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Inside Politics

Harris On Discussions With Voters Ahead Of Possible 2nd Presidential Run: "The Status Quo Is Not Working"; Vance Appears On "The View" Amid Its Ongoing FCC Inquiry; Vance New Memoir Debuts As 2028 Intrigue Builds; CNN Poll: Nearly Half The Country Say They're Independent; Trump Meets With Ukraine's Zelenskyy On Sidelines At G7 Summit. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 16, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: -- are left to justice for other jobs for that reason. And so there's a little bit of fruit from the poison tree whenever there's a new investigation by this Justice Department. The other thing I've heard kind of gallows humor from Democrats is a wide expectation that other Democrats with ambition might be targeted by DOJ, might be audited, from that same lack of trust in the administration as Donald Trump is running it.

I've heard when this happened with Newsom, just talking to people, they -- Kelly came up, but other Democrats who might find themselves investigated for something, the response would be the Newsom response, which is, obviously, this is being done because I'm political threat to Donald Trump. Did the details even matter?

And the fallback will be, did the details matter for Rod Blagojevich because he endorsed Trump? Did the details matter for congressman and convicted insider trading because they support Trump? This is just the world we're living in, when the President can pardon his allies, and when the DOJ run by Todd Blanche at the moment, takes on his enemies

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that's a really, really important point, and good context as well. Since we're talking 2028, we're talking about Californians who may run in 2028, our colleague Elex Michaelson had an interview, had a sit down, a great sit down with Kamala Harris yesterday. And she was asked about this and made very clear the Justice Department, kind of all to David's point that what they've shown tells you everything you need to know.

But she also weighed in on kind of what she's been hearing and her listening to her. And I want people to listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The one thing I do know is at the end of it, there will be a lot of debris. And it would be irresponsible to then address that in a way that we only talk about what should we do, what do we need to do to rebuild, if we do that with any sense of nostalgia.

The reality is, even before, there were many things that were not working for a lot of people. The status quo is not working for a lot of people. And what the people are telling us is that they want things to be better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: What do you make of that?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, she's not wrong about that. The status quo is not working for a lot of Americans. I think there would be agreement on, but that's probably where it stops. I mean, she's still viewed as the status quo. So that would be the challenge for a former vice president of the United States who came from the U.S. Senate and who very much comes from the inside.

Look, it is very early, but not that early for the conversations of 2028 to begin. And right after the midterms, they obviously will begin in earnest. And I still think that there's not a clamoring out there necessarily for Kamala Harris to run again, but who else could beat her at this point if she would decide to run again in a Democratic primary?

So she has been listening. And obviously, one of the things she's hearing is that, you know, things were not necessarily good even before the Trump administration, but that gets to her administration. So that is still a challenge for her that she was not able to really prosecute in her own short presidential campaign.

MATTINGLY: What's your sense of things right now? Who are they clamoring for? Who are people clamoring for right now, Jamie Gangel?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Every Democrat I ask, I think David Axelrod gives this answer a lot, is someone's coming. They don't know who it is yet, but there's going to be this party yet to be named. I have to tell you, a number of people who saw that Harris interview texted me afterwards and said, oh, she's running.

I mean, when you go on a listening tour, that's what people see. So I think the other wannabes are going to have to keep that in mind.

MATTINGLY: It's a really important point. And if you're wondering, like, was Arnold Schwarzenegger also sitting on that stage? Yes, he was. And as we talk about other people who might come up, well, Arnold addressed that as well, which may surprise you. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ACTOR AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA: I was partially a big supporter of hers and voted for her because she promised me she would do immigration reform, meaning that an Austrian born can also run for president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: We think he was kidding about that.

Coming up -- maybe, maybe not. Who knows? How many of your fellow Americans say they aren't a Democrat or a Republican? We got a brand new CNN poll. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:47]

MATTINGLY: Vice President Vance is leaving no microphone behind in his quest to sell books and probably the Iran agreement as well. "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith", hit shelves today. Vance's media blitz began with a tour of the network morning shows, multiple interviews on Fox. He was here on CNN. He's talking to conservative podcasters like Glenn Beck. And then this morning, a stop with the ladies of The View.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANA NAVARRO, THE VIEW HOST: He said he loves the inflation.

JD VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What he said, Ana, what he said is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over. That's what he said.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's not what he said.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That wasn't --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you his -- wait, are you his interpreter or are you his Vice President?

VANCE: I don't know what the documents you're talking about, but I'm telling you, we are --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me go to break. Let me go to break.

VANCE: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me go to break, because people are looking at me going.

VANCE: And let's talk about the book. I'm here to sell books. "Communion." Buy my book, please.

I was a critic of Donald Trump back in 2015 and 2016. Now, obviously, I'm sitting here as the Vice President of the United States --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, what happen?

VANCE: -- in the Trump administration. Well, Joy, a little humility, actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: This is good -- that's good TV. That's good TV. I want to be very clear here. Dave Weigel has actually read the book, and we're dig into that and give a lot of credit for that. So I'm only about halfway through it. We're going to dig into that in a second.

But but, Jamie --

GANGEL: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- like the -- that's the media tour, we're going on The View, like credit to somebody for going into a four or five on one situation.

GANGEL: Points and --

MATTINGLY: What was your read on it?

[12:40:08]

GANGEL: Yes. Points for going on The View. Joy, Ana, you know, whoopee. That's -- I think what's interesting about the book is what's not in the book. There's no score settling. There's really no palace intrigue. This is a very safe book if you're running in 2028.

He does admit something that Donald Trump never does. He's willing to say it's OK to admit an error. My favorite part of the book, he admits that he regrets making fun of childless cat ladies, quote, "One of the dumbest things I ever said boneheaded."

MATTINGLY: We can actually pull that up. Again, Jamie --

GANGEL: Did I -- I'm ahead of the graphics. I'm sorry. I apologize.

MATTINGLY: Why do you keep apologizing? It's perfect. You know, before the quote, it's quite literally, as Jamie said, "It's OK to admit an error. One of the dumbest thing I ever said came when I argued that childless cat ladies across the Democratic Party were running our country into the ground.

It's interesting, David Weigel, as he kind of threads together his rather short political career with kind of how he's found his faith, where that faith has taken him, and what he thinks that faith may mean for maybe a governing agenda going forward. What was your take on it?

WEIGEL: Well, he said the childless cat leaves things multiple times and the larger context fits into that faith context, which is he gets into this when he's in Munich as a freshman senator, very new to the Senate and saying basically every world leader is incorrect about this. He points out that they're not very religious, that the cathedrals of Europe are a lot more barren.

And he'd starts a lot of things with family formation and giving up the quest for worldly goods and greatness. He's not apologetic, per se, but he admits one of his faults is he's always striving to get to the next rung, which he's at now. He's at a very, very high rung. But he talks about going to Yale Law School and wanting to clerk for the Supreme Court just because everyone else saw that as the biggest prize you could get.

And his point is, no, family is the prize. So raising a successful family is the prize. How do we do that for Americans? There is a lot of deep thought in here. As somebody reads every book by somebody who might run for president, a lot of thought about how you create that country. Is the Trump administration doing that, is a big question.

And that's not litigated in the book, as you're saying. It's not a score settling or this senator screwed us on something. But there's -- not every book is going to get into policy. It's got a little bit less than like "The Audacity of Hope," the Obama presidential book.

But you see his worldview. Then you see the conflict of that worldview and the Trump administration and whether it is matching up with the life that he wants everyone else to be able to build for himself. Like a lot about his family struggles with health care, not something the administration has been doling out to people who live in Appalachian are in need.

ZELENY: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Can we quickly pull up Dave's summer reading list, which is actually there's like 30 books that have come out from potential 2028 or -- yes, that's -- so that's like that's basically Dave, right, with the six month old, how he's reading all those books and the six month old is completely beyond me. More talented man than I am.

But Zeleny, to Dave's point here, one of the kind of areas where he got a little pen down on the view was they were asking him like square immigration and this administration's immigration enforcement strategy with your faith and where the church is on the faith. Watch his reaction to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: You guys have thrown a lot at me and I see we got 30 seconds left here, but let me say, number one --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're the Vice President. You can go long.

VANCE: I'd like to pick up on this theme because I think it's really important. We do have to strike a balance, of course, between enforcing our laws. We don't want to dehumanize people. That is the balance that look, law enforcement, what I'd say about this, law enforcement is always inherently not a very pretty process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Just the effort to square certain things, which I think is going to be something that if he decides to run in 2028, he's going to be have to dealing with every day.

ZELENY: No doubt about it. I mean, I think that the effort to square that is very much a work in progress. I mean, but he has a couple of audiences here, right? I mean, we have no idea what the -- what else he will be defending or explaining. We're celebrating at the end of the Trump administration here.

He'll be signing the Iran deal apparently on Friday. That may hang over him more than this book. I mean, the reality here is what we're seeing from JD Vance is an attempt to soften his edges, to pivot a bit and to step out when the President is out of the country here.

He's not been able to really have much of a spotlight because this President occupies really every ounce of oxygen in the political sphere. But I think that just when you look back at Hillbilly Elegy to now, it's an extraordinary sort of change in him and perhaps a metaphor that changes how he views the President, who he now serves. But the record, I think, will hang over him versus anything that he sort of writes in this book.

[12:45:03]

But it's an interesting look, and I have not read it all either yet. So I defer to you on the technical details as he talks about in the Iran deal.

MATTINGLY: By the way, for anybody who was wondering, the last vice president sitting who wrote an autobiography, that would be George H.W. Bush," Looking forward." I think we got a picture of that. So shout out to our team for pulling up that history, if it gives you any indication of what may be coming.

There's a really interesting moment earlier today. We don't have time to play the sound, but basically saying, like, I don't really need to make a 2028 decision yet. I don't -- like which I guess like you're the sitting vice president. So, like, yes, you're in a pretty good spot, but you're not writing an autobiography while you're sitting as the vice president if you're not (INAUDIBLE).

GANGEL: Correct. And there is also a reason why every day we watch the Marco Rubio versus JD Vance.

MATTINGLY: They're best friends. Did you hear that?

GANGEL: It's amazing.

MATTINGLY: Yes. No, it's a really good point. Why -- if there's one thing to take away from this book real quick, like what was it for you?

WEIGEL: Oh, he is an aspirational figure. He is, if he's running, an aspirational figure in the way that Trump is an aspirational figure. But Trump is a collectible, as much wealth as you can crush your enemies sort of sort of figure that the embodiment of wealth, whereas Vance is more.

I went that -- I started to go down that path. And then thanks in part to my friend Donald Trump, my friend Peter Thiel, I was able to build a Christian life with three soon to be four children. It is a different because if you -- present candidates tell stories, his story is a lot, I think, more relatable than the Trump story and different in a way that you were you're pointing at. Difficult to square with a lot of Trump policy.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Former CNN colleague, by the way, JD Vance. I'm sure that's features heavily in his new book.

Coming up, a brand new CNN poll shows independents are surging. Are the parties losing their grip? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:04]

MATTINGLY: Americans are declaring their independence. There's a pun in here somewhere from the two political parties in near record numbers. That's what we're learning from a new CNN poll out today. Our Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director, David Chalian, is making an Inside Politics cameo to take us inside these numbers.

That pun, which is brilliant. What are you seeing here?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, I mean, we do these benchmarking polls to just get a sense of how Americans are sorting themselves through what party they identify with. And what we discovered in this one is that independence, how Americans are identifying as independent, are on the rise.

47 percent of Americans in our poll identify as independent. That is a high, Phil, in more than 10 years that we've been checking in on this. And you'll see here Republicans, 26 percent of Americans identify as Republican, 27 percent identify as Democratic.

So the parties, the two major parties, Americans split evenly between them, basically. But the plurality here is independent. So just look at the trend over time here. So you see this goes back to 2021 up until now. You just see that purple line up top. That's the -- this is a trend story in American politics. More and more Americans, as they become less favorable towards the both major political parties, are aligning themselves more, calling themselves more independent.

MATTINGLY: When it comes to the Trump coalition, walk me through -- like, if you think about the two kind of groups that we all kind of locked in on and clearly were keys to the victory, it was younger men and it was kind of working class white Americans. Where do they stand right now?

CHALIAN: Yes. So if you look at white voters with no college degree, OK, working white Americans, working class white Americans, as we say, look here, those that identify as Democratic in 2024 and now are the same. But look here, Phil, independence. You see this big uptick arrow up.

33 percent back in 2024 said they were independent. Now it's 41 percent. That's coming at the expense of white non-college Americans who are not identifying as Republican anymore. 49 percent back in 2024 when Donald Trump was elected, as you said, part of his coalition, no doubt now down to 41 percent. That's white non-college. You also mentioned young men, male voters aged 18 to 44, male voters under the age of 45. Again, you see Democrats. No movement there. It's the same. But the same story here for those that identify as independent, that is on the rise from 45 percent in '24 to now 56 percent of young male voters under 45 identify as independent.

And that is coming at the expense of Republicans. It was at 27 percent in 2024. Now only 15 percent of this cohort identify as Republican.

MATTINGLY: Just real quick, because I have you here and I'm going to steal your insight. Contextualize it. Like, if you're the Trump campaign, if you're Republican campaigns right now, you see those numbers. What's your level of like, oh, we have a problem here?

CHALIAN: Well, certainly you would be, hey, this is not great that we're losing some market share from where we were in 2024. But if you're a Republican strategist, you're also saying it's not like the Democrats are making huge gains here. So it is a battle for that middle.

Now, I think you have to decide on a midterm strategy. Is it all about playing to the base? And is that going to be sufficient? Or do you have to make some appeals to these folks that are now sort of putting themselves more in the middle of American politics?

MATTINGLY: Yes, the question I think everybody right now behind closed doors is trying to figure out as they think about their summer and fall spend.

David Chalian, I appreciate you, my friend. Thanks so much.

CHALIAN: Sure. My pleasure.

MATTINGLY: Well up next, red, white and green? After $15 million facelift, algae has reclaimed Washington's most famous pool. Can crews restore the blue before America's 250th birthday?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:59:15]

MATTINGLY: Topping our political radar, the war in Iran is not the only war President Trump is discussing at the G7 summit in France. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talked with Trump on the sidelines of the summit. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was there, as well as Ukraine's defense minister. Zelenskyy says he had a positive conversation with Trump about getting more Patriot missiles for Ukraine.

And a win for the incumbent Republican senator from Alaska, Dan Sullivan, a loss for his Republican challenger, Dan Sullivan. Alaska's top election official ruled that challenger, challenger Sullivan is ineligible to appear on the August primary ballot. She said his candidacy was, quote, "filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and thereby compromise the ballot's fairness or neutrality." The ruling can still be appealed. Senator Sullivan had claimed Democrats were behind the other Sullivan's candidacy. They still deny it.

And the nation's capital is seeing green just days after it was repainted and refilled with water. The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial is no longer blue. Algae has turned to green once again. The algae appeared just a few days after the nearly $15 million renovation spearheaded by President Trump was finished and included painting the bottom of it blue.

An interior department spokesman calls it, quote, "residual algae" and says "it's a normal part of refilling it." The more you know.

Thanks for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts right now.