Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

First Harris-Trump Debate Set For One Week From Today; Trump Campaigning This Week In Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin; CNN Poll Of Polls: Harris Margin Similar To Past Democrats; Harris, Trump Gear Up For First And Potentially Only Debate; Biden, Netanyahu At Odds As Protests Rage In Israel; Harris Faces Divide Among Dems Over Israel, Gaza Policy; Mideast Tensions Play Out On The Campaign Trail. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 03, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, the mad dash to election day, new TV ad, bus tours, economic rollouts. The Harris campaign is trying to flood the campaign zone one week before the candidates meet face to face for the first time, literally for the first time, on the debate stage.

Plus, from a very pro-choice to the most pro-life president, Donald Trump is certainly contorting himself on the critical issue of abortion. I'll ask one of the former president's top supporters in Congress, what stance voters should believe.

And a CNN exclusive. The son of a former Republican presidential nominee is slamming the party's current nominee. For the first time, you'll hear Jimmy McCain searing reaction to Trump's conduct the hollowed grounds where several generations of his family are buried.

I'm Phil Mattingly in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

And first up, nine weeks away, 63 days away, just 1500 hours or so. Not that anyone is counting election day right around the corner. In some states, voting begins just days from now. If you live in the battleground state of North Carolina, ballots, they actually go out on Friday, which makes the first and potentially only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, that much more crucial.

It happens one week from today in the must win state of Pennsylvania. And it comes after weeks of back and forth between the two campaigns of scheduling and rules, as both sides realize this event could transform this now final stretch of the race.

We start things off with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, has been talking to resources inside the Harris campaign. Priscilla, what are you hearing about how the vice president is preparing for that debate at this point?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly an acknowledgement that this is going to be yet another pivotal moment in what has been a compressed race. The vice president has been familiarizing herself with the former president's record and his statements. Practice sessions have also -- already been underway since last month. And she is approaching this through a method that she is familiar with as a trial lawyer.

Now post the Democratic National Convention, sources told me that her pace of travel is going to slow down a little bit compared to the previous weeks, so that she could hunker down and focus on debate preparations again, recognizing that this is going to be an important moment. And one, where she will be toe-to-toe against former President Donald Trump.

Now, of course, it is still a debate about the debates, as they still work on those rules, particularly whether the mics are on or off. But certainly, heading into the debate, the Harris campaign is trying to frame this with the economy and reproductive rights.

The vice president heading to New Hampshire tomorrow, where she's going to be talking about entrepreneurship, small businesses and innovation. Again, this comes on the heels of another econ related ad released today where they are talking about affordability and fine tuning their message on an issue that is important to voters.

And then two, on reproductive rights, kicking off that reproductive rights tour today in Florida. One that's going to be composed of mostly surrogates, elected officials and the campaign says celebrities.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. You know the issues that they want to talk about that they at least think they can win over with voters. Priscilla Alvarez for us, thanks so much. The vice president will be in New Hampshire tomorrow, Pennsylvania on Friday, before turning her focus even more heavily to the debate prep.

Priscilla was just talking about the former president meanwhile, ramping up his campaign appearances. He's doing a Fox News Town Hall tomorrow in Pennsylvania before heading into New York on Thursday for an economic speech, rally on Saturday in Wisconsin. He did a podcast in there at some point too, that he'll be sitting down for.

I want to bring in some very excellent reporters on how these two candidates are preparing for next Tuesday, where this race stands right now. Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS NewsHour, Mario Parker of Bloomberg, and Ayesha Rascoe of NPR. Guys thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with -- I thought it was fascinating. There was like dueling personal advice columns in the New York Times this morning. The personal advisers were James Carville and Lindsey Graham. Same people, Mario, goes to for all of his personal advice.

But what in particular, Carville, in his column, saying, quote, if there's one thing Americans love, it's a train wreck. Ms. Harris must enable exactly what Trump's campaign is scared to death of, letting Trump be Trump. She should let him talk over her. Not just let him but goad him into spouting insane conspiracy theories about the previous election.

Lindsey Graham's opinion piece was, essentially, don't do that. Please don't do that. For the love of God, don't do that. Is that what Carville was laying out there, is that kind of where the Harris campaign sees this headed.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWS HOUR & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that's where they want it to head, which is that they want him to be his pure self, which is the Trump on the campaign trail. When he's on -- when he's on the stump, where he rambles off and he goes from one thought to the next, or he interjects, or he does personal attacks.

The Harris campaign, and Harris herself, you know, believe that when Trump personally attacks her, it helps her. And she doesn't necessarily respond directly to those personal attacks, whether they're racist or they're sexist. You know, she then tries to pivot more to policy or to what her argument is.

[12:05:00]

But I was talking to a Democratic strategist in North Carolina, that state the Democrats are trying to flip. Who is saying that every time Trump personally attacks her, and Republicans law personal attacks her, that it helps them with women in that state and also, especially with black voters in that state.

MATTINGLY: To that point, where is the race right now? Like, if you could big picture where things are, it's obviously been an insane six weeks. Things seem to be settling in a little bit. What should that tell people?

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST, NPR "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": I mean, it tells people that things are very close, like we live in a very divided country, almost evenly divided. And the fact is, when it comes to the Electoral College, there's no way that Harris can feel very comfortable right now. She would need to be up four or five points nationally to really feel safe. She's not there yet.

Now, she has brought a lot of Democrats home, but she has not -- she doesn't have that comfortable lead yet. And I have to say that when it comes to Trump, you know, kind of trying to get him to be more demure, if we use that word, it never happens, right?

Like -- and I, you know, I've done a lot of reporting on this. In 2018, I looked at thousands of his tweets and the way that he tweets about black people. When black people do something are critical of him. His go to line is to question their intelligence, to question their competence.

Like this is something that I have looked at, I have studied. It is his go to thing. And I think that it will be very difficult for him to get on that stage and not call Kamala Harris stupid or to question her intelligence. We've seen this before with him. He's already done it. I think it's going to be very hard for him. MATTINGLY: Yeah. The subtext of the Graham opinion piece is, literally, don't do -- please don't do that. Please don't do that. Talk about your record. Talk about policies. Talk about contrast. One of the contrasts Trump's advisers want him to talk about is the economy. And while Harris has closed the gap a little bit on kind of the divide in terms of how voters view Trump on the economy versus where they were with Biden, with her as well. It is clear that's a vulnerability.

There's no question about it, based on how people feel. I was fascinated as the Harris team has rolled out some of the economic proposals, Mario, our Bloomberg person, so you got to talk about the economy that her ad that they released today said this, watch/

(PLAYING VIDEO)

MATTINGLY: We know prices are what they want to focus on. What they try and want to try and at least mollify in terms of the political disadvantage to it. But focusing on the price gouging proposal, which has taken a lot of heat from economists on both sides and the corporations are responsible for prices at the grocery stores, which is tenuous at best, when you look at the actual market dynamics. Clearly, they're seeing that politically. They don't really care what the economists' thing, this works.

MARIO PARKER, NATIONAL POLITICS TEAM LEADER, BLOOMBERG: Yeah. Because what you're saying here, you mentioned, Phil, the fact that she's cut into Trump's lead. He had a double-digit lead earlier against Joe Biden, that's trickled down to maybe a single-digits, three points or so.

What we're seeing is voters aren't asking for a lot. What voters are asking for is an acknowledgement of the economic pain that they felt over the last couple of years as we recover from the post covid time period.

Biden. What voters were frustrated with about Biden was that he was on the defensive on the trail. He was touting the Inflation Reduction Act. He was looking at some of the figures. Those figures -- the economic figures that were coming out of Washington D.C., just weren't feeling, you know, they weren't resonating with voters at the grocery store.

What you see Kamala Harris doing is acknowledging the pain, and voters are giving her the credit for it. She's cut into Trump's lead. And a lot of that is just that sympathy that she -- and empathy that she's given to voters.

MATTINGLY: Laura, what's interesting to me, you talk to some Democrats, and they say, you don't need to do -- just like a whole raft of new specific policy proposals. She did the price gouging one. She's kind of co-opted. Trump's no tax on tips. There are a bunch of housing proposals, which were largely built on where the Biden administration was. Do you think they're kind of done with the new economy proposal space? Or do they see opportunity to present more stuff in the weeks ahead? BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, I think we're going to hear more from her tomorrow, specifically on small businesses. And she's going to repeat what she has done -- talked about already in terms of housing and the child tax credit, which goes, as you said, on top of what Biden had already proposed.

But a lot of Democrats that I talked to say the same thing. Is what they've told you, Phil, which is that they don't think she needs to be pushing out white papers, you know, or really detailed policy proposals. Because again, this election to this point has been about vibes, you know. And despite all the economic markers and the economy moving in a good direction, voters still thought it was bad.

And so, you see with that ad that Harris is trying to play off of those vibes, which is, here's someone that you can blame its corporations. I'm going to try to, you know, change prices, whether it's at house -- whether it's with housing, or whether it's with, you know, putting more money in your pocketbook if you have children or things like that.

[12:10:00]

So, I think that she's not going to necessarily lay out a bunch of very specific policy proposals. There is one voting bloc, though, that I've been talking to that may want more, which is those Nikki Haley primary voters. I was just talking to some of them in Arizona, and they were saying, you know, these are -- some of them are two-time Trump voters, not interested in voting for Trump again. They want to potentially vote for Harris, but they do say that they want to see more from her on economy.

MATTINGLY: Which is fascinating, which by the way, we got vibes and demure. And we're not allowed to say brat anymore, that was announced dead earlier today. Rest in peace. This does seem back in the space of where it's all going to come down to, like 200,000 people in six or seven states. Democrats have come home on some level. And so, to Laura's great point, is that -- how do you message that? How do you try and what's the competition like?

RASCOE: It's very difficult because you have this small slice of the electorate that has somehow not made up their mind about what they're going to do yet. And these are low information voters. These are people who are not -- they're not watching Inside Politics, right?

MATTINGLY: Should be.

RASCOE: But listen, they should be and listening to Weekend Edition, but they're not. So, these are the people who they're trying to reach out to. I think what you've seen a bit is with, you know, with Kamala Harris. They're trying to talk about like freedom, and in terms of like freedom to like mind your own business, be -- you know, be the parent that you want to be, reproductive rights, things like that.

They're trying to kind of tap into that to maybe get those people who might be a little more conservative, who are generally going to be thinking about getting the government out their business. But, yeah, I mean, this is a very tight race like -- and it's going to be fought on those margins.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. I mean, we're in the sprint part of this, but it is going to be a grind. There's no question about. All right guys, stick around. Lot more to get to, next. Blazing protests, palpable tensions. We'll bring you the latest out of Israel and the response from the White House. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Shocking. New video out of Israel protesters breaking through police barricades near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence. The fiery demonstrations come as the prime minister navigates war with Hamas and simmering tensions with his closest allies. Three days since six hostages, including one American, were found murdered in a Gaza tunnel.

President Biden has not spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president told reporters last night they'd speak, quote, eventually may not be a friendly conversation whenever it happens. Biden also told reporters yesterday that his embattled counterpart hasn't done enough to reach a deal with Hamas, a comment that infuriated the Israeli government.

CNN's Arlette Saenz joins us live from the White House. Arlette, obviously, there was a Situation Room meeting yesterday morning. There's not been a lot publicly said since. What are people inside the building behind you saying right now about where things stand?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, President Biden has said that they are in the middle of negotiations that he believes he could soon be close to presenting some type of final deal to the two sides as they're trying to achieve this hostage and ceasefire agreement.

But the reality here is that the path to potentially getting to an agreement remains entirely unclear, as you have both the Israelis and Hamas dug in on their positions. Now, President Biden yesterday laid bare just the latest tension point between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

When he said that it's his belief, he has not done enough to move these hostage negotiations along. The Israelis bristled at that, saying that they've come to these conversations in a serious matter. Later, a U.S. official saying that the president has made clear that he believes Hamas is responsible for the latest hostage deaths, but also stressing that Israel needs to approach this matter with a sense of urgency.

Now, the president convened his national security team yesterday in the Situation Room to talk about the next steps that they can take to try to reach some type of an agreement. National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, was working the phones with Israeli and Qatari officials yesterday to try to advance these negotiations. But it still remains unclear what track, what path this will take, and whether they can get the side -- both sides to an agreement?

Now, in that meeting yesterday was also Vice President Kamala Harris, who so far, really has not departed from President Biden when it comes to their policy towards Israel. That is something that she stressed in an interview. She did with our colleague Dana Bash just last week.

We are also waiting to hear from President Biden directly. Today he will be hosting an event relating to how his agenda has impacted Americans, but it could be an opportunity for him to also addressed questions related to the latest situation in these talks.

As both the presidents and other officials have stressed that there is some urgency to try to get this deal done. The question is, what can they do to try to get Israel, try to get Hamas into an agreement to push this across the finish line?

MATTINGLY: All right. Arlette Saenz, live from the North Lawn. Thanks so much. My panel is back. All four of us have covered that building in this administration, where they've dealt with no shortage of intractable issues on national security.

Mario, have you ever seen something that has gone on for this long where there is -- every day it's -- there's urgency, we're negotiating, we're getting in the weeds, we're in the granular details. And I don't see a path forward here.

PARKER: And every six weeks, President Biden expresses optimism, we're close to a deal, and then something happens where we backslide there. Every six weeks or so, we have this segment or this news cycle where we talk about his frustrations with Benjamin Netanyahu. The back and forth between the two men, a terse phone call, rinse and repeat.

[12:20:00]

I mean, it's an albatross on administration. It's an albatross on Biden, who has prided himself on being a foreign policy leader here. His frustrations again with Netanyahu bubbled over to the surface. So far, one thing that is interesting is the fact that Kamala Harris hasn't quite been punished for this as well by voters right, the uncommitted movement during the primary. You saw some protests at the DNC, but for the most part, none of those protests became unruly.

Again, to the point where we made about the economy, it seems like the voters and the protesters at least, are giving her a shot, just by her having a little bit of empathy, if not having a full departure from Biden's doctrine here.

MATTINGLY: It's been one of the biggest questions, why? Why are voters giving her some space on this, right?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, I think that voters wanted a change. They wanted a change in this what was a rematch. They didn't want to see Biden and Trump go head-to-head. And the fact that Harris gave them that -- meant that a number of base voters, voters of color, young voters, just immediately came back to her because she gave them something that they had been wanting for so long.

Now, there are still uncommitted voters that haven't heard what they want to hear from her. But they also say that they feel as though she is much more empathetic than they believe Biden has been in terms of Palestinians and in terms of Gaza.

Now the question is, is what Biden said yesterday, saying -- really calling out Netanyahu, even though it was very brief. Does Harris start to do that more and more? Now, she has been stronger when she talks about Gaza than Biden over the last few months.

But does she start to separate more and more, and say that -- that ultimately, it's Netanyahu who is preventing them from reaching a deal and use harsher language when she talks about how the negotiations are going or not.

MATTINGLY: No. It's a great point. Because there is a fascinating balancing act going on within the Democratic Party, both obviously the young voters, voters of color, who had significant issues with this in polling, but also Jewish voters, who are a democratic constituency who you have to try and figure out.

And I think one of the things that's been interesting is Republicans trying to find a way to continue to elevate this issue, including an ad we saw in Michigan, with Mario's point, I think it's 13 percent of voters in that primary were uncommitted or not committed. And we've now seen this, watch?

(PLAYING VIDEO)

MATTINGLY: Those are digital ads, it's not a big TV buy. It's a GOP linked group, but clearly trying to start some stuff here.

RASCOE: They're trying to because even though much of the base has come, you know, come home to the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris. The issue is, when we talk about how tight this race is, they have to be afraid that there could be enough people who are frustrated on the Israel issue, on in places like Michigan, who are like, they don't feel like enough has been done to counter what they believe are harmful actions by Israel and Gaza, who will just stay home, who may not vote.

And will that be enough? Could that be enough to put Trump over the top? So there has to be a concern about that. Now, of course, in Pennsylvania, you may have the opposite concern, right? And so, I think that is why you may see these sorts of ads from the Republicans trying to poke a little bit, because all they're trying to do is get at those margins. They don't need everybody to stay home. They just need a few and they can make a big difference.

MATTINGLY: It's such a good point because people frame it as -- I think the vice president did at one point too, with her response to protesters during debate, where it's a binary choice. It's Harris or Trump? No, there's a third option here, which is stay home. And I think the Harris campaign has to be cognizant of that, right. PARKER: Yeah. No, absolutely. To Ayesha's point, I mean the Democrats, when I speak with him, they're worried about this last mile, these last few yards, and getting these uncommitted voters who are largely uneducated, who don't tune in to pop the political cycle, who may be impulsive.

They're worried about those people being able to turn those folks out. So, anything to Ayesha's point, anything to dissuade them, he who hesitates is lost. And so, if you get them just a waiver, just a little bit, there you go.

MATTINGLY: Laura, you were on the floor throughout the convention in Chicago. Were you surprised? There just wasn't a lot. I wasn't sure what to expect, given how much should change. It was so fluid. But were you surprised by the fact there wasn't a huge kind of issue on this issue?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I was. I mean, they did it all in a very organized, strategic way, in terms of the uncommitted delegates. You know, they had some press conferences alongside of the DNC. There weren't really any major outbursts on the floor of the convention. There were a few ones during Biden's speech, a small one during Obama's speech.

[12:25:00]

When he thanked Biden, you know, people calling for a free Palestine, but they were all very small. The overwhelming feeling on the floor was of unity. And some of the uncommitted delegates even said, you know, that they wanted to contribute to that unity, feeling that Democrats were feeling. They just needed a bit more from Harris on this specific issue.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. It was fascinating to watch -- it'll be fascinating to watch in the weeks ahead. I got to stick around. When we come back, the son of a Republican titan turned punching bag, condemns Donald Trump. CNN's exclusive interview with Jimmy McCain, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]