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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Trump And Harris Campaigns Spin Consequential Debate; Trump Says He's Less Inclined To Debate Harris Again; Conspiracies Get More Bizarre, Outrageous As Election Nears; "NewsNight" Panel Tackles State Of 2024 Presidential Race; Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance Comments About Taylor Swift Endorsing V.P. Harris. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired September 11, 2024 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Donald Trump compares himself to a boxer, as MAGA tries to spin what his own allies consider a K.O. by Kamala Harris.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., FORMER INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Harris clearly won the debate.

PHILLIP: Plus, nearly 70 million people witnessed the debate on screens. But did the Democratic nominee convince swing state skeptics to be a witness at the polls?

Also, from race and Roe, to ducks and dogs.

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Run, spot, run.

PHILLIP: Why the lies and conspiracies growing more outrageous is an alarming sign for November.

And the world's most famous childless cat lady loves the player. But can she sway the game?

Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ana Navarro, Bryan Lanza and Nina Turner. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what America is talking about, the spin cycle. The pundits, they're declaring Kamala Harris the winner of last night's debate, but her campaign says debates don't win elections, so get out and vote. In the meantime, Trump says that he won the debate, actually, but his allies, privately, are calling it a disaster.

So, with just 54 days now until the election, will there ultimately be a rematch? Harris is game. Trump, not so much. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's like a fighter. When a fighter has a bad fight, gets knocked out, or loses the fight, the first thing he says is, we want a rematch. So, we won the debate according to every poll, every single poll. I think that are we going to do a rematch? I just don't know. But we'll think about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat tonight, Olivia Nuzzi from the New York Magazine. She also recently interviewed Donald Trump just this past week.

By the way, I wonder, Olivia, do you think that Trump, if you talked to him about this before this debate, did you get the sense that he was ready, that he was prepared? And when you hear him now trying to spin a loss as a win, what do you think is the psychology of that?

OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I found him to be remarkably unprepared to talk about Kamala Harris. He was talking to me about her family history at one point, and using her father as an example of why she was a Marxist. And when I said, I think she was not raised by her father. I think she was raised by her mother. He said, huh, really? Is that right? He was just completely unaware of --

PHILLIP: Which is amazing, because that is a pretty known thing.

NUZZI: -- basic biographical details. And when I talked to advisors of his they said he just doesn't like to do the reading. I mean, this is something that we've all known about Donald Trump and it seems that as though they failed in their efforts to prep him last night and their efforts to make sure that he did not get riled by Kamala Harris very easily. He seemed to take the bait every time she tried to elicit a response like that from him.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, first of all, the argument that the losing person is eager to do this again, I'm not sure that that works. But if you were Trump, I mean, would you do it again?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No reason. And no reason for her either. I don't think either of them have any compelling reason to do this. Harris checked the box. She wanted won the . And for Trump, look, he's done this seven times, six times he's lost the debate, according to the snap polls. Now, he lost three times to Hillary, but he still won the election, so it's not fatal, necessarily. But there's no way, you know, absent what happened with Joe Biden this summer, he's likely to come out and be judged the winner of a debate. So, why do this again?

Plus, my anticipation is whoever moderates the next one is going to try to outdo the ABC moderators and be even harder on them than they were. And so there's no win here, so I would cut, shut it down.

PHILLIP: So, hard on him, in fact, that he spoke for five whole minutes more than she did.

JENNINGS: Well, they came to fact-check and push back on him, but they didn't do it --

PHILLIP: I mean, it's not even really all that close.

JENNINGS: I mean, they didn't do it to her.

PHILLIP: He got a lot of speaking time.

JENNINGS: I know, but they didn't do it to her. I'm just saying they're getting a lot of accolades today for beating the crap out of him and leaving her alone, and the next set of moderators, I'm sure, would do the same.

PHILLIP: Beating the crap out of him. I mean, the moderators, to be honest, I mean, they ask questions.

[22:05:01]

They tried to get him to answer them. Sometimes he just didn't want to answer the questions.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, when you lose a debate, when you don't do well, you blame it on the moderators. You know, today they're saying that she had earrings that were somehow she was getting the answers, that she had gotten the questions beforehand.

PHILLIP: Yes, this is Laura Loomer, let's just show people what you're talking about here. These are the earrings that Vice President Harris was wearing. Laura Loomer, who, by the way, has been hanging around with Donald Trump, including at this debate, she she suggests here that this was a listening device.

NAVARRO: Right. So, to me, it's kind of ironic and funny and I can't reconcile it, because on the one hand Donald Trump and most of his supporters are saying he won this debate, which is clearly a lie and delusional, but on the other hand, they are blaming the moderators, they're saying Kamala Harris had the questions, they're saying Kamala Harris was getting a listening device and was getting whispered the answers. So, which is it? Because if you won the debate --

JENNINGS: No, I'm not saying any of that. But here's --

NAVARRO: No, you're not, but a lot of his supporters are.

JENNINGS: But here's a fact. He did get pushback from them. They did try to fact-check him in real time. But there were numerous questions that she would not answer and she did tell several lies and got no fact-checking. So, I think if you're going to lay down a marker that we're going to push back on these candidates, you got to do it to none or you got to do it to both.

PHILLIP: They didn't fact check nearly -- not even close to the number of times that they could have based on the number of lies that Trump told. But they did fact-check the big ones, the big obvious ones that should be fact-checked. I mean, the idea that somehow the problem is that they put truth on the table seems ridiculous.

BRYAN LANZA, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2016 CAMPAIGN: I guess I looked at the debate a little bit differently, you know, sort of not winner or loser, but, you know, who had -- what did each person had to do? You know, what did we see the trend lines happening before the debate? The American public was viewing Kamala Harris as extremely liberal, right? You know, when you looked at mainstream, no matter what the media was saying, trying to reset the table and seeing all these great things, the public themselves were able to decipher for themselves. This is actually a San Francisco liberal with very extreme views that are outside the mainstream.

So, what was her role? Her role at this debate was to prove that she's not a San Francisco liberal. I don't think that took place. I think, you know, Trump hit her on some issues that reinforced the fact that she's a San Francisco liberal. I think she herself avoided answering these questions, which lead to the suspicion that she's a San Francisco liberal.

Now, she had a strong performance, yes, but at the end of the day, having a strong performance in a debate doesn't win an election.

NAVARRO: Do you think she won the debate?

LANZA: I don't look at debates as winners, losers. I looked at what does somebody have to accomplish? So, she had to accomplish this, this, and this. I don't think she accomplished it.

NAVARRO: Well, I think most people look at debates as winners or losers. And, listen, I've been where you all are, right? I remember the very sobering, sad, difficult time it was to admit that Joe Biden had lost that debate. He admitted that he had a terrible night. But you've got to do it. You can't keep lying to yourself. He had a terrible night because, you know why? Because he is surrounding himself by all of these conspiracy theorists that make him believe these crazy things. He can go and say them on T.V.

LANZA: In 2016, I think everybody said, and, you know, from the politics that I knew before Donald Trump, is that he had these horrible, bad debate performances against Hillary. And you saw for a couple days, he lost several points, and then he regained it and ultimately won. So, what we learned through that experience is that no matter what the view is or whether President Trump has this bad debate or not, he's not judged on whether his debate performance like other people are.

So, I think we go back to, you know, whatever Trump said, everything that he said, you didn't see --

FMR. STATE SEN. NINA TURNER (D-OH): the ultimate debate is going to be Election Day. We all understand that. That's one. But two --

LANZA: But that's where the winning really matters.

TURNER: -- I'm really channeling Tom Hanks here, his character in a league of their own. There's no crying in baseball. LANZA: Yes, I just said she had a strong performance.

TURNER: She had an extraordinary performance and President Donald J. Trump did not adapt. He still does think in his mind that he is running against President Biden. The vice president made it very clear. You're not running against Joe Biden, but he did not adapt. He didn't change. He didn't have any vision. It was all, you know, what is all wrong with America. He could have changed. He could have pivoted, but he didn't take the opportunity to pivot.

I will say this. When I rewatched it, I will give you guys that some of the questions that they asked and came back at the president with was harsher. More than one thing can be true at the same time. But there is a however. He did not.

LANZA: Thank you for your honesty.

PHILLIP: I'm curious. What did you think was, what did you think was harsh, harsher. I'm just honestly curious.

TURNER: Well, the fact about the, her ethnicity question, I think that is why you keep bringing that up, you know, pressing him on that Project 2025. Look, the man said he had nothing to do with it. We can debate whether he has something to do with it or not. They did not -- on the fracking question to the vice president, and this is me as a liberator, she, in 2019, when she was running, she said, I'm done with, you know, fracking, we're going to do away with it.

[22:10:02]

You can't say you're going to do away with it. They had her dad to write on that. What you can say as a candidate that I'm not in 2019. I'm not in 2020. And you know what? I changed my mind.

PHILLIP: Well, I guess the point, the reality of it is that she reversed herself in 2020, like that's just not true.

LANZA: No, she didn't, Abby. That's not accurate at all.

JENNINGS: But it's a weak argument.

LANZA: No, Scott, it's all lies.

TURNER: All I'm saying is that more than one thing can be true at the same time. President Donald J. Trump lost, any -- the device and all that, that his followers are saying, it did not happen. He lost. He was not prepared. He thought he was going to bulldoze his way in. He wouldn't even look at the vice president. He lost.

But at the same time, I did analyze what the moderators were doing and they did not treat him --

PHILLIP: That's very interesting.

JENNINGS: Fact-checking aside, they asked her directly, directly in the very first question. If she thought they had any responsibility for the economic conditions or that people were better off than they were, and she completely ignored it. They asked her on immigration. Why did you wait until six months before the election to do anything? And she completely ignored it. And so fact-checking and barbs aside, those are the two most important issues in the election. They asked her. She completely ignored them. And they spent all their time going after Trump and didn't follow up on any of that. I thought it was ridiculous.

NAVARRO: Listen, I think part of the reason that there was more fact- checking of Trump is because he said more misleading things or outright lies, right? We had our own folks here doing the analysis. And in the analysis, he did 33-plus lies. She had one misleading statement.

JENNINGS: That is completely ridiculous.

LANZA: That is a lie.

JENNINGS: One misleading -- I'm sorry.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: Hey, guys, let me hit pause for a second, because, okay, there was one that we fact-checked last night, but there were a couple of others that were either misleading or false. Not 33, but more than one.

NUZZI: I think if you're not going to do a comprehensive fact-check during the debate of both candidates, you should allow the fact- checking to take place after the fact with the analysis. I think it interrupts the flow of the program, and I think it feeds into a narrative from whatever candidate is being fact-checked more. That makes the whole event called into question.

NAVARRO: Well, I was upset last night because the ABC moderators gave more time to Donald Trump. Today, I'm happy they gave more time to Donald Trump, because every time he spoke, he said more and more stupid and absurd things.

NUZZI: We're talking about winners and losers, but we're talking about, really, what do the small fraction of persuadable voters take away from this, right? And those voters are probably going to vote emotionally, and they're looking for these candidates to reveal themselves. And they're not going to see this the way that we'll do in a pundit class.

NAVARRO: I've seen something that I've seen today that I've barely ever seen after a debate, people laughing at a candidate, not with a candidate. There were so many memes, there were so many TikToks today. There was so much coverage. No, no, no, no. There was so much coverage.

NUZZI: But curated to you in your feed, right?

NAVARRO: Well, I mean, okay. But there was people that were shooting folks at bars, folks at debate watches listening to Donald Trump and bursting out in the laughter at how absurd it is.

NUZZI: But you know what? Normally, people are not in a debate watch party, though. A swing voter who's probably not that invested in politics is not at a debate watch party. That's abnormal behavior.

PHILLIP: Right, which is probably for a lot of people here --

NAVARRO: Don't you think maybe that a swing voter is getting some of the memes of Donald Trump being laughed at?

NUZZI: Possibly, yes. I'm sure there may be other sides to it.

PHILLIP: Philippe Reines said just earlier about what he observed. He played Donald Trump essentially in Vice President Harris' debate prep. He did it the same thing for Hillary Clinton. Here is how he assessed Trump and what he's like right now on a debate stage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILIPPE REINES, PLAYED TRUMP IN HARRIS' DEBATE PREP: I did this eight years ago and I did it now. I've had to watch him and pretend. And he's de-compensating, that his language, how he thinks, how he speaks.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think he's different now than when you were prepping Hillary Clinton eight years ago?

REINES: Absolutely, absolutely.

He's not carrying thoughts through.

I think he's losing his train of thought and he's just blurting out the next thing in his mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Olivia, I'm going to let you respond to that because you have seen him talk or talked to him recently.

NUZZI: Who is the Donald Trump who is connecting the beginning of his thoughts to the end of his thoughts? When did that Donald Trump exist? I've always known Donald Trump to speak in a strange and it's always a journey listening to him talk, no matter what he's talking about.

I will say post-shooting, he speaks more slowly, he was speaking in a much more quiet and I guess you could say considered way when we were conversing for this story. But he sounds to me pretty much the same as he's always sounded. And this idea that there was once this Donald Trump who was a great orator, who was making a lot of sense, I don't know.

PHILLIP: Maybe not that, but if you actually do go back and watch the old debate tape, he is -- it's not just the slowness of his speech, but he's quicker on his feet.

[22:15:01]

He's able to really react much more quickly to what's going on.

NUZZI: Well, I mean the image of Kamala Harris, you know, sprightly walking up to shake his hand and he's sort of slowly lumbering across the stage, right?

TURNER: He was not ready for her.

PHILLIP: Yes. All right, everyone, hang on. Olivia, thank you very much for joining us.

Coming up next, as Trump's conspiracies get even more bizarre and outlandish, are these red flags for November, ultimately?

Plus, J.D. Vance is responding to Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris and her reference to Vance's childless cat lady's remark. Another special guest is going to join us in our fifth seat. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Okay. Well, that's just one of the bizarre conspiracies that Donald Trump and his surrogates have embraced in the last 24 hours. Here's another one. We mentioned the earpiece earrings conspiracy earlier. And another one, well, that we're not getting the full story about the failed assassination attempt against the former president. And that one is coming from his wife.

Joining us now in our fifth seat is former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan. This cat/dog conspiracy, it has launched a thousand memes, but it's crazy and it's been debunked now. The city manager says, no claims of pets being harmed, abused, eaten, not even claims of people squatting or littering, no claims of immigrants disrupting traffic deliberately. The governor now -- this is what the statement says, the governor, DeWine, today also said --

NAVARRO: A very conservative Republican.

PHILLIP: -- there's no evidence of this at all, but it has really taken on a life of its own.

FMR. REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): I have no answer. I mean, it's really I think a sign of the times. And I think that kind of rhetoric, his focus on that, I think, is a huge opening for Kamala Harris to talk about the issues around jobs, wages, pensions, kind of the bread and butter stuff. And the more he goes down that lane, which I think after last night, where he did get goaded into these kind of things, I think you're going to see more and more of that. And the fact that J. D. Vance amplified it, then he backed off, and then he went back because Trump wanted him to, I think, is a sign of they're just in the wrong lane.

PHILLIP: I'm going to play J.D. Vance in just a second, but I know, Bryan, you wanted to defend this, I guess.

LANZA: Not defend it. I think you made a comment there that's really inaccurate. You said there's been no increase of crime in that neighborhood.

PHILLIP: That's not what I said at all.

LANZA: Because it's gone up 130 percent is what the chief of police is saying.

PHILLIP: Clear up the record.

LANZA: Okay.

PHILLIP: This is from the city manager of Springfield. He says, there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community. And then he lists a bunch of other things that there have been no claims of --

LANZA: Well, he needs to speak to his chief of police.

NAVARRO: Okay. But I'm just going to say, so I was on this show the night before the debate, I think, and we had an entire segment, I think it was Tom Foreman who debunked this. Now, if you're not on Twitter, if you're not on whatever the hell it's called now, and if you're not watching CNN, this thing that Donald Trump all of a sudden said about immigrants eating cats and eating pets came out of left field, and you thought he was completely, absolutely insane. If Joe Biden had said the same thing, he would have been pulled off the stage and sent immediately into a loony bin.

But because Donald Trump gets away with being Donald Trump and saying crazy things, what's happening with Donald Trump? Like Kamala Harris says, it is a page from an old, tired playbook. He always goes against immigrants, tries to cause fear, tries to build that into folks going out and voting out of fear. Last week, it was about Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora, Colorado. The officials of that city said that story was false. This week, it is a completely made up story about somebody eating a cat and it turning into a Haitian immigrant.

This is, though, maybe funny to some people. A lot of people have done funny memes. It's also incredibly racist and incredibly dangerous. Because I remember when a whack job triggered by things that were said against Latinos took a gun and went and hunted down Latinos in an El Paso Walmart. And I remember when a whack job triggered by conspiracy theories about the Comet pizza place in Washington, D.C. and the sex ring that the Clintons were supposedly running there showed up with a gun. So, it's crazy, it may be funny, it may lead to a lot of memes, but it's also racist, and dangerous, and it is shameful that it continues to be amplified by people like Donald Trump, his followers, and his vice presidential candidate.

PHILLIP: Let me play what J.D. Vance said about this yesterday when he was talking to Kaitlan, and listen carefully to how he pivots from what evidence is there of this to why he's bringing it up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When you have a lot of people saying, my pets are being abducted, or geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us, this is crazy stuff. And, Again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be, Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Healthcare costs are up. Housing costs are up. Communicable diseases, like HIV and T.B., have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[22:25:00]

TURNER: Abby, hyperbolic conjecture. Conjecture, excuse me. This man -- so first of all, I talked to Dr. Dr. Bailey, who is a professor in Springfield. He lives in Springfield. First of all, the Haitian migrant are there and they've been there coming in over the last three years. So, our viewers need to really understand it's not like a busload came in all at once. They've been coming in over the last three years.

Governor Mike DeWine has been very clear about what the city manager said is true, even the picture of the bird is not even from Springfield. It's a picture that was taken about a year or so ago from Columbus, Ohio. So, the fact that President Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance wants to stoke this kind of fear, I want to center the Haitian refugees who are -- or migrants rather, who are there in Springfield, Ohio. There are churches there. They have festivals there. They are trying to come into the community.

What Governor DeWine has done, which I think is good, is about to give that community $2.5 million over the next two years, because they need it. There are health concerns there. There are health concerns there for the Haitian migrants and health concerns there for the residents that live there. But to stoke these kinds of flames and then also the parents of the little boy, I think he was 11 years old, the Clark family, gave a message to President Trump and J.D. Vance and said stop politicizing the death of our son. He was not murdered. He was in a bus and the bus was hit by a Haitian migrant and their child died because of it. So, the parents said he wasn't murdered. He was killed by an accident.

The father went on to say that he wished his son had have been killed and he was being -- you know, he was just laying a story, not that he wanted his son to die. But if his son had been killed by a 60-year-old white man, he said we wouldn't even be having this conversation, and that he hates the level of racism and bigotry that is being used by Republicans. So, it's wrong.

PHILLIP: It's definitely a choice that is being made here to go down. Look, there are all kinds of serious issues, real ones, about, you know, what it's like to integrate people who have no support system, about what it costs, about who should pay for all that stuff, legitimate conversations, but it's a choice to go down this conspiracy.

I just want to point out that this is also, like many conspiracies, a conspiracy in search of facts. Christopher Rufo is a right wing person, provocateur, you can call him whatever you want. He says, I'll provide $5,000 if you can give me the evidence of this thing that we've been claiming as fact.

At some point, Scott, you probably get this question too much, is it just not the smart thing to do to back away from some of this stuff that that sliver of America, that they're just regular people, seems just outlandish and crazy and unnecessary?

JENNINGS: I think, and you heard it in Vance's clip, I do think it's a legitimate conversation to have about the societal public safety, health impacts, anytime cities or communities get drastically changed because of our immigration system, whether that's in Springfield, whether that's on the border with Mexico, whether that's New York City, which has had issues.

So, I don't think that's an illegitimate conversation to have. Even in your answer, obviously, you don't agree with where Trump is on it. You admitted there are health impacts and that there have been public safety impacts. Those are not illegitimate conversations to have. And I think people in communities all across this country are having them.

Now, whether we have them responsibly or flippantly or whether we have them seriously is the real question.

NAVARRO: Yesterday when he said that he wasn't being sarcastic, he wasn't being hyperbolic, he was amplifying a conspiracy theory that I think you would agree puts a target on the backs of Haitian immigrants and that it is based on racism. Would you agree on that?

TURNER: Anti-Black racism would be more pointed.

NAVARRO: Do you think that if, do you think that if there were 20,000 Scandinavians that had been sent to Springfield, you people would be saying that they're eating cats and dogs and geese?

JENNINGS: I'm not going to answer for him, for his memes, or anything else. But I am going to --

NAVARRO: No, but I'm asking you, do you think that conspiracy is based on racism. I mean, --

JENNINGS: Because I'm not going to answer. I don't know. I don't know.

PHILLIP: That was a long pause, Scott. I mean --

JENNINGS: Because I don't know the answer. And I'm not going to sit here and answer for somebody. I don't talk to Donald Trump about what the motivations are and I don't answer to you either.

PHILLIP: But, Scott, what is the answer for you?

JENNINGS: But the bottom line --

LANZA: He is trying to give you a thoughtful answer.

JENNINGS: But the bottom line is immigration is a top two issue in this election. It must be discussed. And we're either going to go down a rabbit hole here, which is not the real issue, or we're going to talk about the real issues in which communities, cities, whatever, are dealing with real, societal and policy impacts.

[22:30:00]

NAVARRO: The reason we are going down the rabbit hole is because the man you support is making us go down that rabbit hole. The reason we're not talking about the legitimate issues you have brought up is because he is claiming with no facts that Haitian migrants are eating pets. And that is a dangerous conspiracy theory to be spreading to America.

And you see, he gets away with saying crazy things at his rally. But when you're saying it to 70 million Americans, when you're saying it to normal people, you then it sounds crazy. And there's a lot of people that can get triggered by the things that Donald Trump or people in power say. And it is irresponsible and it is dangerous, Scott, whether you want to admit it or not.

RYAN: And I think here's the question. It is an issue. We do have issues to talk about. Who are the people going to choose moving forward to pull us together to have an adult conversation about the challenges that we face? It's clearly not the guy who wants to talk about eating pets.

And I think that's the distinction on this particular issue. This is complicated. It's -- it can get people's backs up. It can scare people in communities like Springfield who have been deindustrialized and people are losing jobs over the last 30 or 40 years. So, it has all kinds of trigger points. Who's the adult in the room who can bring the country together to try to solve these problems?

And I think Trump walked right into the trap of suburban moms, thoughtful independent voters, moderate Republicans who were to say there's no way, if immigration is an issue, that he's going to be the guy that's going to bring us together to solve it. He deep-sixed the Immigration Reform Bill.

PHILLIP: I mean --

LANZA: Let me say this. I want to learn more about this issue. So, I've watched various news organizations. I actually saw an individual gentleman from the town saying that he, you know, he's having issues with the Springfield -- with these Haitian immigrants, these T.P. - the -- these temporary status folks.

He said, I was laid off. And he goes, and you know who replaced me? A Haitian worker, migrant worker, at half the price. How are we doing the, you know, you said we're de-industrializing (ph) some of our communities.

This is even having a more -- bigger impact on these communities. And I get it, we're talking about dogs, Donald Trump said something, but I think the reason this panel's having this conversation is so we can actually address the real things that are happening.

TURNER: If they're being displaced by half --

LANZA: Americans being displaced by these money-hugging workers at half the price. That's a problem. Crime going up 130 percent in this community by the chief of police. That's a problem.

TURNER: If they're being displaced at half the cost, now I'm going to look at the employers for exploitation --

LANZA: Yeah, of course.

TURNER: --of migrants. There's something wrong with that. So, why are we laying the blame on migrants instead of going after employers that would do something like that?

LANZA: No, what I'm saying is the people in the community are having a problem with this because they're losing their jobs.

TUNER: But overall, the economic pressures, I will say this, the economic pressures that many Americans are facing do make people more prone to find somebody to blame. So, government has to have a response to that. It's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If I'm doing okay, then I don't mind helping you.

Charity starts at home but if I'm not doing okay, and you have leaders who are being very irresponsible with the information that they're putting out, to Ana's point, they will stoke the flames of that hatred. And that hatred has a particular edge to it, when it is black people.

PHILLIP: All right, we got to leave it there.

LANZA: But these communities have been decimated.

PHILLIP: We got to leave it there.

LANZA: Now, they have to be decimated again by another. It just doesn't seem fair to them.

PHILLIP: For just a moment, everyone. Hang tight for us, because coming up next, J.D. Vance -- he's responding now to Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Plus, would Travis Kelce's support actually have a bigger impact on this race? We'll discuss that. That's next.

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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think most Americans, whether they like her music or fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He's not talking about who you think he's talking about. He's talking there about Taylor Swift and her surprise endorsement of Kamala Harris after last night's debate. Swift encouraged her followers to register to vote and she shaded Vance by signing her letter with -- "With love and hope, Childless Cat Lady." Tim Ryan, who I should remind people you ran in that Senate race against J.D. Vance.

RYAN: Yeah, that's an incredibly out of touch comment right there. I mean anybody who knows, I'm not a complete Swifty, I like a few songs, but I have a niece and I, you know, have younger women, family members that love her. And that means a lot. And the fact that she wasn't pushing anybody, the voter registration piece showed a level of sophistication with Taylor Swift that I think is going to play out in this election.

But there are a lot of young women, when you listen to the lyrics of her songs, she deeply connects to those young women who will pay lots of money that maybe they don't even have to go see her concert, not just in America but around the world. And if you think for one half of a second that her endorsement doesn't mean anything, you're about as out of touch as J.D. Vance and we know how out of touch he is.

TURNER: And it's really rich for him to talk about her being a billionaire, the hypocrisy there with his campaign, his Senate campaign was funded by a billionaire tech. You know, don't throw stones when you got your own billionaire. But I really appreciate what Taylor said to her voters and not pushing them. She said, this is who I am voting for, but I encourage you to do your research.

[22:35:00]

That is a very responsible thing for someone of her stature to say. And not only should they do their research on the federal level, they should do it on the local and regional and state levels of government, too. So, go Taylor.

PHILLIP: Scott, you look distressed.

JENNINGS: I don't know. I mean, I think celebrities are useful for injecting things into media and information distribution streams that maybe people will see it that otherwise didn't see it. Are there scores of people sitting around going, I don't know what to do. Let me consult my favorite celebrity. I don't know. I mean, I -- I'm skeptical of that. I mean, Democrats have been in campaigns for 25 years. They always have the celebrities, almost all the celebrities. Occasionally we get a celebrity.

LANZA: Country star. We get the country star. Scott Baio.

JENNINGS: We have a few more now than we used to. Scott Baio. We have John Beloit. We have Hulko. That's not for you.

TURNER: Wait, wait. Where is the country star?

JENNINGS: But it's not an unusual, I mean, I remember being in Ohio in 2012 and all the big musical celebrities came in for Obama. They're right at the end of the election. So, it's not a totally unheard of condition.

NAVARRO: Can I say something? I want to say two things.

PHILLIP: I'm actually with Scott on this one, by the way. But, yeah.

NAVARRO: Number one --hold on, though. Last week, the Trump campaign was touting the endorsement of -- what was his name that went to Pennsylvania? The big --

LANZA: Oh, the Puerto Rican star.

NAVARRO: His name is Anuel. I knew you wouldn't know it.

LANZA: Of course.

NAVARRO: They were -- they were -- yeah, that was a trick question. They were touting the support of Anuel, this Puerto Rican singer who they brought down to Pennsylvania. So -- and what's the problem? That just that the Democratic celebrities are bigger than the Republican ones?

PHILLIP: It's not so much that. I mean, the skepticism, if there is skepticism, it would be that this is a group that Kamala Harris already has. That she doesn't really need them. The people that maybe she needs actually maybe are men. Men in all stripes, black men, white men, Latino men, like a lot of men.

LANZA: That's what I thought of the endorsement when it first came out. It's like we knew she was going to get her. They always get the celebrities. That's not new. I've been involved in politics. It always happens.

But if you're this sort of undecided voter and you're on the fence, and I go back to what I originally said about the debate, and the trend line is going that you believe, you more and more believe Kamala Harris is liberal, sort of extremely liberal, what does a Hollywood liberal celebrity do other than reinforce that message?

PHILLIP: I don't agree with you guys. Because listen, just in one day, linking to her URL that she posted, over 300,000 people have registered to vote today. So, those are 300 people that were not registered to vote yesterday that are registered to vote today.

JENNINGS: I do think it's a good question though about like what kind of rich people are acceptable and which ones. I mean even your old boss or the person you support, Bernie Sanders, spent a lot of time at the convention defenestrating all the billionaires and then Oprah came out. Now, we have Taylor Swift. I do think it's an interesting question like what kind of a rich person is allowed.

You're not the one throw. I'm just, I'm asking, in the Democratic party, there are people who want to, who think billionaires are inherently immoral and evil, but then when a billionaire comes along, that might be helpful, that's fine.

TURNER: Well, I mean, J.D. Vance -- J.D. Vance --

NAVARRO: - the Republican party -- there's people who are against billionaires. J.D. Vance is what I'm convening for you.

TURNER: J.D. Vance's billionaire was just fine for him. So, I understand what you're saying.

JENNINGS: Listen, I'm just responding to what I heard at your convention from Bernie Sanders, your guy.

NAVARRO: Well and we're responding from what we heard from your vice- presidential candidate.

TURNER: In this economy, I mean, how many billions do you need? Okay, how many do you need? I mean that is Senator's point.

JENNINGS: Great question. Is she acceptable to you?

NAVARRO: Is Elon Musk acceptable to you?

JENNINGS: I'm not the one who's trying to throw all the billionaires out.

NAVARRO: No, but you're asking the question. So, then let's ask about it.

JENNINGS: I'm a free-market guy and I think people ought to be able to make money, but it was the Democratic convention that featured numerous speakers saying -- and have numerous people who believe that inherently, billionaires must have done something bad or immoral or wrong or unethical to become billionaires. But when they come along and they are of some political value, it's fine. But if a billionaire, say, supports a Republican, it's not fine. I'm just asking, what's the right kind of rich person?

RYAN: Well, it's not that they're good or bad. We hope people in America can make a lot of money. It's just, you know, maybe we don't want to cut their taxes, I think, is the Democratic position on that. And I think with Taylor Swift, like, there's two things that resonated with me. One is that it's got to have the vibe. And I hate to overuse the word vibe because everyone's using it now.

But a celebrity endorsing -- Frank Sinatra endorsing John Kennedy was like, yeah, that makes sense. Taylor Swift, maybe endorsing Joe Biden, wouldn't have the resonance of Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris. They just seemed to go together. And the other piece is, don't underestimate young women and young girls talking to their parents about who to vote for.

JENNINGS: So, Oprah good, Taylor Swift good, Elon Musk bad.

RYAN: I need my billionaire good bad. Elon Musk who has a lot of positive things.

PHILLIP: The other interesting thing about Taylor Swift is that she really latched on to something that J.D. Vance created for himself, a problem he created for himself that now Donald Trump has to deal with, which is this childless cat lady meme.

[22:45:09]

I mean, it's not that common that we see the vice-presidential nominee being the one to create negative storylines for his running mate.

LANZA: It didn't matter.

PHILLIP: I mean, it mattered to me.

LANZA: It didn't matter because you got to look at the polls. You got to analyze what voters are thinking about, right? You know, we've been, you know, three weeks with, a month with J.D. Vance. We've had all these stories. In the last three weeks, we saw Donald Trump overtake Kamala Harris in some of these swing states.

So, to me, what that says is we're making a lot of noise here and that's great. But at the end of the day, it's not going to matter. At least the cat lady.

NAVARRO: I think it matters.

PHILLIP: Of course you do.

NAVARRO: I think I'm a childless dog lady. It pisses me off that J.D. Vance somehow thinks that I am lesser than because I don't have children and because I have a dog. I mean, so I think there's a lot of people like me for whom it does matter.

And the other thing is, look, they're poo-pooing this Taylor Swift endorsement, but part of the reason she did it, that she wrote about, is because several times he posted fake Taylor Swift endorsements of Donald Trump. He posted A.I.- generated fake endorsements and so she felt compelled to come out and clarify and be transparent with her followers.

PHILLIP: Now, if Travis Kelce were to endorse Scott, you'd be worried about that or no?

JENNINGS: I don't know. I lost a lot of respect for him when I saw that ridiculous hat -- get up -- he was in -- this week. I'm just going to be honest. I mean, you look like a ridiculous person.

PHILLIP: The sartorial choices were questionable this weekend. Everyone stay with me. Coming up next, our panel will give us their night caps, including a hearty welcome from Scott Jennings to Vice President Kamala Harris. We'll tell you what that is.

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[22:51:02]

PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "News Nightcap". You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Nina, you're up.

TURNER: The national debt, and before my Republican colleagues get too excited, I'm talking about the debt that is owed to descendants of enslaved people. Since blackness is all the rage, this is a perfect time to talk about that debt. The interest is occurring over the centuries and we need to deal with that as a country.

We need to pay that debt to the descendants of enslaved people. There's a big conference happening on October the third to bring all of the people together who really believe and feel like this country owes a debt.

PHILLIP: Scott got pretty excited for a second.

TUENER: I know, for a second.

PHILLIP: Go ahead, Scott.

JENNINGS: I'm interested in what you think about Kamala Harris going back on her support for reparations.

TURNER: Oh, well listen.

PHILLIP: All right.

TURNER: Don't do it, Scott. Don't do it.

JENNINGS: Okay, here's my nightcap. I was scrolling through the debate news today and I read headlines that say things like, "Why Kamala Harris Has Embraced America's Oil Boom", "Harris Embraces U.S. Fossil Fuels", "Harris: Frack on, my dudes."

Harris embraces oil and gas on debate stage and then I heard her say, she's a gun owner and so I know this is going to like break your heart.

NAVARRO: No.

JENNINGS: I just want to once again welcome -- we got a Democrat who's out here trying to pump oil and buy guns.

LANZA: She's going too far to the right.

JENNINGS: And I don't know if she means it or not, but it is a step in the right direction when a national Democrat can embrace fossil fuels and gun ownership at the same time. Welcome Kamala Harris, honorary Republican of the time. NAVARRO: That's a good thing because your candidate can't own a gun

because he's a convicted felon.

LANZA: Here we go.

PHILLIP: Bryan.

LANZA: Thank you. Listen, maybe I'll bring some people here together.

NAVARRO: Unlikely.

LANZA: Well, I mean. But that's you. But, you know, we need to buy more beer. I think the American, the farmer, the barley farmer, they're going bankrupt, they're losing their crops, they're being taken over by their heart cells.

So, the heart cells are becoming the most dominant drink. You know, the canned drink out there, you had beer consumption that's down to, I think it's at the lowest it's been since 1970. And farmers are suffering. So, as Americans, we need to support our farmers and we need to buy more beer.

PHILLIP: All right, drink more beer.

LANZA: Are you unified?

PHILLIP: Tim?

RYAN: I'm a Miller Lite guy and this plays into me. I think the Harris-Walz campaign needs to continue to ride the coach theme. I think as you move into the final stretches of the campaign, you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers.

All the college teams in those Big Ten swing states, ride the coach vibe. It's a great contrast to Donald Trump. No coach who is coaching a player like Donald Trump would accept that kind of behavior. So, you got to ride that coach vibe into the fall.

NAVARRO: I feel very lost here because I'm a wine drinker and I know nothing about coaches. But okay. I want to talk about a really nice story today and it wasn't put out by John Bon Jovi. It was caught on camera. It was caught on video.

He was in Tennessee filming a music video on a bridge and there was a woman on the outer ledge and he was able to help save her life, talk her out of jumping. And I thought that was just so beautiful.

PHILLIP: Yeah, a really extraordinary story there. Everyone, thank you so much. Coming up next, we've got a powerful memorial 23 years later. We'll be right back.

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[22:58:58]

PHILLIP: The tribute in lights shining from Ground Zero in New York City 23 years ago today. Nearly, 3000 people lost their lives in Manhattan at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And thousands more have died afterwards from illnesses linked to the toxic debris from those attacks.

Both presidential candidates and President Biden visited Ground Zero today to commemorate. And tonight, even at the normally rowdy VMAs, Taylor Swift took a moment from her first win to remember.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Waking up this morning in New York on September 11th, I've just been thinking about what happened 23 years ago. Everyone who lost a loved one and everyone that we lost. And that is the most important thing about today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight State of the Race". "Laura Coates Live' starts right now.