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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
RFK Jr. Suspends Campaign, Backs Trump At Arizona Rally; Rattled Trump Praises Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) After Years of Bashing Him; Trump, Who Helped Kill Roe, Says He's Great For Abortion Rights; "NewsNight" Examines A Photo Taken By "New York Times" Photojournalist Todd Heisler; Abby Phillip And Political Panel Discuss The Highlights Of The Democratic National Convention 2024. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 23, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, RFK Jr. quits.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I no longer believe that I have a realistic path.
PHILLIP: Backs Donald Trump and not so subtly hints --
KENNEDY: He has asked to enlist me in his administration.
PHILLIP: -- at the cost of his endorsement.
Plus, Mr. Softy?
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I was supposed to be nice.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump seeks to taunt with Georgia's governor --
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Brian Kemp is behind this ticket. He wants us to win.
PHILLIP: -- while redefining his position on abortion, leaving many to ask, why?
Also, fired up.
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Let's get out there. Let's fight for it.
PHILLIP: And ready to go.
HARRIS: Let's vote for it.
PHILLIP: The new Harris plan to keep post DNC momentum.
And Kamala Harris appeals to the country's better angels, betting on patriotism --
HARRIS: Not as members of any one party, but as Americans.
PHILLIP: -- in a nation bedeviled by partisan bitterness.
Live at the table, Solomon Jones, Tricia McLaughlin, Bryan Lanza, and Keith Boykin. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Philip in New York. Happy Friday to you.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. RFK for sale? The conspiracy theorist with the famous last name, who also happened to be running for president of the United States, is now no longer running for president tonight. He is endorsing Donald Trump appearing on the stage with the Republican nominee and nakedly angling for a cushy cabinet gig in a future Trump administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: And these are the principle causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Our panel is here in New York with us. And RFK Jr. now confirming what I think a lot of people suspected, which is that he supports Trump kind, of is aligned with Trump. How much do you think this actually helps him?
TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think this helps Trump hugely. I mean, Tony Fabrizio, who's Trump's internal pollster, said in every battleground state that Trump has an edge with RFK voters. When it comes to Arizona, or when it comes to Georgia, states that there was only 10,000 or 20, 000 votes that made the difference between Biden winning and Biden losing, that could be the ballgame.
PHILLIP: In Fabrizio's assessment, to your point, all of these battleground states, more than half -- almost half or more than half in many cases, go for Trump over Harris. There's a sliver that might still go to Harris, but this is really about releasing the Trump vote that's been tied up with Kennedy.
BRYAN LANZA, FORMER DEPUTY COMMS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2016 CAMPAIGN: Yes. Listen, it's about expanding the coalition, right? You know, early on, Kennedy had both, you know, some Democratic votes, some Trump votes. And now, you know, with Biden dropping out of the race, you saw a lot of Democratic votes that Kennedy was receiving sort of fleet. So he was -- you know, Kennedy was about to become a spoiler for Trump and that he got together with President Trump and he said, let's put a coalition, let's expand it and let's travel the country and make our case.
And I think that's what you saw today. It was the first step. I think we're going to see more and more of it. And it is pretty, pretty significant in the sense that, you know, Kennedy ran as the outsider in this race. He was very much the outsider in this race. He was kicked out of the Democratic Party. He was a Democrat 16 months ago, for crying out loud, when he first --
KEITH BOYKIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: How was he kicked out of the Democratic Party?
LANZA: Well, he wasn't allowed to compete in the primary. That's how he was kicked out.
BOYKIN: He's not kicked out of the party. He's not a Democrat.
LANZA: He's a Democrat, registered his entire life.
BOYKIN: He's not a Democrat anymore. He's an independent.
LANZA: He told the Democrats kicked him out of the party.
BOYKIN: He's much as much as Democrat as Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat. I mean, there's a lot of people who are clearly spoilers for Donald Trump, and I don't know what Donald Trump is paying them or trying to bribe them with. But, clearly. You know, this guy, RFK Jr., he was trying to get a position in Kamala Harris' administration as a cabinet member.
PHILLIP: I mean, does it give you any pause that this is a man who traffics in conspiracy theories?
[22:05:00]
One of the things apparently that Trump offered in exchange for this was a commission on assassinations, which would kind of release the files around the JFK assassination. You know, RFK Jr. has been pretty clear that he believes that the government was behind it. This is also a person who gets a headline like this from The Atlantic just today. RFK Jr. was my drug dealer.
MCLAUGHLIN: Like are we going to really re-litigate from 30 years ago if RFK was a drug dealer? It's just -- I mean, it really gets to me, Abby --
PHILLIP: I think that it's actually confirmed that he was.
MCLAUGHLIN: People throw around this word conspiracy theory. I remember in October of 2023, people saying Republican conspiracy theory that Joe Biden will not be on the ticket. He will not be the nominee. It turns out that conspiracy theory that was Republicans apparently came true. When we throw this word around, it really kind of takes credibility away from the people who are talking about it. Especially there are real conspiracy theories out there.
BOYKIN: Why do you want to be in line with this guy? I mean, except for the fact that you think you might get some votes from him. Do you really believe in this anti-vax nonsense, do you believe in the philosophies that he espouses? He's supposed to be an environmentalist, by the way, a distinguished environmentalist. I know, but he's endorsing somebody who's taking positions antithetical to what the environmental movement would suggest.
MCLAUGHLIN: I disagree with that on its face.
BOYKIN: You disagree with what?
MCLAUGHLIN: The fact that Donald Trump would be antithetical to environmentalism.
BOYKIN: Well, their positions are exactly the opposite.
MCLAUGHLIN: That's why we're expanding the coalition. But I do want to address, don't you think today -- I don't know if you watched the remarks today, but I thought he said some really important things about mental health in this country and also about physical health in this country. We don't address that a third of Americans are obese. That is a huge problem for the future of this country.
SOLOMON JONES, AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: I find this whole thing laughable because RFK was at like 2 percent. He wasn't -- so he was at 2 percent nationally. He might get some votes in some swing states, he might have. He was an alternative when Biden was running against Trump and people didn't want to vote between two old guys who they didn't like, and so RFK Jr. was able to get into the race and able to make some noise initially.
Independent candidates, as you know, when it gets to election time, their vote total usually goes down to from where they were polling. RFK Jr. wasn't going to make a big difference in this race. I was down at the DNC. I saw his people down there. There were like 10 people with RFK flags and a school bus playing the Beach Boys. Like, you know, I mean, come on.
LANZA: I would say this, the thing that RFK brings back to sort of the Trump campaign that has been missing is that sort of outsider approach. RFK is very much an outsider to the political system. You may want to say he wasn't kicked out. I'm saying being excluded from a Democratic primary kicks you out of the Democratic Party. But the outsider message he controls, whether his base is somewhat conspiratorial, I think it is. I'm from California. I've known of RFK's, you know, theories for a long time.
BOYKIN: RFK Jr. comes from the most distinguished political family in America. The idea that he's somehow an outsider is preposterous. The only reason why we take him seriously is because his last name is Kennedy. And it's the only reason --
(CROSSTALKS)
BOYKIN: (INAUDIBLE) other than that. You can't call someone who was a child of the Kennedy family to be an outsider. LANZA: Let me make the case. Three years ago Mary Trump, you know, wrote a book about Donald Trump and she became a credible advocate of why not voting for Donald Trump.
BOYKIN: She's not running for president.
LANZA: You're right. We have the exact same thing. We have a credible advocate of why Donald Trump needs to be president that's sort of outside the political mainstream.
BOYKIN: How credible is he as an advocate for Donald Trump when he was willing to endorse Kamala Harris just a few weeks ago but Kamala Harris wouldn't meet with him? The guy's clearly a snake oil salesman and Donald Trump is too. So, they work well together.
PHILLIP: Look, I keep coming back to this because you keep describing this as some kind of big tent but this is -- just to give you an example, this is the kind of stuff that RFK Jr. says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: Even in Hitler Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you can hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did. I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died truly, but it was possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He was talking there about vaccines and comparing the experience of people who don't want to take vaccines in America to Nazi Germany?
MCLAUGHLIN: And that was in 2022, when he was a Democrat.
PHILLIP: That was -- I mean, that was in 2022.
LANZA: Yes, you're right, when he was a Democrat.
BOYKIN: He's never really been a Democrat.
PHILLIP: Here's the thing. If the issue is that he was kicked out of the Democratic Party, it was for things like that.
LANZA: No. He was kicked out of Democratic Party because he was challenging Joe Biden.
BOYKIN: He wasn't kicked out of the party at all. He chose to leave the Democratic Party because he had no chance.
PHILLIP: If you want to argue, I don't necessarily -- I think Keith is right, nobody kicked him out. But if you want to argue that he was sidelined. One of the reasons he was sidelined is because of that kind of rhetoric.
[22:10:02] LANZA: One of the reasons he was sidelined is because he was an alternative to Joe Biden and the party had made their commitment to Joe Biden, only to have them reverse themselves six months later and say, oops, this was a mistake, maybe we should find somebody else. That's why he was kicked out. That's why he was excluded from ballots.
BOYKIN: Stop saying, kicked out.
LANZA: That's why there was lawsuits to prevent him from being on the ballot. That's why there's lawsuits now to try to prevent him from being on the ballot from Democrats.
BOYKIN: Let me just say one thing that needs to be said. The only reason why we're having this conversation today is because Donald Trump saw how much enthusiasm Kamala Harris had the past week in Chicago at the Democratic Convention. So, they said, we've got to do something to stop this. Let's have RFK Jr. endorsement the day after the Democratic Convention so we can steal the thunder. Because Donald Trump is still pissed off that Democrats did the same thing to him right after his convention when Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris joined the race. So, this is Donald Trump's comeuppance.
PHILLIP: What if there is a negative reaction to this that outweighs any -- you know, to Solomon's point, I mean, yes, there are people here who are Trump supporters. But what if he just alienates a bunch of other people who Trump needs to win?
JONES: I mean, the bottom line is that whoever's going to win this race has to win independent voters. They have to win undecided voters. Everybody else has already pretty much decided. And so this is going to be a close race. It's going to be a razor thin margin. And so Donald Trump is now, you know, going around the edges and trying to figure out where he can get people.
The people who liked RFK Jr. were the same people who liked Donald Trump. And so he might get, you know, 10 or 11 votes from RFK Jr., great. You know, good luck with that. But RFK Jr. had very little support.
MCLAUGHLIN: I think something that's important to address though is the reaction of RFK's family and saying that this was a betrayal. I think this struck home to a lot of people personally, because to forsake your own family or your own humanity in the name of politics, as a Catholic, and I know the Kennedys are also Catholics, I felt it was deeply wrong. And I think a lot of --
BOYKIN: If a family -- if you have toxic family members, if you have a toxic family member, you do not have to own them.
MCLAUGHLIN: I would never publicly --
BOYKIN: You do not have to own them for (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: Can I just read a little bit of that statement that you referenced? It says, our brother Bobby's decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family held most dear. They have been pretty clear. You know, we love our family member. We just disagree with what he is saying. And he is trying to claim the Bobby Kennedy, the Jack Kennedy mantle in a way that I'm not even sure is historically accurate.
BOYKIN: No, it's not historically accurate, because, I mean, RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy himself was a leader in the Democratic Party. He was the person who spoke after Martin Luther King was assassinated and got black people to actually come out and be supportive of how we could heal the nation at a critical time, and then found himself assassinated just a few months after that. JFK was also a leader in the African-American community. He helped to lead to the point where he got to the civil rights movement in 1964, that was sounded (ph) to LBJ.
You cannot compare what RFK is doing to his father or his uncle. And I just don't think he's a part of that legacy at all. Ted Kennedy and the other Kennedys, Jack Schlossberg is out here saying the same thing today. Nobody in the Kennedy family would recognize what RFK Jr. is doing because it is a betrayal. It's not reflective of the RFK legacy.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, stick around for us.
Coming up next, Trump is clearly rattled by all of this, suddenly praising a longtime foe of his and also claiming that he's great on abortion rights. Our special guest joins us in our fifth seat.
Plus, the story and the conversation about this picture.
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[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: How do you know? It's a question you can apply to love life and losing the last one. You can typically tell when someone changes their tune like Donald Trump is right now. The Georgia governor has ranked really high on Trump's pinata list for quite some time now until today. Trump tweeted, or X'd, thank you, Brian Kemp, Georgia, for all of your help and support in Georgia.
Leah Wright Rigueur joins us now at the table in our fifth seat. We obviously know Trump needs to win Georgia. That is a desperate need for the Trump campaign. And I think he would -- it's almost like a personal thing, I think he would be pretty bitter if he lost it again. But here is what he said about Kemp just earlier this month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And Brian Kemp, your governor, who I got elected, by the way, who wasn't for me, he would not be your governor. I think everybody knows that. He's a very disloyal person, isn't he? Very disloyal.
But think of the wife. We can never repay you for what you've done, sir.
Now, she said two weeks ago that I will not endorse him because he hasn't earned my endorsement. I haven't earned her endorsement. I have nothing to do with her. Somewhere he went bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, he even brought his wife into it. But now it's a completely different story.
LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It is. And, you know, at the very least, Brian Kemp didn't pull a Will Smith and didn't try and say, keep my wife's name, but he did, he did get pretty spicy.
But I think one of the things that it showcases is that Brian Kemp is not afraid of Donald Trump. In fact, he seems deeply unconcerned with Donald Trump because he doesn't need Donald Trump for the things that he wants.
PHILLIP: But now he is. He's just shy of endorsing him, but he's basically saying Trump needs to be re-elected.
RIGUEUR: Right, so he's saying that Trump needs to be re elected for a particular set of goals. He's saying that we want to send all of Georgia's 16 set of electors over to Donald Trump.
[22:20:04]
But he's also part of the camp that is saying, and I think this is really important in terms of setting up the leadership for the future of the Republican Party, I do not need Donald Trump. Donald Trump needs me. And that is even more true after the Democratic National Convention, because right now, we Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a statistical dead heat in Georgia.
It's also true that those organizations, those institutions, those individuals who helped turn Georgia blue in 2020 are all motivated, fired up and mobilized and organized going into the 2024 race.
PHILLIP: Bryan, what do you think happened here behind the scenes? I mean, or what do you know happened? I know you still have contacts in the Trump camp, but obviously something happened. And J.D. Vance has been on the phone with Brian Kemp this week. Vance also publicly came out and said very forcefully that Brian Kemp is in their camp. What could have happened to get Trump to make this turnaround?
LANZA: I think we all sort of got around him and said, please stop your fight with Brian Kemp. We need Georgia. I think that's what ultimately happened. I think the message finally hit through that Georgia is a critical state for us to win. Wasting resources or time or energy on having an internal fight at this critical time is a waste of your time, Mr. President, and it's a waste of all of our else's times as we're trying to achieve this goal. And it looks like the message finally got through this week, you know? But we'll see what next week looks like.
PHILLIP: Do you think that this is predicated on Brian Kemp having to do something to behave in a particular way towards --
LANZA: No. I don't think it's behave in a particular way, but it's execute. Like he's the governor of his state, it's a Republican state for a very long time. He needs to make sure that the apparatus works. I think the criticism that President Trump of him that he had in 2020 is that he didn't execute. There was questions about, you know, signature verification with regard to absentees that we could have taken a more conservative approach. Brian Kemp, as the leader, took a sort of more liberal approach and that angered Trump and that ultimately resulted in the loss that you saw.
I think this time what he can do is he can execute. He can execute by making sure that that the signatures, you know, require real verification. He can do all these things and execute.
PHILLIP: I mean, Look, I think the reason Brian Kemp pushed back on that stuff was because it was nonsense. It actually --
LANZA: Verifying signatures is nonsense?
PHILLIP: No. Trump's complaints about election integrity in Georgia were nonsense. He was complaining that there just were not enough votes for him. That's fundamentally what he was upset about.
LANZA: No, I understand that, but I'm not sort of jumping in on that. I'm saying his specific criticism that he had of Kemp early on in 2020 was that Kemp and the apparatus, before a single vote was casted, did not put in a verification for the signatures. I was involved in 2020. I know what the criticism was.
PHILLIP: He just didn't get the --
BOYKIN: He just had to find 11,770 votes.
PHILLIP: Those votes just weren't there. That's the reason he lost.
LANZA: But what I'm saying, the criticism that was there in early 2020 was because he felt Brian Kemp wasn't executing.
PHILLIP: Okay. He felt Brian Kemp --
LANZA: Right now, what you have is Brian Kemp is actually executing.
BOYKIN: I mean what?
JONES: Brian Kemp was the former secretary of state of Georgia. He knows exactly what to do in order to make votes harder to cast in some places.
PHILLIP: I mean, the secretary of state in Georgia is a Republican.
JONES: Right, Brad Raffensperger.
PHILLIP: He put his own career on the line and said that the way that we do elections is fair and square.
JONES: But what I was going to say is that Brian Kemp, when he was running against Stacey Abrams in 2018, closed down 214 polling places, mostly in black communities. He held up 53,000 voter registration, mostly black people, so he knew what he needed to do. And he had cover. All he had to say was that this is the normal course of things. This is what we do in order to maintain our system.
And so I think Donald Trump wanted him to do something like that in 2020. It did not work, whatever it was that they tried to do. And so now Brian Kemp, who does not need Donald Trump, I think you're absolutely right, because Donald Trump tried to run somebody against him in the primary, and Brian Kemp won anyway. He doesn't have that threat hanging over his head.
PHILLIP: Let me just bring in on a slightly different topic, because I do want to get this in. The other thing that's happening right now is Trump is making a turnaround on a couple things. Another thing he's trying to make a turnaround on is abortion. He Truth Socialed today, the Republican Party is charging forward on many fronts, and I'm very proud that we are a leader on IVF. He also said that reproductive rights will be great in his administration.
BOYKIN: Yes, I think that these two stories are connected. The reason why he's making a shift on abortion rights, or trying to, and the reason why he's making a shift on Brian Kemp is because he's losing. Donald Trump has seen the internal numbers, he knows that Kamala Harris has the momentum, she has the fundraising dollars, she has the enthusiasm, she has the crowd sizes, now she has the bigger T.V. ratings. He sees all this stuff, he does not like the lack of attention, he's got to make himself front and center, and he's got to, sort of, make Good with people he did not like.
And I think it's a reflection of how desperate he is sitting down in Mar-a-Lago knowing that his chance of becoming president again is slipping away and also knowing that this black woman is stealing his thunder, doing a better job than he is and being an exciting candidate.
[22:25:09]
RIGUEUR: I think it's also true that Donald Trump, for a very long time, kind of had this really ambivalent approach to abortion and reproductive rights, in essence, played both sides of the fences, but also that the majority of Americans hold him responsible for the Dobbs decision, for better or for worse. The right holds him responsible, the left holds him responsible.
What ultimately came out of the Dobbs decision is a kind of backlash, where the majority of Americans actually increased their support for abortion and reproductive rights. And so, right now, at any given time, Gallup has pointed out that roughly 80 percent of Americans support abortion rights in certain circumstances.
Even in the most liberal of circumstances, progressive circumstances, unrestricted abortion rights, it's at roughly about 35 percent. There has never been more support in this country since Roe v. Wade for support for abortion, and now you have Donald Trump, who most people hold responsible for the overturning of reproductive choice, front and center. So, what is he -- PHILLIP: It's going to be hard for him to pretend that he was not a full-throated support of abortion restrictions and that even his position of leave it to the states allows for incredibly draconian restrictions on abortion.
MCLAUGHLIN: I think abortion is definitely a vulnerability for Republicans this go-around. I mean, it clearly was in 2022. I think that's part of the reason we didn't see the red wave. I know my home state of Ohio, you know, I mean, it's a very deep red state. It's Trump state, but we did have a constitutional amendment and that, you know, about 68 percent went for more access for abortion.
Obviously, it's a very personal conversation to have, but I think he recognizes the vulnerability and I think he's speaking to that in that X post.
PHILLIP: Yes, we'll see if it works. I mean, I think the record is pretty clear. The tape speaks for itself.
Everyone, hang tight for us. Coming up next, actor Zach Galifianakis says celebrity endorsements will hurt Kamala Harris. We'll debate the truth of that next.
Plus, we'll speak with the man who took this iconic image.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, an instant classic. Take a look at this picture by "New York Times" photographer, Todd Heisler. You've probably seen it by now. It shows one of Kamala Harris' great nieces looking on while the Democratic nominee delivered her big speech last night at the convention.
Now, many see this image as representative of what the nomination could mean for millions of young girls in this country. Todd joins the conversation now. Todd, thanks for being here. As you know now, this image is really ricocheting around the world. Walk us through the moment that you saw this image through that lens.
TODD HEISLER, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PHOTOJOURNALIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yeah, thanks for having me. This was an effort we had -- we had, probably a dozen photographers all around the venue and it's very difficult to move. And I was in the center position in a buffer area which was directly behind the family in front of the stage.
And as the vice president was introduced and walked on the stage, her nieces were holding up handmade drawings that they had made. I couldn't see what they were, but they were holding those up.
And, you know, we're working really hard to make a photograph that gives you something a little different that you don't see on T.V. and gives you some context and shows, like a reaction to the family and the people in the audience. And we're under very tight deadlines to try to get our pictures out and everything is moving very quickly. So, I made those images and I took a break. And I think I turned
around to take a picture of Nancy Pelosi and Governor Newsom who were right behind me. And I turned around and moved over a couple of feet to kind of reposition and when I looked up, this is the angle that I saw, and then I made that -- made that photograph. It just kind of presented itself to me.
PHILLIP: Yeah, right place at the right time. Plus, I'm sure quite a lot of skill and experience. But what do you make of how this photo has resonated with so many people? I mean, I think so many people see themselves or their children or the children that they hope to have in the image, that's right there.
HEISLER: Yeah, I mean, I've just been blown away by the response to this photograph. I mean, I think, you know, every photographer in that room, and there were perhaps hundreds, set out that day to make an image that reaches somebody, and to be able to reach that many people within images. It's just, you know, really powerful. It speaks to the power of photojournalism, you know, especially in a time of A.I.
And people questioning reality, you know, to have seasoned photographers in the room who understand the context and the historical significance of what's happening, you know, in front of them I think is really important, you know, and to be able to like translate that to the millions of people who aren't in the room. And for them to -- to see something in that is just really, really powerful to me.
PHILLIP: Such a great point. I mean, you cannot -- you cannot replace the value of being there and seeing, like you said, the history that was being made and being able to capture it in that way.
[22:35:04]
Todd, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it.
HEISLER: Thanks. My pleasure.
PHILLIP: And we're back at the table here. First of all, I think this image reminds me in a lot of ways of some of those iconic Obama era images, like the one where the little boy is touching his head in the Oval Office. And these kinds of images add up to something in society. I mean, I wonder, what do you make of it for the Harris campaign and also in the context of what they were able to accomplish in their convention this week?
RIGUEUR: So, one of the things that we've seen from Kamala Harris is a real reluctance, I think a deliberate reluctance to hone in on things like race and gender because she doesn't have to do it. And this is one of those moments. where the doing is happening for her.
It matters that we could potentially have a black woman president. And I'm talking about doing that in a way that is different from Barack Obama. I mean, this is someone who is building on a legacy that isn't, you know, coming from a male lineage. This is someone who is building on an Ella Baker. She's building on Shirley Chisholm, her first presidential run.
And I think it's, you know, there's no mistake that as she's delivering that speech and as her grandniece is watching her, she's delivering it 60 years to the day from when Fannie Lou Hamer delivered her speech to the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention. That is remarkable.
And I think one of the things that you'll see is that people can look at that, right? Whether it be little girls, whether it be grown girls like myself. I never thought I would see a black woman president in my lifetime. And here we are maybe having that possibility but you'll have people who see that and say, wait, I can do that, too. This matters.
PHILLIP: Yeah, I, you know, at the convention this week, there were so many moments where it felt like just, the force of the whole thing was just unstoppable. Like that's kind of how the delegates, people I talked to, it felt to them.
They felt like it was almost like a tsunami, a force. And some of that was the celebrity power that converged on the convention. All the people who suddenly decided they wanted to show up, Oprah Winfrey among them.
Let me give you a counterpoint. I mean, this is not coming from me. This is coming from Zach Galifianakis. He's an actor. He says, "As a small town guy from North Carolina, I do wish the DNC would step back from the celebrities a little bit. It works to a point but they have to win over rural America. Hollywood thinks it's so important and that's a problem."
JONES: Yeah, I think that that's a ridiculous point. Because Tom Walsh is the guy who's supposed to win over rural America. I mean, comes from a town like five people in it, right? And the guy who was the creator who came up and said this is why they call this rednecks.
It wasn't because of anything racialism, because of these bandanas that we wore around our necks. The people who are supposed to win over rural America are already there. And so, if the celebrities win them 10 or 11 votes, well, that'll balance out whatever Trump's get from -- gets from RFK, right?
PHILLIP: Ten or 11 votes on either side.
JONES: So, yeah. I mean, what do you think? I mean, the thing is though, I think if the Trump campaign and the RNC could have an army of celebrities, they'd probably take it, right?
LANZA: Yeah, not in the - not in Midwest. I mean, I think you're talking about it right. When you're in rural America, the last thing you want is some -- you know, I'm from California, right? I'm from L.A. specifically. The last thing you want is some rich Hollywood liberal coming in and tell you what their values are.
You know, you want -- you want, you know, Governor Wallace making that case. I don't think he's going to make a good case because if you look at his record, it's very much out of touch. But I don't think you want these celebrities coming in Oprah.
As much as we all like Oprah, Oprah's a Californian. She lives in a hundred million dollar home. She's a billionaire. I doubt somebody in the Midwest wants to hear what Oprah has to say about their life. she's living a very -- she's an independent.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: But she's an Independent.
LANZA: She's living a very --
BOYKIN: Is she really an Independent?
JONES: Can I make an obvious --
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: She is an Independent. She was supposed to run with Trump. Do you not remember this?
LANZA: She only votes for Democrats.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Trump said in the '90s that he was going to run for president. He wanted Oprah Winfrey to be --
LANZA: When he was a Democrat, she wanted to vote for him. Go ahead.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: When he was an independent, he said, I want to go because she would be a Republican. But she also has an enormous amount of popularity with women between the ages of 18 to really 55, particularly in the Midwest. But the other thing that celebrities do --
PHILLIP: Because actually she is a Midwestern girl.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Right.
PHILLIP: Like she spent a lot of time in Chicago. Like she grew up in the south, like, I mean, she's not necessarily, like, she lives in California now, but she's not from California.
LANZA: And she's a billionaire telling people who've struggled one month.
BOYKIN: Can I just make the obvious point here, though?
LANZA: It's not like she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth like Donald Trump, right?
BOYKIN: That's what I was going to make. Donald Trump is a rich celebrity billionaire. I live in Hollywood. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. How is the Republican Party complaining about you can't reach rural America with a Hollywood billionaire when you have a Hollywood billionaire at the top of your ticket?
LANZA: He is not. He's a New York billionaire. Let's stick to it.
BOYKIN: He had a T.V. show.
LANZA: He is a New York billionaire.
PHILLIP: - He has doubled-down --
JONES: He said if you're a celebrity, they'll let you do it, remember that?
PHILLIP: The point also to this he's making is that unlike Oprah, Donald Trump was born rich like he actually showed up.
MCLAUGHLIN: I think we can all agree on the fact that a little bit rich that Zach Galifianakis, a celebrity is saying celebrities should not be inserting themselves as he's inserting himself.
PHILLIP: I mean, it's a little self-awareness. You can call it that.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: There is a place where celebrities do play a role, both on the left and the right. One, they're incredible fundraisers. So, they bring an enormous amount of money into the party. The other thing that they do is in really, I think, specific cases. Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Joe Rogan, right?
There's a reason why Donald Trump is chasing Joe Rogan's endorsement. They have a base of people, right, that are culturally siloed, that they can pull on. It matters if Joe Rogan goes on his show and says, hey, I actually think RFK, Jr. is someone that we should be listening to and supporting.
I endorse Donald Trump. If Taylor Swift had come out on that DNC stage, we know what the kind of reaction would have been from Swifties all over the world. So, it does matter in very specific context.
BOYKIN: And I also just need to say this, one quick thing that, if Donald Trump could get celebrities to show up at his event, he would certainly want them, but he could only get Kid Rock and the My Pillow guy to show up for him.
MCLAUGHLIN: The Hulk and Amarose.
BOYKIN: And the Hulk.
LANZA: Let us not dismiss Hulk Hogan, American icon.
JONES: He wants to be the biggest celebrity in the room.
PHILLIP: All right guys, everyone stand by for us. Coming up next, Democrats are trying to paint themselves as the party of patriotism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC BOLLING, FORMER FOX NEWS AND NEWSMAX HOST: They're wearing camo hats. with Kamala Harris's name on it. Camouflage, that's ours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:11]
PHILLIP: Go to a Donald Trump rally and it's a guarantee you'll hear USA chants and see American flags everywhere -- you might even see Donald Trump hugging one. But it's clear that the Democratic Party is trying to say we are actually now the party of patriotism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND CURRENT DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Fellow Americans, I love our country with all my heart.
GOV. WES MOORE (D) MARYLAND: We are a nation of patriots.
GEOFF DUNCAN (R) FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA: If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you're not a Democrat, you're a patriot.
GOV. TIM WALZ (D) MINNESOTA, VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason -- we love this country.
ADAM KINZINGER, FORMER REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE: I want to let my fellow Republicans in on the secret. The Democrats are as patriotic as us.
REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D) MICHIGAN: For everyone here and everyone watching, I want you to proudly claim your patriotism. You are here because you love your country. Do not give an inch to pretenders who wrap themselves in the flag but spit in the face of freedoms it represents.
CROWD: USA! USA!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I will tell you, there were a lot of USA chants. My ears can attest they were ringing because they were extremely loud. I mean, they are trying to force a vibe shift on this. Ramaswamy was complaining about this. He says, "This is being decided now based on a vibe, based on style over substance. But do you think that that's effective? I mean, you saw that video, Democrats, Republicans, military veterans.
MCLAUGHLIN: Well, he wasn't speaking directly to the patriotism issue, was he? Because I mean, I think we all agree it's good to see USA chants, no matter if it's a Democrat audience or a Republican audience. This is --we are Americans above all else and that's what we need to be reminded of every day.
That being said, a Gallup poll recently just showed that we've really hit a rock bottom as far as patriotism. About 56 percent of Republicans say they're very proud to be an American, 34 percent of Democrats. So, I mean, I really think for the survival of our nation, we do need to be patriotic.
That being said, Mark Twain once said, "You should support your country. Patriotism means supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it. And I think that has to remain true. I think it seems like it's a little politically convenient to shift, but I actually love hearing Kamala Harris, our vice president, saying this is the greatest nation on earth because it is.
BOYKIN: Well, you know, I think, yeah, I've worked in democratic politics for years. I remember working in the Mike Dukakis' campaign in 1988 in Ohio and going to a campaign rally in Ohio where the campaign theme song was Neil Diamond's, "They Come into America".
And that was continuously played at every event that we went to because it was a patriotic campaign. Democrats have always been patriotic and have always run patriotic campaigns. This is not something new. Republicans have just used this and weaponized patriotism against Democrats because when Democrats speak out about certain issues, Republicans try to vilify them.
So, one of the best comments I saw at the convention was by Governor Wess Moore of Maryland who said, loving your country does not mean lying about its history. We can acknowledge the fact this country has flaws and at the same time realize that we're still proud to be Americans and proud to be a part of it, but we want to make America a better place.
MCLAUGHLIN: Can I ask you a question? Because there was flag -- American flag burnings outside the DNC. And I mean, there has been a lot of commentary on the last -
BOYKIN: I think we have the right to burn the flags.
MCLAUGHLIN: And they absolutely do. But it's not, let's be real, it's not patriotic. That also being said --
BOYKIN: It is absolutely patriotic to burn a flag. It is absolutely patriotic.
MCLAUGHLIN: I will never burn a flag.
BOYKIN: Part of being an American means respecting the right of people to disagree with America.
[22:50:03]
MCLAUGHLIN: But it also means respecting the flag.
BOYKIN: No, respecting the flag, I disagree with that.
PHILLIP: You quoted Mark Twain. I mean, he said you love your country, but you also love it enough basically to criticize the government when you disagree with it.
MCLAUGHLIN: Absolutely -- which we all do here. And we should.
PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, it just seems to me that is the --
BOYKIN: I have never burned a flag, I would never burn a flag, but I respect the right of anybody who wants to burn a flag because that is part of what America is all about.
JONES: I think that's part of what love is all about.
BOYKIN: You have the right to agree or disagree.
JONES: That's part of what love is all about. When you love somebody, you can criticize them, you can be angry with them, you can say that they're wrong, you can call them on their stuff, right? If you love somebody, now if you don't, you let them do whatever they want and let them go to their ruin. But when you love America, you talk about the fact that America isn't where it needs to be. It hasn't lived up to its promise. It hasn't lived up to its creed.
LANZA: I would add up to when the DNC had their convention with Hillary Clinton, what was not there on the first night? A single American flag and then they scrambled to go buy American flag. So, I would say that, you know, I was watching the DNC debate, seeing if they're going to make that mistake like the, like they made with Hillary Clinton the first night.
BOYKIN: But this is --
LANZA: I let you finish, so let me finish.
BOYKIN: Okay, all right. I thought you were finished.
LANZA: No, no. And so, you know, it's good to see Democrats sort of embracing the flag again. We saw it throughout the convention.
UNKNOWN: It's not a flag. The flag is a piece of cloth.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: The flag is single way up, right? Which is that. So, I always like to start this conversation with a quote from James Baldwin who says, "It's because I love my country so much that I insist upon the right to criticize it. You want better for it."
And so, part of what Wes Moore is doing, and I think we should emphasize this because Wes Moore is the one, Governor Wes Moore is the one who has really been pushing this line for a very long time, over five years, really making this argument that we can reconcile the two things. We can say, I love America.
And we can also say America can be better, that the vision that we put forward is one of America, an America that is far more inclusive, one that is about freedom, one that is about having the ability to do these things.
One of the things that I was really struck by was the story that he tells over and over again where he says that his grandfather was run out of this country by the KKK. And he says that I will never come back. And he says, knowing that he was like, I became the still became the first black governor of Maryland.
I enlisted in the armed forces and I fought for this country because I love this country. But I know that I can hold these two things together and say that this country can be better and it's because I love this country so much. And that's what we saw on display at the Democratic National Convention this week.
PHILLIP: Very quickly, Keith.
BOYKIN: I just think we have to also caution against performative patriotism. You don't have to wave a flag or put on a flag pin or pledge allegiance in order to be patriotic. Your patriotism isn't because you believe in the country and you love the country. You don't have to prove it to Republicans or conservatives just to be an American patriot.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Great conversations. But stay with us because the nightcaps, they're next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:39]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "NewsNightcap". You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Bryan, you're first.
LANZA: Well, I'm first. So, let's talk about, I think, the issue that's not been covered enough that'll probably get more coverage is Kamala Harris' position on the death penalty. She is against the death penalty. Why that matters is you had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, the Biden administration just reversed the Department of Justice position where they wanted to do a settlement without the death penalty.
The Biden administration says, no, you deserve the death penalty. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear from Kamala Harris reverse that position and say Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, should not get the death penalty, which is contrary to American values and certainly contrary to the Midwest values.
PHILLIP: Interesting. All right.
BOYKIN: He's stuck in political comment at the very end. Okay. My take is make campaigns short again. We've had these two-year campaigns that have been going on for the longest time. We need to stop doing that. Start having shorter campaigns. Don't need to continue on. Kamala Harris is showing us the way. Let's continue doing it.
PHILLIP: I think a lot of people would agree with you on that. Go ahead, Leah.
WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Okay, so mine is about Coach Walz. I think he has the opportunity to help the nation redefine masculinity and manhood. And I think that was on display at the convention in really powerful ways. And I think in a moment where the majority of the country is suffering from a real mental health crisis, where rates of suicide and suicide ideation are at record highs.
When men don't feel comfortable, in particular, talking about their emotions or expressing their emotions. Here you have Tim Walz, who has essentially become America's dad or is auditioning for the role to be America's dad, saying, hey, it's okay to love, it's okay to show emotion. That moment between Tim Walz and his son and his daughter, right, the IVS question, but also putting neurodivergence on display is dramatic and powerful.
PHILLIP: All right, Tricia.
MCLAUGHLIN: I think an issue at the DNC that will transcend politics and already has the unforced error by the Kamala Harris campaign team to allow those superstar Beyonce, Taylor Swift rumors to fester because everyone was saying, where is she? And then you don't want your presidential nominee to be anticlimactic. And that was kind of what happened. So, don't do that next time.
PHILLIP: I was honestly in the room worried that there would be a riot or something because Beyonce didn't show up.
[23:00:00]
Go ahead, Solomon.
JONES: Well, I've got a different take on Beyonce because I know people who only watched because they thought Beyonce was going to be on there. They didn't care about Kamala Harris, didn't care about the Democrats or the Republicans, Trump, whatever. They wanted to see Beyonce.
And so, people watched to the very end. And so, I think that if the best that Donald Trump can do to steal back the news cycle is to get RFK, Jr. Then Kamala Harris and Beyonce are somewhere texting each other laughing emojis and saying, wait until we activate the B.I.
PHILLIP: All right. We'll see if that happens in this campaign. Everyone, thank you very much. And thank you for watching "NewsNight: State of the Race". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
