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CNN Live Event/Special
Lara Trump Speaks At The Republican National Convention; CNN Covers The Republican National Convention In Milwaukee; Daniel Dale Fact-Checks RNC Speeches. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired July 16, 2024 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
LARA TRUMP, CO-CHAIRMAN OF RNC: At a Trump rally, you're not viewed as your profession, your religion or the color of your skin. You're viewed as one thing: An American.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Last Saturday was a jarring reminder that we as Americans must always remember, there is more that unites us than divides us.
(APPLAUSE)
We all want this country to be great even if we don't always agree on the best way of doing that. And with every bone in my body, I can tell you that all Donald Trump wants to do and has ever wanted to do is make this country great again for all of us.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Proverbs 28 reads, the wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
And that truly epitomizes Donald Trump. He is a lion.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
He is bold, he is strong, he is fearless, and he is exactly what this country needs right now.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Let's not forget what life actually looked like under President Donald Trump. Trade deals across the world that benefited our economy, allied countries paying their fair share --
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
-- a safe and secure southern border --
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING) -- record low unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and women, record investment in historically Black colleges and universities, the creation of the United States Space Force --
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
-- the most comprehensive prison reform in decades. How about the peace agreements in the Middle East that they said would never happen?
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
The largest tax cuts in American history, our energy independence --
(APPLAUSE)
-- massive amounts of red tape cut, and no new wars when Donald J. Trump was president.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Maybe, most importantly though, you could actually feel it in your everyday life. Now you didn't have to love everything that he tweeted, but you cannot deny you were better off when Donald Trump was in office.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Americans were finally able to start saving money, home prices were affordable, and gas hit a low of $1.87 a gallon.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
As I speak here tonight, many of our fellow Americans don't know how they'll pay for their next trip to the grocery store, new clothes for their children or this month's rent.
Many of our fellow Americans worry that we are on the verge of a major terror attack here on American soil. Many of our fellow Americans don't think their own children will be able to establish a better life than they themselves currently have. Many of our fellow Americans are right now sitting and wondering how on earth this country could have moved in the wrong direction and so quickly.
The Democrats and the media know that they cannot convince you, the American people, that your life is better off now, because it's not. So, what will they do? They'll try to sell you on some outrageous narrative about the terrible things that Donald Trump will do if he becomes president. But you don't have to imagine what it would be like. All you have to do is remember what it was like.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
I know. Oh, yeah.
CROWD: Trump! Trump! Trump! [23:05:00]
TRUMP: I know what you hear out there about Donald Trump. I know what you read, what the media tells you, and what out-of-touch celebrities on the left say about this man. But when I look at Donald Trump, I see a wonderful father, father-in-law and, of course, grandfather to my two young children, Luke and Carolina.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
I know that I'm lucky enough to get to call him my father-in-law and see him a little differently than all of you. But it's through that lens, that I sometimes wish more people could see him. This is a man who has sacrificed for his family, and a man who has truly sacrificed for his country.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Donald Trump didn't need to run for president for fame or money. Trust me, we all know he already had plenty of that. I'll tell you why he did it, and why he continues on, even in the face of the unthinkable, because he loves this country.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: He did it for his grandchildren, for your children and grandchildren, and for the generations to come. I have seen this man dragged through hell and back, in and out of courtrooms, indictments, impeachments, mugshots, and even an assassination attempt. And yet, he has never backed down.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
CROWD: Trump! Trump! Trump! We love Trump! We love Trump! We love Trump!
TRUMP: I'll never forget watching my two children run up to him with their drawings and hugs for grandpa, just moments before he took the elevator down in Trump Tower to address the media the day after his wrongful conviction. Despite everything else he had going on, he had no other focus in the entire world, just a man relishing time with his grandchildren. It's a side of Donald Trump that not enough people get to see. Maybe you got to see a side of Donald Trump on Saturday that you were not sure existed, until you saw it with your own eyes.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said, the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
There's no doubt that Saturday was one of the most frightening moments of my father-in-law's life. Millimeters separated him from life and certain death. And yet, it was in the midst of it all, as he was jostled off stage by Secret Service, that he knew how defining that moment would be for our country, and he hoisted his fist in the air.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
CROWD: Trump! Trump! Trump!
TRUMP: It was not just for the audience at the rally, not just for his supporters tuning in, but for all of America. And as a signal to the world that no matter what, America will always prevail.
[23:10:05]
(APPLAUSE)
Though it has been strained and attacked, no enemy, no force, not even a bullet is strong enough to break our American grit and our American soul.
(APPLAUSE)
We are the country whose founders gave their fortunes, freedom, and lives to pursue the dream of a free society. We are the country of Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ford, and Harriet Tubman. We are the country who fought and won two world wars.
(APPLAUSE)
And we are the country who always rises to meet the moment, no matter how insurmountable the task. And in that split second on Saturday, Donald Trump reminded us all of that very history and who we are at our core as a nation. That is the Donald Trump that I know.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
He is an American. An American who conquered the business world. An American who made himself a household name. An American who was beloved by politicians and fellow celebrities for decades, until he ran for office with an "R" next to his name. An American whom even Barack Obama admits people consider the American dream.
(APPLAUSE)
And instead of sailing off into the sunset after an illustrious real estate and television career, he decided to give back. He decided to bring some of the things that had made him so successful in life to all of you, in order to improve the lives of all Americans, Black, white, brown, gay, straight, all Americans, because that's the man that Donald Trump is.
(APPLAUSE)
I can tell you that my personal experience with Donald Trump has shown me his heart. There wasn't a second that he made this small-town girl who was way out of her element in New York City feel anything but welcomed and part of the family. And if not for the support and encouragement of my father-in-law, I wouldn't be where I am today. It has been said by many that Donald Trump sees things in people that they don't even recognize in themselves. In 2016, when he asked me to help him win my home state of North Carolina --
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
(LAUGHTER)
I'll be honest, I was terrified. I had no idea how I would make it happen, but he knew I would, and I did. When I was given an opportunity to join a television network as a commentator, it was the push and support of my father-in-law that gave me the confidence to take that job. Always the first one to call or text me after a TV hit and tell me, great job, keep going.
(LAUGHTER)
Not bad, right?
(LAUGHTER)
Or even a few months ago, when he called and asked me to be the co- chair of our party.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
(LAUGHTER)
He showed me potential in myself that I couldn't yet see. So, tonight, to my father-in-law, I want to say thank you.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Thank you for your resilience, thank you for continuing on, thank you for raising wonderful kids, thank you for being an amazing grandfather, thank you for never giving up on me, and thank you for never giving up on our country.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: Tonight, I come to you not as the co-chair of the RNC, not as the daughter-in-law of the candidate.
[23:15:00]
Tonight, I come to you as a mom and as a citizen of this country. For those of you watching who have never voted for Donald Trump, I know what the media and his political opponents have tried to tell you about this man. Believe me, I have seen and heard it all. But I have also seen the truth. I am proud to know Donald Trump, to campaign for him, to vote for him, and to raise his grandchildren.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING) He will do what is necessary to protect you, protect your family, and protect this country, because Donald Trump wants us all to be successful, to be safe, to be happy, to be strong, and to be great again.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Tonight, I'm asking you to vote, not for the Donald Trump you see flashed on your TV every day, splashed across the headlines. Tonight, I'm asking you to vote for the Donald Trump that Luke and Carolina called grandpa. I'm asking you to vote for the Donald Trump that my husband, Eric, calls dad. I'm asking you to vote for the Donald Trump that I call my father-in-law. I'm asking you to vote for the Donald Trump who can and will make America great once again for all of us.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. We love you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Lara Trump, wife of Trump's son, Eric Trump. She is the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, former TV producer for "Inside Edition" and former Fox News contributor.
John King, we've heard from a lot of individuals tonight. Lara Trump, Senator Marco Rubio, obviously heard from Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis as well. Your thoughts?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, number one, as you mentioned them, Cruz and Rubio, opponents in 2016. DeSantis and Haley, opponents in this past campaign. Trump has a history of isolating, punishing, shoving his opponents out, blocking them out, and yet he sat there tonight and listened to all their speeches.
Why? Look around this hall. He does not have to fear them anymore. He doesn't have to worry about them anymore. There is no one in the Republican Party that is a threat to his leadership. So, he sits there and listens to them say vote for Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
We've talked about this before. If you have any doubts, anybody out there thinks the takeover is somehow incomplete, you're wrong. This is Donald Trump's party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Fascinating for them in the sense that they still have national political aspirations. And, you know, Trump has picked J.D. Vance, about to be 40 years old. It doesn't mean he's the automatic heir. It doesn't mean the voters will agree with that. But if Donald Trump keeps the hold over the party that he has in this room, number one, right now, he's on a path to winning. The other point I would make about that is that, you know, the
president's party always goes last. The president of the United States also decided to have an early debate. The calendar of this campaign may become Joe Biden's enemy.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Also --
KING: The debate put him in such a horrible position. And now, he has to wait a month for his convention, and all of the numbers say he is in deep trouble.
COLLINS: The other thing, too, when you watch Lara Trump, Jake, as you mentioned, she is not just the daughter-in-law, she is now the co- chair of the Republican National Committee. To think back to 2016 when we were at the convention then, the RNC was one of the biggest things standing in Trump's way, in his view. That is how he felt in the 2016 campaign, that they were against him, that they abandoned him after the Access Hollywood tape came out.
And so, to see her getting a 21-minute speaking slot, when Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who wants to be the majority leader, should they retake the majorities in that race, he got four minutes earlier, it speaks to the weight that they give her and the emphasis and the standing that she has.
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I was going to say, to your point about the RNC, the night before the election, the chair of the RNC and the leadership of the RNC went to New York, to the networks, to explain how Trump's loss was not their fault.
TAPPER: You're talking about in 2016.
URBAN: In 2016.
TAPPER: Yeah.
URBAN: That is the difference between the party today --
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.
URBAN: -- and the party in 2016. Completely at odds, as you're saying.
BASH: Can I just say something else about the Lara Trump speech and connect it to another speech that really held this room in a way that we haven't seen a lot of, and that is Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
And the connection is that they are both women who know the former president well and are trying to do something that certainly the J.D. Vance pick didn't do, the Marco Rubio speech, the Ted Cruz speech, and the above, which is to try to humanize him --
TAPPER: Yeah.
[23:20:00] BASH: -- to try to dispel all of the things that we have seen on his social media and other very well-reported incidents that he has had.
TAPPER: In fact -- let me just interrupt for one second. We have a clip from Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I'd love to get your response.
BASH: Okay, great.
TAPPER: Here's a little clip from Governor Sanders of Arkansas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS (R-AR): He pulled me aside, looked me in the eye, and said, Sarah, you're smart, you're beautiful, you're tough, and they attack you because you're good at your job. Never let them stop fighting.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: That was a story she told about President Trump backing her up after, apparently, she had been criticized by some MSNBC anchors.
BASH: Because of -- because of her appearance, and the juxtaposition of that story with the Donald Trump that we saw when he first came on the political scene, his fights with Rosie O'Donnell, his fights with other women, which put him in not very good stead with a lot of female voters. He still struggles with those voters, and those voters are going to once again determine.
TAPPER: Just to give a little back story, I don't want to get too much into the Donald Trump versus MSNBC bit, but I think he insulted Mika based on -- Mika Brzezinski based on her physical appearance.
BASH: Exactly, that's my point.
TAPPER: But -- I mean --
BASH: They're trying to inoculate that --
TAPPER: Yeah.
BASH: -- and tell a different version of the story. I'm totally agreeing with you. I mean, we can't forget all of the comments that we heard from him about women. And what was so clearly intentional with that Sarah Huckabee Sanders story, saying he pulled her aside privately and said, don't let them -- don't let them upset you, that was a very clear, intentional way to try to show another side of him. I don't know that suburban women or even men who find the previous behavior repugnant are going to buy that, but it certainly was an attempt to try.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And that is -- look, this is a convention. This is what they're supposed to do, is to paint the best picture of the candidate. But with Donald Trump, it's not -- I mean, frankly, he's a public figure, he's a political figure. It's really not about what he's like when nobody is looking. It's also about what he is like when everyone is looking. That has been his problem consistently on the political stage.
I thought that the juxtaposition of this picture of Trump as this sort of soft, loving person, parent, grandparent, was so interesting on the very same night that they're also painting an extremely dark picture of the country on crime, on immigration, on all of these other issues.
And those two things going hand-in-hand, maybe it was intended to sort of soften the effect of some of the harsher stories on crime, but I'm not sure what to make of it. I also think that the American people -- I think it was Sarah Huckabee Sanders who said this herself. They have lived through Donald Trump. They remember those years. They remember his candidacies in 2016 and 2020. And I think it's going to be hard for them to just tell people that he is, you know, a kind gentleman in private when they have seen him in public doing quite the opposite.
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Jake, one of the other things that struck me about this evening is that there was a lot of talk in the aftermath of the shooting on Saturday that there was going to be unity and there was going to be an effort to take down the temperature, and it really lasted until tonight.
And there were -- over and over again, there were efforts. First, DeSantis said, Donald Trump has been demonized, he has been sued, he has been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life. He didn't make a direct connection there. But later on, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson did. He said, first they tried to ruin his reputation, then they tried to bankrupt him, then they tried to put him in prison, and then last weekend, they tried to kill him.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.
WALLACE: Uh, I don't know who "they" is, but there was the sense of victimization, the sense of us against them. There was a lot of media bashing tonight.
AXELROD: Yeah.
WALLACE: This was very much a different tone than what we were hearing about in the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Saturday.
AXELROD: From a clinical standpoint, having been involved in trying to put these things together, this was a well-orchestrated night. They did a lot of business tonight.
(COUGHING)
They spent part of the night trying to scare the hell out of people, and in some very disingenuous ways at times. And, you know, I'm still getting my arms around the back the blue thing, and I'm wondering what the families of the officers who were killed on January 6th were thinking when they watched that.
But setting that aside, the speakers at the end, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, certainly Lara Trump, but even Marco Rubio, they -- this was a -- they were sanding down the sharp edges on Donald Trump, who is seen by a lot of people as crass and cruel and vengeful.
[23:25:08]
And this was designed to take that down, some. And the fact that he had -- that he comes under these circumstances and is clearly subdued and somber because of what happened, has created an environment in which -- I thought it was pretty effective tonight.
URBAN: Well, I just want to say, to your point on the back the blue piece, Madeline Brame, who was the speaker, who talked about backing the blue, whose son in the combat was the military veteran, the army veteran who was stabbed, I think she was the highlight of the night. I mean, her speech was incredibly compelling, incredibly powerful. You can hear a pin drop in here, I think.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
And I think that they should have, Abby and I talked about this, they should have let -- maybe have played a little music, let that sit in a little bit --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
URBAN: -- because that was such a powerful moment. And it really, I think, affected people here. I don't know how it affected people on television. It affected me. I think she was a really great messenger. Her message was great.
PHILLIP: And look, all of those stories were --
URBAN: Very compelling.
PHILLIP: -- super powerful.
URBAN: Those everyday people.
PHILLIP: The mother who lost her son to fentanyl.
URBAN: Yup.
PHILLIP: I think it's always a good call at these conventions to lean on real people. However, it's incumbent upon us to point out that crime is down in this country. That immigrants are not more likely to commit crime in this country. That fentanyl, David pointed this out, fentanyl is not mostly coming over from the border.
So, the stories are important, but so are the actual facts behind the argument that's being made. And ultimately, um, you know, the families are entitled to feel how they -- how they feel about the tragedies that happened to them. But from a factual perspective, some of those things are not trending in the same direction as they were painted on that stage behind us.
URBAN: But those are the top issues. Immigration, crime in this campaign. Those are the top issues as identified by voters.
PHILLIP: Well, they were -- I think they were the top issues. The economy is still one of the biggest issues. And again, crime is down like 30%.
TAPPER: So --
PHILLIP: So, it's a significant drop and it's improving in people's lives. It matters.
TAPPER: As we -- as we hear the beautiful song by Creed, I want to throw it back to you.
(LAUGHTER)
COLLINS: Jake's favorite band. You have Shazam, right?
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: Anderson?
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: A lot to talk to, a lot to digest. Alyssa, what stands out to you?
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: So, watching Trump just --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
-- take this all in, kind of reminded me of his old cabinet meetings where he would kick them off, and everyone would go around the horn and just praise him for a while, because I was thinking, like, is he bored watching these speeches? No, he loves seeing people line up, talk about his accomplishments and why they're with him.
And to John King's point, he was not threatened by a single person out there because the remaking of the party into the Trump party has happened. He can have Ruby out there, he can have Haley out there, and that was -- that was shown tonight.
But these are also nights -- conventions are a time for stars to rise and potentially stars to fall. And I think in some ways, the Rubios, the Rick Scotts, they didn't -- they kind of just -- they fell a little flat tonight. And those are from the before times before Trump. You see someone like a Sarah Sanders. That was what a Trump -- you know, a 2028, somebody with a national profile. That's the kind of speech you're going to see. So, a little bit of kind of the separation of the old guard and the new guard.
COOPER: Is time now going to be divided between B.T. and A.T.?
(LAUGHTER)
GRIFFIN: Yes, that's how we'll measure it.
COOPER: Shermichael? SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think you can break this down to three different themes. We heard a lot about continuity. People who are tired of broken promises. You heard the one mother whose son was an army veteran who lost his life to an illegal immigrant. We heard a lot about stability, if you want economic stability for the working class, for lower end workers, low wage workers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
We heard a lot about opportunity, if you want a future that's better than the past. And you contrast that with Joe Biden. You have an economy that, frankly, is hard for most people. The idea of a middle class is almost something of a healthy in days, to be quite frank. You think about an open border where the doors are saying, come on into America. And Americans are asking themselves, Anderson, what about me? Well, the Republican Party is answering that question. We have the solutions for you.
COOPER: Um -- well --
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, actually, I didn't hear a lot of solutions tonight. I mean, look, conventions are about storytelling. And I think there were a lot of really effective moments --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
-- for the Republicans tonight. I think a lot of the personal stories that we heard from some of those speakers, no doubt they were powerful. There actually wasn't a whole lot of -- there weren't a lot of solutions put on the table. There was a lot of criticizing Joe Biden. There was a lot of focus on crime and immigration. And, again, kind of painting this picture of America as a dark place where crime is running rampant. I think, you know, Abby Phillip was rightly saying, you know, crime is actually, in fact, down. And I would expect we're going to hear the Democrats make that case.
[23:30:01]
I mean, again, this is the thing about conventions. They are a, you know, a moment where you get to put forward your message.
COOPER: Let's look at some facts. Let's just look at some facts right now because we have a lot of prominent Republicans taking the stage tonight, including members of the Republican House leadership. I want to bring in our fact checker, senior reporter Daniel Dale. Daniel, you listened to all of tonight's speeches. Talk a little bit about what stood out to you.
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, Anderson, there was a lot of stuff you can't really try to fact check. There were personal stories, general praise of Trump, broad denunciations of Biden, subjective accusations that Biden was personally responsible for drug overdose deaths, which I think we should note rose under President Trump as well. But there was also some significant inaccuracy we can check. Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake made a wildly false claim that her Democratic opponent, Ruben Gallego, voted to allow illegal immigrants to vote in this election. That's a brazen distortion of a recent House vote on voter registration requirements. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas claimed with no evidence at all that Democrats deliberately let in illegal immigrants to somehow get their votes. Non-citizens cannot legally vote, and the data shows almost never do.
And I thought it was notable that some of the most significant false or misleading claims tonight came from members of the House Republican leadership. Listen to what GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and House Speaker Mike Johnson said about violent crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): Biden's violent crime crisis, fueled by Democrats, pro-criminal, sanctuary cities, and defund the police policies like we have seen in my home state of New York.
MIKE JOHNSON, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We can't survive the dramatic increases in violence, crime and drugs that the Democrats' policies have brought upon our communities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: Well, I'll do it again. This claim that there have been dramatic increases in violence and crime under Biden is false. In fact, both violent crime and property crime have fallen under President Biden, and there have been big declines over the last year and a half. Preliminary figures from the FBI show that violent crime is down roughly 6% in 2023, and then it dropped by a staggering 15% in the first quarter of 2024. The declines in murder in particular were even bigger. And so, now, key fact here, murder in particular and violent crime in general are both below where they were in 2020, Trump's last year in office.
Now, Congresswoman Stefanik's claim of a Biden violent crime crisis is subjective, I guess, but she certainly did not note that Trump had a violent crime crisis when he had worse numbers. I'm going to cough.
Now, I'll caution again, this is preliminary data. A big chunk of local communities have not submitted their numbers yet, so the precise extent of the decline in violent crime is to be determined, but it's clearly falling and not rising.
And I also want to address, Anderson, a claim from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on the Biden administration's record on U.S. energy production. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Let's talk energy. They've eroded the American energy dominance that President Trump delivered. We will end the Democrats' assault on American energy once and for all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This claim about a Biden-era democratic assault on American energy is misleading at very best. While it's true that Biden is pushing for a transition to renewables, the U.S. under Biden is producing more crude oil than any country ever has. It is a fact the U.S. is setting fossil fuel world records under this administration. The U.S. produced a global record 12.9 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2023, easily beating the Trump-era high of about 12.3 million barrels. And Scalise also spoke of U.S. energy exports under Biden. Well, U.S. crude exports in 2023 were also the highest on record for anybody.
Now, we should be clear here not to suggest these records are being set because of President Biden, who certainly has taken a bunch of steps the fossil fuel industry oil companies don't like. These are market-driven increases, a lot of them caused by improvements in fracking, horizontal drilling technology. But nonetheless, Republicans, including former President Trump, keep pushing this notion that Biden has crushed U.S. oil and gas production. Trump sometimes says Biden has ended it entirely. And all this stuff is not close to true. Anderson?
COOPER: Daniel Dale, thank you so much. For more CNN fact checks, you can visit cnn.com/factsfirst. Van?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I am -- we saw a lot of -- a lot of speeches. I'll talk about three. Ron DeSantis, he was terrible. Ron was terrible.
(LAUGHTER)
He sounded like -- he just sounded like ChatGPT for mean people. I mean, just every mean thing a Republican could say, he said it. It really fast and it didn't really work very well. Nikki Haley looked like somebody who had to go to her ex-husband's wedding and give a toast.
(LAUGHTER)
She was miserable saying it, and Trump was miserable hearing it. So, all that stuff just did not work at all. But Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she was incredibly compelling to me. She told a -- she told personal stories that landed. There's a sense of aggrievement, I think, that conservatives feel, that liberal culture demeans them, attacks them, cancels them. She didn't use rhetoric.
[23:35:00]
She told a personal story, and it was moving and it was powerful. I think having a southern storyteller to bring that stuff home worked really, really well for them. So, I think she -- she gave the speech of the night. Obviously, the mother who lost her son to the stabbing, also very powerful. Two very powerful women telling stories, personal stories that landed.
But I have to say something. I felt very badly about the way that the immigrant community was portrayed. It is not true that immigrants are responsible for crime. Not only are they not more likely, they're much less likely to commit crime. People come here because they want to work, and they come here because they want a better life. They're often afraid of getting in trouble.
And so, if you want to know where the real trouble is coming from, it's coming from U.S. born men who don't have high school -- who have not finished high school. That's the real source of our challenges. And so, to blame this group that's actually less responsible for crime, for all the crime, I think is unfair and is unwarranted.
And lastly, I lost a friend to fentanyl. Fentanyl deaths went up under Obama. They went up under Trump. They're going up under Biden because this is a very addictive, horrible substance that's killing Americans in very, very large numbers. I don't blame President Obama or President Trump or President Biden.
And I think to take the pain of people, I don't like people pimping funerals, to take the pain of people and say this is all Biden's fault, that's not true. This is a national crisis. We've got to get our arms around it. But to blame immigrants for those deaths, to blame Biden for those deaths, I just think is in poor form, and I just think it's not fair to a community that's actually doing a lot better when it comes to crime than most of us are.
COOPER: Scott Jennings, how do you see it?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I was looking at Trump tonight and thinking, like the great Petey Pablo, he was taking in requests on the request line, and he got everything he wanted tonight.
UNKNOWN: Uhh.
JENNINGS: Sarah Sanders, I agree with you.
COOPER: Brilliant.
JENNINGS: I mean, Lord have mercy. That would have made a bishop kick out a stained-glass window, what she did tonight.
COOPER: Yeah.
JENNINGS: Delivery, message handling.
COOPER: Yeah.
JENNINGS: Haley and DeSantis hit their marks, did exactly -- delivered the product they needed to deliver. Disagree with you on DeSantis, but you're not the audience for that.
JONES: Fair enough.
JENNINGS: But that convention hall was and Republicans were. Rubio, good as always, delivers an inspirational sort of look at what the American story can be for different kinds of people. Baby dog --
(LAUGHTER)
-- from West Virginia managed to come to the convention on a night that Kristi Noem was not there --
(LAUGHTER)
-- and avoided any kind of unfortunate interaction.
(LAUGHTER)
But she stole the hearts of the whole convention tonight.
JONES: Puppy dog.
JENNINGS: The everyday Americans did a good job. Look, the bottom line tonight is the RNC delivered hit after hit and the entire thing was aimed at unity, unity. And the party is unified and it's functioning and it's against the backdrop of an -- of an opposing party that is stuck with an unpopular incumbent who cannot find his way out of a wet paper sack right now. Two nights of this convention are done, both of them have been a success, and now we're going to hear from the candidates for the next two debates (ph).
COOPER: The unity message, though, I think a lot of people thought going into this, was a unity of the country. You're talking about unity of the Republican Party.
JENNINGS: It's a Republican Party convention.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: No. Unity for Trump. Unity in service of Trump. Unity in surrender to Trump. Unity in servile obedience to Trump. But not unity for the people in the country who felt insulted and left out by a lot of this stuff. Listen, if this is the unity you're talking about, it's the unity that scares me.
BEDINGFIELD: Can I just say quickly that -- I mean, the test I think you were laying out earlier in our conversation was, you know, Trump can put this race away if he reaches out to the country and he displays unity. And you had -- I mean, the DeSantis speech couldn't have been farther from an attempt to do that. I mean, that was like red meat, the most divisive kind of language.
SINGLETON: This is a political --
BEDINGFIELD: So, I don't buy your own standard.
JENNINGS: Last night, you were saying that we got to start calling Trump Hitler again because J.D. Vance didn't take it. Now, it's Ron DeSantis.
BEDINGFIELD: I said no such thing. Don't put words in my mouth. I absolutely did not.
JENNINGS: Look, it's a political convention and somebody is going to make a political speech. The thing that will matter is what Trump says Thursday. I'm hopeful. I hope I'm right. Maybe I won't be, but I hope I'm right. But so far, the political party is delivering a political convention.
GRIFFIN: And let's be clear. No one at this table has said anything as offensive about Donald Trump as J.D. Vance has. But I do want to note one thing. Donald Trump was not threatened by everyone tonight. There were strong performances. There were some that were less strong. In about a month, we're going to see a democratic convention where you're going to see young, rising talent, left, right and center of the Democratic Party, and then you're going to see a president who is less popular than most of those people, who's able to perform less well.
[23:40:00]
That, to me, is a big juxtaposition because people are watching. But they're watching for the big-ticket item, which is the Donald Trump show.
JENNINGS: Yeah.
GRIFFIN: That's where the Republican Party is. I think that's going to be a challenge for Democrats.
SINGLETON: But, Anderson, I want to bring it back to the voters. The voters are yearning for recognition for their daily plight. When you say that there isn't a crime issue in this country --
JONES: I didn't say that.
SINGLETON: No, no, not you. You mentioned crime is going down.
BEDINGFIELD: That is demonstrably true.
SINGLETON: Go to Washington, D.C. We're here in New York City. Go -- talk to people who live in impoverished areas or poor white areas, and ask them about crime. Talk to those people about the economic instability that we have under the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration. Talk to those people about immigration.
And it's not about demonizing immigrants, Van. I agree with you that immigrants come to the country assuming for a good life. But people want an ordered process. People want to make sure that their plight is addressed first before the plight of other people.
JONES: We didn't talk about an orderly process.
SINGLETON: That's what Republicans answered over the past two days.
JONES: We didn't talk about an orderly process. We call people rapists, murderers, and we said that they were bringing drugs here and killing people.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: We've got to take a break. Still ahead, more of our live coverage from Milwaukee. How Democrats are dealing with their own disarray as Republicans unite. What it all means for the Biden-Trump rematch, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:45:19]
TAPPER: Republicans wrapping up the second night of their convention here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, putting on a carefully choreographed show of party unity as the Democrats remain divided over the future of President Biden's candidacy.
Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny who has more on the Democrats in, as I said, Democrats in disarray. Jeff, what are you picking up?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, we heard throughout the evening the democratic disarray and disunity really was the subject of punchline from Republican speaker after speaker, but it's anything but amusing to Democratic officials who are still dealing with this anger and alarm and panic that is coursing through the Democratic Party.
Yes, the attention this week is focused on Republicans, but inside the Democratic Party, there are party leaders who are even more worried by the day as time is running out, who believe that President Biden is a drag on the democratic ticket.
So, talking to a variety of Democratic officials here in Wisconsin and other battleground states as well as nationally, they are concerned that A, these punchlines about the president's age, his fitness for office, his command of the office, will become a fait accompli in the general election campaign.
And it is sort of ironic here, Jake, that one year ago, right here in this very hall, Republicans had their first debate. So, it was thought at the time that the republican primary would be messy and divisive. And Democrats thought they sort of dodged a bullet, if you will, by not having a primary on the democratic side. Now, it looks considerably different. There is disunity in the Democratic Party and division. So even as President Biden is vowing to stay in the race, senators and House members we are speaking with are still very concerned about this. So, look for all that to continue.
And one other Democrat was watching Nikki Haley very carefully as well for a time. They thought that her voters may be open to them. That is unclear. I talked to one Haley voter tonight who lives in the suburbs of Milwaukee. She told me, I'm voting for President Trump. Not her first choice, but she said the choice she'll make in November. Jake?
TAPPER: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much. And let's talk about what Democrats are doing behind closed doors because I was able to get my hands on some polling from the firm Blue Labs. This is a polling funded by some Democratic donors. And this kind of project is going on all over the country right now.
It looks -- it's a survey of 15,000 voters in several battleground states. And it shows, first of all, there's an early July polling that has already been reported on, showing that President Biden is losing ground to Donald Trump in 14 key states across the country. This includes not only the five that Biden flipped against Trump in 2020. That's Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But in addition, post-debate, it's like Waterloo. He's vulnerable in Colorado, he's vulnerable in Minnesota, he's vulnerable in Maine, he's vulnerable in New Mexico and Virginia and New Hampshire.
Now, what this poll did was look at alternatives. First of all, it found that nearly every tested Democrat that this polling firm looked at performs better than the president. This includes Vice President Harris. But the top four in these seven battleground states, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Wes Moore of Maryland, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, they have a whole complex way of looking at it and whether or not these people can take votes from Trump that Trump is currently winning and bring them back, and those are the top four.
And, again, this is just one poll, but this is really indicative of where the Democratic Party is, with the exception of maybe two or three of President Biden's aides and, I assume, his immediate family. The Democratic Party is really looking for an alternative.
KING: And so, polls like that, other internal polls I've looked at, all the public polling is being forwarded to the White House every day, forwarded to the president's top advisors saying, please read this, because it shows how deep trouble you're in.
TAPPER: Taken right to the shredder.
KING: So, let's just look at some of it. Let's just look at some public polling now, again, to reinforce what Jake was just talking about. This is where we were just after the debate. This is the CNN projection. But because of all that polling, Donald Trump at 272. The light red is lean Republican. The dark red is solid Republican. The gold are toss-ups.
Right now, we know, though, that Donald Trump is actually leading here as well. And he's leading here well. Maybe not by a lot. Democrats watching might be complaining. And that he's leading here as well. And he's going to get the congressional district. If the vote was today, he would get all of Nebraska's electoral votes at two. So, there's 302.
As Jake just noted, you come over here, there are people who think New Hampshire right now is in play. There are people who think Virginia right now is in play. Arizona is blue here. That's my mistake.
[23:50:00]
Donald Trump is leading there as well. So, there's 330, right? Jake also mentioned Colorado. The governor of New Mexico has warned the White House. The governor of Minnesota has warned the White House. Why? Why? Let's look at just some. This is new public polling battleground -- seven battleground states released just today. Forgive me for turning my back. I want to turn this out. Look at the incumbent president's vote share. Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada. Forty-two is the highest the incumbent president gets in vote share in these battleground states. That's a path to big loss, even if Donald Trump can't get to 50 because of the third-party candidates.
Look how closely it correlates to the president's approval rating. This is the president's approval rating, 36%, 37% in Arizona, 42% in Georgia, 40% of the vote. You get it. You follow it through. If he cannot get his approval rating to go that way, he can't move that. And that number has been stuck or getting worse since the debate. That's one way to look at it.
The other question is, voters are asking, is Biden up to the job? Again, forgive me for turning my back. I just want to stretch this out. Is he too old to be president in these seven battleground states? Seventy-two percent in Arizona say yes, 67% in Georgia, 70% in Wisconsin, 70% in Michigan. Same in Pennsylvania, close to that 68%. In North Carolina, 70% again. That's a lot of Democrats and a lot of independents. That's not just Republicans. You get into the 60s and 70s, you're talking about a lot of the president's own party saying they don't think he is up to the job. How do you change that?
And then there's this. What's the number one issue in the country right now? One more time. Sorry again. I just want to stretch this out so you can see it. The percentage of registered voters rating the economy as fair or poor. He's the incumbent. He wants four more years. Seventy-three percent in Arizona, close to 70% in Georgia, 74% in Michigan, 74% in North Carolina, just below 70% in Nevada, and 73% and 72% respectively in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
He's the incumbent president saying stay the course, Jake. That's what people in these battleground states think about the economy. That's a tough sell. That is an incredibly hard sell. And these numbers, many Democrats say, this poll was taken over a long period of time. Most Democrats will tell you they're actually worse now. They're worse now. They expect Donald Trump to get a bounce because of what happened in this hall tonight and what will happen for the next two nights in this hall. And the Democratic convention is a month away. You want to know why Democrats use the term disarray, panic, worried, nervous? Look at that.
TAPPER: Yeah, and you said, how do you turn that around? And I know you meant that as a rhetorical question because the answer is it really hasn't ever been done.
KING: It has never been done. David knows this. Both Davids know this. There has been no incumbent president in our lifetime. Again, Democrats will argue, well, wait, the national polls are a point or two. Some of these state polls are only three or four points. It's underneath the polls. It's the approval rating. It's is he up to the job? Is he too old? What people think about the direction of the country and the state of the economy? You need some magic potion to change people's minds on six or eight fundamental questions.
AXELROD: I think the question is whether the president can accept this verdict. But he says it's early. People will focus in September. It's not early. People are going to start voting in September. And what's very clear is that these concerns have been hardened, that they've been there for a long time. They were hardened by the debate. He's in a situation that is, in my mind, irreversible.
And I believe him when he says the stakes are huge of this election. If he believes it, he needs to take into consideration what the stakes are and make the best decision, not just for himself but for the country.
TAPPER: And Abby, one of the things that the Democrats are trying to do right now, the Democratic National Committee, you said the voting takes place in September. That's voter voters. The delegates, they're trying to get the delegates to start voting next week in days. They want the train to leave before the convention.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
TAPPER: They want to lock this in because they know -- they know that Democrats are really trying to push him out.
PHILLIP: And party officials privately are pushing back on that hard. The reasoning that they've used is this Ohio ballot situation that Ohio officials say has been resolved --
TAPPER: It's a lie. It's a lie.
PHILLIP: That has been resolved.
TAPPER: The DNC is lying about that.
PHILLIP: But the DNC is saying -- their lawyers -- their lawyers are telling them that that's not the case. But here's the other thing that I've been paying attention to. Privately, there has been a lot of great reporting about what Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi is doing. And she's hearing from front-line members. She's hearing from all kinds of House members. She's concerned about control of the House and concerned that control of the House is going right out the window as well.
And it has been interesting to see so much reporting about the concern, it seems, almost shifting away from Biden toward the down- ballot issues. I'm not even sure that people who want Biden to step aside believe that it is still possible to completely turn this around.
[23:55:04]
But they do believe that it might be necessary to prevent the House and the Senate from being taken away.
AXELROD: Money is going to shift from Biden to those congressional races. And the candidates are going to start arguing, we need to be there to be a bulwark against Donald Trump.
COLLINS: Look at why he's suggesting all these changes to the Supreme Court that he's expected to come out and call for, which we know he has been having these discussions behind the scenes. When Joe Biden was running in 2020, he was facing a lot of pressure from more liberal members of his party who ran against him to make changes to the Supreme Court. He resisted that. Commissioned a study when he was in office. I remember when it came out. It was 300 pages. It was December of 2021. He never acted on that study.
And now, he's preparing to come out and call for maybe a constitutional amendment or changes to the Supreme Court. It's because look who stood by him in these days when other more moderates are calling on him to get out. It's the progressives.
BASH: Can I connect what John was showing us with these new polls and specifically the key states to what we saw here tonight? And that was the first really big speech by Nikki Haley. Wisconsin. We're in Wisconsin right now. And if you look back at the Wisconsin primary, which she was still on the ballot for April 7th -- April 2nd, even though she had already dropped out, she got more than 76,000 votes in that primary. And what she did here tonight was she said, go ahead, please go and vote for Donald Trump. It was like more than 20,000 votes. That made the difference in both the general election in 2016 and 2020.
TAPPER: All right, stay with CNN as the republican convention heads into its third night. Laura Coates picks up our coverage after this break.
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