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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
CNN Exclusive Interview With Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN); V.P. Kamala Harris Addresses Her Policy Reversals; Harris Reveals How Biden Broke News of Exit from Race. "NewsNight" Tackles Dana Bash's Interview With V.P. Kamala Harris And Gov. Walz. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 29, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- for her to be -- I think it's easier for her to be prosecutorial.
[22:00:03]
And I believe isn't the sparring partner that Trump is preparing with Tulsi Gabbard, who has actually been toe-to-toe with Kamala Harris. So, I do think you are going to see kind of an energetic conversation. But part of it is, what is she like on the offense? We know what she's like on the defense.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And what is she like on the off the cuff?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, the question is, yes, the question is, how much should she engage at all. I mean, the fact you need to do -- you look like you need to do some work here.
PHILLIP: I just want to reset for those of us who are joining us. This is breaking news coverage of our exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. We are going to keep this conversation going.
Axelrod, you were just saying?
AXELROD: Yes. No, I was saying that I guess if I were advising her, I would say, the best -- don't make Trump big by trying to get into back and forth with him throughout the night. Make him small. I mean, he's going to try and do what Trump does. This is his seventh presidential debate. Nobody's done it more. We know what his habits are. She should have a conversation with the American people about the future that she envisions and spar with him when she has to.
PHILLIP: I mean, we saw her do that a little bit. I mean, when Dana asked her about Trump saying, well, she just turned black, her answer was, next question, please.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I think she is willing to let others do that work for her and thinks that -- I mean, and I think this is backed up in both evidence and reporting. People come to her when Trump attacks her in that way, that that is a good thing for her. I think it rallies people around her. I mean, but I think we should think about the difference that in context between 2019 and now, it wasn't just that it was off the cuff that was the problem. It was that the 2019 primary was one that had so many litmus tests about very specific kind of progressive, moderate policy questions that I think really caused her to feel torn between a lot of situations. And we had a lot of things that she ended up having to roll back the next day.
Against Donald Trump, there is an ability for her to be focused on kind of consistent Democratic messaging and I think that allows a greater comfort and ease that we saw play out today.
PHILLIP: Let's not be mistaken. I mean, Donald Trump is tall and very loud. And he is very persistent. It's not going to be so easy to just say, okay, let's move on. He's going to be right there.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. But I think you have to play your game. We've been talking about moving the ball down the field. It's like you are on offense. If you know, the vice president is not very tall. She is a petite woman. Let him look like the bully. Let him throw out red meat and you rise above the occasion. That's why I think it was so important that she didn't answer the question about race because actually that behavior is below the office.
AXELROD: But I think she answered the right way. But there was another element to it that I think in a debate is going to be very important. That behavior of Donald Trump's really does raise the question, do you want this for the next four years or do you want someone who's focused on your problems? And I think that pivot works.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that's true for the debate I think for tonight, I think she got that part exactly right. That's what I would have counseled.
CORNISH: You guys have underscored one of the bigger differences I've seen between her approach to this versus Biden, which is that she focuses very much on saying, I acknowledge that this -- I acknowledge that this economy doesn't feel good to you. You know, there's like a shift in tone. And similarly with Trump, it's much more, we saw this during the convention, undermining him and making him seem small, as she said, go small, rather than the epic bully that Biden had talked about.
ALLISON: I think that's because she talked about the economy had crashed under Donald Trump because of COVID. And nobody could anticipate that was going to happen and that they did work to recover and that there is still more work to be done. And I think that acknowledgement of --
CORNISH: Well, what she doesn't say is actually the data is really good, if you look at the GDP.
ALLISON: That's right, because nobody cares about --
CORNISH: I mean, that's why we were (INAUDIBLE) in the first two years. JENNINGS: I didn't -- I'll disagree with you on that on the walk backs a little bit. I just think it's jarring to go through the progression. You wanted to ban fracking? Yes. Now you don't? Yes. And why is that? Well, my values haven't changed. I mean, that progression to me must sound disorienting to the people in Pennsylvania.
PHILLIP: Ashley, let me play that sound just so people who may have missed it, this is what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you've made that you've explained some of here in your policy? Is it because you have more experience now and you've learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you're saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Dana, I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.
You mentioned the Green New Deal.
[22:05:00]
I have always believed, and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter, to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.
We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America, and by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example. That value has not changed. My value around what we need to do to secure our border, that value has not changed. I spent two terms as the attorney general of California prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, violations of American laws, regarding the passage, illegal passage, of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values have not changed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: My values have not changed. I mean, actually, interestingly, as I listened to that sound bite, I was thinking to myself, well, this will be a test of whether the left is willing to kind of be in a pragmatic space, because she's basically saying, you know, I believe in climate change, but let's put aside fracking for a second and do other things instead.
ALLISON: I think what she is doing is saying that climate is a crisis, and we have one side, maybe not you, Scott, but that have denial -- people who deny climate change and don't want to address it, but there are many ways to get to solutions. And so when she talked about it, she talked about she didn't do it when she was vice president, so it shouldn't be disorienting for voters to say that she won't do it when she's president.
She also talked about that there are many ways to get to where we want to get to and that there's ways to measure it. And so she talks about the things that she had to do, which is not banning fracking. I think that she answered that question very well.
I also don't think that the progressive left, particularly those who care about climate, will balk at that issue. Maybe they will, we're not, they're not a monolith, but because Joe Biden has been one of the best presidents in our history on climate. So it is a yes and. And that's what you have to do when you're president.
PHILLIP: And the other thing, Scott, is she is not running against the Lord Almighty. She is running against Donald Trump, who himself has had a lot of position changes over the last many years.
JENNINGS: Well, that's certainly what she wants to do. And what Trump wants to make this into is she's running to continue Biden. I mean, you're setting up the framing correctly. She wants to make it a referendum on Trump. He wants to make it a referendum on Biden.
Look, I think the two biggest issues coming out of Biden for her are the economic policies, which she clearly wants to embrace, but also the immigration policies. Dana asked her if she had anything to say about what they did for three and a half years leading up until the back and forth this year, completely sidestepped, did not answer it. She goes back to her time as attorney general.
But, again, absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing, no responsibility, no reflection at all on the day one executive actions or anything else they did for three and a half years, or anything she said in her previous campaign, which was to have the most permissive immigration structure. She's trying to skip a block of time at the debate. Trump cannot allow it.
CORNISH: I'm intrigued in this for completely different reasons, which is that we've seen the Democratic Party in a way move further to the right on the issue of immigration. I think prior to this point, there was a lot of concern about it being a humanitarian crisis, talking about putting children in cages. It was drawing a delineation between these big bads who are harming families and us who will be different.
Now, you have a candidate who's basically saying, actually, the thing I'm going to sign on day one is the thing we wrote together with Republicans to make them happy. And that's fascinating, right? It's a completely different position for the party to be in.
AXELROD: And, you know, you're doing some deep work on her. You did some deep work on her. I did a podcast with her when she just came to the Senate. My sense is that's who she is. I mean, I think she's a pragmatic politician. I think she's progressive in her thinking, but a pragmatic progressive, which is kind of what Barack Obama was, to be honest.
CORNISH: Well, also because Biden did reverse some policies, but he kept others. It's not a very obvious thing to look at.
PHILLIP: What I thought was missing, I mean, she explained her position on immigration. One of the questions was, you said, like she did with many things in 2020, that you don't believe it's a crime to cross the border if you do so illegally, and her position now is we should enforce the laws. She doesn't explain the delta between those two things.
AXELROD: Those months, it wasn't 2020. It was 2019 because she never made it to 2020.
That's right.
AXELROD: And the reason she didn't make it to 2020 was she was taking a bunch of positions that were the state of the art political advice that did not really reflect what she felt comfortable with and she did not seem connected to the words she was speaking.
PHILLIP: She is not -- this is different from my values. I think there's something more than my values.
JENNINGS: Well, wait. What --
ALLISON: I think my values are that there needs to be a pathway for people to come to this country that is legal.
[22:10:02]
And for decades, politicians have failed to deliver that for people. And so her values is there needs to be a pathway. I will compromise with Republicans. It won't be the Donald Trump will come compromise with Democrats.
HERNDON: I think Democrats have changed their values on immigration.
ALLISON: Let me just finish this on this. Okay. The other thing that she talked about is that she did acknowledge, I know you want to call her the border czar, but what she really was tasked with doing was talking about the root causes. And when you look at the migration patterns from the northern triangle that are now crossing the borders, those numbers are down. Is the problem solved? By no means, no.
JENNINGS: You know, you said she was in 2019 that she was taking the state of the art political advice, and that's why she did what she did. Wouldn't that bother -- if you didn't know anything about this person who wanted to be the president, wouldn't that bother you to know that they might have certain instincts or values, but they're willing to set those aside as long as the political consultants come in and tell you --
AXELROD: Here's my answer to you. I would take some solace in the fact that they have values and principles and that they're not entirely transactional. And that is a distinction with the candidate she is running against.
JENNINGS: Not on immigration. AXELROD: But even that was a -- that was a good -- he's a marketer and he throws ideas out and he sees what lights up the crowd and then he goes all-in. And that's how the wall came about.
But, Ashley, I want to say 1 thing about what you said. You know, you ask, would progressives stick with her? You and you gave sort of the progressive interpretation of what you heard. What I think she's saying is that any immigration policy has to include as part of it, not in order to mollify Republicans, but as a matter of public policy, has to include strong, enforceable borders. I don't think that's a concession on her part. I think that's what she actually believes.
HERNDON: Well, progressives have already taken a lot for this moment. I think the question of whether they stick with her has already been asked and answered, to be honest. She's changed enough positions and folks have really supported even within that.
But I would say, from my voter perspective or talking to like folks about how they're making these decisions, it's not as if it is -- it's not as if no one gets that Kamala Harris has changed positions from then to now. It's that the change in the positions doesn't feel as drastic as the person she's across from.
So, it is up to Donald Trump to make a substantive, based argument about why this matters in a way we have not seen him do or seen the ability for him to do in that time. So, I guess it's like if this was happening in isolation, I do think it would be fair to ask Harris what has changed between now and then.
I remember asking her this when I interviewed her in 2019 on criminal justice reform, because a lot of the things that she concluded in her plan to run for president, I think she did not support as attorney general. And I remember saying, what has changed? And there was an answer that was something, you know, about the politics of somewhat changed. And that wasn't the language specifically. I don't want to say that, but it was, and it was the winds have kind of changed. I think that's happening from then to now also, and they're trying to make that values consistency.
I don't think, I don't think that's a bad argument. I think people have a sense of understanding of those values. But to your point, it sounds like politics, and people have a willingness to accept a level of politics from these folks.
PHILLIP: There is a baseline acknowledgement --
HERNDON: Because Donald Trump has done that ten times over.
PHILLIP: I mean, the other point that you made is that this is about Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump. And if, Scott Jennings, we're standing up against Kamala Harris, we might be having a different conversation, but it's actually Donald Trump --
JENNINGS: On that front, I have an announcement to make.
PHILLIP: It will be someone else. AXELROD: I knew this was coming.
ALLISON: And I'll be his vice president.
JENNINGS: Yes, go for it.
PHILLIP: Stick around for us. We've got a lot more coming up. Dana bash will be here back to talk about her exclusive interview with the vice president and Governor Walz. And we're going to pull back the curtain on what will go down as a fateful day for Democrats and a phone call that changed history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: It was a Sunday. So, here I'll give you a little too much information.
BASH: Go for it. There's no such thing, Madam Vice President.
HARRIS: My family was staying with us and including my baby nieces.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: We are back now with more of our special coverage of CNN's exclusive interview with the Democratic presidential ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz. For the first time, we are hearing about how President Biden broke the news to his own vice president that he was dropping out of the race. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: I'm just curious staying on President Biden. When he called you and said he was pulling out of the race, what was that like? And did he offer to endorse you right away or did you ask for it?
HARRIS: It was a Sunday. So, here I'll give you a little too much information.
BASH: Go for it. There's no such thing, Madam Vice President.
HARRIS: My family was staying with us and including my baby nieces. And we had just had pancakes and, you know, auntie, can I have more bacon? Yes, I'll make you more bacon. And then we were going to sit -- we were sitting down to do a puzzle, and the phone rang and it was Joe Biden. And he told me what he had decided to do.
And I asked him, are you sure? And he said, yes. And that's how I learned about it.
[22:20:00]
BASH: And what about the endorsement? Did you ask for it? HARRIS: He was very clear that he was going to support me.
BASH: So when he called to tell you, he said, I'm pulling out of the race and I'm going to support you?
HARRIS: Well, my first thought was not about me, to be honest with you. My first thought was about him, to be honest.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Let's bring in Dana Bash. She's in Savannah, Georgia, where this interview took place. Dana, that is very, very interesting. And for those of us who lived through that weekend in a lot of different ways, she found out that morning and she asked him, are you sure? That's extraordinary.
BASH: It is extraordinary. First of all, I just want to say that I wasn't sure what she was going to say and what she would offer, if anything, about that conversation, which was obviously private. But it was also historic, which is clearly why she wanted to get some of it on the record, you know, for history now, because it's going to come out probably eventually.
But are you sure? You're exactly right, that kind of moment where -- look, it wasn't as if it was a surprise in the instant that it happened. A lot of people weren't sure that the president was going to finally decide, you know what, I'm out of here. But obviously we remember the pressure was mounting.
We do know that from our reporting that just in case -- she was not doing anything, but just in case some of the people who are in the Kamala Harris orbit were just kind of getting everything ready just in case it happened.
But that was a human moment. You know, this is a man who took her out of the United States Senate, made her his running mate. She made history with that. And he was giving her some pretty big news about himself, and then, of course, it was off to the races for her to try to do something even more historic to be the president, but also just with regard to the campaign process to scramble to secure the nomination, which wasn't really -- if you remember, Abby, it wasn't really set in stone that she was going to get it as quickly as she did. We weren't sure what the process was, but she sewed it up in about 24 hours.
I also just want to say just that the human element there of what she was doing, you know this, you've covered her and I know a lot of people at the table. She loves the Sunday dinner. She loves to cook, being there in the morning with her family, making them bacon, about to do a puzzle, it was just kind of the picture of it all is really stunning.
PHILLIP: It's not what you would expect if somebody were, say, expecting big news that weekend, having the grandnieces over going about your morning. I mean, it really was, despite all of the talk around it, she was continuing on. And you know this as well as I do, when you talk to people around her, that was the sort of mentality that came from the top down in Harris world, was that they were going to be blinders on moving forward, and in that moment, that is exactly what she was doing.
BASH: Yes, it was. And she was very careful. You know, we've heard Republicans say, oh, well, the former president, it was a coup, and she threw him overboard. That is not what happened. There were some Democrats who wanted him to go. She personally from -- I know from your reporting, my reporting, everybody else, she was being very, very cautious and very respectful of Joe Biden to let him make his decision in his own way, in his own time.
PHILLIP: All right. Dana, stay with us because we'll be back with you shortly for more from this great interview.
But I want to bring it into the panel here. The word loyalty is something I heard from people in Harris world about how she approached what was happening with Joe Biden. But I know, Scott, I mean, obviously, we've been talking about this on the show a lot because I know that you feel very strongly that maybe she should have, in your view, been more honest.
I want to play what she told Dana about that question of what did you tell the American people about what Joe Biden was like as president, and was it the truth?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Right after the debate, you insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong. Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?
HARRIS: No, not at all. Not at all. I have served with President Biden for almost four years now, and I'll tell you, it's one of the greatest honors of my career, truly. He cares so deeply about the American people.
He has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president. By contrast, the former president has none of that.
[22:25:00]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It was a carefully worded answer, but one that really was very careful not to even in the slightest way undermine President Biden.
JENNINGS: Yes, I sort of simultaneously admire the loyalty actually, because it would be tempting to just say, you know what, this was ridiculous and he made it, but she didn't. But at the same time, you know, before he got out of the race, upwards of 80, 90 percent of the American people thought he was too old to run again and she was out there in the face of that saying, no, he's fine. She's still saying that and no one really believes it. So, I guess the real fundamental question is, are people going to give her the grace on that and say, well, she's got to say that because it's her boss and --
AXELROD: We're giving her credit for having grace, which is I think what --
PHILLIP: That's the point that she was --
CORNISH: Well, a one quick note that we're not talking about and maybe it's not relevant, but obviously there is so much about how she is where she is in part because of her friendship with the late Beau Biden. There was a real friendship there. There is some respect there. And I think it did affect the relationship that she has with Joe Biden. I don't think that loyalty is perfunctory because there is a personal connection there.
HERNDON: And even when a year or two ago, when people were speculating about whether Joe Biden should throw Kamala Harris off the ticket, that loyalty played a key role in the reason why Biden was very tuned, all of that stuff out. She has been like this since the day she was selected and made a very clear decision that this is how she was going to see the role of president. And I think that served her and her relationship with Biden, who feels like that's how he treated that role. I think it informed her decision for Tim Walz, who kind of said that he would be a similarly deferential figure.
PHILLIP: But it's not just this interpersonal stuff. I mean, it's also on the policy.
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: I mean, Dana asked her, you've said Bidenomics is a success. And she said, effectively, yes. She talked about prescription drug prices, she talked about manufacturing jobs, she talked about bringing down child poverty. She didn't back away from even the idea of Bidenomics.
AXELROD: And you know what? If you -- I'm sorry, Ashley, go ahead.
ALLISON: No, please.
AXELROD: No, if you ask the American people about any of those things, they would give those things high marks. The problem that the president got into is he was personalizing all of this and any criticism of the economy, he took as a personal affront to him. He thought shepherding the economy through this disaster was one of his achievements and those points were achievements, which she did in this interview that he never did was say, all those things are true, and yet people were feeling the effects of costs, and that's something we have to redouble our efforts to address. That is the right way to answer the question.
ALLISON: I agree, that's why I let you go first. No, I totally agree.
I just want to say one thing on the loyalty and the vice president. I'll sound like a broken record. I don't think that's the fight you want to pick with this ticket. When you look at --
JENNINGS: I'm not picking any fights.
ALLISON: Are you not?
JENNINGS: No.
ALLISON: I just don't think it's always because you're just so mean.
JENNINGS: I'm not the one here -- I'm not picking fights, okay?
ALLISON: Well, I don't think Donald Trump wants to pick that fight when we look about what happened to his last vice president. I just want to -- I think there is a constant contrast that we owe it to the American people to remind them of, is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were loyal. They were -- I remember at that night he spoke, she went up and said, I love you, like it's real. And that's not what we can talk.
PHILLIP: It is such an important point because I think sometimes we get caught up in the spin, that the spin, that this was a coup, does not make any sense, because Joe Biden himself made the decision to step aside, A, and, B, that the two of them still apparently maintain a very good relationship. We saw it on full display, what was it?
JENNINGS: Well, her involvement in it may have been more memorable. But there were people pushing him out. Let's be honest.
CORNISH: It feels bizarre to still be talking about something weeks ago. And on the debate stage, is that how you want to spend time?
JENNINGS: No. It's the economy, immigration --
PHILLIP: Absolutely immigration, and we talked about that.
ALEXROD: But you know something, there's a -- I'm sorry, there's a level at which this presidential politics works that is nonlinear, that is not all about, you know, paint a dot kind of policy discussions. It's about who is this person? What is their character? And in that sense, and that's why I said at the beginning of this discussion I was actually impressed by the way she talked about the president because it reflected character, and I think people want character in their president they may not be thinking they're going to find it in Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: All right, Ashley, Scott, and Astead, thank you all for being here. Everyone else, don't go anywhere, a lot more ahead.
Coming up next, Governor Walz's response to the continuing questions about his military record.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me. I speak like they do. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:34:04]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, responding to Republicans who called him out for claiming that he carried guns into war. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: You said that you carried weapons in war, but you have never deployed actually in a war zone. A campaign official said that you misspoke. Did you?
GOV. TIM WALZ (D) VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well, first of all, I'm incredibly proud. I've done 24 years of wearing the uniform of this country. Equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it's Congress or the governor.
My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me. I speak like they do. I speak candidly. I wear my emotions on my sleeves, and I speak especially passionately about our children being shot in schools and around guns. So, I think people know me. They know who I am. They know where my heart is.
BASH: Did you misspeak as the campaign has said?
WALZ: Yeah, I said we were talking about, in this case this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war.
[22:35:03]
And my wife, the English, she told me my grammar is not always correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I just want to remind you, here are those 2018 comments that Republicans have been highlighting. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALZ: I'll take my kick in the butt for the NRA. I spent 25 years in the army and I hunt. And I gave the money back and I'll tell you what I have been doing. I've been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks.
We can do CDC research. We can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons were at.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: "and I carried in war" is the operative part there. Again, Tim Walz was never in combat, but he did serve in the National Guard for 24 years. Let's bring in Dana Bash again. She's in Savannah, Georgia, where this interview took place. Dana, an important exchange on an issue that has been dogging him since he became the vice- presidential nominee.
BASH: Yes, no question about it. And look, this is such a different process than any campaign goes through to pick the running mate. There usually is a pretty substantial vetting process. I don't know if the Harris campaign -- the baby campaign that it was at the time, knew about these comments. My suspicion is, no, because I think they used it in some early -- early videos.
But it's the kind of thing that you want to kind of be buttoned up about and not take weeks to kind of clean up. It is the first interview that he has done, so it's the first chance he has gotten to try to clean it up, aside from that spokesperson from the campaign that I was talking about.
But it's the kind of broader question of who is this guy, and the way that they put him out there at the beginning of the -- when he was picked and also at the convention is kind of who he is. He is a coach, he is a father and that's definitely the kind of person they would have put out there.
They're talking less about him as a veteran. He has a tremendous record as a veteran and he is somebody who served and, you know, a lot of people say he should be thanked for it and I'm not here to disagree with that.
PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, the 24 years -- our 24 years. So, that speaks for itself. The question is now whether voters will care about the other part of this. Dana, thank you very much for all of this, this great interview and for joining us and for hosting.
BASH: Thanks Abby. Thanks for having me.
PHILLIP: And joining our panel here, Sharon Michael Singleton, Jamal Simmons and Maggie Haberman. Maggie, this is a core part of what the Trump campaign has been spending a lot of their time on. The Trump campaign manager, Trump himself. Are they frustrated though that it feels like maybe it hasn't stuck as much as they would like it to?
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There is a singular obsession that the Trump campaign has with this issue, as you note. My biggest, and I don't think it's an illegitimate point to ask questions about, but Tim Walz is the number two. He's not running for president. Kamala Harris is the number one.
And so, they have spent, I think it's five weeks now focusing on this issue. And for three of those weeks at least, they were doing nothing. to define the vice president. So, you know, I think they are frustrated in part because there were so many attacks on J.D. Vance and J.D. Vance had a rough time in that first week out after the RNC. And I think a lot of this is about that, frankly.
PHILLIP: Yeah. HABERMAN: I have seen little sign that voters care much about this. Again, they are voting for the person who is running for president, not the number two, which is also true with Trump and J.D. Vance.
PHILLIP: Yeah. And look, we see that in the numbers. I mean, J.D. Vance has really taken a hit in his unfavorables.
HABERMAN: No question.
PHILLIP: But Jamal, just real talk though, why not just say you misspoke? That was a little surprising --
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he did say "I own my mistakes." He did say that in his answer. "I own my mistakes." So, I think he went on to talk about, you know, put them into some context. Here's the reality. I think as Maggie was just saying, people aren't really judging this.
When I was in the vice president's office, people spent a lot of time going after Kamala Harris on the Republican side. Turns out, didn't really make much of a difference, right? As soon as she launched as a presidential candidate, nobody seemed to remember what happened before when she was a vice-presidential candidate.
The thing that struck me the most when I was watching that, she said something that was very Kamala Harris. She started talking about the opportunity economy. She started talking about investing in families. And when she did that, she said, so that people can buy car seats, clothes, cribs. It was very specific.
This is the way that when she goes out and she campaigns with the American people, she talks to them not just about the big policy, but about the way that they interact with that policy in their own specific lives.
PHILLIP: Shermichael, what do you make of that?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean --
PHILLIP: Walz, by the way, was at this interview in a way that is not atypical for a post-convention interview but what did you make of him?
SINGLETON: I don't think it really matters whether or not he was there or not. I know some conservatives have attempted to make a big deal about this.
[22:40:00]
You're right. Most voters don't care about the number two, they care about the number one. But I do think there's a possibility for this to become an issue. He could have just said, look, I misspoke, it happens all the time in politics in the heat of the moment. I think most people would understand that, but that's not what he said.
He said, my record speaks for itself. Well, does it? We don't know what your record is. Maybe if you're in your home state, people may know, but not the American people. Then he said, well, "I wear my emotions on my chest." Well, that showcases some level of instability, not stability.
Then he said, well, "People know me." Again, no, we don't know you. That's why you're doing this interview. Then he said, well, "My wife said my grammar sometimes isn't always correct." But those were terrible answers.
And so, you're literally making an issue that should really be a non- issue, potentially an issue, by the way he responded, when he simply could have said, look, I misspoke. I apologize. Let's move on to something else. And he didn't.
PHILLIP: As is often the case, the V.P. nominee is the person at the ticket has the less experience than the other person. And so, you get issues like this that come up. Everyone, hold on. We've got much more to discuss ahead.
Coming up next, Vice President Harris says that she's made her position on fracking very clear. CNN's Daniel Dale will be here to fact check that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:38]
PHILLIP: There's plenty to fact check from tonight's town hall. CNN's Daniel Dale joins us now with more. Daniel, let's listen to these comments that Vice President Harris made about her position on fracking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: When you were in Congress, you supported the Green New Deal. And in 2019, you said, quote, "There is no question I'm in favor of banning fracking." Fracking, as you know, is a pretty big issue, particularly in your must-win state of Pennsylvania.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Sure.
BASH: Do you still want to ban fracking?
HARRIS: No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.
BASH: In 2019, I believe, at a town hall, you said, you were asked, would you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking on your first day in office? And you said, there's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. So, yes. So, it changed in that campaign?
HARRIS: In 2020, I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024, and I've not changed that position nor will I, going forward. I kept my word, and I will keep my word.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Daniel Dale is here. Daniel, she said there that she's made her position clear in 2020. Tell us what the truth is of that.
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: The fact-check bottom line, Abby, is that she did not actually make clear at a 2020 debate that she had changed her previous support for a fracking ban. So, let me take you through this kind of saga. So, here's what she said at a CNN climate town hall in 2019 on the subject of a fracking ban.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office, adding the United States to the list of countries who have banned this devastating practice?
HARRIS: There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. So, yeah.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: That was quite clear. So, she ended her 2020 presidential run in December 2019. The only debate she participated in 2020 was the general election debate with then Vice-President Mike Pence. And I went over the transcript of that debate tonight.
Nowhere in there does she make clear that she had abandoned her previous support for fracking ban. Rather, she repeated that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would himself not ban fracking. So, listen to what she actually said in that 2020 debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Joe Biden will not end fracking. He has been very clear about that. I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe Biden will not ban fracking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: So, it makes perfect sense that at the time she was speaking on behalf of Biden, the president, not the vice president, sets administration policy. But maybe other people feel differently. I certainly did not hear anywhere in there Kamala Harris saying that she personally had abandoned her previously expressed 2019 view. Rather, again, she was speaking for Joe Biden.
PHILLIP: All right, Daniel Dale, thank you very much. Donald Trump, he's been giving us thoughts about tonight's interview on Truth Social, he spoke to some reporters. I mean, it's gone about how you would expect.
I'm going to bring a little bit of our break conversation into the conversation here, because, Audie, you pointed out, we are talking about fracking, which I am not sure a whole lot of people are talking about, except maybe in Pennsylvania. Is this kind of where the Trump argument against Harris is centering
on, is -- these past statements about issues like fracking, the Tim Walz stuff? I mean, is that where their heads are at?
HABERMAN: They're not quite sure where their heads are at. There's a bunch of advisors who would like his head to be in a certain place, which is essentially tying her to Joe Biden. There are others who believe that there is opportunity in pointing out that she took a series of very liberal positions in 2019 that she has moved away from since.
They see that as an opportunity to basically just call her liberal over and over and over again. And Trump has been doing that. Trump has said that a number of times. It's going to a bunch of these places. There has not been one single line that they have used against her, except for, I think it's dangerously liberal, is the tagline in the commercials. And that's where that goes.
PHILLIP: Are they aware that there is a bit of a contradiction between those things to paint her as the liberal of 2019, but then also the Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, that's maybe more center left?
SIMMONS: Yeah, they don't have a thesis statement here in their column. So, they don't actually really know what they're arguing about, Kamala Harris, about the Vice President.
[22:50:00]
I thought the last sentence that she gave in the fracking answer was actually the best sentence of the entire answer. And if she had started that sentence and left it there, it would have been fine. She said, "I learned that you can grow the green economy without banning fracking." That's the answer, right?
PHILLIP: "I learned", which is actually a really smart phrase, underutilized in politics.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, and she did talk about traveling and listening to people and so on. I mean, that is something I think people can understand, but they also can understand that she's telling them, this is what my position is now. I don't know that the average voter is going to linger on this.
But to your point, you know, don't dash off the notion that this is an important issue in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania may decide this election, so that's why the Trump people are trying to focus on this issue and that's what she was very, very --
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it's a tough state. It's a tough state.
SIMMONS: You can make an argument, Abby, that this is -- this is really all going to be about these fine pot policy questions. And I think the reality here is, this is a change election. Kamala Harris is the face and voice of change. Donald Trump is an error that people are kind of exhausted with their way to move on. And maybe some of these things will matter in some discrete places.
But really, the reason why 444,000 people are getting on calls and thousands of people showing up at events is because they want something new.
PHILLIP: The thing about Democrats in the last two cycles has been largely that there is a sense in parts of America that there is a cultural antagonism against people who live in places where fracking is an issue that matters. So, yes, it's about, you know, whether or not, you know, she cares about people like you. But I think this is a proxy for that.
SINGLETON: I mean, it's thousands of jobs for people who live in Pennsylvania. And when you say that you support the Green New Deal, but you also support fracking, those two ideals are not consistent. The end result of supporting the Green New Deal is to end fossil fuels. You can't say, I support this, but also, by the way, you can have your fracking, too.
And so, for people in Pennsylvania, those skeptical folks that are in the middle, that five percent that may determine which way that state goes, they're going to look at that and they're going to say, well, is this political pandering? Is this political expediency?
Is the vice president saying whatever she needs to say to potentially win, but she doesn't believe it? And we weren't clear. She did not give a clear or decisive answer in that regard.
HABERMAN: I don't really think there's that many people who are going to be actually weighing whether they think that she has true convictions on these things or not. They're going to be weighing whether they -- she can convince them that she is going to do enough to make their lives better, and that is going to come down in various discrete ways, in very narrow slices of the electorate.
PHILLIP: Yeah, perhaps not on any one particular issue. Everyone, stick with me. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:05]
PHILLIP: And my panel is back. No one at this table knows more about how to win elections than David Axelrod. So, what does Vice President Harris need to do from this point forward?
AXELROD: Look, on one point, she was clearly trying to burnish tonight her commitment to this opportunity economy, to building the middle class. She has specific points she wants to make. The next thing she has to do is throw it into a more comparative frame.
He wants tax cuts for billionaires. I want tax cuts for families with children. He wants to end the Affordable Care Act. I want to strengthen it and expand it and make sure that more people have health care in this country. I think she needs to paint a picture of the choice --the economic choice, and if she's successful, she can win the economic issue, certainly neutralize it.
PHILLIP: I wonder, do you think that Kamala Harris, the fighter, came across in this interview tonight with Dana Bash?
HABERMAN: No, intentionally not.
SINGLETON: Nope.
PHILLIP: Why?
HABERMAN: Because I think that she has made a conscious choice that she is going to try to do as little as possible to avoid being caricatured as angry. I think she is very aware that she -- Trump has been trying to race bait about her for weeks now. It hasn't been remotely subtle. And I think that she is trying to avoid playing into any caricatures that way.
I, also, just think that one of the contrast points between her and Donald Trump is he is presenting a lot of anger. If you look at Truth Social, it is -- he went on a sort of a spree over the last 24 hours. He went on curious and all kinds of things and, you know, his political opponents in jumpsuits. And she's smiling and she's looking happy.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
HABERMAN: And I think that they make the bet that the public would like to feel better than it has.
PHILLIP: That, okay, so there's the joy of it all. But I mean, there's also -- there's a populist energy in the country right now where people want to know who's going to take it to the man for them. And she -- that used to be part of her portfolio, but not so much anymore?
SIMMONS: I don't think it is on stage, but we haven't seen her at the debate yet. I think people know this about her, that she's a prosecutor, that she can go after him. It's something that Democrats have been excited to see about her. I think we saw it in 2022 and '23 when she was making this case about abortion and abortion rights, and she was out there every day arguing it.
This is something I think we're going to see when you get to the debate. You just may not see it on stage, because right now, she's still getting the country comfortable with who she is. And as Maggie said a second ago, one of those things is a joyful warrior.
PHILLIP: I think I keep coming back to is discipline. You can say what you want about Vice President Harris, but she's got it. And Trump does not.
SINGLETON: Yeah, I mean, she is disciplined and ideally Republicans will want to draw the contrast. One of the things she mentioned in her economic plan, given out, I think, a $25,000 tax credit to new home buyers. And to me, I was a bit dismayed because that's not really the problem. It's a volume problem being the former deputy chief of staff at HUD. We don't have enough houses available.
PHILLIP: I just have to interject to say Donald Trump today said that he was going to have the government pay for it.
SINGLETON: Well, and I have a problem with that, as well.
[23:00:03]
That's not the role of government. But with that said, a disciplined Trump would point the contrast. It's not about providing a tax credit. What's your plan to create more houses in the market generally speaking?
AXELROD: Isn't that kind of an action more unloyal, disciplined Trump?
SINGLETON: Well, I mean, David, I'm a strategist, so I mean, I have to say what he should do, right?
PHILLIP: He is laying out the ideal case scenario for Republicans. Everyone, thank you so much for watching. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
