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Inside Politics

Biden Insists He Still Wants Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal; Republicans In 14 States Have Passed Laws This Year Restricting Voting; Trump Repeats Election Lies In North Carolina Speech; Crime Emerges As Top Issue In New York City Mayoral Race; Biden Heads To Europe This Week In First Overseas Trip. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired June 06, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

(MUSIC)

[08:00:25]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Former President Trump back on stage, pushing a 2022 loyalty test and his 2020 big lie.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: That election will go down as the crime of the century.

PHILLIP: Plus, no deal. The White House rejects Republicans' latest infrastructure offer.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need to make those investments today to be able to continue to succeed tomorrow.

PHILLIP: But a key senator still isn't ready to give up on compromise.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): We've got to work together. We can only do so much by yourself.

PHILLIP: And cyberattacks put new strain on the U.S./Russia relationship just days ahead of a pivotal Biden/Putin summit.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: This is a threat equivalent to or probably greater than 9/11.

PHILLIP: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (on camera): Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Abby Phillip.

We begin with the debate over President Biden's top domestic priority, a plan to remake America's infrastructure. The White House rejected the GOP's latest offer on Friday as totally inadequate for what the country needs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: Now is the time to build on the foundation we've laid, because while our progress is undeniable, it is not assured. We have a chance to seize on the economic momentum of the first months of my administration, not just to build back, but to build back better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: After weeks of talks, the two sides remain hundreds of billions of dollars apart. Rather than give up, the White House says it wants to keep negotiating, but perhaps with a whole new group of senators.

CNN has learned that a group of moderates in both parties are working on their own plan that they could release as soon as this week.

And joining us now with their reporting and insights on all of this, CNN's Kaitlin Collins, Amy Walter, Amy Walter of "The Cook Political Report", Julie Hirschfield Davis of "The New York Times", and Spectrum New York 1's Errol Louis.

Thank you all for joining us this morning.

Kaitlin, where are we on negotiations? Does Biden actually think, though, that a bipartisan compromise is truly possible at this point?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think it seems less and less likely. We've been saying this all along. Yes, there have been a lot of counteroffers and offers made back and forth but none of them have brought them actually close together. You were just noting they are still billions of dollars apart on their differences here.

And the latest offer that came from the Republicans that they had been talking to the most on Friday, the White House basically scoffed at and said, no, this is -- you know, thanks, but no thanks, this is not going to work for us. And so, they said that President Biden is going to speak to Senator Capito again tomorrow before he goes on his trip but he's also going on a trip. This is a really critical time for these negotiations. So whether they actually pick up steam as Democrats are saying it's time to move on kind of remains to be seen.

PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, it's not -- the truth of the matter is the Biden administration has calmed down a lot on their offer. I mean, he's down $1.3 trillion from where he started. Republicans have only come up $100 billion. So are we dealing with a good faith negotiation here or is this just kicking the can down the road?

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, I think there is genuine desire on both sides to actually get to a deal, so in that regard I think it is a good faith effort. But I think it was never particularly realistic. I mean, the Republicans started out with an offer that was something in the realm of $560 billion. But there was only about $200 billion of new money versus President Biden started at $2.3 trillion.

So that is an order of magnitude that's really difficult to breach. And I think that was always understood on both sides frankly. I think we're just getting to the point where it's becoming more and more clear that that is not a compromise that can be done.

Then the question is do Democrats just break off and do something on their own or can there be any middle grounds. This bipartisan group of moderates in the Senate I think is trying to be that sort of motivating factor to get that moving, but it's also hard to see that getting off the ground.

AMY WALTER, NATIONAL EDITOR, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: To me it seems like you have a number of problems here.

First, they don't agree on what infrastructure is. At the very core, one group of people, Republicans is saying infrastructure is roads and bridges, that's what infrastructure is, and Democrats are saying, no, it's much more. It's home health care workers and it's the human infrastructure.

Well, that's problem number one. We don't agree on the price tag. We don't agree with how we're going to pay for it. They seem kind of like big deal. Other than that, it's going great.

PHILLIP: Right, and there's this whole added element of existing money versus new money, big --

(CROSSTALK)

[08:05:03]

WALTER: Right. These are big, intractable -- this isn't just I give you a couple of billion, you give me a couple of billion. And this is fundamental to the very structure of this legislation.

PHILLIP: But Republicans really are -- I mean, they're probably as far as you can get frankly from where the Democrats are. Meanwhile -- as we often talk about around this table, there is Joe Manchin, the most important man in Washington. And, you know, just this week telling CNN he still believes that something can be done on a bipartisan basis. He's not budging on that.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANCHIN: This is the United States Senate, the most deliberate body in the world. And it was by design. And these take time. You just can't -- I know everyone is in a hurry right now.

We've got to bring our country together. We can't continue to split and go further apart, we just can't do that. We've got to work together. That takes a lot of time and energy and patience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Errol, I heard a little sigh. We skeptical reporters here at the table -- ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The last true believer.

You can't rush these things. Well, okay, we'll play it out for as long as Senator Manchin wants to play it out, after which we'll learn that the person that will really make the decision, which is Senator McConnell, he's going to say that his conference is not going to compromise.

He's going to say that his conference is going to do X, Y or Z because in addition to all of the other problems, not agreeing on infrastructure is, not agreeing on what the price tag is within an order of magnitude, you've got the reality that the negotiators are not empowered to actually make a binding deal.

PHILLIP: Sure.

LOUIS: And so --

PHILLIP: Yeah. There's no guarantee that Mitch McConnell will let his conference move forward.

LOUIS: There's a near guarantee that the decision is going to be made in Mitch McConnell's office with his political advisers, and not with these well-meaning senators who like to sit and talk and not rush these things the way Senator Manchin wants to do. And so, we'll play it out and see how long it goes.

I sense that there's a level of frustration within the White House. I don't know if they're going to let this go so far because they have a Democratic base that they have to answer to and that base is getting a little upset.

PHILLIP: Well, speaking of, here is Congressman Jamaal Bowman, one of the new squad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): To go from over $2 trillion to $1.7 trillion should never have been done. To try to cut it further definitely should not be done. I understand, you know, wanting to engage in bipartisanship, but they have not negotiated with us and tried to engage with us in good faith.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So Democrats can't lose more than a handful of votes at this point. Is this a serious threat that some progressives like him will say no?

WALTER: I just think the serious threat is the calendar. As we get further and further down and closer and closer to election time, it has to go through the Senate, it has to go through the House and then come back. This takes a lot of time.

And I don't mean to be gruesome here, but literally a 50-50 Senate is literally hinging on the health of 100 senators, that, you know, all it takes is one person who has to leave.

PHILLIP: And many of them are getting up there in --

(CROSSTALK)

WALTER: Yeah, I don't -- I'm not suggesting anyone will, but all that is to say is that then all your leverage is gone. So you need to get as much done as you possibly can before the end of this year because next year is going to be difficult to get anything done.

COLLINS: But I think Senator Manchin is actually feeling pretty good about how his role in this is playing out. Remember, with the COVID-19 relief bill, he actually caused a bit of a dramatic showdown at the end when they weren't sure what his vote was going to be because he wanted them to decrease the price of those extended unemployment benefits. They actually did from $400 to $300.

And right now, that is a big factor in looking at the jobs report. The White House was saying they don't believe it was a contributing factor in it, but now, they're backing off of that and saying -- well, it's really temporary, it ends in 90 days and focusing on that aspect.

But he fought to make it less money because he thought in the end, that would be the right decision. So, I just think in the grand scheme of this, he thinks when he can be the one person that is holding something up, he feels like it's for a good reason obviously.

DAVIS: I think that's right but I also think that that dynamic is increasingly frustrating to the progressives whose support is needed here to get something done. As much as you need Republicans to buy in in order to have something that will get through, unless they're going to do everything under reconciliation, you also need your progressives to stay with you.

And if they think that Joe Manchin is sort of whittling down the package, that's going to be a real problem for Chuck Schumer, a real problem for Nancy Pelosi, a real problem for Joe Biden.

PHILLIP: But that is part of Manchin's policy objective. I think he wants this to be more palatable to his more conservative voters back in West Virginia.

At what point do Democrats look back to 2009 and say, okay, we've got to stop, fish or cut bait?

DAVIS: I think they're getting close to that moment. A lot of people thought that was going to be this coming week.

[08:10:01]

Now, it seems like the White House is willing to play this out a little longer, Jen Psaki said last week, you know, there's still runway here. But the question really is, as Amy said, with the calendar what it is, how much time runway is there really left, how much patience time to they have to keep bipartisan talks going and when will they just turn to reconciliation and say we're doing it on our own.

PHILLIP: It could be a long, hot summer for all of us.

Coming up next, Democrats say new voting rules are an attack on democracy itself but is there an actual strategy to fight back?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: Fourteen states controlled by Republicans have passed laws this year making it harder to vote, and in some cases making it easier for partisan officials to legally tamper with the results as well.

President Biden says he recognizes the scale of the problem, but it's not clear what he plans to do about it.

[08:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: This sacred right is under assault with incredible intensity like I've never seen. The House of Representatives passed For the People Act to protect our democracy. The Senate will take it up later this month and I'm going to fight like heck with every tool at my disposal for its passage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That bill would reverse Republican voter restrictions, but as of this morning, it has no path to becoming law. Democrat Joe Manchin confirmed in an op-ed that he will vote against any voting law that isn't bipartisan. He writes federal voting rights legislation must be the result of both Democrats and Republicans coming together to find a pathway forward, or we risk further dividing and destroying the republic.

Strong words from Manchin at a time when he is under a lot of pressure, Errol.

LOUIS: Yes.

PHILLIP: What should Democrats do at this point knowing that that is the state of play?

LOUIS: Well, you first have to start off with the reality that there aren't a lot of tools in the federal tool kit to deal with this. This is in many, many cases a matter of local legislatures making decisions. And so, there's going to have to be a pitched battle across a number of different states with different rules, different politics, different dynamics.

The White House can set a tone, but in the end, the Democratic Party and the local officials who make it up are going to have to really figure out where and when and how they want to do these kind of fights. Now, we saw what happened in Georgia when there was a last- minute political push to try to win two seats. That level of intensity and energy is going to have to be applied to a number of states. And by definition, they're going to have to pick the states where

they're really going to put up a fight. It's going to be a very tough battle.

PHILLIP: There is this overarching issue which is, first of all, the Voting Rights Act is effectively not enforceable. Joe Manchin is saying he would be in favor of fixing that in a bipartisan way. It has one co-sponsor that is on the Republican side to fix it.

So that might be another path forward for Democrats. But then "The New York Times" in an editorial makes the point that Democrats are also with the For the People Act fighting the wrong battle. They say the legislation attempts to accomplish more than is currently feasible while failing to address some of the clearest threats to democracy, especially the prospect that state officials will seek to overturn the will of the voters.

So are they fighting the wrong battle here?

DAVIS: Well, I mean, let's first remember that this bill was written, the first bill was written as a message bill at a time when Democrats really had no path. They didn't have the White House, they didn't have the Senate, to enacting anything. So this was like in a perfect world what would a voting rights bill look like.

We're not in that world right now. We're in a world where as you said Joe Manchin has basically veto power over whether this gets through Congress. By the way, he's not the only Democrat in the Senate or the House that is not wild about this bill and doesn't think that it is a little too broad.

But secondly, Democrats need to find a pragmatic way and this bill I think a lot of them recognize is not it to move forward on this issue. It may be the voting rights restoration act. As you noted, while that had wide bipartisan support in the past, there's only one Republican in the Senate now willing to support it so this is a gulf that's really hard to reach at the federal level.

WALTER: And, Julie, I'm so glad you say it. It was messing the bill.

I remember this bill being introduced in 2019 really much more as an anti-corruption bill. It was much more about campaign spending.

PHILLIP: The For the People Act.

WALTER: The For the People Act, specifically because the campaign in 2018 was so much, so many Democrats run on, I'm not taking corporate money. We need to get special interest, right? So this was the focus, much less on voting rights. It was still in there but they led with the money piece.

So it was a catch-all. To me, the big question is the one thing Democrats do have that they didn't have, say, in 2020 is the Justice Department. I do wonder what role the Justice Department can play. You're right, you can't do much at the federal legislating level, but to have the arm of the administration as the Justice Department, we'll see. I don't know.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, here's Al Sharpton, who is helping to organize a meeting between Manchin and civil rights groups. He said I think the politics of public opinion says the John Lewis Voting Rights Act would be more difficult for Republicans to justify opposing. I think you need both. But clearly think the John Lewis act takes the veil off those who are trying to obstruct voting rights.

So there's a recognition in the activist world that there is a version of this that is more feasible, but, Kaitlan, the president, President Biden, made an announcement this week that his vice president, Kamala Harris, would be taking the lead on all of this.

What can we expect there? I mean, she has -- obviously this is something the White House says she wanted to do. But can she actually make a deal?

COLLINS: It's a very tough task that she now has on her hands. I mean, she is tasked with getting something through that does not have a chance really right now at all of getting through and getting passed. So I think when we've asked what specifically is the directive for her, what does President Biden expect her to do.

[08:20:03]

The White House has said it's really to show that they're serious about this, that they do find it important and they are putting weight behind it.

And, you're right, Jen Psaki did say the vice president asked to be in charge of this. This is something she wanted in her portfolio. And so, I think the question going forward of what the White House is going to do when it comes to, you know, lobbying lawmakers on what this can look like remains to be seen, because what movement can they make when Joe Manchin is saying I'm not going to support this.

And they don't just need Joe Manchin, they need 10 Republicans on board as well because he says I'm not going to vote to eliminate the filibuster, something he has said many, many, many times.

And so, I think it's a huge challenge for her. I think it's more highlighting it and showing they are pushing back because the other hand of this is they have the former president going out and now taking on this more public role attacking the election, attacking voting systems, saying more states need to pass laws like what we've seen happen in Georgia and Texas and Florida.

PHILLIP: Right, it seems Republicans are extremely organized and focused on their objective. The question -- the broader question is what is the objective? In "Mother Jones", there was a really interesting piece between the post-civil rights era and the beginning of the Jim Crow era and what we're seeing right now.

This Yale professor says nobody is putting in literacy tests, nobody is putting in a poll tax but there are all kinds of ways for how to restrict voting this time. Rather than utter disenfranchisement, they are obviously going for knock off 5 percent of the black vote and you can once again win Georgia. That's an important point for Democrats, because they've got this 50-50 majority because of Georgia. Voting rights they say is important, but there's no real legislative path forward.

WALTER: We're in a moment where winning control of anything, presidency, House, Senate, literally comes down to 10,000, 5,000 votes. So literally shaving off the edges matters. It's also interesting, back in March, I sat in some focus groups.

Some of these were Trump-to-Biden voters, some were skeptical Trump voters. To the person, they didn't think that this issue of democracy is at stake was a real issue. They are much more cynical about the process.

They see what Trump is doing and they're like that's Trump, you know. Nobody was going to overthrow the election. Nobody was -- Congress did what they did because of political reasons.

And so there's both a cynicism of the public that this is real. And to that very point, there's no poll tax. Nobody is asking you to count jelly beans. Come on, how can you call this disenfranchisement?

PHILLIP: Incredibly insidious, which is why it's so potentially dangerous for our democracy.

Coming up next, Donald Trump is back on stage and he's attacking President Biden and repeating those election lies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:17]

PHILLIP: Former President Donald Trump is back on the trail amid reports that he falsely believes he will be reinstated as President. The National Republican Senatorial Committee posted a video of Trump this weekend that seemed to lean into that idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're going to take back the Senate, take back the House. We're going to take back the White House and sooner than you think. It's going to be really something special.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Sooner than you think. The only big election lie that he talked about last night was his months-old false claim that the presidency was stolen from him in November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I am not the one trying to undermine American democracy. I'm the one that's trying to save it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: A lot of the 85-minute address seemed like a low energy version of his 2020 stump speech and it featured immigration, grievance politics, attacks on Biden and China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Joe Biden and the socialist Democrats are the most radical left-wing administration in history.

The economy is going to hell and inflation is going to cause a catastrophe.

If you don't have election integrity and if you don't have strong borders, our country can be run like a dictatorship.

The time has come for America and the world to demand reparations and accountability from the communist party of China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Apparently, the reparations line was among the most popular last night.

But, Kaitlan --

COLLINS: Yes.

PHILLIP: -- this was the usual for Trump, right, the greatest hits. Is it good enough for Republicans that he didn't dwell on the election fraud, he didn't do as much as they were potentially fearing that he would?

COLLINS: I don't think so because I think if you look at all of the public statements that he's made, he's pretty clear how he feels about it. He's saying the same thing that he said after the November election, that he said the day of January the 6th. He's continuing to make those statements.

Maybe not as forcefully as he was that day on the ellipse, but I think he's still attacking elections overall and undermining faith in democracy, which he says there he's trying to save it. Of course, he is a main part of the reason of what we saw has happened over the last few months.

And also, I think, when I listened to his speech this morning again, he was talking about how he did not think Georgia's election law that they passed was tough enough. He said it needed to be tougher. He's calling on other states to do similar. He's congratulating states that have done so.

[08:29:48]

So that's the concern I think that Republicans have to talk about because he's pushing for that pretty openly.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean let's be honest. The bar is pretty low for, you know, Donald Trump not doing damage to Republicans.

WALTER: Well, the one thing he's clearly -- I think whatever impact he has going forward, it's clear that his impact on primaries, who comes out of primaries is going to be really important.

So last night he endorsed a candidate in this crowded North Carolina primary. The incumbent is retiring. Lara Trump was floated as a potential candidate. She took herself out last night. And Congressman Ted Budd was endorsed by Trump.

I think that's where his influence is the strongest. And so his decision to weigh in or to attack some of his Republican opponents is still going to be probably the biggest impact he has on politics going forward.

And if you are Democrats, what you're hoping is he endorses folks who are too far, quote unquote, "too far out of the mainstream or too Trumpian-like".

But I think more than likely what it means is you're going to see those folks who could go on to win and what you have is a senate that looks more Trumpian than we have right now.

PHILLIP: Right. The part and parcel with Trump is the lies, right. You can't take one and not have the other.

And this week, you know, of course Mike Pence tried to distance himself from Trump and this is how he did it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: January 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States capitol. You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye on that day.

But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Talk about straddling the fence here.

LOUIS: Right. I guess they're never going to see eye to eye on whether or not Mike Pence should have been dragged out of the capitol and hanged in front of the building, right. I mean that's literally what was at stake at that point.

This is not really about whether, you know, peaches are better than plums or anything like that. It's not really a disagreement. The underlying sort of radical problem here is that we're talking about a nullification, right.

There's the voter suppression angle that we talked about a few minutes ago, but really in the end the laws that we have to be most concerned about and the procedures and the individuals and the claims by the ex- president that we have to be most worried about are the notion that even after the election is over and you've lost it, you just throw it out. You overturn it, I mean.

And that's the other part of what was happening on January 6th was while the rioters were storming the building, there were people who were casting vote after vote to have millions of people's votes thrown out and to have the electoral college results overturned.

And that's going to be the real problem going forward. That's the thing that Democrats have to worry about at all costs and they're going to have to fight it again at the local level when it comes to actual voting procedures, but that's where there's some room for some federal procedures and federal law. And that can't be left to Joe Manchin. That's just got to get done.

PHILLIP: Yes. Well -- you know, I mean there is all of the practical stuff that's happening and then you also have Trump talking about this fall, talking to his friends apparently and advisers about this fall coming back into power.

And then you have other Republicans floating this other fun idea that he might become speaker of the house. Listen to Jason Chaffetz talking about that this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Under the constitution, you don't need to be a member of congress to be elected the speaker of the house. So put Donald Trump in as speaker of the house. He could go out, investigate everybody and he could impeach everybody. That would be -- that would be pretty fascinating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That would be pretty fascinating.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, "NEW YORK TIMES": The fact that it's a pretty low bar, the fact that Republicans were pleased that the former president didn't come out and say I'm going to be put back in office in two months, just you wait and see in this rally in North Carolina, is like that's a pretty low bar.

And that just shows you what the issue is that's before them, which is that every time he goes out and speaks, repeats the lies about the election, repeats that, you know, you can't trust democracy in this country, they then have to answer those same questions.

So you hear some of these outlandish things. Some of his allies are really trying to figure out a way to, you know, keep him in the conversation but for a lot of the Republican leadership in Washington, a lot of the Republican leadership around the country, it becomes a real issue for them when he says these things because then their voters want to hear them repeat them ad nauseam.

PHILLIP: Right.

DAVIS: And at some point you are going to have a group of Americans who are going to be like this is not -- this is alarming to me.

PHILLIP: Right.

DAVIS: And that's what they have to worry about going forward and that they're looking toward retaking the house if they're going to do that in 2022 and getting the senate back as well.

PHILLIP: He's setting the agenda on the election lie but also on a couple of other issues. We were talking about, you know, that reparations line about getting reparations from China. Critical race theory was a big applause line last night.

[08:34:50]

PHILLIP: And then attacking Dr. Fauci has become this major thing for a lot of Republicans. Several Republican senators -- Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley -- have all taken up Dr. Fauci as a boogeyman. I mean is this the -- are we starting to see the formation of the platform for the next cycle?

WALTER: Well, we started to see some of this at the state level, right? The Republican governors who said, you know what, we're going to open up, we don't need to listen to these folks who have been wrong before. I know my state. I understand this.

So this is not something new. What is new is making Fauci the sort of person. In many ways he's the person because they can't make Joe Biden that person. They have had a really difficult time making Joe Biden a boogeyman in the way that other opposition parties have been able to make a president that.

COLLINS: But also The attacks on Dr. Fauci, I think it's fine to say, well, he said this and then he changed it. That's fine. But the way that they are using him is basically trying to mischaracterize and take the attention and the blame off of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and instead essentially saying the entire response was Dr. Fauci's fault instead of the president's fault.

And that's where this all comes down to is Republicans trying to recast what actually happened in reality and what we were all there to witness which was Trump not taking the advice of his medical advisers or saying wear a mask but I'm not going to.

That's what led to what happened over the last 15 months, not because of Dr. Fauci.

PHILLIP: It is not credible that Dr. Fauci deciding not to full- throatedly endorse the lab leak theory as responsible for the hundreds of thousands of people killed by this pandemic.

Coming up next, a warning from the police chief of one of America's biggest cities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unless the American people speak out, it's going to be a long, hot, bloody summer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The politics of rising homicide rates across the country.

[08:36:53]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: The United States hasn't seen a significant violent crime wave since the 1990s, but American cities may be in the midst of one today.

Take a look at this huge increase in the number of murders in America's five biggest cities. Even with those increases, the numbers still don't approach the levels seen 30 years ago.

But as voters in the biggest American city, New York, get ready to choose their mayoral candidates this month, crime and violence are top of mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No surprise we're going to start tonight the first question on crime.

Defunding the police is not the right approach for New York City.

ANDREW YANG, NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: No one is coming to New York and our multi billion dollar tourism industry if you have three-year- old children shot in Times Square.

KATHRYN GARCIA, NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: We have gone from a pandemic of COVID to an epidemic of gun violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So New York for a long time in recent history has been very, very safe. Now that's changing. How is this impacting that race and, you know, how big of a campaign issue is it really?

LOUIS: It is the campaign issue and it could, in fact, be controlling by the time it's all over because both from the standpoint of public safety. Tragically a 10-year-old was killed this weekend in New York City.

People already were on sort of pins and needles about that possibility. But then this larger progressive movement and the post- George Floyd protests that went through New York the way they did every where else, it's really part of the same question. There's this defund the NYPD movement that progressives have kind of gathered around and there's a sort of a push and a pull.

There's a very real sense that reforms are still needed, that the police are asked to do too much stuff for which people with guns are not the appropriate response when you're talking about emotionally disturbed persons or who patrols school hallways.

On the other hand you've got shootings going up, you've got murders going up, you've got a city that is demanding an answer. And that has become the central issue in this race. Candidates for mayor have got to answer how are you going to reform the department and at the same time put an end to this violence that is intolerable.

PHILLIP: And not just in that race, it could be an issue that expands even beyond that. A reality check, though, the crime is increasing not just in Democratic-led cities but also in Republican-led cities, bigger cities, smaller cities.

But Ezra Klein columnist at the "New York Times" writes this, a warning to liberals. "Fear of violence undermines liberal policies. Just look at America post-9/11 or after the crime surges of the 70s and 80s and 90s. Strong men politicians win. Punitive responses like mass incarceration and warrior policing rise. Social trust collapses."

So is there a concern among liberals that this has to be dealt with, or should there be?

DAVIS: Well, I mean I think there definitely should be. I think there's a concern when you're talking particularly about looking at congressional races over the last couple of years, the last four years or so. The centrist Democrats, the moderates, the Democrats who are in more conservative-leaning places are the ones who are really sounding the alarm on this. because they say to their own Democratic colleagues, listen we understand that a lot of these attacks are made in bad faith that, not all of our party, you know, supports defunding the police.

We're not talking about taking weapons away. We're not talking about you know, just letting anarchy reign in cities or towns, but these attacks that Republicans are making, this notion that we want to, you know, just not have law enforcement anymore and we're anti-police is really damaging and really does scare voters.

And particularly when you're seeing a rise in crime in cities and communities around the country, it is going to resonate. So they need to figure out a message that is a counter-message that isn't just about, you know, defund the police or, you know, that the police have been guilty of misconduct, which has happened in many cases that we have seen in a high-profile way, but there has to be a message that will not scare people and not make people think, oh, this is just about being anti-law enforcement.

[08:45:01]

PHILLIP: There was a test of this this past week. New Mexico's special election race where crime was the issue. Look at this ad that was run by the Republican against the Democratic candidate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Melanie Stansbury supports the most dangerous legislation in America. As Albuquerque faces record numbers of homicides, legislation that defunds and dismantles the police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But did it work? Melanie Stansbury won and won decisively.

WALTER: It wasn't -- it really wasn't even close. In fact, she outperformed Biden from his 2020 election. But what Democrats will tell you is she also did something else that many Democrats didn't do in 2020, which is she went direct to camera with police officers in her ads responding to this.

Talking about what she did as a state legislator saying I've worked with the police, I've worked to help with this backlog on rape kits, things like that.

So she did what Democrats say is the model for going forward, which is don't think that, oh, people know me. They know I'm not going to defund the police. You have to go out and explicitly push back and it helps if you have members of that community with you in your advertising and campaigning.

PHILLIP: And perhaps not a choice that's available to all Democrats, but I think Democrats obviously are --

WALTER: No.

And this is a progressive -- remember, she did not run as a centrist, this is not a centrist district.

PHILLIP: No, no.

WALTER: This is a very liberal place.

P5; And she was attacked specifically on the issue of, quote unquote, "defunding the police".

WALTER: Well, she did support. Right it was legislation that she supports that is sitting in Congress right now.

PHILLIP: Yes. So Democrats are breathing a little easy but there's -- it wasn't a passive win here. A lot of work, a lot of money poured into that race.

Coming up next, President Biden's first overseas trip expected to take a warmer tone than his predecessors did.

[08:46:50]

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PHILLIP: President Biden's first foreign trip kicks off this week in Europe. His message, America is back. And all eyes will be on the Biden summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin just days after a series of ransomware attacks linked to Russian hackers which the FBI director compared to 9/11 in an interview with the "Wall Street Journal". Now, Putin denies that Russia had any hand in these cyberattacks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT, (through translator): I think that the relevant U.S. services should find out who the scammers are, not Russia for sure. For us to extort money from some company, we are not dealing with some chicken meat or beef. It's just hilarious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: No surprises there Julie, but how do you expect President Biden to handle this and how might it compare to what we've seen in the past from previous presidents, especially the last one?

DAVIS: Well, I think there's going to be quite a contrast between the way that President Trump approached Vladimir Putin and the way that President Biden will. And this is a huge issue is you have to figure out a way and President Obama when Biden was vice president had the same issue.

He had to figure out a way to confront Putin to figure out how he could get Russia to take some stems to actually, you know, work with the United States on some of the things that we want to see Russia do, but also send a message loud and clear that these sorts of things are not going to be tolerated.

So I think all eyes are going to be on how President Biden approaches this meeting without making it seem like he is, you know, being subservient to Putin or giving him a any sort of compromise but really meeting him where he is and trying to figuring out how he can take this relationship to the next level, after the United States for four years under President Trump really was not dealing with Putin in a realistic way.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean I do wonder, like what can be accomplished here with Putin. I mean this is a man who is basically trolling the Biden administration. Look at this headline where he's talking about the January 6th insurrection and he says -- he's questioning the prosecution of Capitol Rioters saying that the mob carried only political requests.

I mean he seems pretty hell-bent on just being a thorn in Biden's side. And I wonder if there's a sense inside the administration, they can actually deal with this guy.

COLLINS: Absolutely. Because also remember Biden is on camera saying that yes he agrees that Putin is a killer. So that doesn't exactly set the --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: The feeling is mutual, right?

COLLINS: Right. And we've seen Putin in the past try to embarrass U.S. Presidents, kind of put them on their heels. And so I think that that's what he's going to attempt to do.

And in the build up to this, they're saying, you know, the U.S. Is trying to provoke Russia by accusing them of, you know, harboring those criminal groups that are doing this ransomware attacks.

There's a list of issues that's going to be brought up. And so everyone is going to be watching this. I think though the White House is trying to send a message by meeting with all of these other allies before they have this Putin summit.

But I do think it will raise a lot of questions of what they actually get from that. What does it actually look like because they're certainly setting it up to be a pretty tense meeting between the two of them.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean meanwhile, this is President Biden as we all know, right. So he loves -- first of all, loves a good foreign trip. Loves a good summit, right?

But he's making a point to go to Europe here. He says in an op-ed published today, will the democratic alliances and institutions that shaped so much of the last century prove their capacity against modern day threats and adversaries. I believe the answer is yes. And this week in Europe we have a chance to prove it."

So he's setting a pretty broad, ambitious agenda to restore this kind of comity between the United States and Europe that was really -- I don't want to say shattered, but shaken in the Trump years.

WALTER: Yes. This feels a lot like when President Obama first came in and went overseas to say, don't worry, guys, I know a lot of you are upset with the Bush administration, the Iraq war. There's a new person in town.

[08:54:58]

WALTER: And obviously the fact that Obama -- during the campaign even went and basically campaigned in Europe was a sign that he was serious about bringing those alliances back.

So we seem to have this like push/pull every time our relationship, presidents and Europe, but also sending a signal to Putin like we're serious about this. We're now all together and taking you on, right? This is --

PHILLIP: Right.

COLLINS: I think that message can be less reassuring, though. And that's the concern that's facing the White House is that sure, Biden can go over there and say I'm really committed to these alliances. I've got this, but they can see how 75 years of a relationship can be undone with one president.

PHILLIP: Four years -- exactly.

LOUIS: Right. He's re-establishing the role of the president as the leader of the free world. Something that hasn't happened in four years. It was basically ceded to Angela Merkel or whoever else felt like speaking up for Europe and for the European project.

I think what we can also except though is for him to do what President Reagan used to do, mention the names of dissidents, talk about the human rights problems, talk about the advantages that the U.S. offers when it comes to these important universal values. Again, something that's been missing for four years now.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean absolutely. Former President Trump seemed to ignore the kind of human rights element of the U.S. role in the global stage. Thank you all for being here.

And that's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. Join us back here every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. And the weekday show as well at noon Eastern time.

But coming up next, "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

Jake's guests this morning include Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Senator Angus King.

Thank you again, for sharing your Sunday morning with us. Have a great rest of your day.

[08:56:40]

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