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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump's Economic Speech Devolves Into Rants, Insults; Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) Agrees To October 1st V.P. Debate With Sen. J.D. Vance (R- OH); V.P. Picks Dealing With Questions About Past Links, Remarks; "NewsNight" Tackles State Of 2024 Presidential Race. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 14, 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]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, a Trump plan.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: What we're doing, this as an intellectual speech. You're all intellectuals today.
PHILLIP: To make the economy great again, evades policy and embraces pettiness.
TRUMP: She's not smart. She's not intelligent.
PHILLIP: Plus, Kamala Harris tries to go her own way.
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When we fight, we win.
PHILLIP: But Joe Biden --
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: My policies are working, start right that way, okay?
PHILLIP: --won't let Harris break the chain on the economy.
Also, wash.
TRUMP: We have the biggest crowds ever in the history of politics.
PHILLIP: Rinse.
TRUMP: It was a coup. This was a coup of a president.
PHILLIP: Repeat.
TRUMP: Kamala, you're fired. Get out of here.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump invites questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You lose interest, which is not something you're used to with Trump. PHILLIP: By being boring.
And RFK Jr. makes an offer that will almost certainly be refused.
Live at the table, Ashley Allison, Alyssa Farrah Griffin, Joe Pinion, Lauren Wright, and Anthony Scaramucci. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about, letting Trump be Trump and why letting Trump be Trump may be a recipe for a Republican letdown in the fall. The Republican nominee had a North Carolina audience teed up to hear about the economy. That's an issue that still tilts toward him if you look at the polls. But what the swing state crowd actually got was typical Trump and only occasionally an on-topic Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Today, we're going to talk about one subject, and then we'll start going back to the other, because we sort of love that, don't we?
They say it's the most important subject. I'm not sure it is, but they say it's the most important.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I've got my panelists with me here. And in our fifth seat, joining us today, Catherine Rampell, CNN's economic and political commentator.
Catherine. This one was set up just for you because this was supposed to be about the economy, and he actually did say quite a few things. What did you make of the speech?
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know what I watched, to be honest. It was just sort of a meandering, incoherent ball of lies and numbers pulled out of thin air. That's when he remembered to talk about the economy and he had to remind himself several times throughout the speech that he was supposed to be talking about the economy.
PHILLIP: Like reading the teleprompter?
RAMPELL: Right, before then he decided to go off on a tangent about like tampons or crime in San Francisco. I'm not making these things up. You can look at the transcripts or the speech itself.
But when he was talking about the economy, he was just making stuff up. I mean, there are too many things to fact-check, but I can go through a few that I jotted down while I was watching it. He talked about how there was a war on American energy, which is not true. Nearly every form of energy production is at, or recently touched, a record high, oil, gas, solar, wind, battery production, et cetera. He said bacon prices have gone up four or five times what they used to be not true. They're like a dollar more than they were when he left office. He talked about deporting immigrants and how that would help with inflation. It would probably raise inflation. He talked about crime going up. Crime is actually going down. The murder rates are on track this year to be at or below what they were every year of the Trump presidency. He talked about where are the jobs. In fact, we've had record job growth among other things.
So, it was just like, I don't know if that stuff was in the teleprompter or, you know, it was beeping around in his head somewhere and it just came out his mouth, but it was not the most coherent speech.
JOE PINION, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, look --
PHILLIP: I would only go to you, Joe, because I know that this is important, right, the economy. You think this is -- and the polls say this is Trump's best issue. So --
PINION: Look, I think, again, we can have a very nuanced macroeconomics conversation in which I probably wouldn't be at this table and we'd have a whole another table of people.
[22:05:01]
We're not here to talk about macroeconomics. We're here to talk about kitchen table finances. And I think if you look at it through that prism, yes, you can critique the numbers of President Trump. I don't think that President Trump has ever been the person that you wanted to be running the fact-checker. But I think if you're talking about an ability to tap into the sentiments that are very much real and very much supported by numbers, I do think that there are real things that Americans are feeling.
No, there's not a war on energy in the sense that we're not having higher energy production, but it does feel that if you're looking at the policies Democrats are trying to pass, whether it's New York State trying to mandate that every school bus become electric, whether it's the fact that we have Indian Point shutting down the nuclear plants, whether we know for a fact that the institutional memory necessary to bring more nuclear plants online at a time when we need that type of production the most, all of that stuff is critical and it's making the American middle class poor.
PHILLIP: All of those things are -- I mean, I hear what you're saying about people's lived experiences, but if, you know, there is a war on energy, but all the metrics of energy production are going up, that doesn't --
LAUREN WRIGHT, ASSOCIATE RESEARCH SCHOLAR AND LECTURER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: So, it's gas prices. Gas prices are up 30 percent and people really feel that.
PINION: Grocery prices going up, right? So, there's a real conversation that can be had.
RAMPELL: No, prices are not going up. PHILLIP: What I meant to say was grocery prices were higher than they have been.
PINION: Grocery prices -- I mean to go back to the old Malcolm X adage, of you put a knife in my back nine inches and then take it out three inches, that is not progress. If you take it out nine inches, even that is not progress. Progress is when the wound heals. Americans are still wounded. And so, yes, we can have a very nice conversation about the fact that if you go back to 2019, or if you compare it to pre-pandemic levels --
RAMPELL: I think the bigger issue is it's not that hard to identify what Americans are unhappy about. I agree with that. And many are legitimately frustrated, stressed, financially strapped. The hard part of governing is figuring out what to do about it. And Trump just says in this speech, I'm going to bring costs down 30 percent. I'm going to cut gas prices 50 percent. How? I don't know.
PHILLIP: So, interestingly, credit for bringing the price of insulin to $35, which he definitely did not do. I mean, there was some of that going on too.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he had one job and it was to show up and deliver pre prepared remarks about his economic vision. This was a smaller event. This wasn't a rally-type event. But he played to what he often does, which is his audience. And when he started to get famous feedback and he started to get cheers, he wants to play the character of Donald Trump, the Kamala, you're fired, and then the name calling, and he goes off-script. And I don't doubt that there was maybe something presented for him that was a forward-looking economic vision with actual policies, but that wasn't what we heard.
But what we did hear are some things that actually concerned me. He keeps talking about tariffs as though -- and he also keeps leaning into this trade war with China. If you are talking about tariffs on American consumers for goods that are imported, that's an Amazon tax, that's a tax on anything that's coming from abroad that you will feel at a time that Americans already feel a daily crunch when they're buying their groceries.
He's not laying forward a vision that's going to make things substantially better, whereas I actually do agree his first term was very strong, economically. He's not leaning into that, he's leaning into the Donald Trump that thinks he needs to be at war with China.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I guess my question is -- okay, we're in a campaign. If Joe Biden on a -- and if he was still in the race, gave the speech that Donald Trump gave today, our conversation would be totally different. We'd be talking about, is he up to the job, what's his cognitive ability, what's his character, like we would be having a totally different conversation. But for some reason, Donald Trump gets to continue to go up, present himself, not be honest about the facts say I guess it's the most important issue, well is it or isn't it? Like are you the guy that's going to fix the economy or not? I wonder, though, when he goes up, there were people in there that chanted and cheered, but how many more are you going to get when you show up like that? The American people are suffering. And when you get somebody that comes up onto the stage and pretends like it's a joke and is not honest about what is really happening, there is -- people are suffering. People need more money in their pockets. But when Donald Trump shows up in the way he does, it doesn't actually feel like he's going to be the person that is fighting for you at the end of the day.
WRIGHT: The style you're talking about, this meandering nonsense, that's baked in with Donald Trump and the standard's different because he's a celebrity candidate. People don't see him like a former president. They see him as a non-traditional politician and there's a different measuring stick for him and there always has been. But some of these economic policies would have been good points. Look, the tariffs are controversial. Joe Biden continued the tariffs.
Is Harris going to take away the Trump tax cuts? They benefited everyone across all in income levels. You know, is she just going to, you know, take away the corporate controversial part? Is she even going to keep the tax breaks for low income families? When you're making $27,000 a year, even a few hundred dollars makes a big difference.
[22:10:04]
Those are popular policies. So, the message is there to send. He's not sending it. It's very dysfunctional.
PINION: Well, I think also, I think to Lauren's point, I mean, the reality becomes on one day, it's President Trump has passed a policy or proposed a policy, such as removing taxes on tips, and all of a sudden people are talking about what will that cost and how does he pay for it? And then a few weeks later Kamala Harris trots out the same thing and all of a sudden she's making a play for voters. So, yes, we can have these really nuanced conversations.
RAMPELL: I mean, to be fair, I wrote a column yesterday. It's about both of the -- it's a bad policy when both (INAUDIBLE).
(CROSSTALKS)
GRIFFIN: It is something that messaging has (INAUDIBLE).
PINION: Yes. And so I just think, again, one, let's just -- if we're upset about the fact that people seem to be deviating from the facts, yes, that is a critical conversation for us to have across the board, whether we're talking about the border or whether we're talking about the economy.
GRIFFIN: But I'm more just struck by the level of performance. We're really saying this is the best our party can offer, as someone who can barely maintain a coherent thought.
PHILLIP: Okay, let me just play this, just in case people missed the speech. Let me play, this is Trump going completely off-script and starting to focus on Kamala Harris' laugh.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: For nearly four years, Kamala has crackled as the American economy has burned. 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. I will tell you, if you haven't known, it's crazy. She's crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The thing with some of those speeches, you can see him doing it there, he's reading part of it, right? They say un the speech, it seems like it says, Kamala has cackled as the American economy has burned. And then that takes him on a completely different path. And this is what is really hurting his campaign right now.
GRIFFIN: Right. And I would advise him not to tee him up for things like that, knowing how undisciplined he's been. For some reason, Kamala Harris triggers him in a way that Hillary Clinton didn't, Joe Biden didn't. She truly gets under his skin. My theory on it is she's the younger candidate, she's the cultural icon in this. He was always the celebrity figure. She kind of has that cachet, and she flipped the age narrative on him.
He can't seem to get past just a point of personally insulting when it comes to her, and I think it's going to hurt him with the very voters he needs to win, which are suburban women and swing voters.
WRIGHT: I don't know. He did the same stuff in 2016 to Hillary Clinton. All the sexist comments, the woman card, the this, the that, he won.
GRIFFIN: Yes.
WRIGHT: But we assume these comments will kill him.
PHILLIP: And a lot of other things happened in 2016 as well.
WRIGHT: Yes, and he's had many more problems since 2016, and he's in a better position in the polls right now than he was at this point in 2016.
And so I would just caution Democrats not to assume that these things are going to kill his campaign, because they have not in the past, and people seem very willing to set aside the Trumpian stuff and focus on the policies if they feel it's a prosperity message.
ALLISON: I agree with you that it did work in 2016. I think a lot has shifted in the last eight years, and that Hillary Clinton had a lot of baggage that she brought with her before she even became the presumptive nominee. Some could say Kamala Harris has similar baggage, but I think they're totally different candidates and totally different experiences. And I don't think Hillary Clinton ever rose to the level of like this cultural icon that Kamala Harris has become. But just back on the economy quickly, I know we talked a lot about prices, but there are other economic policies that I believe the vice president is going to roll out very soon, in the coming days, that talk about a collective solution to people who are struggling. So, you can't buy groceries because you can't work, because you don't have child care, or you're taking care of your parent, and so we need more the care giving economy. There's a lot of solutions that the vice president is going to talk about, including lowering prices.
But people go to the ballot box with a plethora of issues that they're weighing and thinking about how am I going to juggle that?
PINION: And the only thing I would say to that quickly is that -- and we'll talk about it later in the show, is that she is currently the vice president, and we don't talk about it enough. At some point, she's going to have to say, I had a formative role in crafting policy in this administration and we didn't get things done or I was just waiting for Joe Biden to step aside. She has to own either one of those lanes, because at some point, this straddling is going to end up with people falling into the ditch.
PHILLIP: To be continued.
GRIFFIN: I worked for a VP, kind of.
PHILLIP: Catherine, thank you, as always, for joining us, bringing the facts to the table. Everyone else, stick around for us.
Coming up next, Tim Walz has agreed to a V.P. debate with J.D. Vance. Both men are dealing with questions about their past now, including another Vance conversation involving post-menopausal women. A special guest will join our fifth seat. That's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight, Tim Walz has agreed to an October vice presidential debate, but J.D. Vance is saying, not so fast. The Republican nominee wants to walk through the rules and the parameters first before agreeing to it.
Now, this comes as both men are now facing questions about their past, their past comments, their past associations.
Let's start first with Vance a 2020 video is now surfacing showing him appearing to agree with a podcast host's remark while Vance praised his in laws for helping to raise his own children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And you can sort of see the effect it has on him to be around them. Like they spoil him, sort of all the classic stuff that grandparents do to grandchildren, but it makes him a much better human being to have exposure to his grandparents. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I don't know.
VANCE: And the evidence on this, by the way, is like super clear.
[22:20:01]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the whole purpose of the post-menopausal female, in theory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A spokesperson for Vance responded to that surface clip saying, the media is dishonestly putting words in J.D.'s mouth. Of course, he does not agree with what the host said. J.D. reacted to the first part of the host sentence, assuming he was going to say that's the whole purpose of spending time with grandparents.
Joining us in our fifth seat tonight, former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, right here in the flesh. Actually, I'm curious what you think of that. I mean, this is part of a pattern of various groups that are --
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: He's been imploding for the last three weeks, but I'm going to give him a pass on that one. I think that was unfair and that's what we're doing to our politicians now. They're clipping every sentence, they're analyzing every syllable. And I think he tripped over his words and trying to agree with the podcast. So, if you listen to it again, like if we're color commentating in the NFL, I'm going to the official review, I'm looking in there, I'm saying J.D. Vance gets a pass on that one.
PHILLIP: Okay.
GRIFFIN: Well, his cleanup is far better than the cat ladies. So the cat ladies became a month-long story.
SCARAMUCCI: He owns the cat lady.
GRIFFIN: Because he doubled down and he didn't just accept it and take some ownership. It seems very clear his operation realized this cannot. Because were he agreeing, this is a horrible story and you're basically saying women have no value after a certain age and are once again talking about our menstrual cycles, but he came back and gave a definitive pushback, which is the only thing you can do in this case.
WRIGHT: The cleanup is telling. It means they realize this is risky and they need to correct it.
PHILLIP: That's a good point. I mean, they moved very, very quickly. I mean, this resurfaced just in the last few hours. And, yes, they're attacking the media, but they're addressing it, and because they've seen what happened with all those other clips.
The other thing, I mean, Tim Walz on the other side of this is also receiving a lot of attention for a number of things, his military service and how he talked about that. But then also his association with this imam who posted anti-Semitic things or endorsed them on social media in one way, shape or form, including one on October 7th. That's the day of the October 7th attack that condemned Israel's recent unprovoked attacks and argued that Palestine has the right to defend itself. He shared a statement that did those things.
The vice presidential nominees are suddenly in the headlines.
PINION: Look, I think there're plenty of quotes out there. I think the reality is that they're not always getting the same level of play. There's plenty of things that Tim Walz has said that I think are an abomination. But we don't seem to be having really robust conversations about what's happening over there.
So, look, I don't believe that you have J.D. Vance being afraid of Tim Walz, as Tim Walz has suggested. I think that Republicans are, in some ways, admitting the quiet part out loud. We had an entire convention setting the table to beat a man who is no longer in the race. And I think out of the abundance of caution, you're seeing Republicans waiting to figure out where we'll debate, who's going to be on that debate stage. And, ultimately, I think, in the end, as we've discussed many times at this table, the V.P. is not why people vote. The V.P. can be a reason why people don't vote.
PHILLIP: But do you think that it's a sign that the Republicans and the Trump campaign, they are not strategically handling this well, that we're even having a conversation about what J.D. Vance is up to?
PINION: Well, I think the Republican Party and many people in the Republican Party have acknowledged the fact that, for whatever reason, we were caught flatfooted by this substitution, if for no other reason that this is the first time in a very long time that you have an incumbent dropping out of the race. And it was not an early in the primary, I shall not accept, nor will I seek the nomination. It was after all the voting was done, oh, by the way, we're getting out of the race.
And so it was unprecedented. I think that, in many ways, there has been this false start But, ultimately, I think, with the advancing of Tim Walz as the vice presidential choice, now heading into convention, at some point, this honeymoon has to end. Will Kamala Harris meet the moment? I don't know. That's why they play the game.
GRIFFIN: I don't know that I'd buy though that the media isn't covering Tim Walz. There's been a long news cycle about his war record. That's been litigated. He's come out and talked about it. What I will say is I think that it's just a fact there was no vetting of J.D. Vance. There were a handful of advisers who thought that he needed to be the pick. Anyone who's followed his career since he's been in politics could tell you there are going to be more and more of these podcasts and these fringy outlets that he spoke to where he said and agreed to offensive things.
It's just a fact. I was told this was the most professional Trump operation ever run, yet they put somebody who is no Mike Pence in that position. Mike Pence did not have weeks-long stories because he insulted large swaths of the population.
SCARAMUCCI: No, I wanted to ask, Joe, is he going to be on the debate stage with Governor Walz or is he getting replaced by Donald Trump?
PINION: No, he'll be on the debate stage.
SCARAMUCCI: He's going to make it?
PINION: He'll make it through.
WRIGHT: I wouldn't underestimate him either. He's very standard.
SCARAMUCCI: I got the under on that. I see Trump pulling him and firing him after the Democratic National Convention.
[22:25:03]
ALLISON: So, I don't know if he's going to do that or not, but can we -- look -- okay.
SCARAMUCCI: I'm just throwing that out there, because if it happens, I don't want you to be surprised.
GRIFFIN: I'll tell you this. I'm confident he has humored that whether it will happen or not. We're very familiar with that.
ALLISON: I don't want to act like because Joe Biden is not on the ticket and Republicans didn't have ample time to vet JD Vance. Donald Trump walked through the primary as though he wouldn't even debate his opponents, as though he was the presumptive nominee for the entire time. That whole time he hadn't had the opportunity to vet vice presidents. But let's also -- if we want to talk about vice presidents, you brought up Mike Pence. The reason why he even had to vet somebody is because his own vice president won't run with him again. He doesn't want him to run because he wanted him to overturn the election results and have them --
(CROSSTALKS)
SCARAMUCCI: He didn't want to kill the guy.
ALLISON: Perhaps. Maybe people should just like back away from this V.P. debate because Republicans will get the short end of that stick.
And then finally, on J.D. Vance not debating, he hadn't even accepted Kamala Harris' invite to debate. He was like, let me check the rules. I mean, so if he's a great communicator, show up.
PHILLIP: I guess you made the point earlier tonight that J.D. Vance actually might be the only person on the ticket right now actually making a coherent case for a Trump second term. All these controversies aside, he is doing interviews. He's speaking coherently. He's kind of staying on message. That is also true.
WRIGHT: Yes. And I think what happened was with Biden as the presumptive nominee, Trump got whoever he wanted. And he very much sees Vance as a continuation of his legacy, this younger person, to carry the MAGA torch forward. And now it's a controversial person, and he's not ahead in the polls anymore.
And so maybe there is some regret among Republicans or even among the Trump team, but Vance is very well-prepared. He really knows his stuff. I would not count him out in a debate setting against Walz.
PINION: Just quickly here, J.D. Vance was picked because they thought he would be a good matchup as a vice presidential choice against Kamala Harris and because President Trump from 2016 to 2020 eroded somewhere around 8 percent on white men without a college degree. And so if you're trying to do a re-rack of the 2020 election, how do you shore up that base and make sure you have a path to victory?
In my humble opinion, I think that was the calculus, along with all the other whispering in the ear or whoever the last person in the room was.
ALLISON: He wasn't picked because he could pick assume the presidency if Donald Trump were --
PINION: I'm talking politically. I mean, politically speaking. I mean --
PHILLIP: So, Anthony, you said that you think Trump is going to replace him? And is that just a hunch or --
SCARAMUCCI: Well, I know his personality. And so like you saying that he's doing a good job on the stump explaining the Trump message hurts J.D. Vance. Maggie Haberman saying that hurts J.D. Vance because he's such a narcissist, he's got to do this 100 percent on his own. He would have picked Nikki Haley if he wanted somebody to be president and he wanted somebody to help him on the ticket. He doesn't want any help on the ticket. He wants to carry the entire thing himself to prove to the world that he did it on his own.
So, now you're complimenting J.D. Vance, if he's watching your show, he's stopping on your show, you don't like that. He wants J.D. Vance to be in the back seat because of the bus, but the seventh bus while he's driving the first bus,
GRIFFIN: But the flip side of that --
SCARAMUCCI: That's how he works. That's what he thinkgs.
GRIFFIN: Not only about that, but there's also the scapegoat factor. If he keeps trailing behind Kamala Harris, it's either going to be his top advisers that are let go or there's going to be a shuffle. That is just fundamentally how he works, ut can't be purely his fault.
PHILLIP: Everyone, hang on, hang tight, we've got more ahead.
Coming up next, it's a question that some of his allies are asking tonight, is Donald Trump becoming boring? Is he too predictable? We'll discuss that, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:33:19]
PHILLIP: Is Donald Trump's 2016 playbook not working in 2024? Well, Megyn Kelly thinks that his rallies really just aren't resonating anymore and his age may ultimately have something to do with it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGYN KELLY, "THE MEGYN KELLY" HOST: I mean, it was like, he rambles, he goes on too long at his rallies and in these exchanges and at his presser the other day to where you get kind of bored, you lose the thread, you lose interest, which is not something you're used to with Trump. Trump in 2016, he was tough to lose interest in, and I think that's probably an age-related change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Back at the table here, and just for the viewing audience at home, Megyn Kelly usually says nice things about Trump, so for her to say that, I think, is a little bit different. You were saying earlier that you thought that this was kind of baked in, but what if it's just boring?
WRIGHT: You know, it's possible that people have come to expect this from Trump, and okay, he meanders, he says offensive things, and it might be that we're seeing what we see in the polls right now because people are so excited about a new possibility in Harris besides Biden or Trump.
But I still think that most of the liability and the riskiness is on Harris' side because she has not had the exposure he has yet, and she has not been asked the tough questions, and I think it will be extraordinarily difficult for her to extricate herself from the Biden record.
She was a trusted decision-maker. It was an equal partnership. It was historic. My own data shows she's been the most active vice president we've ever had in history when you look at her public appearances. So, the risk, I think is on her side.
[22:35:01]
PHILLIP: It's so interesting that you would say that because so many Republicans are literally trying to argue the opposite, that she did nothing in the vice presidency.
WRIGHT: I think that's so insulting to her. I really do. I mean, she was given an issue that as a border state A.G. and then a senator, you should be able to ace an immigration interview. That should be really easy stuff for her, and I think the suggestions that she's been hidden away or somehow diminished, I don't think are fair to her.
PHILLIP: In the meantime, Joe Rogan, this is another person who generally has nice things to say about Donald Trump. This is his assessment of how the last couple of weeks have gone for Vice President Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE ROGAN, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE" HOST: I do have to say that that one speech that she gave right after they decided that she was going to be the nominee, that one speech where she said, if you're going to say something, why don't you say it to my face? It was great timing. You can't say that's not outstanding.
UNKNOWN: Totally.
ROGAN: She just crushed it. She crushed it.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
ROGAN: She had the big moment.
UNKNOWN: I'm tuning in. This is pay-per-view now.
ROGAN: She had the big moment and she crushed it.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
ROGAN: Crushed it.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
ROGAN: That's a problem. That's a problem. And I don't think they thought she was going to be able to do that.
PHILLIP: Is that a problem, Joe?
PINION: I will just say this. I think I've said it here before, so it's no surprise. Maybe it's a cold, hot take. Democrats have been putting on a hell of a show. I mean, I was in this building. It was about 7:30 in the morning. We had a split screen.
We had cameras outside of Walz's house. We had cameras outside of Shapiro's house. It was as if Kamala Harris had been tossing and turning all night, restlessly trying to figure out who her running mate was going to be.
It's great television. And I think the thing is that Republicans have been used to President Trump being the one who's doing great television. But I think when it all simmers down, when the teleprompter goes away, when we start having real conversations about a record that I believe ultimately was consequential.
She was a consequential V.P., which is why, in my humble opinion, I think the humble opinion of many, she shouldn't be president because now she's running away from the record. She's running away from the things that she did inside that administration.
PHILLIP: We've got two people who worked for Trump at the table previously.
GRIFFIN: Two White House conservators for the price of one.
SCARAMUCCI: I'm trying to figure out how many scaramoches could have lasted, you know.
PHILLIP: She lasted a lot more scaramouches than you did.
SCARAMUCCI: She did, but I've got to figure out the days. I'll do the calculations.
PHILLIP: But I'm wondering what you think about what Megyn also had to say, which is that she believes this is age-related. That Trump is losing a step. This is what he used to say about Biden.
SCARAMUCCI: Call him fat and call him old. You'll send him into orbit. So, he'll probably hit her on Truth Social over what she said. He hates that more than anything, and so he will be very upset. But I want to say something about the vice president just quickly. In addition to what Rogan and Megyn Kelly said, she did something at the union thing, the auto union.
She was unscripted. I don't know if everybody saw it, but she was talking about being inclusive. She was talking about doing this together. It was a very unifying and very healing message that's contrasting to the 800-word Sudoku that Trump does and has been doing since 2016, which is hate, division, countries run by idiots, I'm the only one that can save it, and people are pouring over the border.
You know, everyone knows the words now, and so you've got tired words and division, and you have her unscripted talking about inclusion and healing. I think it's a very powerful voice.
GRIFFIN: I do think he's lost his edge, and I said this a while ago. He's never been a particularly eloquent person, but there was an energy in 2016 that made people who never voted Republican consider being with him.
In 2020, he tried to recreate it. There were a lot of factors, but now he doesn't even seem like the same guy. It's a lot of just kind of rehashing, playing the greatest hits, playing to the audience and hoping that they're going to cheer for you, and he can't come around.
The difference is, she's not saying, I'm with her. She's saying, we won't go back. She's talking about a "we" message. He is constantly "I", "I" -- it's grievance. It's focused on him. It's not looking externally, and even if you like his policies better, I could see why that stops resonating at a point.
ALLISON: I feel like for me, I could close my eyes and listen to a Donald Trump speech from 2016 and 2024 and feel like they're the same speech.
PHILLIP: Yeah, fundamentally.
ALLISON: Maybe the delivery is, yes, right. It's right there. Yes. And so, to your point, it does feel like the greatest hits over and over again. And so, there is something when you are a hit, when it first comes out, people really like it. But are you going to be able to sustain the test of time? And I think what people are realizing is like they're getting sick of this song.
But also on the vice president, I can appreciate. Yes, I feel like the rollout of the vice president now becoming the presumptive nominee has been excellent. But you cannot refute 14,000 people showing up in Las Vegas, 4000 being turned away because it's already at capacity. You can't orchestrate that. Trust me. As someone who has planned many, many events.
[22:40:00]
PINION: I'm not saying that it is completely manufactured. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm simply saying is that, one, I would agree. I think that at some point, if you see a fastball over and over again, it becomes easier to hit it out of the park, right? Metaphorically speaking.
But I also think that boring is good for President Trump. I don't know how many swing voters are tuning in breathlessly for a Trump rally down in North Carolina. I think swing voters who are trying to make up.
PHILLIP: I think it's more exhausting.
PINION: I do believe there is a subset of the American populace that is exhausted by listening to President Trump. But I do not believe that the tiny sliver of the American electorate that at this juncture is trying to figure out whether they're voting for Kamala Harris or whether they're voting for Donald Trump is doing so predicated on his performance at those rallies.
I think they are doing the old raging Cajun. It's the economy, stupid conversation at their kitchen table. And so, at some point, she's going to have to have a conversation, the vice president, about what is her plan to end that economic pain.
PHILLIP: We will have a speech from her this week that will hopefully answer some of those questions.
PINION: But not an interview.
PHILLIP: You're right.
PINION: Yeah.
PHILLIP: There's been no interview. There's been no press conference. But there will be a policy speech. This is the beginning of that. And the point is, I guess, that they're doing it on their own time.
ALLISON: Yes. And that's something out of almost Trump's playbook. He rewrote how we did do politics in 2016. So, why doesn't she get to rewrite it, as well? We are -- we're in a different age where different tactics works.
The one thing, though, that I think is interesting is that I hear a lot of people talk as someone who ran the coalitions department and spent my whole career building coalitions from left to right to progressive. People talk about this small little sliver of voters that you aren't sure.
I got to say, there's a whole bunch of other voters that Kamala Harris can tap to -- tap into. They never voted for Obama, never voted for Biden and are excited and interested. And so, if you can get a small piece of that sliver and raise your ceiling with your base, which is what is happening right now, Donald Trump is in trouble.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Stand by. We've got much more ahead for all of the panelists here. More breaking news tonight, as well. Hear why RFK Jr. wanted to meet with Kamala Harris in a potential quid pro quo. We'll tell you about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:42]
PHILLIP: New tonight, because, at first, he didn't succeed. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is trying again. And the third-party candidate wanted to offer Kamala Harris a quid pro quo, his support in exchange for a cushy cabinet gig.
Now, if that sounds familiar, it's because it's very similar to a conversation that he reportedly had with Donald Trump. Unclear what he thinks he would give Kamala Harris in exchange for that. But what do you make of it?
ALLISON: I rarely am speechless. But, oh, I mean, sure, maybe he wants to be a public servant, but it feels very selfish. Let me just see what I can do to barter some cachet in the city, realizing that his political candidacy for presidency was already a very long shot. But now it continues to dwindle and dwindle.
I do think there I mean, if let's just say Donald Trump says, sure, okay, I'll make this deal with you. I wouldn't put it past the guy, right? There should be some agencies he's disqualified, though, from even coming like HHS, A.G., Department of Education, Department of Justice. I don't know. Maybe all of them.
PHILLIP: I mean, that's a lot of -- that's a lot.
SCARAMUCCI: The whole government.
ALLISON: I mean, he killed a bear and put it -- or brought a bear in Central Park. And like he does.
PHILLIP: Well, the other thing is that he's also -- his campaign is actively trying to get on the ballot. But it seems like based on these conversations, he knows that this thing is over for him. But he's doing it anyway.
SCARAMUCCI: Well, who funded him? I think we should ask everybody that question. And we know that the hard right funded him. You know that Steve Bannon, who's now in prison, funded him. And when he was at 10 percent, it seemed compelling to a few people. But at two percent, it's really not compelling to anybody.
But it is enough where he could make a difference, God forbid, in a very close election. So, we'll have to see what happens. But I think you have to rule out the interior.
GRIFFIN: Yes.
SCARAMUCCI: So, you could make him like cave land as opposed to homeland security. You can make him cave land security.
GRIFFIN: Well, it is interesting. He pulled fairly equally from Biden, Trump, a little more Trump. It's very different with Harris. It's -- I think Donald Trump stands to lose more having him on a ballot like in North Carolina. So, listen, I think that this is going to be a person we're not talking about come October.
But I also wouldn't rule out that if Donald Trump thinks there's some benefit to bringing him in the fold, he would find a way to do that. I don't know that he's going to make him secretary of defense or something, but he might try to cut some kind of a deal.
PINION: I mean, look, there are a lot of people spending a lot of time in places like Michigan talking about Jill Stein and Gary Johnson as those third-party candidates. And so, if you take the man at his word and try to give people grace, somebody who obviously ran for president, which is an arduous undertaking doing so even as an independent, because they have things that they believe in, whether you believe in those things or not.
And so, I'm old enough to remember when we had a guy named, you know, former Senator Edwards running around trying to see if Barack Obama might give him something or whether Hillary Clinton might give him something before we found out about the child out of wedlock. I'm old enough to remember when Joe Biden wrapped his arm around the secretary.
[22:50:00]
GRIFFIN: But shouldn't we consider there are vanity projects in politics?
PHILLIP: As Ashley said, he killed a bear --
ALLISON: And hid it.
PHILLIP: -- and other things.
PHILLIP: And then he also acknowledged that he may have sexually harassed people. I mean, there was a lot.
PINION: I'm not here trying to make the case for Bobby Kennedy as a cabinet member, right? That's not the case. But I do think he is pulling a statistically significant portion of the electorate, particularly in states where it's very close. I see why it's happening. I mean, it seems a little bit too explicit of a quid pro quo for my liking. But look, just, you know. UNKNOWN: We all can agree.
PHILLIP: I think we can agree on that one. Everyone stay with me. Coming up next, our panel will give us their nightcaps.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:27]
PHILLIP: And we're back and it's time for the "NewsNightcap". You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Alyssa?
GRIFFIN: So, my hot take of the evening. Two fringe polarizing political figures could actually lose the presidential race for Donald Trump. And that isn't Donald Trump. Kari Lake in Arizona and Mark Robinson in North Carolina.
These are two battleground states that were not seriously in play when it was Biden versus Trump. But Kamala Harris has put them in play. Mark Robinson has been on the record with some deeply anti-Semitic statements, some anti-woman statements, some deep misogyny.
Kari Lake, the list goes on, election denialism and so on. Both could motivate people to come out that could actually boost Kamala Harris on the ticket. And particularly in Arizona, where the McCain coalition of former Republicans will come out with a vengeance and they will strongly consider voting for Harris.
PHILLIP: Yeah, candidates matter. And that's 2018, 2020 saved Democrats by a lot of candidates that were pretty bad, fundamentally.
PINION: Look, my hot take. Democrats have successfully used Joe Biden as a heat shield to protect Kamala Harris. But I do not believe that heat shield will help them re-enter the White House with her as the president.
At some point, she is going to have to start answering questions about the bedrock issues that are on the minds of everyday swing voters. What is going on with the economy? What is your plan? What was your role with the border? What is your position on the migrant crisis?
People in Chicago, people in New York, people all across this country feeling that pain. So, I think that is the reality that Democrats have put on a good show. Kamala Harris has been shielded by Joe Biden's remaining presence in the White House.
But tomorrow is, in many ways, the anniversary of Afghanistan falling to the Taliban. And I think at some point it's going to put back in the spotlight what actually has happened during these last four years with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
ALLISON: Be careful what you ask for because she might show up and show out because she has been for, you know.
PHILLIP: Rip the band-aid off.
ALLSION: Yeah, so --
PHILLIP: I mean, I think that's the thing that I wonder about. Just why build up all the anticipation about it? Why not just do it?
ALLSION: But I don't think she is. I mean, honestly, like she's not saying interview me, interview me. She's just going out and campaigning, realizing that her runway is so short.
PHILLIP: I know, but they're saying they are not doing interview. And this is a strategic decision that they're making. And I don't understand why to make this such a big deal.
SCARAMUCCI: Because she is in still a tenuous position.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
SCARAMUCCI: And she just got the nomination by calling around. There was no primary process. And she doesn't want to gaffe into the nomination. She just doesn't because she doesn't want them to start calling for a change of her and disrupt the process.
So, if I'm her, I would just wait until she gets the nomination, give her speech the next day, go on "60 Minutes" or perhaps your show.
PINION: But I think the point, though, specifically --
SCARAMUCCI: But I don't think she's going to give a speech before -- I mean an interview.
PINION: I think the fact that she didn't -- the fact that there were no votes, whether you agree with it or not, whether these are the facts, this is where it lies. I think there is a responsibility. If we've been sitting here talking about unprecedented and talking about --
GRIFFIN: People voted for the ticket. I don't really get that point. And she was on the ticket.
PINION: Nobody voted for her.
SCARAMUCCI: If I was on your side, I'd be making these points, Joe.
PINION: And I would also. I would just simply --
SCARAMUCCI: But I'm not on your side.
PINION: I would simply say --
SCARAMUCCI: And I won't be on your side till November 5th is over.
PHILLIP: All right, what's your nightcap?
ALLISON: Next week, the DNC is about to be lit. So, I have to be honest. Like, folks were headed to Chicago. Don't laugh, I'm serious. Like, like tears, like people are like, is Beyonce coming? Folks are flooding to Chicago because one of the history-making nature of it. But I'm hearing there's something like 15 to 20,000 people who don't even have credentials that are coming into the city to be with it.
So, it's like when we say this is a cultural iconic moment, like this stuff you just don't manufacture.
Like people are struggling, but people make choices to go where they want and they feel like they are part of something. And this is a moment where people feel like this is bigger than her. It's bigger than themselves. This is like a collective moment.
PHILLIP: It is starting to feel that way.
ALLISON: And it like -- it's like the political Coachella.
SCARAMUCCI: I'll do mine in 10 seconds. That's all the great reason why she picked Walz because there'll be no protests at that event. Shapiro would have been a different story. My hot take in five seconds is the Republican senators are all complaining about their nominee and they really don't understand why they don't have a Haley or a DeSantis.
[23:00:02]
And when he loses, they're going to be Republican. The Republican senators, the highest profile senators that you can speak to on this show, are complaining in the back offices and in the hallways about their nominee and they can't believe that they're in this situation because if they had Haley or DeSantis, the polling would look very differently. And they are complaining. And you can pretend otherwise. But I know these people. I've been a donor for 25 years.
PHILLIP: They had some choices in front of them that they didn't take. So --
SCARAMUCCI: They're going to burn Trump, though, if he loses. You watch how they burn Trump.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, thank you all very much. And thank you for watching "NewsNight" State of the Race. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
