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Inside Politics

Biden and Warren to Face Off for the First Time; Trump Campaign Chief: Trump Won NC Special Election; Polls Showing Trump Losing Ground with Key Voting Groups; Senators Discuss Background Checks Legislation with Trump. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 11, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00] JOHN KING, CNN HOST: -- in this same bull parks. So for all the polls showing the president is weak, eventually, he'll have an opponent and then we'll have a different race. Biden, Warren on the debate stage for the first time. No question. If you've watched the polls this summer, she has come up as the leading threat to the former vice president right now. You know who else thinks that, the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: China has taken advantage of our country for decades, decades. And I guarantee you one thing, none of these Democrats whether it's Pocahontas or sleepy Joe, none of them would be able to do a thing about it.

You've got to go out and vote. What are you going to do, put one of these crazy people running our country again?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's the president's take. He uses words that maybe others would not use, but he does follow the race as closely as anybody. And he's watched during the summer, and it's not an accident that he puts Biden and Warren, he has different names, he puts Biden and Warren together in making his case you need me not them.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Right, because Warren is now on the steady rise. And so as you just mentioned, John, not only is Biden paying attention to her and Sanders paying attention to her, but the president is paying attention to her. Also because a lot of the people around him feel as though those attacks on the DNA test that she took don't seem to have stuck, that she has been able to weather that storm, she's been very aggressive in addressing it. It lingers a bit but it doesn't come up when you're out on the trail with her. A lot of voters don't mention it as something that bothers them, at least in the Democratic primary.

KING: If she wins the nomination, the president will bring it back up. And I'm not so sure that if she continues to rise among the Democrats that some of her opponents don't find a way maybe through selective leaks or the like but to bring it up as well because guess what, Joe Biden can tell you this from 1987, Neil Kinnock, it gets dirty. It gets dirty as the campaign gets tighter. I just want to show some of the headlines. There's a big debate tomorrow night. It's the first time you'll have just one stage. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden together for the first time.

The New York Times, "They Meet at Last." Bloomberg, "Biden, Warren Near First Showdown". It is important. She has been the rising candidate over the summer. Biden stabilized after a shaky first debate and he's at the top of the race. But if you look at the early state polls he's gettable if you will.

Are we overhyping this matchup or is it important?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: I think it is important. I mean, this -- you have the sort of establishment, you know, a candidate in Biden who's been resilient despite, you know, a lot of criticism and a variety of gaffes. And she has been sort of ascendant all summer. It is a matchup that also deals with two very different styles of Democratic politics. They're offering very different pitches and very different approaches to both how to govern, how to take on President Trump.

She is obviously coming from a progressive point of view whereas he is offering a more centrist, moderate play. And I think that voters are really looking for this. Like when you go out and talk to Democratic voters throughout the summer in advance of some of the other debates which (INAUDIBLE) over two nights, what you heard a lot from people were we want this field to narrow down. We want to see the top-tier candidates face off.

So I do think among Democratic voters there's an eagerness to finally see them head to head.

KING: They have a history. She was critical of him as a senator. He was representing Delaware banks in the credit card fights and bankruptcy fights. There's a history of some disagreements there. We'll see if they come out during the debate. I suspect the moderators will try to bring them up. That's part of the process. It's part of the process.

But, you know, she has risen and risen and risen and she believes a lot of it is based on the specificity of her plans. Biden aides, sometimes when they speak for him I don't think they're doing him any favors. This is a Biden aide speaking to reporters yesterday on the background so we can't tell you the name.

I expect you'll see Biden echo an important point he made during last week's climate forum. We need more than plans. We need a president who can deliver progress on the most pressing issues facing Americans. Joe Biden has proven he can do that.

It's hard to primary to say I'm the guy who will cut deals. Primaries tend to be more about passion and ideology. Elizabeth Warren was asked last night, hey, Joe Biden says it's about more than plans, what say you?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think that we start with a plan and then we get out there and fight for it. To me, that's what being president is all about. It's about laying those plans out and showing the direction for this country and then getting in the fight, leading the fight and bringing people along.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The polite way of saying I disagree. And she has gotten better as a candidate. She used to -- if you go back to her Massachusetts Senate race, appear to be lecturing the voters at times. She's gotten better as a candidate. Will that stand up on a debate stage though when they're this close?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's a good line for her to say when she's out there and campaigning. But Biden's team does have a point that you do at some point have to kind of layout how you're going to get this done. And I'm reminded of in one of the previous debates the candidates got asked, how would you deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if you're the president in the White House to try to advance your agenda. I don't remember any of the Democrats coming up with a good answer for that, and that is a really good question that a Democratic president would have to deal with.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Not even Biden, though, I think, has a decent answer for that. And so that's the issue is that during a primary, voters want to know exactly what you want to do and see a vision. And Biden is not running on ideology.

[12:35:06] OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SIRIUSXM: I think that the thing about Warren's plans though is the way that they'll fit together to tell a story about America and tell voters how she perceives the system's relationship to them. And I think it's less about the individual line items in the plan there it is. I agree with you that the system is not working which is also Trump's message.

KING: Right. But Trump's flip to her if she is the nominee and again, we'll see if Biden would do himself is can we afford all this or how do we put little pieces together. That's why we have campaigns. It's an interesting moment.

Before we go to break, again, let's change the pace a little bit here. The president and the first lady along with members of Congress pausing for the moment of silence, 8:46 a.m. this morning. That is when 18 years ago the first plane struck the north tower.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:40:55] KING: More now on the Republican victory last night in that North Carolina special election. The president's campaign manager Brad Parscale held a conference call with reporters today to claim the president drove Republicans Greg Murphy, that's in one district and Dan Bishop in the district everybody was watching into the win column.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins joins us now live from the White House. Tell us more about how the president's team views last night.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And they're touting this as a big win, John, because of course, they had a pretty big presence here at the end of this race but not only the president traveling to North Carolina on Monday but also the vice president there during that rally trying to get Dan Bishop over the line. And the president is touting it so much as a win that his campaign went as far as to hold a call this morning talking about how they believe the president was the one who really helped pull Dan Bishop over the line. Not exactly detailing if the president was specific in any way about how Dan Bishop should change his campaign in this last few days.

But, of course, even though they are touting this as a win, you've got to look at the fact that this is a district that hasn't been held by a Democrat in decades. Yet it was closely contested in this race and even some White House officials the day of voting yesterday weren't so sure if it was going to go there in their favor. Now they're saying that it is a test of the president's political team, they're touting it as this win.

But one thing they are looking at behind the scenes here, John, is the number of suburban voters who voted for the Democrat in this race and his appeal to them because of course that's a larger concern that President Trump has going into 2020 and his campaign whether or not he's going to be able to retain suburban voters who poll have shown don't always like what the president tweets or what he says. So that is something that they were talking about behind the scenes. But during that call today they downplayed that, they said it wasn't a concern for them and they weren't looking at this as a rural versus suburban race, though of course, that's certainly something they're going to be looking at in 2020.

KING: In 2020, although I think their perspective is build a list, get the names, get the phone numbers, turn them out. If they're for us no matter where they live. We'll see how that one plays out. Important reporting. Kaitlan Collins, appreciate that.

When we come back, we're going to dig a little deeper into those numbers to show why the president has some reasons to be optimistic and some reasons to be nervous.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:41] KING: President Trump not happy this morning and again attacking, taking issues with polls by CNN and others that show his approval rating is down and that Americans are getting a little jittery about the state of the economy. Now, the numbers just don't lie. His approval rating over the past month hovering around 40 percent, down a bit from its high, essentially if you look at a track line in line with words (INAUDIBLE) for most of his time in office. So no big dip but also zero evidence the president who lost the popular vote has done anything to expand his support.

The numbers a year from now, of course, matter much more, but the numbers right now are not good. Just take a look at his handling of the economy, for example. You see the slide in his approval rating and rising disapproval of how the president is managing the issue that is usually number one for the voters.

The president always says these are fake, the media is out to get him, there are -- you should never invest at home in any one poll whether it's by CNN or anybody else. But if you look cumulatively, there's a whole bunch of polls out in the last week and they show he's come down some, concerns about the economy are up. If you're an incumbent president and you see this in the president's tweets going after Jerome Powell again today. He says the polls are wrong but then he tweets about the economy. He's worried about it.

KNOX: He definitely is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.

KNOX: Because his recurring theme has to do with the incredible unemployment numbers and the rest of it. And so he's going after the polls, he's going for the media. He's going after Jerome Powell. He's going after basically -- he's going after China, he's going after -- I mean, you know, he's got to find some place to hang the possibility of bad economic news. You know, manufacturing is in a slump first in some like six years. People are worried day to day. What is it like, 70 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck?

So that works while he was saying the system is not working for you and I'm going to fix it. He's had two and a half years, three years (INAUDIBLE).

LUCEY: And this has been their pitch throughout this campaign and was supposed to be their pitch all long to people who are less enthusiastic about other aspects of the president's program and message. But don't look at all that stuff, look at the economy. Think about your bottom line, think about your 401(k), think about your paycheck, think about your tax return. And so they know that if this starts slipping away, it gets that much harder to reach those folks on the margins. And they're going to need some of them in these swing states.

KING: I'll shorten that by saying you don't like the tweets, but you like your bank account.

LUCEY: Yes, exactly.

KING: This is not -- what I'm going to show you is not apples and apples, I'm going to show some 2016 exit polls to show how the president performed on Election Day and some numbers from more recent polls.

[12:50:02] Now, more recent polls have a margin of error. This is not an exact comparison but it just does show you that as president now a little more than a year off from re-election, he's weaker. Among independents back in November 2016 when he won, 46 percent. Now in our latest CNN poll, 34 percent. I've seen some other polls that showing closer to 40 among independents but down from how he performed on Election Day 2016.

Among women from 41 percent on Election Day, 33 percent now, down. White non-college men, a key part of the Trump base. Still a good number, 61 percent but down. Suburban voters, way down. Rural voters, a big part of the Trump base, down. So again, it's September 2019, the president has a billion dollars, he does not yet have a serious primary challenge, he has time to deal with his problems and his issues, but he has a long list.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Right. There's a lot of time to go as you said, John, but the only group that he's above water within the CNN poll is white men. He's even underwater with white women but does have a strong base of support there. So again, the concerns are still very present about can they win back some of the suburban votes that they lost and how is he going to fare in the key states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

KIM: The rural voters' number is actually really fascinating because you're right they are such a core part of the Trump base. But we have talked over and over in this show and elsewhere about how the president's trade war is really killing these family communities. And I have talked to -- I've constantly talked to ag state Republican senators and lawmakers who say the farmers' patience is running out and there may be a point where they're no longer able to plan for their -- the planning seasons and they can -- they see their bottom line faltering and they tell the president like we can't support you anymore.

KING: You see that again, the president's tweets, he only attacks the polls today tweeting China did ease some tariffs on American goods. The president seeing that as a positive sign that they want to come to the table and talk this month. We'll see that.

But I just want to show this historically. Where the president is, September, the third year in office. If you look at this, here's President Trump over here. Only Jimmy Carter to his right if you will on the graphic, Jimmy Carter lost, he was at 30 percent at this point. If you're the president, you can take some solace and that these two guys next to you, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton both went onto win re- election.

Now in Obama's case the economy got better and the Republicans nominated Mitt Romney after a very difficult primary campaign. In bill Clinton's case, the Republicans nominated Bob Dole, a great American hero but not the best candidate in an election. We still don't know who the president's opponent is and the numbers could change then. And that is -- or who the third party candidates are going to be. Which is -- which could be a big deal too.

LUCEY: I mean, we have miles to go before we (INAUDIBLE) about this one. And we just don't know. And one of the things the campaign will come back to again and again is a lot of the polling when you do head to heads with Trump right now. You don't actually know who his opponent is.

You know, you're testing him against a generic Democrat or against one all of these different options. And we don't know where this is going. So I think they also I think would argue it is early, there's a lot of time between now and then.

KNOX: These polls are referenda that he's in a choice election.

KING: He will be in a choice election. And the only thing I would take away from these polls is the American people are willing to look. They're not -- if all Trump numbers were overwhelming Trump, you say, we like our incumbent, they haven't given upon in their incumbent but they're willing to look.

Up next, three senators had a phone call today with the president about gun control. Their takeaways in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:57:46] KING: Today three key senators voicing some hope that there's more hope for gun legislation. That, after a 40-minute phone conversation with the president of the United States. CNN's Manu Raju joins us now live from Capitol Hill. Manu, the whole town, especially the Republican Party, waiting for specifics from the president. Did these senators get any?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they said they got encouraging words from the president after this 40-minute call. These are, of course, Senators Pat Toomey, Joe Manchin, Chris Murphy, all who are advocating expanded background checks. They discussed a proposal that had been lingering for years and that failed in the Senate in 2013 in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. The bill to expand background checks on commercial sales not on private transactions but on commercial sales.

What these senators said after that 40-minute phone call is that the president was very encouraging, signaling that potentially he gets behind this piece of legislation with some modifications. Now what Joe Manchin said was, he said he can support something that we all can agree on. That's what I took out of their discussion. And Pat Toomey said he wants to make clear the president did not specifically support any individual piece of legislation. But all sides said that this was a productive conversation and they expect the president could ultimately decide what he could get behind as soon as tomorrow.

Now, John, you mentioned it. The question all around Washington has what exactly will the president support because the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will not move on gun legislation until the president signals what he can get behind. And behind closed doors at a leadership meeting with the president last night at the White House, the president still did not say what he ultimately could support but kicked around various ideas of how to deal with the ongoing mass shootings that are happening in this country. But at least an indication today from the president to these senators that background checks still is on the table.

The president as you know has been all over the map on that topic, supporting it, backing off of it, but now again signaling that he could potentially get behind that as part of a larger package perhaps. And we'll see ultimately what he decides. We'll see ultimately what modifications are made to this bill. But that's what we're expecting, John, at least the Democrats and the Republicans advocating for this, some movement on this bill which most Republicans in the Senate opposed, John.

KING: And I suspect those other Republicans are going to pull their colleague Senator Toomey aside and try to figure out exactly what the president said. Manu Raju live from the Hill, appreciate it.

As we leave you on --

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