi, but to hang his own vice president. The problem is that you do have people in your body talking about civil war.
So, I appreciate that you have faith but the folks that are at the top of your ticket still do not believe the 2020 election were valid, your candidate.
LOTTER: You got a Maryland Rep., I forget, Jamie Raskin who actually said He's going to use the next January 6th to start a civil war if Trump wins, disqualify him on January 6th in the halls of Congress in 2025. The Democrats have objected to every election they have lost since 1988, 1988, 2000, 2004, 2016.
So, why don't we stop talking about the problem and actually trying to start solving the problem, which is literally increasing election integrity, so no one has to question it?
AXELROD: Let's just take a step back, take a breath, and really reflect on what actually is true. The fact is that, on many, many occasions, the president has said that he thought there would be violence if the election went the wrong way. And he has laid the predicate that this was going to be, if he lost, that he only believes there are two results, he wins or the election was stolen. There's no third option. And he has suggested that he thought there would be a violent reaction to that.
So, I agree with you. I think that quote was taken out of context. I agree with you on that, but there were many other quotes that weren't taken out of context.
Now, as to the, yes, Democrats in Congress have protested in the past, but Democratic candidates have conceded, every single one of them. Al Gore conceded. John Kerry conceded. Hillary Clinton conceded. We're talking about these candidates for president of the United States.
LOTTER: Then they all went around for years and called George W. Bush an illegitimate president for years, and Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump illegitimate for years.
AXELROD: The fact is, Democrats respect the process. The process allows for --
JENNINGS: Like primaries?
AXELROD: -- for protests. The process allows for protests and protests were lodged, but the process moved along. The candidate conceded promptly in those cases. That's how it should be. It shouldn't be a denigration of the system from the beginning, telling people in advance, the system is corrupt. And if we lose, it will be because it was stolen. And that's what we saw in 2020.
[22:25:00]
We're seeing the predicate for that again today. I mean, that's just the fact.
JENNINGS: Do you think the president though, is trying to convince every Democrat that we will have violence if an outcome occur? I think this is what drives me crazy. You have rightly pointed out that Trump and others have said things about elections that I don't agree with and that aren't true. You and I are in agreement on that. But when President Biden goes out and tells all the Democrats, hey, listen, you know, this election may go in a way and we could have bloodbath in the streets, civil war. It's just not true. And yet his words have meaning. He's the president. AXELROD: I would like nothing more than for him to be wrong. I would like nothing more than on the day that this election is called, that Donald Trump stands up and says the people have spoken, they have made their decision and I honor, that would put all of this to rest, if he stopped saying that this is a corrupt system, and if he loses, there'll be violence, that would help.
So, I hope the president's wrong this is not without predicate for him to I mean this is a guy who launched a mob at the Capitol.
SIDNER: Here is one more thing.
ALLISON: (INAUDIBLE) he would say he lost? Has he done it yet?
LOTTER: This is what I would say is no candidate from either party should actually say, I'm going to commit to accepting and not challenging election results ahead of time. Because every election we've ever worked in, there have been polls that didn't open, cases that ran out of ballots, power outages. These things happen in every single election, which is why you have recount rules, you have recount laws to follow. And then the process works. It's laid through.
SIDNER: But the process was called (ph) and 60 courts agree that there was no widespread voter fraud and still we are hearing 2020 was stolen. We're still hearing that. Also, one thing that has not been mentioned are the fake electors. It's one thing to say it and another thing to say.
LOTTER: Because it didn't -- no, alternate electors. Because let's remember the state of Hawaii in 1960 --
SIDNER: One person has already pleaded guilty.
ALLISON: You're like making time for him, Marc.
LOTTER: No, let's talk history in reality. In 1960, the state of Hawaii certified the election results for Richard M. Nixon and sent on-time delegates from the Electoral College to Congress. They later had a recount and realized, oops, we were wrong. They sent an untimely alternate set of electors to the Congress, which then then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon accepted and gave those Electoral College votes to John Kennedy.
AXELROD: So, the state sent the alternate electors is what you're saying?
LOTTER: Correct.
AXELROD: Yes.
SIDNER: Right, that's different than what --
AXELROD: But that's not what happened here.
LOTTER: Still alternate electors, they were untimely by the letter of the law. AXELROD: it does matter whether the state is sending them or a candidate is sending them.
SIDNER: Montel, when you hear this sort of thing and the word civil war have been used very much on the right, I have heard it myself, I have seen it in some of the writings, but then when you hear this word bloodbath, which it was only used by Donald Trump when it came to car manufacturing in this country, is this stirring things up?
WILLIAMS: Two hours ago on John Berman's show, they showed a tape of the rally that J.D. Vance held today, and a woman out at the rally said, there's going to be a bloodbath if Trump loses. Every time you see anything that happens in one of those rallies, there are people, whether Trump himself wanted to intimate that, the takeaway was, get your guns, we're going to do something.
And I'm a little bit -- you know, I'm fearful of the future. I mean, you know, I got four kids. I don't want to see an America that's this dystopian place where people are eating out of garbage cans because somebody didn't want to accept this coming vote. But that's how close we are to this. And when you have one candidate stoking the fire, using that terminology that others take away, thinking that it's fact, what we believe doesn't matter, what they believe does.
LOTTER: But this is a problem on both sides, because, I mean, the left, the Democrats, have been vilifying Donald Trump for now eight years. He is a threat to democracy. He's the worst human being on the face of the Earth. He is what's stopping our country from moving forward. He had an assassin try to kill him about three weeks ago.
SIDNER: Who was a Republican.
ALLISON: Who was a Republican.
LOTTER: But when we start using these --
ALLISON: I'm, sorry, we're not going to both side this. We're not going to both side this.
SIDNER: No, I just think it's fair to say he was a registered Republican.
ALLISON: We're not going to both sides January 6th. We're not going to do it, because --
LOTTER: I know Democrats every day they wake up and thank God and relive January 6th like it's Groundhog Day.
ALLISON: So, it wasn't a big deal.
LOTTER: Put it this way, there was more damage, more destruction, more deaths, and more police officers injured in the BLM riots, and nobody went to jail. They got bailed out by Kamala Harris.
AXELROD: Absolutely out of your mind if you think Democrats wake up and say, thank God for January 6th. That was the most horrifying day I can recall. I wept that day because I have some reverence for this democracy.
[22:30:01]
I have some reverence for that building, the Capitol. And when people overran the Capitol, and when I saw people threatening to kill the Vice President of the United States, to kill the Speaker of the House, it was unimaginable to me. And the fact that the President of the United States directed those folks to go there and --and --
LOTTER: Peacefully and patriotically.
AXELROD: Yes.
LOTTER: Make their voices heard.
AXELROD: Yes. He sat there for three hours while this went on.
LOTTER: Peacefully and patriotically, we can say this all day long.
AXELROD: He sat there for three hours and sent an email condemning his Vice President while they were erecting a -- gallows outside that. And he knew that was going on.
ALLISON: And the fact that we live in, it feels like, two different realities. And you described --
LOTTER: Where was your -- where was your --
ALLISON: Can I finish? Y
LOTTER: Yes, ma'am.
ALLISON: Thank you. The fact that we live in two different realities, and you have that experience that we want it to be Groundhog's Day and I too cried. I was working on the transition.
I did not like any of the policies of Mike Pence, but I sure did not want to see the Vice President or just another human killed on that day because somebody couldn't accept the results. An adult could not accept the results of an election that was fairly run, makes us worry about what would happen this time.
And so, again, children are looking. History will write about this moment. Can we just all become the adults in the room, stop calling names, call a thing a thing, and let democracy survive? But when we try and play this both sides-ness, not today.
JENNINGS: I do think what Montel said, though, is true. We ought to have some worry about the culture of political violence. It's obvious that there are people in our society who want to commit political violence. Some of them are on the extreme right. Some of them are on the extreme left.
And they don't respect elections. Maybe they also don't respect outcomes of political processes. Maybe they don't respect that there's a political process at all. Maybe they're complete anarchists. Maybe they want to end Western civilization. We see people on the streets of America over the last few years and in the last few weeks burning the American flag in front of Union Station because they don't like our policies.
So, I actually think you're right. I do think the threat of political violence ought to be on all of our minds. But we ought not be blind to the extremism and the fringes of both sides of the spectrum. And I'm not saying these people are regular Republicans or regular Democrats. I think they're regular fringe dwellers. And they are willing to take matters into their own hands.
AXELROD: Scott, let's start with our leaders and let's say a demand of our leaders that they speak to this and they not encourage people to think in those ways.
SIDNER: Can I quickly go to what Kamala Harris said today? There was someone in the crowd and people started chanting, lock him up. Listen to how she responded to this chant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (D): Hold on. Here's the thing. The courts are going to handle that. We're going to beat him in November.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: So, instead of riling up the crowd and continuing to lock him up, lock him up, because that's what was being said, she said, hold on, let's let the courts decide. What do you make of that? We saw something a little bit like this with McCain back in the day when someone talked about Obama, calling him all these different things that he wasn't. And McCain said, hold on a second. No, he's a decent man. I just disagree with his policies.
WILLIAMS: It's her tenor. The tenor is let's unite, not divide. It's time to have more conversations, even like the ones we're having right here. So, I disagree with what you've said. We've disagreed. We've also kind of just slightly realized that we could turn that beach ball just a little bit and see a different panel. See a different --
SIDNER: See a different commonality.
WILLIAMS: She is really focused on trying to make America understand that what unites us is far greater than what divides us. As a mass, and we ought to pay attention to those people on the fringes who are taking away the wrong message, those people who have some form of mental illness who are taking away the wrong message, saying that if my side doesn't win, then burn the whole thing down.
We can't do this. You've got to remember, you know, folks like me, and we probably got 40 million veterans alive. The majority of them put their hand up in the air and said, I do solemnly swear and affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, period. That's what we believe in. That's why I put a uniform on. To protect this for your generation, for your generation, let's start focusing on how we protect this and stop firing up those idiots who really think that they can -- because at the end of the day, what do you want?
You want to eat out of a garbage can? Because that's what's going to happen if we go to a civil war. Remember, more deaths in the American Civil War than any other conflict since.
SIDNER: Brother against brother.
WILLIAMS: We're going to do it again? Sorry.
SIDNER: No, don't be sorry. This is a serious -- this is a really, really serious moment in our history. Thank you all. We're going to be right back. Stick around. We've got more to talk about. Thank you, Montel.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:39:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OHIO): I figured I'd come by and wanted to take a good look at the plane. Hopefully it's going to be my plane in a few months, but I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn't answer questions from reporters and hasn't for 17 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: J.D. Vance playing stuntman in front of Kamala Harris' plane on the tarmac today. I'm back with my panel. Marc, I'm going to start with you. Is this a good idea? He's gone up the Air Force two. She's landed in Wisconsin and he's trying to get to her. Doesn't happen, but complains about something that has been a talking point that she has not sat down for a one-on-one interview nor a press conference in the last 17 or so days.
LOTTER: Yeah, I love this. It's -- it's basic bracketing, but usually you send a surrogate, they've sent the top surrogate out there to do it.
[22:40:01]
And it's also remarkably cost effective because look, rallies are expensive to put on, whether even whether for a vice presidential candidate or a presidential candidate. So, having him go out there ahead of every stop by Kamala Harris and Governor Walz is an easy, cheap way to get local media in targeted states and not give them clean airspace. I also love the troll as someone who has spent a lot of time on Trump Force two and Air Force two. He's getting an upgrade when it gets to Air Force two.
SIDNER: What do you make of this, David? AXELROD: I think --
SIDNER: I don't think you have the same opinion as Marc.
AXELROD: No, look, legitimate question.
SIDNER: Yeah.
AXELROD: The vice president has to do these and she, she presumably will do these. He looked a little, you know, every time he goes out there, he looks like a kid trying to wear an adult suit to me. And one of the problems with that they now have is that, you know, Governor Walz looks like a grown up and he looks like a puppy chasing after her -- kind of.
And I --so, I don't know. Maybe -- maybe this -- maybe you're right. Maybe that tactic impresses people. But everything with him looks so staged and ungenuine to me.
SIDNER: I thought you were going to use the word that Tim Walz has used.
AXELROD: Weird?
SIDNER: Right.
AXELROD: Yeah. I don't know. I, I've objected to that word --
SIDNER: Yeah.
AXELROD: -- just because it's already become a cliche. But you know, if the shoe fits.
JENNINGS: I think the principle --get out of that stunt today --is just to remind people that she won't do an interview. I mean, if I were her, I wouldn't either, I guess, because, you know, she's getting an amazing run of press right now without having to do any press.
But I -- but that's -- the point is she is the Democrat nominee for president. She's probably legitimately the front runner now and nobody gets to ask her a single question. I mean, Vance has done more interviews with her press pool than she has. Vance's wife has done more interviews with the media than she has since she became the nominee.
At some point, it has to end and it is a little ridiculous. I know she's been busy or whatever, but it's a little ridiculous. She has been the vice president for almost 1300 days. She could face the press at this point. She's the Democrat nominee.
SIDNER: What do you make of this?
WILLIAMS: Fourteen days. Got to build a campaign. Got to pick a vice president. Have to do a job also as the vice president. So, you know, I feel bad for the press in some ways, because it's almost like you guys are trying to drive her to say, you better come talk to me right now.
SIDNER: That's what we do.
WILLIAMS: But I know she has the right to say, okay, chill out. I'll come see you when I'm ready. And that may be within the next week.
ALLISON: Now, I understand the stuntiness of it. And sure, campaigns are trying to do it. The CARES campaign has had a run of great stunts, particularly online. I think it's because she's the vice president. It didn't land. It's the office still. I granted she was going to a campaign rally, but she's still the sitting vice president. And so, it's like, have some respect for the office. If it was candidate to candidate, perhaps.
But look, I think the vice president will do an interview. I think Tim Walz will do an interview. I am not above criticizing our own candidate. I'm not in the realm of criticizing her yet because it has only been, what, two weeks. She just announced her vice president yesterday. I know it feels like it was last month that she did that, but it was just yesterday morning. So, I think in the next -- I think before the DNC, she will sit down --
JENNINGS: The last interview she did, I think, might have been on this network with Anderson Cooper--
ALLISON: Yes.
JENNINGS: -- on the night of the debate in which she was assuring us that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack.
AXELROD: I mean, I mean, she's pretty good that.
ALLISON: And I did, too.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, was she? I mean, did she tell the truth about it?
AXELROD: But listen, the this is -- there are all kinds of tests of candidates when you're running for president. That's how people judge you. There are a series of events and you have to go through all of them. And then people make a judgment as to how you handle pressure, how you handle different situations.
Certainly, doing interviews is one of them. Debating is another. I was happy to see that the president, that former President Trump, is now saying, okay, maybe I will debate. And I don't have to have my adapted debate on Fox News, but I will. You know, I may consider something else.
I think people want these things and I hope they get them and they'll get some side by side time and they'll see them deal with interviews, certainly with him, not just on Fox News. I think this is all part of the process.
ALLISON: You know, we --
SIDNER: Go ahead. I was just saying --
ALLISON: We don't know how this will play out until the election. But one test you just went through was picking the vice president. And she's had a great 24 hours. She made a good decision in picking Walz. We'll see again if the voters resonate. But so far, he's landed pretty well.
AXELROD: I mean, the two tests -- the two tests -- the first two tests when you name a vice president is are they qualified to be president? And the second test is will they embarrass me in a campaign? Seems to me that on both those scores, she's done better than President Trump.
[22:45:00]
And now you read about all of the folks who have sort of buyer's remorse about J.D. Vance. And you wonder if Trump had known that he was going to have this race, whether he would have indulged himself by listening to his sons and appointing their pal to run for vice president.
LOTTER: But I think to a certain point, though, I mean, this is obviously now 24 hours in. We spent the top of this show talking about his military service and whether he embellished his record and or whether that was important. We have now gone through his policy positions.
We've talked all day long, most of the day about his radical positions on illegal immigration, getting free health care and giving them driver's licenses and all of these things. These are the things -- one of the things you have to do as a vice president. You have to win your rollout. And the fact that we are sitting here tonight talking about his military service is not winning the rollout.
SIDNER: All right. Stand by. We've got more to talk about. We will talk about more of those issues that you just brought up. Vice President Harris is taking her ticket across the country. She reopened the electoral map that Biden was closing, perhaps. We will discuss all of this next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:35]
SIDNER: Now, that the presidential race has been upended, a key question --can Kamala Harris reopen the map? CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins the conversation from the all-famous wall. Ron.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Sara. That is exactly the right question. Kamala Harris' itinerary this week gives us a window in what I think is the most important strategic question facing her campaign, which is can she reopen more pathways to 270 by competing not only in the swing states of the Rust Belt, which are these -- that she has done in the early part of the trip. But where she'll also be later this week in the Sun Belt in the
Southwest and what would have been in North Carolina and Georgia if not for the weather. Now, if you go back to 2020, the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt were both close. The Rust Belt was close. The Sun Belt was really close.
Biden won Georgia by 12,000 votes, Arizona by about 10,000 votes, Nevada by 34,000 votes. This time, Biden had largely fallen out of contention in those Sun Belt states. If you look at the difference in his vote between 2020 and 2024, the biggest change is that his vote has eroded among younger -- and younger people, and people of color.
And because the Rust Belt states are older and whiter, paradoxically, they have held up better for Biden than the Sun Belt states that are younger and more diverse. I mean, look at the difference here. We're talking about this is the share of the voting age population by race.
Pennsylvania, Michigan, about three quarters white, Wisconsin over 80 percent white. The actual electorate is even more white than that. And Georgia, Arizona, Nevada are younger and more diverse.
And because Biden had eroded specifically among those kinds of voters, they looked more difficult for him this time than last time. But look at this. This is the poll that came out today from the Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin, which is, I think, indicative of what is happening throughout the Rust Belt states.
And what it tells us is that Harris is at this point meeting a critical test. She is largely holding Biden's vote among white voters, which means that even if she can't put the Sun Belt states back into play and there is that risk that she will get closer but not get over the top in any of them, that the pathway through the Rust Belt of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may still be available to her.
That's an inside straight. If she wins those three plus Omaha, the congressional district, she gets exactly to 270. And here you see the pathway, her margins among both college and non-college white voters almost exactly the same as Biden's four years ago when he won all three of those states.
SIDNER: I can't believe we have just about three months until the election. There's a lot of hard work that has to be done. Ron, thank you. Come on over here and join our table for our hot takes coming up next. The panel will give us their nightcaps.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:41]
SIDNER: It's -- we are back and it's time for hot takes, nightcap, whatever you want to call it. Each of you -- I feel like a game show host. Each of you have 30 seconds to give us your hot take. I'm starting with you, Marc. Go.
LOTTER: Well, my clock is going. All right. My hot take is that Boeing Starliner. They have the two astronauts that are stranded right now on the International Space Station. NASA came out today and said it may have to rely on Elon Musk and SpaceX to get them home.
Talk about the ultimate brand embarrassment for a company that needs some brand positivity to have to rely on basically a startup to get your astronauts home.
SIDNER: Boeing broken is his hot take. Yeah, Ashley.
ALLISON: Okay. Olympics, they're coming to a close. Mine is Gabby Thomas, who won the gold in the 200 and Quincy Hall, who won the gold in the 400. They came from behind to win the race. And I think it is somewhat symbolic -- symbolic to what might be happening in our politics to the theme song of the Harris campaign, a winner never quits on themselves. So, shout out to them and the gold and all the Olympic athletes.
SIDNER: You're going Beyonce. I see what you did there. Ron?
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, I'm going back to something you touched on at the beginning. You really have to wonder how far down the road someone who is running with Donald Trump on the ticket wants to go in accusing anyone else of avoiding military service. I mean, not only did Donald Trump claim bone spurs, which may have been spurious, to avoid the draft in Vietnam.
But he later, as you noted, said it was the equivalent of going to Vietnam to avoid STDs during his single, and I guess married days, as well. So, I do not really -- I kind of wonder how far J.D. Vance actually wants to push this line of argument.
SIDNER: Your hot take spurious bone spurs. And it's on you, Scott.
JENNINGS: My hot take is today. Kamala Harris said, when I'm president, it will be a day one priority to fight to try to bring down prices for all Americans. Now, I had to look it up. I'm not -- I'm only moderately proficient at math.
But it seems that she's, according to my calculations, been vice president of the United States for 1295 days. So, this may have come as a huge surprise to the American people that the sitting vice president either, A, blames Joe Biden for doing nothing about prices or B has lost his phone number and can't tell him to get to work on it today.
[23:00:00]
SIDNER: Ouch. Montel?
WILLIAMS: I just got to remind us all. Less than a week ago, we had three American soldiers come back in body bags. They were attacked by drones near the Lebanon-Syrian border, right? And over 30 other people wearing uniforms were injured. I've only seen maybe two or three stories about that.
And I'm not knocking our press, but let's remember, it's those precious treasures that allow us to sit here at this table. Let's start not just saying thank you for your service. Let's start supporting those guys that are supporting us.
SIDNER: Bringing us back to reality. Montel Williams, we appreciate you. All of you. This has been a wonderful night. Appreciate you all. Everyone, thank you so much for watching. And thank you for being here for "NewsNight" State of the Race. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
