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Miami Mayor Francis Suarez Launches WH Bid; Cornel West Switches To Green Party In 2024 Run; Biden Campaign Launches Six-State Fundraising Trip; Obama: Republicans "Have To Walk The Walk & Not Just Talk The Talk" On Racial Inequality. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 15, 2023 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: He has been the leader of the council of mayors traveling around the country. So, look, his big challenge will be trying to get on that debate stage I think, come August.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But there's lots of reasons to run for president. Yes, to be president, but also it raises your profile. Julian Castro comes to mind. He was the mayor of San Antonio. Is that correct? Also kind of a ceremonial position. And I'm -- and he ended up a Cabinet secretary.

And I'm not saying that the mayor of Miami is trying to get the inside track to meet HUD, but it does put you in a different position, gives you that national recognition whether or not you are successful getting on a debate stage or anywhere else.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And for a time, there was a promise that there'd be more candidates like him. If you think way back on the way back machine, the sort of Republican, quote unquote, autopsy about what the party needs to do better going forward to appeal to different demographics.

That's why Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, and Marco Rubio all thought they had a shot at greatness going forward. That was not to be, that's not the direction the party took and this is sort of reminding me of that vibe.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: And Audie, he's running on that. This morning he did an interview, on ABC and he said, I'm the only Hispanic candidate in both parties who was running.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, but he also had trouble in that interview because he was asked national questions largely about Donald Trump and the indictment. And he evaded and evaded and evaded.

BASH: Let's actually listen to that and then we'll talk about it on the other side.

BORGER: See how I teed that up? BASH: I know. That's great.

BORGER: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, I asked you what you thought of the indictment.

MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, and I want to talk about Miami. You know, I think if we continue to have a conversation about the former president, then the former president will be the nominee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And do you think it shows that Donald Trump is fit to be president?

SUAREZ: I think what it shows, is that people are frustrated in this country, particularly, Republicans who feel that there isn't an equal administration of justice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the president do anything wrong in the way he handled classified information?

SUAREZ: Well, I don't know all the details. That's not what I would have done. I would have turned over the documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You were saying?

BORGER: Exactly. Evade, evade, evade. And he really needs to. If you're going to be a national candidate, and you're not a mayor, you have to have answers for these questions. And the national candidate so far haven't had great answers. I'll admit most of them. But he's got to get a little better.

CORNISH: And to play devil's advocate, he made a good point, which is that if we don't stop talking about Trump, everything would be --

BORGER: He's right.

CORNISH: -- about Trump.

BORGER: Absolutely.

CORNISH: And that is completely on us in the media. I think for a long time it was standard practice that any kind of crisis happened with a political party, everyone had to answer for it. After the end of shame, that doesn't quite work the same way. I'll -- we trademark --

BORGER: When did that end, right?

BASH: I can't wait to read your autobiography.

CORNISH: It will be called the end of shame. BASH: Yes.

CORNISH: But it means that asking these guys over and over again, you heard Dan Crenshaw say the other day, I'm not a spokesman.

BASH: Yes.

CORNISH: Everyone is exhausted for being like --

BORGER: It's true.

ZELENY: Police (INAUDIBLE), he went to the courtroom. He is a lawyer.

BASH: Exactly.

ZELENY: He's from Miami, so he kind of injected himself into the scene. I totally agree with you that --

CORNISH: Is it when he ran and gave that woman directions?

BORGER: Yes.

ZELENY: No way.

CORNISH: He was like, this way to that.

ZELENY: He was in a suit that day.

CORNISH: Yes.

ZELENY: But, look, I mean, he -- as David Kochel and Alex kind of were just saying in the other segment, though, this is a competition, so you'll be sort of judged on that. But no, it is incumbent on us to ask people why they're running. That was George's first question to him. So it's a balancing act for sure.

BRENBERG: And can I just also say, I think you're exactly right that everybody has to sort of take a breath, but Donald Trump, who is ahead by like, 25 points or something and Ron DeSantis is the only one who comes close, he's making it about the indictment. He's making it about himself.

BORGER: That's his campaign.

BASH: And that's his campaign right now.

CORNISH: Yes. But another way to ask that question is to say you as a candidate, what can you possibly do to close the gap with voters who think anything short of Trump is useless? Like, what is the case here? Not just why do you want to run?

BORGER: And that's a way to differentiate yourself, I think, because Donald Trump's campaign is now about the indictment. That's what it is. It is has completely shifted. You know, I'm a victim and I'm standing in for you.

CORNISH: Yes.

BORGER: Because the next time it's going to be you and it's -- this is his campaign now. So you're right.

CORNISH: But you're also asking voters, why do you, voters, think this is your fight? And can another candidate do something different?

KUCINICH: And that's why there's risk into what he's doing. Because there is polling that says voters don't want to hear about that. They want to hear about fixing the economy.

BORGER: Yes.

KUCINICH: They want to hear about these other issues that actually impact their lives. So if he keeps on going to rallies, keeps talking about it, we saw it during the 2022 campaign, where he'd get on stage and rail about his various legal woes. And you had people there being like, I'm sick of hearing about this.

So that is not-- it -- that is going to be his campaign, but we'll have to see how that plays as time drags on.

ZELENY: Voters do want to hear other things. There's no doubt about that.

BASH: Yes. I mean, and you just got back from Iowa and we'll catch up with you and your next trip because --

ZELENY: Right.

BASH: -- you're our voter person. Imagine that. Talking to people outside --

ZELENY: Talking to people.

BASH: -- who are actually going to vote.

Cornel West, he is giving voters a choice that isn't Donald Trump. It's not Joe Biden. Or is he playing the role of a third party spoiler. I'm going to discuss that with the candidate himself, Cornel West, joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:39:42]

BASH: The growing Republican field for president is dominating the headlines, but other candidates are hoping the crowded field paves the way for another choice. The total number of Republican candidates right now stands at 11. Two Democrats are challenging Biden for the White House, RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamson, and then there is Cornel West.

[12:40:02]

He announced last week that he's going to run on a third party ticket. Now he is switching parties. Cornel West joins me now.

Thank you so much for joining me, sir. You moved from the People's Party to the Green Party this week, and it makes you much more likely you're going to be on the ballot in a majority of states. Is that why you switched?

CORNEL WEST, GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I just want to make sure that poor and working people are at the very center of this discussion. But I want to begin by wishing you happy birthday.

BASH: Thank you, sir.

WEST: And indeed. But the -- what the problem is, we had a two party system that doesn't highlight the precious, poor and working people. I'm thinking of Brother Michael and Brother Eddie right now in Rankin County, Mississippi. Neither party speaks to his situation.

We got brown brothers and sisters in the borough. We got Paul White in West Virginia. Neither party, both parties tied to Wall Street, Pentagon, both parties so obsessed with the professor managerial class. They lose sight of poor people and working people.

The best of America, and that's what my campaign is about, my dear sister Dana. I want to introduce America to the best of itself. The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Heschel, the Dorothy Day, and Edward Zed (ph) and Grace Lee Boggs and Louisa Marino (ph).

We've had some major voices concerned about poor and working people, not just here but the militarism around the world and the victims of that militarism around the world. And so we're going to have a robust conversation in this presidential political season.

BASH: You have gotten the question many times. I've heard you being asked about being a spoiler and you reject that argument, a spoiler for Joe Biden in 2024. But I want to give our viewers a little bit of history. In 2016, Jill Stein was on the ballot for the Green Party, and Donald Trump ended up winning in a nail biter, particularly in some of the key states that you're looking at right now.

I'm putting up on the screen just so you know. The number of votes that Jill Stein got in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin compared to Donald Trump's margin there. What's to say, despite your convictions and your argument, about the two parties not being the way to go? What's to say, what I just showed on the screen, won't happen with Cornel West on the ballot and not Jill Stein?

WEST: I mean one that, you know, my dear sister Jill Stein, who got 1.07 percent of the vote, my dear brother, Ralph Nader, who got more, he got about 4 percent, but you don't look to the weakest candidates as a full explanation as to why you lose. Sister Hillary Clinton lost because she was not a good candidate. She didn't go to Wisconsin and you know even better than all of us, all the various factors that go into why she also didn't lose, not just that one factor.

So the idea of putting all the responsibility on the candidates who get the few with votes compared to the other big two is just a way of rationalizing a two party system that has become more and more outdated and antiquated, both tied to big money and big military, and they don't allow us to speak to 60 percent of our fellow citizens who were arrested every day trying to put money on the table and waiting for the next check.

And the gross wealth inequality continues. And and the military budget contends to expand. We saw this with Brother Biden, but I do want to say this, though, just quickly, that this campaign is also about getting beyond hatred and revenge. You see, I don't hate Brother Trump. I hate his lives and his gangster, neo-fascism.

I don't hate Brother Biden. I hate his hypocrisy and I hate his milk toast neoliberal policy. And we have to be able to engage in a public conversation. It gets beyond eye for an eye and this vicious kind of revenge so that it reinforces the distrust and the paranoia. And that's a immeasurable dimension.

That's an invisible dimension of my campaign that's going to set a different kind of tone of what my brother Cliff West calls a paradigm shift in American politics. Because I'm a jazz man in the world of politics and the jazz man is always about improvisation. Always about compassion, always about style, and always about a smile.

BASH: You made the arguments during the 2020 campaign similar to what I'm hearing you make now when you were backing other candidates, Bernie Sanders, to be precise. But you did end up voting for Joe Biden because you said four more years of Donald Trump could be worse. Why isn't that the case for you this time around?

WEST: What I learned from my very dear brother Bernie Sanders, you know, I have a very profound, respect for him, even as we disagree on a number of things. But I'm thoroughly convinced he was treated unjustly. I'm thoroughly convinced that the corporate wing of the Democratic Party will always use the progressive wing as a kind of window dressing.

[12:45:01]

The progressive wing will never triumph. We almost triumph. And then the neoliberals came together after the call by Obama to Amy and Pete and the others. And therefore, I'm thoroughly convinced that first, pushing back Trump, that's exactly what I tried to do, part of an anti-fascist coalition.

But then I began to see, you never, ever defeat fascism with a milk toast neoliberalism that doesn't have vision and passion. The only way you defeat fascism that is coming to America if we do not fight is a strong vision, strong passion. And then I'm going, as I've said, the Trump country itself.

BASH: Yes.

WEST: I'm going to my white brothers and sisters and say, don't scapegoat the most vulnerable, confront the most powerful. There's another way of looking at that.

BASH: Well, I want to ask you about that --

WEST: That's the only way you're going to (INAUDIBLE).

BASH: Forgive me for interrupting, but I was going to ask you about that because you mentioned, to my colleague Jake Tapper, that you're going to go to Trump country. What specifically do you think that people who are ardent Trump supporters are going to be receptive to in your message?

WEST: Well, one, I don't believe that they're homogeneous and monolithic. About one out of 10 for them -- 10 of them voted for Brother Bernie himself. They were looking for an alternative because they see through the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party talking about justice on the one hand, but tied the big money on the other.

And so, I want to go back to those folk and recognize. When I see a Trump supporter, I don't see a stereotype. I see a human being. Many of them who are wounded and too many of them follow a neo-fascist piper, rather than an alternative. And that's where the legacy of Martin King and Heschel and Dorothy Day.

How do you bring poor and working people together across race, across gender, in such a way that they all begin to provide a serious challenge to the power was that be. It's like a jazz band, my dear sister. Like Bill Adams on the piano with Miles Davis's quintet. He's a white brother. He ain't a white ally. He's in the band.

Well, this campaign is about the band. And the band is going to bring all these different kind of folk together. And we're not singing the same song. No. We're not playing the same notes. No. But we are raising our voices in such a way that we keeping the focus on something bigger than us. For Martin King, it was a beloved community and for us, it is deep democracy.

It is empowering poor, working people, not just here, but around the world in terms of U.S. foreign policy and pulling back on the militarism around the world.

BASH: Well, I hope to be Penny Lane in one of your trips and go out with the band and see how you play out there, particularly in Trump country. Thank you for your time, Cornel West. Appreciate it.

WEST: Thank you so much. You stay strong, my dear sister.

BASH: And coming up, brand new reporting, top Biden campaign officials are popping the hood on the president's reelection machine. What does it look like and how will it work? We're going to give you brand new details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:52:56]

BASH: Brand new CNN reporting, the Biden campaign is racing round the clock to put the squeeze on donors in an effort to build big fundraising numbers for the president's reelection campaign. What's their strategy? Let's talk about that with CNN's Jeremy Diamond, who's live at the White House to give us some new reporting. Jeremy, what are you hearing?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well listen, Dana. Top Biden campaign officials, DNC officials, including the Biden campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, they're hitting the road beginning today in Atlanta, hitting six cities in six different states. And this is really designed to try and engage, not only donors, but grassroots supporters, local democratic officials, effectively the president's top supporters to try and gin up enthusiasm.

They're going to be giving them a peak under the hood of the reelection machine that they are beginning to build. And one of the critical ideas here, even though these events aren't specifically fundraisers, they are designed to try and build up some fundraising momentum ahead of what is a critical first quarterly fundraising deadline at the end of this month.

And the Biden campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, she told me earlier today in an interview that, look, one of the messages they're going to deliver is that this is a critical time to invest in that campaign machine. And that's because it gives them an opportunity to build out the types of programs that they would like to see to reach victory in 2024.

At the same time, on a separate track, you have President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other top officials, they're embarking on a fundraising blitz holding nearly two dozen fundraisers all before the end of this month. That fundraising number at the end of the month is going to be a critical sign for this campaign to show that they have the enthusiasm to win.

BASH: Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much for that new reporting. Appreciate it.

And up next, what Barack Obama has to say about the 2024 Republican field.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:59:29]

BASH: Topping our political radar, great progress, not so much according to former President Barack Obama. He told our CNN colleague at former Obama adviser David Axelrod, that he doesn't agree with Republican contender Tim Scott, that the country has made great progress on racial inequality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If somebody is not proposing, both acknowledging and proposing elements that say, 'No, we can't just ignore all that and pretend as if everything's equal and fair. We actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk'. If they're not doing that, then I think people are rightly skeptical. BASH: You can listen to the entire conversation on this week's episode of "The Axe Files''.

A quick programming note, A CNN concert event with some of the biggest names in music is returning. Watch Juneteenth: A Global Celebration for Freedom" live Monday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts right now.