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Inside Politics
Harris Locks Down Delegates Needed To Win Nomination; Today: Harris In Milwaukee For First Presidential Campaign Rally; GOP Rep. Burchett Calls VP Harris "A DEI Hire"; Harris Campaign Embraces Memes Breaking Through To Gen Z; Remembering Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired July 23, 2024 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:31:59]
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to say to the team, embrace her. She's the best. I know yesterday's news was surprising, and hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is so good to hear our President's voice. Joe, I know you're still on the call.
BIDEN: I'm watching you, kid. I'm watching you, kid. I love you.
HARRIS: I love you, Joe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: That was yesterday at the newly rebranded Harris campaign headquarters as the President and Vice President show there's nothing but love between them in this very new phase of the 2024 campaign.
Joining me now is former Democratic mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, who worked in Joe Biden's administration and is on the reelection campaign. You weren't Joe Biden's. You're still on the Kamala Harris campaign.
MITCH LANDRIEU, NATIONAL CO-CHAIR, HARRIS CAMPAIGN: I am.
BASH: We just have to check.
LANDRIEU: I am. I am.
BASH: So last week I would have introduced you as national co-chair of the Biden-Harris re-election campaign. Joe Biden was your boss. He is also your friend. Can you just talk about the whirlwind of the last three days or even three weeks?
LANDRIEU: Well, I've been knowing Joe Biden for 30 years and he has always been a great friend and he's been a great leader. And whether he was a United States senator or the vice president, the president United States, he was always the same. And I spent two years with him helping rebuild the country.
And I -- it was the greatest honor of my life. He is really one of the greatest people that I've met. And his decision to step down really kind of seals for the people of America. What character really looks like. He made a decision that was selfless. I don't know another politician in my life or a CEO of a major company that would see the most powerful position in the world to think of other people rather than himself and that's what he did.
So it's a -- it was a sad day for many of us, but today's a new day. And we're fired up and ready to go.
BASH: Yes. I mean, that's a big statement from you. You come from a long line of politicians.
LANDRIEU: True.
BASH: It's quite literally. What about the Harris campaign? Are you going to have the same role as far as you know?
LANDRIEU: Yes, as far as I know. And, you know, you can just see. I mean, the last couple days has given everybody in the country a whiplash. I mean, normally in every campaign, and you're a campaign junkie like I am, you don't see things change this fast. But it has been amazing what the Vice President has done in a very short period of time.
Just think about three weeks ago from the debate until, you know, Sunday, everybody in the world was talking about the President being too old and wanting to pass the torch to the next generation. And would he do that? And what would happen?
And from the moment that this happened to sometime mid-Sunday until today, the Vice President has now brought all the donors back in plus $100 million and 30,000 volunteers. More has coalesced all of the Democratic leadership, and she is off to the races.
I think a speech yesterday created the contrast that the people of America have been asking for. You know, people, if you look at all the polls didn't want Donald Trump or Joe Biden to be president. Now they have a different choice, and the choice could not be more different.
The past versus the future, including people rather than escalating people, fighting for the working class or fighting for the rich. You know, the game is on. So let's go.
BASH: I want to talk to you about what's coming at you with the Harris campaign.
[12:35:01]
But first I want to ask about something that the former president just put on a social media platform saying that Kamala Harris -- the question is whether Kamala Harris thinks that Joe Biden is fit to run the USA for the next six months. She must answer the question. It appears that he's delegating his presidential authority to elected Washington bureaucrats. He doesn't trust his VP. Who was running the country?
LANDRIEU: Let me say two things about that that I think are important. A person's character really, really matters. And you see Donald Trump's lack of character in that statement. He can't say a kind word about anybody. And that speaks a lot to whether or not somebody can actually lead the country.
This guy, every chance he's given to say a kind word, literally, about anybody. I think even his dog, if he had one, or a dog, cat to be in his house. It's just incredible to me that he continues on this path of hatred and vitriol. That is not who the American people are.
Secondly, I can't answer this question for the Vice President. She won't answer it, but I can answer it for me, because I've worked with him closely. He is absolutely ready to continue to do the job. Joe Biden will go down in history as being one of the most consequential presidents that we have had and has passed some of the most significant legislation that has actually put this country back on track.
You know, all of the things that I'm about to tell you now, but just let me run through 15 million jobs, a stock market that's actually roaring. That's had five or six highs. You have the lowest unemployment rate that was seen in generations. You have wages that have gone up.
We're actually rebuilding the country as we speak. Joe Biden promised to be a bridge to the future. He not only was a literal bridge, we're rebuilding 40,000 bridges in America. He was the functional bridge. And so he is going to -- he's going to run this through the tape. That's exactly where the focus ought to be.
But Donald Trump, what he needs to be thinking about is Kamala Harris because she's coming for him. She's a prosecutor. He is a convicted felon. She fought crime. You remember crime actually went down in Joe Biden's administration with the vice president. It went up when Trump was there and he's a criminal himself.
So he's going to have to answer for that, for that prosecutor. That's where she spent her life and she founds her jobs.
BASH: Let me ask you about something that's already coming at you all in this campaign and her, in particular, the whole notion that she is a DEI candidate, which is in many respects, we know what that is code for. I don't want to ascribe that to Tim Burchett, even though I'm going to play this soundbite right now from him, talking about that very issue. But let's just keep it strictly on the notion of DEI.
LANDRIEU: OK.
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REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): When you go down that route, you take mediocrity and that's what they have right now as a vice president.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, are you suggesting she's -- she was a DEI hire?
BURCHETT: 100 percent. She was a DEI hire.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, other people have said far more incendiary things about her -- even when she was vice president but even, in particular, the last couple of days. The House speaker just this morning tried to tamp down on his conference doing that saying this should not be about personalities or identity. This should be about policies. How are you all preparing for this onslaught that is already starting?
LANDRIEU: Well, there's a couple of things. First of all, there'll be a campaign response of the Vice President spoke to this yesterday. Something President Clinton used to say is when you talk about we the people, who in your mind is in the word we. And the Vice President spoke about this yesterday.
She said, if you want to know the difference between me and Donald Trump. Donald Trump is trying to create a past where people of color and women did not have equal opportunity. I'm trying to create a future for us all. And so that comment about DEI is not an accident. That is code.
If you live in the south from where I'm from, that is a train coming down the track at you. So let's just -- for --
BASH: What is the train -- what train is coming down the track?
LANDRIEU: The train is about this. That there are some people in this country, and I believe Donald Trump believes this, that not all of us come to the table of democracy as equals, that some of us are better than others, that some of us ought to be given benefits and other people ought to sit in the back.
And if you're a woman, or you're a person of color, or you come from another country, you know what, it doesn't matter how many qualifications you have. So let's just be clear about this. Kamala Harris was a prosecutor. She got elected in San Francisco and fought crime, sexual abuses, and business fraud.
She became the attorney general of California, which, by the way, probably is the largest law firm in the entire country. She then became a United States senator. She became the vice president and has served for four years.
And for some reason, she is not as qualified as J.D. Vance, who has only held one office and hasn't been in office for less than 600 days. Therein lies the idea that no matter for women and people of color, no matter how much you do, no matter how great you are, no matter how high you jump, that's just not enough for us because we're not equal.
Therein lies the issue of who is in the we of we the people and Kamala Harris is pretty clear that all of us are. And Donald Trump is like only some of us and I get to say.
BASH: Mitch Landrieu, always good to see you, especially in person. Thanks for coming in.
LANDRIEU: Thank you. Great to be here.
BASH: Thank you.
And coming up, coconut tree jokes and a love of Venn diagrams. Why are soundbites that conservatives tried to use against Kamala Harris scoring big with Gen Z?
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HARRIS: You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context. Of all in which you live and what came before you.
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BASH: This is for all you boomers and Gen Xers out there who have been noticing all this talk about brat for the last 48 hours, but have been maybe a little too embarrassed to ask what it means. So turn up your TV talk about brat for the last 48 hours, but have been maybe a little too embarrassed to ask what it means.
[12:45:07]
So turn up your TV, maybe turn up your hearing aid because we're about to explain. This all comes from the British pop star, Charli XCX, who tweeted on Sunday, soon after President Biden dropped out, "Kamala is brat." Now, Harris and her new campaign immediately embraced the brat summer, and now the internet is awash in green, the color of Charli XCX's brat album, along with mashups of brat and coconut tree memes.
I want you to take a look and know that we're going to explain the coconut thing in a minute.
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(SINGING)
HARRIS: You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?
(SINGING)
HARRIS: You exist in the context.
(SINGING)
HARRIS: Of all in which you live and what came before you.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: The Kamala HQ account on social media gained over 600,000 followers on X in just over 24 hours, surpassing 1 million total followers. And we can't forget about the power of the Queen B, Beyonce.
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(SINGING)
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BASH: That's Kamala Harris walking out to her new theme song "Freedom" by Beyonce, who gave her permission to use the track.
Joining me now is Senior Editor of Glamour Magazine, Stephanie McNeal, who wrote a terrific article that caught our attention on this phenomenon. Thank you so much for being here. First of all, if you could just summarize, I mean, I know I just did broadly, but how this has become a thing, and in particular, taking what conservatives tried to use against the Vice President, even before she was at the top of the ticket, including that coconut tree thing, which is, I will tell our viewers, if you didn't already know, she was telling a story about something that her mother used to tell her and her sister about you didn't just fall out of a coconut tree.
And a lot of people thought that was extremely weird. And now this is being embraced plus plus.
STEPHANIE MCNEAL, SENIOR EDITOR, GLAMOUR MAGAZINE: I think that people just turned their minds and they started to embrace her weirdness because I think that -- I don't know. I think like politics can be no offense everyone kind of boring and I thought that it was just kind of funny and it was a funny anecdote. And I don't know they started to make what the internet calls fan cams of her just saying it over and over and over again.
And I think as kind of this rumbling started that Joe Biden might drop out, people started to be like, yes, why not? Why not the coconut tree lady? And it just kind of snowballed out of control from there, I think.
BASH: You know, and Stephanie, I -- we have been talking so much about how on the other side of the aisle, we have seen a lot of younger conservatives use not just social media, but in particular, the algorithms in social media to get into the feeds of maybe unsuspecting or apolitical people. And my question for you is, this now a way to get in to those young people on the other side of the aisle?
MCNEAL: I think absolutely because I think the number one thing that I've noticed is people are actually talking about the election and they're talking about it in a positive way. People seem excited. They seem like they're paying attention. They're energized.
And young people especially were not energized at all. We all know this by the Biden-Trump mashup. So I have really seen a huge tide turn. And I think one thing that is interesting to remember is I think people like to say, oh, you know, you write about Internet culture or you know about Internet culture.
But I think that that's kind of a misnomer because the Internet is culture. The Internet's more of a mirror that's reflecting back to us, what we're thinking, what we're, you know, wondering about, what we think is funny. And so, I think it sounds kind of crazy to be like, well, memes win the election. But like, I actually think it might be true.
BASH: Yes, I mean, look, there's a reason why the Biden campaign tried to clip some of his moments and send them out because they understand that that is how particularly young people consume information. The fact that it's happening organically and that now Harris campaign is jumping on it is just fascinating.
Please come back. I appreciate it. I encourage everybody to read Stephanie's piece on glamour.com. Thanks, Stephanie.
MCNEAL: Thank you so much.
BASH: And up next, a champion for her community. Remembering Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
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[12:54:22]
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REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D), TEXAS: She's an icon in Houston and in Texas politics. She always showed up for her constituents, just as she always showed up here.
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BASH: An emotional tribute on the House floor yesterday as friends and colleagues remember longtime Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D), TEXAS: 14, the bill is passed.
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BASH: Lee passed away on Friday after a tragically short battle with pancreatic cancer. The Texas Congresswoman served for more than 30 years, represented the Houston area and fought for racial and criminal justice.
[12:55:01]
She wrote the bill that established Juneteenth as a national holiday, recognizing the day enslaved people in Texas learned they were free by the Emancipation Proclamation. She joined us on Inside Politics just a month ago to commemorate the holiday.
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LEE: I want this to be part of America's history. I want people to rise up and consider Juneteenth a viable part of American history. I want the story to be a real story that our fellow Americans understand, no matter what their ethnic background. It is my goal, my hope, my prayer that we turn Juneteenth into America's holiday.
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BASH: And it is, and it is. I mean, your prayer was answered. And our prayers are now with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee's family. And we just want to note she was only 74 years old. May her memory be a blessing.
Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central will bring it back live after a quick break.
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