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Former President Barack Obama and Former First Lady Michelle Obama Speak at Democratic National Convention; Michelle Obama Criticizes Donald Trump During Her Speech at Democratic National Convention; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) Interviewed on Democratic Party's Message for 2024 Elections. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired August 21, 2024 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00]
LISA FRANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No one loves love more than Jennifer Lopez, apparently.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Combining all worlds, maybe you apply what Barack Obama said last night from the convention stage, and sometimes often the sequel is not as good as the original I don't know. Maybe that's what we're looking at here.
FRANCE: I love how you're crossing those streams. That's impressive.
BOLDUAN: Doing my job, doing my job. It's great to see you, Lisa. Thank you so much.
The next hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL begins now.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning from Chicago. I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner at the United Center, the Democratic National Convention. Kate Bolduan is in New York. Today is kind of Tim Walz day here, the governor of Minnesota. He will be the big speaker tonight. But this morning this whole city still very much in an Obama high.
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's true. A sugar high? No, it was an Obama high. Late last night both Obamas took the stage there. They're showing some love. Both delivered blistering attacks against Donald Trump. And then told Democrats what they must do now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER U.S. FIRST LADY: If they lie about her, and they will, we've got to do something.
CROWD: Do something!
MICHELLE OBAMA: If we see a bad poll, and we will, we've got to put down that phone and do something.
CROWD: Do something!
MICHELLE OBAMA: If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our face, and what?
CROWD: Do something!
MICHELLE OBAMA: We only have two-and-a-half months, you all, to get this done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: If there was anything that you could say emphatically, it was that she stole the night. She blew the roof off of things. Former President Obama, though, followed up with a similar message of urgency, and a moment of unity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: All across America, in big cities and small towns, away from all the noise, the ties that bind us together are still there. We still coach Little League and look out for our elderly neighbors. We still feed the hungry in churches and mosques and synagogues and temples. We share the same pride when our Olympic athletes compete for the gold, because --
(CHEERING)
BARACK OBAMA: -- because the vast majority of us do not want to live in a country that's bitter and divided.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN political director David Chalian. D-Chal, great to see you here.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning, guys.
BERMAN: Put on your your political director decoder ring there.
CHALIAN: OK.
BERMAN: All right, that sound from former President Barack Obama, he was trying to do something. That was not throw away stuff there.
CHALIAN: That was not. And I think you can draw a direct 20-year long line from his speech at John Kerry's convention in Boston where he talked about red America and blue America, right, to this. I mean, this is the work, his political work over his time, which is to try and remind America about America's story. And so this wasn't -- this to me was not a call for unity, let's all get together. This was a contrast piece in his argument last night that was trying to remind the country that there is a lot of shared value. There's a shared value system, whether it is you coach little league or you're going to feed the needy through your church or synagogue. That so many Americans can identify with that, far more so than the number of Americans that would like to live in a constant state of division, which our politics has become over time.
And I just think that what Barack Obama was doing there was trying to elevate beyond the hourly to and fro of our political battles and the soundbite of the day and the back-and-forth on that, to some larger calling in this race.
SIDNER: I do want to talk about Michelle Obama, because you just cannot help. But even he himself said I'm the fool that decided to have the speech after my wife.
CHALIAN: Very true statement.
SIDNER: Which turned out to be very true.
BERMAN: Yes, no lie detector --
(LAUGHTER)
SIDNER: I remember a time, and I know you do, when the line from her that really caught on was, "when they go low, we go high." But last night that is not what happened. And it received perhaps even bigger applause and a bigger reaction from her and what she said to the crowd. Is this a different Democratic Party than what we saw back in 2016 and 2020?
[08:05:00]
CHALIAN: Well, it is certainly a different nominee than we saw in 2016 or 2020. Those Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, they have been on the public stage for an extraordinarily long time. Kamala Harris, still a relative newcomer to America. Look at the polls. I mean, a third of Americans say they don't know what she stands for yet, right?
So this was -- and Michelle Obama, of course, after eight years now of Donald Trump since that go low, go high speech in 2016, Donald Trump is in a new context for Americans. And so I think Michelle Obama took a different approach. I thought it was interesting that both Obamas made the Trump piece of this, the Trump take down, the Trump contrast so central to both of their arguments, her in the more sort of, I thought she was like a soul cycle instructor for this convention, he more in his professorial ways. But I think that they both saw that as a central mission in addition to the testimony about Kamala Harris.
BERMAN: And you talked about passing the torch, which they mentioned. I mean, Obama, Barack Obama, the president, literally said "passing the torch," so it's not subtle. With Michelle Obama, there was something that she did which was almost we're passing the torch over Joe Biden. She didn't mention Joe Biden.
CHALIAN: Yes, that was hard not to notice, right? She had zero mention of Joe Biden, the person that her husband put on the ticket and sort of elevated him to this new potential in his long-storied career. And yet, Barack Obama did make sure to dedicate several paragraphs of the speech to Joe Biden and to give him a tribute. Perhaps, a, that was one reason why Michelle Obama didn't feel it was necessary. She knew it was in her husband's speech. But also, we know that Michelle Obama saw her role here as far different. It wasn't to check every box of a political speech. And that's the thing about Michelle Obama. SIDNER: She's not a politician.
CHALIAN: She's a cultural figure. She transcends politics in many ways, and she understands the power of that. When she walked out on the stage, I thought about her book tour when it came out, the bestselling book, how she played to arenas like this. And she just has a different piece.
And I thought what she did also, listen to this, about the argument against Trump, somebody who inherited generational wealth versus the way many Americans sort of deal with their day-to-day lives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER U.S. FIRST LADY: She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward, we will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
(CHEERING)
MICHELLE OBAMA: If we bankrupt a business, if we bankrupt a business, or choke in a crisis, we don't get a second, third, or fourth chance.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Wow.
CHALIAN: I don't think that's just a red meat base play there. I think that is trying to appeal to a large swath of Americans who feel maybe they don't get second, third, or fourth chances, perhaps even some who are not aligned to support Kamala Harris. I think what she was trying to do there is sort of put Donald Trump in an isolated place, and, again, broaden the appeal to a larger segment of people.
SIDNER: And let's not forget what happened with the Supreme Court and affirmative action. There are a lot of messages within that message about failing up. People in corporate America see it, children see it. People going to college see it. It was a very touching speech.
And if you look online, that line and the "black jobs" line are the two that people are going absolutely nuts when it comes to social media.
BERMAN: David, don't go anywhere.
CHALIAN: OK.
BERMAN: Stay here, be part of this conversation, because with us now is Democratic Congressman from New Jersey, wall-to-wall New Jersey here at the desk with us, Josh Gottheimer, who is also the co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Thank you so much for being with us.
REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): Thanks for having me.
BERMAN: I'm sure you like the New Jersey music last night as the roll call --
GOTTHEIMER: How do you not love that?
BERMAN: I mean, you know, it's a thing. So you were there. I mean, what did you -- what was your takeaway from last night? How do you think that helps get Vice President Harris elected?
GOTTHEIMER: I mean, the energy, not just in this room, but I'm not just talking every delegate, and not just when we left, and you saw people. I mean, how energized and fired up people are here sure I think is emblematic of how fired up they are at home. And what I'm hearing from people is just how ready they are for November. They understand not only what we have to do to win, but what this is about. And I think that's what we're talking about here, right, what the difference between what Trump is for and against, and obviously what were for, and expanding opportunity to more families.
You've talked of her over the last days, and this point was made again last night, who we're championing, right? Making childcare more affordable. More housing, right, making housing more affordable for families. Obviously, fighting for reproductive freedom and how critical that is. And the fact that we need to bring the country together.
[08:10:02]
And I've heard what you said what the former president said last night, and obviously what Michelle Obama said last night is how we got to bring everyone together, a positive message, unity. And I think that is the big difference between their convention in our convention. And I think that's about reaching out to all Americans, not just Democrats who are in this room, but of course to Democrats and Republicans. And that's what we're going to need to bring this home strong in November.
SIDNER: Congressman, you're from the Problem Solvers Caucus. What problems do Democrats need to solve after this convention? But even before that, for tonight, how do they deal with how big that was and how well that went over, and now tonight, the vice president has to bring it, the vice presidential nominee.
GOTTHEIMER: He's pretty good. He's my colleague. I love Tim. He brings a lot, right? He's really great at reaching out to everybody and shows what this party is about. So I'm very excited for tonight. You've got former President Clinton who, by the way, always good at giving a speech and really knows how to bring everyone in the big tent together, not just in the Democratic Party, but across the country. He's phenomenal at that, and so I'm excited to see what he has to say.
And I think the big problem that we need to solve is making sure that everybody hears what we stand for. You've got a very truncated, right, election process here. So in those days, how do we make sure everyone knows what the vice president stands for, right, about affordability and what she's been talking about and choice. And these issues that I know Americans are with her on, and how do we make sure we get that message out and they get to know her? They've been very short on details. The only thing we've really heard
from foreign President Trump is he wants to impose a 20 percent tariff, which is going to jack up taxes on people. And so I think it's getting those details out there.
CHALIAN: Congressman, I don't know if you adopt the moderate liberal or not, but you're seen as somebody more in the middle as part of that Problem Solvers Caucus. You see both Barack and Michelle Obama last night reminding the delegates that this is going to be a very close election. And so while many people left here with the euphoria you described, this is going to be a pretty close election, I would imagine. And I'm wondering if you think, you see what the Trump campaign and the Republicans are sort of trying to do in the frame around Kamala Harris, comrade Kamala and communist and far too liberal and outside the mainstream. Do you have concerns that that could take hold as they are beginning to do? As somebody who sort of plays to the middle in your party, I'm wondering if you think there's danger there for her?
GOTTHEIMER: Well, I believe we've got to bring people together. And I think the prosecutor message, which she was and strong on, I think is important. You talked about the importance of making sure that we support law enforcement, our veterans, our firefighters. You're hearing that message, and I think it brings people together.
And so, no, I think they're very confused on what to do, the other side, they're throwing everything they can come up with every day, something new, and seeing what sticks. So far, nothing is working because she's focused on actually bringing the country together and moving the country forward.
And I think this message, which is right, which is they're looking at going backward. And I think that is a big contrast. Common sense versus their extremism. And so I think they're going to keep trying to do anything they can to stop her. But right now, there's so much positive energy, and people want change in the positive. They don't want to go back, right? They want someone who is going to move forward and build on the 16 million new jobs this last administration, a ton of accomplishment on the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, Pact act for veterans, right, common sense gun safety legislation. That's all stuff they want. They certainly don't want somebody who is going to rip down choice and reproductive freedom.
And there are differences here. And I think the more they, frankly, are flailing on the other side, trying to figure out what to do. And I think we've just got to focus on what we're about, bringing the country together and moving forward.
BERMAN: All right, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, thanks so much for being with us, David Chalian, great to see you. Thank you for sticking around.
GOTTHEIMER: Go Jersey.
(LAUGHTER)
BERMAN: A lot of Jersey.
BOLDUAN: Did you guys hear Phil Murphy last night? It was one of the better lines. He's got the Boss playing in the background, and he goes, I'm Governor Phil Murphy, we're from New Jersey, baby, you're not.
BERMAN: No less.
SIDNER: So New Jersey.
(LAUGHTER)
SIDNER: Look, the Jersey boys are here, the Jersey boys are here.
BOLDUAN: It was good. It was good. It was good. All right, I'll bring it right back to you guys.
So after years of insults and spreading false birther conspiracy theories about them, Donald Trump now offering kind words about the Obamas. We have the tape. We will play it.
And both campaigns have made clear they will be spending a lot of time in battleground Michigan. The state's governor got a huge round of applause last night during the roll call. And the state's lieutenant governor is our guest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:19:15]
SIDNER: All right, joining us now is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. I was in your section last night with the first in the west folks who are jubilant. I'm curious from what you saw last night and heard and felt because you couldn't help but do all those three things if you were on the floor. What did you hear that would appeal to those in Arizona, a very important state in this coming election?
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Well, Sara, one thing you hear in that room and in other arenas around the country now is an incredible amount of enthusiasm.
Gabby and I were in Glendale last week with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and I've never seen anything like that on a political rally before and last night was just off the charts excitement.
[08:20:09]
Michelle Obama, about former President Obama and it's just really exciting. And Arizona, you're right as a key part of the equation here for Kamala Harris to win. I strongly feel she's going to win Arizona. We've got some work ahead of us. I'm going to work incredibly hard over the next 75 days. We're going to get them across the finish line.
She's got to be the next president because the option of having Donald Trump drag us back into the past is just something -- I just can't see this country doing and there's tremendous amount of risk there. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: One of the things that has been commented on
was sort of the ironic moments in the convention. You had Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist from Vermont, Independent Senator, speaking followed by Governor J.B. Pritzker, who noted on stage that he is a billionaire.
So, is that irony? Are those different messages, Senator, or is it -- is there one Democratic message?
KELLY: Well, I think it shows that we're a big tent. Last night also, Mayor John Giles, Republican Mayor from Mesa, Arizona was on that stage talking about why Republicans do not have to be beholden to the Republican Party of today.
In Arizona, the Republican Party was John McCain's Republican Party until around 2020, until Donald Trump over a four-year period in the White House basically destroyed the Republican Party in the state of Arizona which is really a sad thing.
I mean, John McCain was a hero of mine. I'm in John McCain's Senate seat. It's important for our country, for our democracy to have two stable normal parties. And that's not true for the Republicans anymore. And that's why we see people like Mayor Giles there and other Republicans. I think we're going to see more as the week progresses.
SIDNER: Yes. You will, they are scheduled to speak. There are quite a few Republicans who are showing up here and very publicly coming out against Donald Trump.
I do want to ask you because you talked about Donald Trump sort of becoming -- Arizona going for Trump back in the 2016 election. I'm curious about immigration because I know it's a huge issue in your state and that is something that Donald Trump tends to poll well on.
Immigration and economy are the two top things that poll after poll say that Americans are concerned about. Do you think that Vice President Kamala Harris has to address immigration in her speech?
KELLY: Well, we're going to have to see what she has to say tomorrow. I have no insight into what her speech is going to be, but on Trump's polling on immigration, he should not poll well. I agree with you that right now he does. I'm going to make a strong case for why he shouldn't, which is, that we had a very strong border security bill.
We negotiated with the White House with Kamala Harris, with President Biden, Democrats and Republicans got together. And we were meeting Republicans on the 50-yard line here, we were meeting them on the ten- yard line on their side of the field. Much of the stuff in there, I supported and wanted to see. But Donald Trump, this is the most hypocritical thing I've ever seen in politics.
A guy who talks about this issue all the time when we finally had a chance to address it through a strong legislation. He told Republicans in the Senate that they were not allowed to vote for it. So, they didn't walk away from this bill. They ran away from it because he wanted this for the election. He made it very clear he needed this issue to win an election. It's
the most craven thing I think I've seen in three-and-a-half years on Capitol Hill.
BERMAN: Senator, what do you think the biggest obstacle is right now to a Harris victory in Arizona?
KELLY: Well, I believe she's going to win Arizona, but in Arizona state-wide elections, my election in 2020 and in 2022 were very close. We are a very diverse state and we've got a lot of Independents. There are more registered Independents in Arizona than Democrats or Republicans. So, it's about bringing people together and she has clearly a candidate that can bring people together.
What did Donald Trump care about when he was president between 2017 and 2021? Basically three things. He wanted to take away women's reproductive rights. He wanted to shred our alliances then he wanted to give a big tax cut to himself and other billionaires and he was successful in all three of those.
Kamala Harris is about the future and she's about looking after everyday Americans and American families. So, for that reason, she is clearly the person that should lead this country.
[08:25:03]
BERMAN: Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, we know you've got a busy day. You're running all over the place. We will see you here tonight. Thanks so much for being with us.
SIDNER: We appreciate your time, Senator.
KELLY: I'll be there, John. Thank you both.
SIDNER: And we'll have you back. All alright, appreciate your time.
Today, Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance will be in the battleground state of North Carolina, again. After last night's speeches, will Trump have the same praise for the Obamas that he did yesterday? Yes, he praised them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): She brought manufacturing jobs back to the United States of America, and as governor, Tim Walz signed the largest infrastructure investment in Minnesota history. And on the other hand, we have Donald Trump and JD Vance.
[08:30:10]
