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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Covers The Trump-Harris Presidential Debate; Taylor Swift Endorses Kamala Harris; CNN Fact-Checks Trump-Harris Debate; Focus Group Weighs In On Debate. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired September 10, 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]
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the right-wing may not see it, but she kept coming back to a middle-class background. He kept talking about himself and himself. He went down every rabbit hole imaginable. Kamala Harris did something great for every parent in America. She put the bully in his place.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Audie?
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN HOST AND CORRESPONDENT, PODCAST HOST: Yeah, I'm not -- I can add more to what you guys have said using political terms such as butt-whooping.
(LAUGHTER)
But she -- I mean, Harris hacked Donald Trump tonight. And we talked earlier. I mentioned, you know, being unconventional, which he has been all these years. Doesn't mean he's unpredictable. And it turned out she could use mad libs of triggers of everything he has ever talked about or been bothered by and use them in a formula that was to first talk about an attack line he might have said to her, take a topic she was weak on, follow it up with a trigger for him, and then watch him spin himself in circles trying to defend it.
And at the start of this conversation, at the start of the night, we talked about who's going to look like an incumbent versus who's going to look like a challenger. And she -- I think she made herself look like the challenger to a person and really kind of ran through his record.
COOPER: Alyssa, you know -- you know him well. I mean, even on the immigration question, she quickly turned it and totally emasculated him and got him discombobulated.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: She dismantled him and made it down the issues. He should be the strongest on border security, the economy. He ended up relitigating his rallies and talking about his crowd sizes. I mean, she put the bait out there, and he took it.
And I'm hearing from Republicans because I'm trying to think from the perspective of, okay, if you're a Trump viewer at home, what are you thinking? Sitting Republican lawmakers who objectively think she won the debate, but also that the mask is starting to slip with Donald Trump, that this is the man who projects himself as strong, as in command. And in fact, he simply is not with just a minor challenging -- asking for more substantive questions, asking him to lay out a health care plan, basic things. He just can't do it, certainly not the way he could have in previous years.
COOPER: John?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: To the healthcare point, I think the moderators did a very good job in the idea that you were president for four years. Now, it has been three and a half years with Joe Biden. You ran for president a couple years before you were president. And Donald Trump said the best he could do about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare are some concept and some ideas.
That issue was perilous for the Democrats in the first two years when it was being implemented because the change hadn't been fulfilled yet and change is scary when it comes to something so personal like your healthcare. It's one of the most popular issues in the country right now. It has been a huge boon for Democrats.
And again, I'm going back to, if you're a Trump voter, I'm getting incoming for some of the Trump voters I've met in my travels, and they're defending him. But the Republican strategists, they're not surprised because they know Donald Trump. They know he takes the bait. But they're really disappointed that he didn't have answers on substantive policy questions.
To your point about immigration, that on what should be his issue, he took the bait and was talking about conspiracy theories and other things. And on policy proposals that matter to the people who will settle the election, he had nothing to say.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, I think she showed up as herself. She is a prosecutor. She can prosecute the case. She is not afraid to hold people accountable. That is how she started her career, and she did just that.
And she laid some breadcrumbs in her opening statement talking about, you're going to hear a lot of lies. And every time she tripped him up a little bit, she didn't then try and respond to him. She just said, see what I told you. I told you what you were going to get. I'm keeping them honest.
She also helped turn the page when she said, you're not running against Joe Biden. That was a subtle reminder for Americans for the last two years, is that they didn't want that rematch. And the last time they watched the debate, it was a rematch. And she was like, guess what, folks? I'm here, here's an alternative, here's a path to the future.
And the final thing I'll say is that I'm texting with some folks who are doing dial testing focus groups during this debate, undecided voters in Georgia. First, the gender gap is massive. It's about a 20, 30-point gender cap on her responses. But one of Trump's worst answers was his response to COVID. And that was really when he started to un- spiral and unravel and he couldn't get back on track. I mean, say what you want friends, but she nailed it tonight.
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Okay. Now from the other side.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: The other America.
URBAN: The other America, right? The red America. So, John, I agree that she passed the test. Does she look presidential? Did she do a good job up there? She did pass that test. But she was very light. You know, you're complaining about Trump saying you don't have details on your plan. No details provided on anything here but for her. She was very good at kind of rattling off her two-minute answers, but then never really answered the questions.
I think Red America will look at this and say -- I mean, I see it in the tweets. I never thought I'd say this, but CNN did such a great job on the debate and being fair, where ABC was not fair. This was a two, three on one at times versus Trump. They were demanding Trump be very specific on answers.
[23:04:57]
But Kamala Harris, when asked about her values changing and having to articulate the differences of why she was -- she -- you know, she was for reparations, not for reparations, she said -- it listed a very long list, and she said, I'll get to each of those. And then she didn't get to any of them.
COOPER: I would be curious to see the time, who had more time, because my sense was that Donald Trump was given more time. I don't know.
URBAN: Anderson, my point is not time. My point is there was not a demand. David Muir didn't say, well, Madam Vice President, are you going to answer that question? Or he did do that with Trump. There was more aggressive follow up on the Trump questioning than there was on --
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: Isn't that sort of the responsibility of the candidate?
URBAN: But David, when it's -- when it's --
AXELROD: Donald Trump is not in the game (ph).
URBAN: This is supposedly a neutral territory, right? And when the moderators have their thumb on the scale, Republican voters are going to watch this and say --
COOPER: I think on those -- I think it was two very specific questions like, yes or no, is there anything you regret about January 6th? No answer, no answer.
URBAN: Well, then how about this? How about this? When she was pressed, and I found this one particularly disgusting for me, when she was pressed on Afghanistan, she didn't say, yeah, I regret the 13 young men and women died there, and I regret that I did not in the three and a half years as vice president meet with their families. I mean, that -- she didn't say that. And nobody followed up on that. And that is -- that is disgusting.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDNET TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Look, I agree with David that you're going to hear some carping from Republicans about, you know, this wasn't a debate, it was a trial and there were three prosecutor -- definitely going to hear that. But it is a little hard to complain about the rest when you're not making your own jump shots.
AXELROD: Exactly.
ALLISON: Yeah. There you go.
JENNINGS: And the first 15 minutes of this debate, he won. The questions were on the economy. He had it right. He had it right on inflation. Even on the tariff question, I think he had it right. And then inexplicably on immigration, that's where she derailed him. And from that point forward, she basically dictated the flow.
Now, in the closing statements, when he said, you've been there for three and a half years, why haven't you done it? That really should have permeated. That's his best argument. It really should have permeated everything. She peppered all of her answers with, I have a plan, I have a plan. He should have retorted every time, you've been there --
COOPER: That's simply the only thing they worked out in advance, like that he had sort of in his mind, okay, this is something we're going to say.
JENNINGS: But look, she did not put a lot of meat on the bones. I agree she passed the competency test. She did tell some of her own lies, and she -- and she left some -- some things out there. But overall, she dictated the flow.
COOPER: Kaitlan Collins is in the debate Spin Room with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Kaitlan?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, thanks Anderson. I'm here, and it is timely given we are talking with the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, how Taylor Swift just came out and endorsed Kamala Harris. I know that you are claiming --
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): Right.
COLLINS: -- Taylor Swift is one of Pennsylvania's own.
SHAPIRO: We claim Taylor Swift, the Berks County native.
COLLINS: But you're -- we're here in Philadelphia watching this debate. You were just watching it. What were your main takeaways of how Vice President Harris did, coming into this? Because there remained quite a big question about how she would fare on that debate stage.
SHAPIRO: You know, Kaitlan, I think we spoke a few weeks ago, and I expressed to you that I was a little bit worried the American people had a little bit of brain fog about Donald Trump. They didn't remember the chaos when he was in office.
I think Kamala Harris wiped out that brain fog and reminded people of the chaos of Donald Trump, reminded them that he ripped away people's fundamental freedoms, particularly the freedom for millions of women across this country to just make decisions over their own body.
She reminded them that here in Pennsylvania, he wants to take away health care from 1.2 million of my fellow Pennsylvanians. She reminded him that he really has no plan on the economy, and she reminded him just how -- reminded people just how nonsensical he is, how divisive he is, how his rhetoric seeks to create others in our society and divide people instead of lifting everybody up.
And I thought she made clear she wants to be a president for all Americans, laid out her vision, laid out her plans. And I thought she had a great night.
COLLINS: A lot of it seemed designed to try to get under Trump's skin. I mean, she was talking about his crowd sizes. She was talking about his former officials who are now criticizing him. She brought up January 6 and all these moments. And he did seem to take the bait. Even Trump advisors were saying that to me. Was that the strategy going into this debate for your party?
SHAPIRO: Look, only Kamala Harris knows what her strategy was on this. But I will tell you, he took the bait because he's completely self- centered. He only cares about himself. And so, instead of just ignoring a comment about crowd size, instead focusing on the needs of the crowd, the needs of the people that he was talking to, he could only focus on himself. He is someone who is so self-absorbed that he can't possibly do a good job for the American people.
COLLINS: She has still been underwater in latest polling in your home state. I mean, she has been doing better in Michigan and Wisconsin than she has in Pennsylvania but still struggling a bit. And what we saw from polls, that voters wanted to know more about her. They still had questions about her.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
COLLINS: Obviously, Donald Trump is a pretty well-known quality -- quantity. She obviously made the case against Donald Trump tonight. But do you think she laid out enough of her own plans in detail, for example, on -- on how to end the war that's happening in Gaza?
[23:10:04]
She talked about working around the clock but -- but no specifics on that.
SHAPIRO: Look, I thought she laid out comprehensive plans, both on domestic and international policy. And every visit, every rally, everything she does going forward, she'll continue to flesh that out. I thought she had a really good night. I thought she laid out what she needed to for the American people. Understand this is one piece of the larger effort to win, not just here in Pennsylvania, but in other states as well, and I thought she had a good night.
As for Pennsylvania, look, understand it's always close here. In 2016, it was 44,000 votes that divided the two candidates. In 2020, it was 80,000 votes. About a percentage point or less.
COLLINS: Closer than 2024?
SHAPIRO: I don't know, but we're no stranger to close elections. The good news is Kamala Harris understands that to pick up that last yard or two here in Pennsylvania is tough, but you got to show up. This is still a retail state. And so, she's showing up to places like Beaver County. This week, she'll be in Wilkes-Barre. She's going to places that quite frankly often get ignored by national candidates. By showing up, she's not only able to lay out her plans, but she shows a level of respect to the good people of Pennsylvania.
COLLINS: Governor Josh Shapiro, I want to hand it over to Jake, who also has a question for your fellow Pennsylvanian.
SHAPIRO: Who knows Taylor Swift.
(LAUGHTER)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: First of all -- first of all -- that's right, Taylor Swift is actually originally from right near the Reading, Phillies, right?
SHAPIRO: I'm not.
TAPPER: But governor --
COLLINS: Jake, Jake, actually --
TAPPER: -- first of all, the Phillies beat Tampa Bay.
COLLINS: -- the governor is not hearing you.
TAPPER: Oh, he's not hearing. Okay. Ask him this: Should the Harris campaign focus -- should the Harris campaign focus more on the independent voters in Eerie or the Republican women in the collar counties around Philly if -- if they had to choose?
COLLINS: He asked if the Harris campaign should focus more on independent women in Eerie or on moderate women voters in the other surrounding counties. Was that it, Jake?
TAPPER: No, on -- on independent voters in the Eerie area or Republican women --
COLLINS: Independent voters in Eerie --
TAPPER: -- in the collar counties.
COLLINS: Or Republican women in --
SHAPIRO: Sure. Look, Jake, I'll tell you, everywhere in Pennsylvania matters, particularly if this election is going to come down to just tens of thousands of votes. I think you understand that. David Urban on your panel certainly understands that.
There are a whole lot of people in the Philadelphia suburbs. If you look at the suburbs as sort of its own entity, it's more than two times the size of the city of Philadelphia. So, there's a lot of voters there, a lot of people to talk to, and I know that the vice president is going to be spending a lot of time in the Philadelphia suburbs.
I also know that going to Erie is important as well. Take that from me. A governor has been there many, many times. I think our soon to be Vice President Tim Walz was in Erie just last week. That's critical as well.
But you got to show up, you got to let folks ask you questions, you got to let your tires get kicked, and you got to show the good people of Pennsylvania you care about their neighborhoods, and I know Kamala Harris is going to do that.
COLLINS: All right. Governor Josh Shapiro, thank you for that. Jake, uh, back to you.
TAPPER: Thank you so much. You know, you know one of the things so interesting about tonight as opposed to the interview you did with Vice President Harris -- was that a week ago? I don't know when it was.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ten days ago.
TAPPER: Anyway, you asked her about the racial comments when Donald Trump said that -- she never identified as Black before. I mean, it's nonsense, it's a lie, whatever.
BASH: Right.
TAPPER: She wouldn't even talk about it.
BASH: Right.
TAPPER: Tonight, she ran through the litany of Donald Trump's racist history from being sued by Nixon's housing department or Department of Labor for not renting to Black tenants to the Central Park Five to birtherism, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, again, he took the bait every single time. He is literally there defending the indefensible in terms of his calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five.
But my point is she actually discussed it. I don't think that she was waiting for a bigger audience. You know, 100 million people watching tonight or whatever. I think that she -- that Trump continues to make inroads with Black men, and she felt like she probably had to staunch some of the bleeding on that issue.
BASH: I think both can be true. I thought her response to my question was, you know, same old stuff. Next question, she was ready to say something pithy and kind of the back of the hand, like the blow off, and move on. But in the back of my mind, I wondered if she was holding her -- her best stuff --
(LAUGHTER)
-- for this to be with him on the debate stage. So -- but I think that could be also true, that she's making inroads with Black men.
TAPPER: What do you think?
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I thought she said it because --
BASH: She's making inroads with Black men.
COATES: -- his response was he didn't care, right? He didn't care about the race or that she can be whatever it is she wants to be, which essentially was not only condescending and patronizing, but also demonstrably inaccurate based on the statements that she actually laid out as to his concern for race and gender and beyond.
[23:15:13]
I think that she was waiting to address that particular moment in a way not to choose her audience but to respond to what he had to say. And I think the idea of her talking about her race and her gender, which are both quite obvious to the American voter, the American people, I think in many ways, that is an attempt for him to try to bait her, to suggest that is Trump over her qualifications, her skills, her value adds as a contributing member of the administration, as a senator, as an A.G. and beyond.
And I think she's cognizant of the way in which America also views women of color in positions of power. And I think that she was waiting for the opportunity to address a specific claim as opposed to, what do you think about race and racism?
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It also felt to me like there were some really key parts of it that she laid down there for Trump to pick up, and then he just went and pick them up. Like that he defended it. To your point, he defended his false accusations against the Central Park Five. He literally did not have to do that, but he decided to do it. He also then went down a rabbit hole on Charlottesville.
I mean, it's useful to the Harris campaign to have Trump revisit all of the most unpopular parts of his history and his personality and his attitude and his lack of remorse. That is a useful thing more so than her defending her own race and racial identity which, honestly, she barely did. I mean, she did it very briefly, and then she just created a scenario in which Trump just went down a rabbit hole that was -- was set for him. That was, honestly, the whole debate in a nutshell. CHRIS WALLACE, BROADCAST JOURNALIST: I was going to say, it happened over and over again on the issue of 2020 and relitigating that. I talked to a top aide this weekend who said he wants to do it, he knows he shouldn't. he has been told that being forward looking is a much better strategy for success, which I took to mean he will probably do it, you know, despite --
(CROSSTALK)
He did do it.
BASH: Can we talk about Taylor Swift?
TAPPER: Yeah, let's talk about this for people. It hasn't been mentioned on our area.
BASH: I think yes with Governor Shapiro.
TAPPER: Okay. So, Taylor --
BASH: -- fulsome report.
TAPPER: Taylor Swift on Instagram endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket. She says she is doing it because Harris -- quote -- "fights to the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion there. I think she is steady-handed, gifted leader, and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate Tim Walz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ plus rights, IVF, and a woman's right to her own body for decades."
She goes on to say, "I've done my research. I've made my choice. Your research is all yours to do." Interestingly, she signs it with "love and hope, Taylor Swift, childless cat lady," an illusion to Senator J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's running mate, insulting Democrats as childless cat ladies.
BASH: And she was holding a cat in that photo.
TAPPER: The name of the cat, I've been reliably informed, is Olivia Benson.
BASH: Well, one of her cats was Olivia Benson. I cannot confirm that the cat she was holding in that picture --
PHILLIP: Was --
BASH: -- is Olivia Benson. But I guarantee you, I guarantee you, we will hear from many, many Swifties out there. But let's just talk about what this means.
TAPPER: What does that mean? What is the significance of a celebrity endorsement?
BASH: It is not just a celebrity endorsement.
TAPPER: One of the biggest celebrities in the world.
BASH: The biggest celebrity in the world. But it's not just that she's a celebrity. She has people who are -- I mean, swiftologists. I mean, they are people who are young people, young women, who might not already be engaged in politics, who read and listen to every single thing that she says and love her, and if she makes a difference even on the margins in a race like this, that is a huge difference. This was the -- this was the endorsement that the Harris campaign -- they were hoping for more than anything else.
PHILLIP: No one will ever say no to a Taylor Swift endorsement. I 100% agree with that. I think it's significant to all -- it is always significant to have the most powerful force in pop culture on your side.
The one contrarian view I will say is that in this moment, the thing the Harris campaign needs, perhaps the most, is to figure out how to reach men. They've got to figure it out here in Pennsylvania. They've got to figure out how to reach Black men. And I'm not sure Taylor Swift helps them with that. It's a totally different ball game that Taylor Swift is in, but they've got to figure that part out.
TAPPER: Travis Kelsey, on the other hand.
PHILLIP: Maybe if Travis Kelsey comes around, we'd be having a different conversation.
[23:19:56]
But I think that it's just important to remember that, especially in this Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, that is just -- it's a give and take here where you gain some and you lose some, and she really needs to start gaining some.
WALLACE: I don't want to rush us off the Taylor Swiftology discussion and -- but I do want to -- there is another piece of news, which is that the Harris campaign put out a release and has challenged Donald Trump to another debate. That had been somewhat in doubt. And they say, we're ready for another debate, let's have it. My guess is after the vice-presidential debate in October, but they're ready for round two.
TAPPER: So, CBS is doing the vice-presidential debate. I think NBC is supposed to do the next presidential debate.
WALLACE: It has not been confirmed, but that is sort of --
PHILLIP: They put an offer on the table.
WALLACE: -- the expectation.
BASH: Well, you know, I just want to correct something before we move on --
TAPPER: Oh, I'm sorry.
BASH: -- from Taylor Swift.
TAPPER: Oh, boy.
BASH: The cat's name is Benjamin Button.
COATES: Okay.
TAPPER: Okay. Let's get --
COATES: Can I just say one thing, though, that I saw when I talked about Taylor Swift's endorsement, that she is very clearly showing people that reproductive rights is on the ballot very much so. She talked about in that actual statement about her research, about Tim Walz, the governor, in his work with this particular area.
And so, for those who think that Roe v. Weight is an invisible ink on the 2024 ballot, it very much is in a sharpie pen, and that's why Kamala Harris's dissection of her references to what voter would want was so important in the reproductive rights conversation.
TAPPER: Let's get a fact check now of the debate. CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale was listening closely to both candidates. Daniel, what stood out to you?
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Jake, what stood out was that this was a staggeringly dishonest debate performance from former President Trump. Just lie after lie on subject after subject. By my preliminary count, Jake, Trump made at least 33 false claims, 33.
By contrast, by, again, a preliminary count, Vice President Harris made at least one false claim, though she added at least a few misleading claims and a few more that lack key context.
I think a lot of Americans say, well, all politicians lie. No major presidential candidate before Donald Trump has ever lied with this kind of frequency. A remarkably large chunk of what he said tonight was just not true. And this wasn't like little exaggeration political spin. A lot of his false claims were untethered to reality.
On abortion, saying every Democrat wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, though actually more than 80% of Democrats supported Roe. On crime, saying it's through the roof. Though it's actually sharply down since early 2023, it's now lower than it was since Trump left office. On health care, saying he's the one who saved Obamacare, the law he actually repeatedly tried to overturn. On Kamala Harris herself, saying that a Howard University grad, Black Law Students Association president had claimed that she wasn't Black at one point.
Frankly, I don't have enough time here to run through each specific Trump false claim. I urge people to go to our CNN website or our app to read our team's detailed fact checks on this and a whole bunch more. For now, though, let's dive into one false claim Trump made, an egregious claim about migrants supposedly eating people's pets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This is not only false, I think it's fair to call this odious. This -- for people who have not been online in the last couple days, this claim about migrants, Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating people's pets originated with a Facebook post that attributed the claim to a neighbor's friend's daughter. So, you know, a third- hand broken telephone kind of thing. The city of Springfield and the Springfield Police say there are no credible reports of this happening.
And even J.D. Vance, the vice-presidential candidate, who himself had promoted these claims, acknowledged this morning that the -- quote -- "rumors might turn out false," although he still encouraged people to spread these cat memes. Now, I'll note that Trump himself added dogs to the equation. They had not even been part of these viral nonsense rumors before.
Now, let's look at one false claim that Vice President Harris did make about the economic situation that the Biden-Harris administration was left by Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's talk about what Donald Trump left us. Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. And what we have done is clean up Donald Trump's mess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: So, the Biden-Harris administration was not actually left the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. They were left a 6.4% unemployment rate in January 2021. That was certainly elevated by recent standards, pretty high. But it was significantly down from the 14.8% level. It reached early in the pandemic. So, it was already improving at the time the Biden-Harris administration took office. And that 6.4% level was the highest since the Great Recession. So, in the last 20 years, not going back decades further. Anderson?
COOPER: Daniel, thanks very much. A lot to go through. We appreciate it. One other thing on the Taylor Swift endorsement, it's interesting, in her statement, another thing she mentioned, she said, "Recently, I was made aware that AI of me falsely endorsing Donald Trump's presidential run was posted to his site."
[23:25:00]
"It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter."
Interesting that she's citing Donald Trump or somebody in the campaign. I don't know where that site was but a Trump-related site.
JONES: Another self-owned. I mean, they were really dumb to bait her because she was standing on the sidelines. We were hoping she might come out. But, you know, they keep doing dumb stuff on this campaign. The stuff around eating animals and cats is pissing everybody off. They just pulled Taylor Swift into the fight. This is a very disastrous night for Donald Trump.
GRIFFIN: Can I give a quick shout out to J.D. Vance who introduced into the bloodstream the childless cat lady --
COOPER: Yes.
GRIFFIN: -- that now the most -- one of the most powerful celebrities on the planet is using to endorse against Trump and Vance? He also was the, you know, potential future vice president who tweeted out this lie about immigrants eating pets, which was now echoed on a debate stage night. This guy has been disaster from the outset.
I'm biased I worked for Mike Pence, but he brought people into the fold. This person runs people out of the fold, and he is steering Donald Trump to his absolute worst instincts, which Kamala Harris was able to exploit every single time.
AXELROD: Can you say he's guilty of a felony (ph)?
(LAUGHTER)
URBAN: I just want to know, Dave --
(LAUGHTER)
AXELROD: Sorry.
URBAN: So, Daniel Dale was doing some fact check, and I just want to fact check a little bit here. It's not necessarily, you know, 100% across the line. When Kamala Harris said that there are, you know, men and women serving in war zones in this administration, let's not forget tonight, as in every night, there are young men and women from America serving in harm's way.
They may not be in active war zones, but there are men and women serving in harm's way all around this globe protecting all of us here at this table. So, I'll keep my prayers tonight. Remember that they may not be in war zones but they're still in harm's way. Their parents and loved ones are concerned about it. Let's not diminish it any way.
ALLISON: You know, I think the debate -- I mean, there were so many moments. It took a very strong pivot in a direction towards --
COOPER: Sorry, Kamala Harris is speaking. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS: But we have 56 days to go. And guys, we're still the underdogs in this race. It's tight. We have got to win Pennsylvania.
CROWD: Yeah!
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And we are going to win Pennsylvania.
(APPLAUSE)
And it is because of you. It is because of you, who have signed up, who have volunteered. You are organizing. You're helping us to email and text and knock on doors and talk to your neighbors and your friends. And here's the thing about the spirit of our campaign. It is people-driven.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Back here now with the team. Stay with us for more reaction to the debate. We're going to hear from our focus group of Pennsylvania voters who also get the first results from our exclusive instant poll of debate viewers across the country.
Plus, Donald Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, will join us live. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:30:00]
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TAPPER: We're back with our breaking news coverage of the Harris-Trump presidential debate, awaiting reaction from our focus group of Pennsylvania voters and from our instant poll of debate watchers nationwide.
But right now, let's go inside the Spin Room where we find Kaitlan Collins. And I think Donald Trump himself is in the Spin Room. Kaitlan, I'm not sure if you can hear me, but Donald Trump is in the Spin Room.
COLLINS: Yeah, Jake.
TAPPER: That is generally not considered a sign of a candidate thinking he had a good night or she had a good night when they go to the Spin Room to clean up what they just did and try to create new headlines or maybe jerk store some answers.
COLLINS: Yeah, Jake, of course, you know, this was after the CNN debate. There was a rumor Trump may come into the Spin Room. He did not ultimately come in. He is across the room from us now talking to reporters right now about the debate. It's a little bit hard to hear him, but we have sitting with us, his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, who has also been watching that debate. Jake was just talking about what it means when a candidate comes into the Spin Room after a debate. Is that a sign of a good debate or a bad debate in your view?
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I think with President Trump, it's not a sign of either, frankly. I do think that he had a great debate. We can sort of hear the background noise here.
But look, I think with President Trump, he had to be sort of talked out of coming to the Spin Room after the first debate because he really wanted to. My guess is that he really wanted to come then, he really wanted to come now. This time, it worked out. And look, he loves to talk to reporters because he loves to talk to the American people.
And I think it has been a consistent theme of his campaign, is going anywhere, going into hostile or friendly media, talking to people, answering questions and trying to make his case. He's going to keep on doing that wherever the format.
COLLINS: Did tonight go how you wanted it to go in terms of Harris clearly trying to get under his skin, talking about crowd sizes, talking about former officials like John Kelly and Mark Esper and others? I mean, I heard from some Trump advisors who said he took the debate too much. Do you believe that?
VANCE: No. Look, I think what we saw from Kamala Harris was a lot of platitudes. It was a lot of plans that had no real substance behind them and no real precision behind them. And what is most interesting, and it's really the sort of microcosm of this entire race, is Kamala Harris has a record, Donald Trump has a record.
Donald Trump is proud of his record and is running to it. Kamala Harris is running away from her record and pretending that somehow her term as president is going to be radically different from her term as vice president, but she can't actually articulate why. In fact, to the extent that she articulates it at all, it's by running away from positions that she clearly held just a few years ago or even a few weeks ago.
COLLINS: So why didn't Trump push her more on that? Because that is what we hear from you every day on the campaign trail, is talking about her reversals. He did not really talk about why haven't you done what you're saying you'll do until his closing statement. Do you think he should have done that sooner?
VANCE: I think he did. I mean, he did it in the closing statement. He also really hammered her on her inconsistencies, right? This is a person who said she wanted to ban fracking. Now, she says she doesn't. She wanted to defund the police. Now, she says she doesn't. She wanted to secure border.
I felt that he really did, actually. On three issues in particular, I think he was very focused on hammering Kamala Harris's inconsistencies with her record, what she says now versus what she said even a few weeks ago in some cases.
[23:35:00]
It was on the border, it's on fracking, and it's on defund the police. That was clearly what he's most focused on. I think it's not surprising because those are three of the issues that the American people care the most about.
I mean, look, this is a person who was to the far left of her own party and now is trying to pretend that she's effectively Donald Trump. My favorite line of the night is when he said, she's going to don a MAGA cap and pretend that she agrees with me on everything. I think the American people are too smart to be fooled by Kamala Chameleon acting to be somebody that she's clearly not.
COLLINS: And she kind of smirked when he said that he was going to send her one. On abortion, though, Trump was asked if he would veto a national abortion ban. You have said that he would. He said that the two of you have not talked about that, that you weren't talking, for him. Have the two of you not talked about that?
VANCE: So, we haven't talked about a veto, but it's clear that Donald Trump doesn't believe in a national abortion ban. He said that his policy is to let the states decide majority of abortion policy in this country. And so, I think that really is a difference of semantics. He thinks it's absurd to even talk about vetoing a piece of legislation that has no chance of being brought. I think it's a totally reasonable point.
But again, the main substantive issue is Donald Trump believes that abortion should be a state policy and Kamala Harris fundamentally thinks that abortion should be funded by taxpayers right up to the moment of birth.
It was interesting that the ABC fact checkers or the moderators who, frankly, were just helping Kamala Harris in the debate, that they said that no state supports abortion up to the moment of birth. Her own running mate has supported legislation that would remove the requirement that doctors provide life-saving care to babies who survive boxed abortion.
So, I think his point is Democrats are the real radicals on this issue and whatever cover the moderators provided, the truth is the truth and their record is pretty out there.
COLLINS: On this question, specifically, Trump could have said yes, he would veto a national abortion ban. Why did he not take the opportunity to do so when you know how important abortion is to so many voters?
VANCE: Well, because I think he believes it's an absurd hypothetical which, of course, it is. No national abortion ban is coming before the United States Senate or the United States Congress. If it did, it would maybe get 10% of those bodies to vote for it.
COLLINS: But then why did you say before that he would veto it? Why didn't you say that before? He didn't say it was a hypothetical.
VANCE: What I said -- what I said -- Kaitlan, what I said explicitly is that Donald Trump doesn't believe in a national abortion ban. He doesn't. And the question of how far he would go is, to me, like a semantic thing that doesn't actually make sense. It's an absurd proposition. It's never going to happen. And I think what President Trump is saying is, I don't like to deal in these absurd hypotheticals, it's not going to happen, and he has been clear that he doesn't support it.
COLLINS: Well, I think there are maybe some women voters who would like for him -- would have liked for him to answer that question. The other thing that he brought up, which I was kind of surprised by, I guess I would say is he brought up this misleading false claim that you yourself have talked about in recent days about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, abducting people's pets and eating them, which officials there have said is not true.
You yourself acknowledged it may be false on Twitter. You still told people to keep spreading it. But Trump just amplified it to tens of millions of people who were watching. Why push something that's not true?
VANCE: Well, first of all, city officials have not said it's not true. They said they don't have all the evidence. But we've heard --
COLLINS: They said they have no evidence.
VANCE: We've heard from a number of constituents on the ground, Kaitlan, who both first-hand and second-hand reports saying this stuff is happening. So, they very clearly -- meaning the people on the ground dealing with this think that it is happening.
And I think that it's important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this stuff for themselves when you have a lot of people saying, my pets are being abducted or geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us.
This is crazy stuff. And again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be, Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Health care costs are up, housing costs are up, communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris's border policies have done.
And I think it's interesting, Kaitlan, that the media didn't care about the carnage brought by these policies until we turned it into a meme about cats. And that speaks to the media's failure to care about what's going on in these communities. If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we're going to keep on doing it because the media should care about what's going on.
COLLINS: I saw you say that. I think the media does care about it. I just read up very lengthy report in "The New York Times" on it. PBS NewsHour did a whole story. But can I ask you --
VANCE: -- by us talking about it and bringing it up. Nobody cared about this until we raised this issue.
COLLINS: Senator, you talked about -- senator, you talked about that your office has gotten a lot of reports. I mean, if someone calls your office and says they saw Bigfoot, that doesn't mean they saw Bigfoot. Why -- I mean, you have a sense of responsibility as a running mate and he certainly does as the candidate to not promote false information, right?
VANCE: It's a totally fair point, but nobody is calling my office and saying that they saw Bigfoot. What they're calling and saying is we're seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats, and city officials aren't doing anything about it.
[23:40:04]
Now, again, I have a responsibility as a United States senator, I think the media has a responsibility as an institution that cares about truth, to actually take people seriously when they say their lives have been ruined by this migrant crisis. And again, if every single thing that the media says about this story is false, the verifiable facts are that this community has had their lives destroyed by 20,000 migrants coming in and uprooting life.
COLLINS: Again, officials had no credible evidence of the claim. But Senator J.D. Vance, thank you for joining us --
VANCE: Thanks, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: -- with your debate reaction. Jake, back to you.
TAPPER: Thanks so much. Interesting comment. I'm looking at a "New York Times" story from eight days ago about the immigration crisis in Springfield and the problems created there, saying we have to make up nonsense that isn't true so that the media covers things that the media is already covering is an odd defense. But I digress. Chris?
WALLACE: Well, Charles Krauthammer, the late great conservative columnist, talking about people like J.D. Vance in this particular case when they're trying to defend the indefensible, said, whatever they're paying them, it's not enough. And the fact is that he sat there and tried to contort himself into saying that, one, Trump had a great debate, he didn't, and two, to defend something that has been almost totally discredited.
And, you know, and also, I have to take personal offense at the idea that he says that the media hasn't cared about immigrant crime. We've -- there have been all kinds of stories and all kinds of coverage of immigrant crime and every state is a border state. It was a big issue in the republican convention. We covered those speeches. It was very affecting. To make up stories now about pets and to sit there on national television and defended, as Krauthammer would say, whatever they're paying them, it's not enough.
BASH: Can we just cut through to what it is? It's not about the media not reporting on immigration. This is something that is racist. This is a racist meme. The reason why we're covering the memes isn't because recovering the underlying allegation about immigration. What we are covering are allegations --
TAPPER: Republican public officials lying.
BASH: Lying, but lying also suggesting that people of color eating your pets. That's racism.
TAPPER: Coming up, Americans way in on who they think won the debate, which is much more important than what we think. We're going to reaction from Pennsylvania voters who say they are undecided. They might be leaning one way or another, but they haven't made up their mind, for sure. We are also standing getting by for the first results from our instant poll of debate watchers nationwide. We got a lot more ahead. Stick with us.
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[23:45:00]
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COOPER: We now have a total running time for each presidential candidate. After tonight's heated Harris-Trump debate, wrapped up a little while ago, former President Trump speaking just under 43 minutes, Vice President Harris speaking just over 37 and a half minutes. Plus, we just got the first results from our instant poll of debate watchers. Stand by for that. We're getting -- we will be right back.
No. Actually, we'll keep going. We're getting the first reaction to the debate from our focus group, from voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Phil Mattingly is with them in Erie, Pennsylvania. So, tell us who you're with and what they're saying about the debate.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, we talk about how critical Pennsylvania is for each candidate's pathway to 270 electoral votes. We're here in Erie County, Erie, Pennsylvania. We're sitting currently at Mercyhurst University, been wonderful host for us.
The reason why we're here 400 miles away from the debate is Erie County is the swingiest county in the most important swing state of this campaign. There's no question about it. When Obama in 2012, when Trump in 2016, when Biden in 2020, the last two cycles, just about 1,500 votes each separated the two candidates.
So, we wanted to ask voters who have not made a firm decision yet who they want to vote for what they actually saw in this debate. Now, these are voters that have in the past supported Republicans and Democrats. They have in the past shown support for former President Trump or for Joe Biden. But coming into this night, they told us that they had not made up their minds yet in this election.
So, just to step back a little bit, show our focus group, two people, Erie residents. Again, most important state, most important county in that state. We asked for a show of hands before the debate who hadn't made up their mind yet but thought this debate may determine where they would go with their vote.
To start, with this debate, who do you think won, by a show of hands, former President Trump? Two. I'll give it four. But tentative. Two over there. What about Vice President Harris? More hands.
For those of you who thought this debate could be determinative, how many of you have made up your minds based on what you saw tonight on stage in Philadelphia? Raise your hands. All right. I want to ask you why. What did you see that brought you to a conclusion?
UNKNOWN: I think it's important to remember that we are voting for the leader of our country and not who we like the most or who we want in our wedding party, but who is actually going to make our country better. And we're in an incredibly unique situation where we've had both of the candidates in office before and we've gotten to see what they would do.
And when facts come to facts, my life was better when Trump was in office. The economy was higher, inflation was lower, things were better overall. And now with Kamala's administration, things haven't been so fantastic. And she's saying she can fix the problems that her administration has caused, but I just don't know if I can afford to take that risk.
MATTINGLY: Were you leaning towards the former president coming in tonight?
UNKNOWN: Probably.
MATTINGLY: And did you reform in 2016 or 2020?
UNKNOWN: I did.
MATTINGLY: So, decision made there. What did you think?
[23:49:55]
UNKNOWN: As to who I would vote for in this election, I strongly felt Kamala was more optimistic, more respectful. I thought she had plans that she tried to describe in the minutes-worth of time that she had. I mean, they really were limited with their time. So, I don't know. I just felt more strongly for her as opposed to her opponent.
MATTINGLY: I want to talk about some of the moments of the debate because, as we told you, guys, before the debate, each of these individuals had a dial. And if they turn the dial to the right, then they felt positive about what they were hearing in that moment. If they turn it to the left, they felt less so, they felt negative about what they were hearing. We can track that throughout the debate.
We're going to show you a couple of moments where you saw the biggest movement towards positive direction for both of those candidates. You will see the lines at the bottom of the screen, and you will see that movement as the sound we play you plays out. We're going to start with this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Because they're radical. The Democrats are radical in that. And her vice- presidential pick, which I think is a horrible pick, by the way, for our country, because he is really out of it, but her vice- presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth. It's execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay. And that's not okay with me. Hence the vote.
HARRIS: Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest, which understand what that means. A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral.
And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree. The government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: That sound, obviously, that moment was a critical moment, not just for the debate on one of the critical issues of this campaign, on the issue of reproductive rights and abortion, but it was also one that garnered significant reaction from our focus group.
So, I want to ask about right now, for those of you who responded positively to Vice President Harris's answer, tell me why.
UNKNOWN: I --
MATTINGLY: Yeah, please.
UNKNOWN: I responded positively to her answer because I do struggle with the abortion issue, and I don't know that she and I agree. But I don't know that, like she said, that government should be in charge of people's decisions. And I think that they're -- the -- when she was talking about situations of rape and incest, I think that those happen more than we think that they do. And I just -- I don't know. I just felt her impassioned response, and that she would carry it out.
MATTINGLY: And that resonated with you in the moment?
UNKNOWN: Yes, it did.
MATTINGLY: Who else had a positive response? Go ahead, please.
UNKNOWN: I felt like it was her most genuine and passionate that I saw her pretty much throughout it. I didn't necessarily agree with what she was saying, but my favorable reactions were because it was nice to see the passion and believability that she stands behind, and then have something to gauge more of what she says on since she hasn't spoken a lot solidly about a lot of issues.
MATTINGLY: And I think what has been interesting, again, following how you guys were tracking the debate, which is a fascinating experience. And I should note, nobody in this room has been listening to the post- game coverage. Nobody in this room has been listening to the analysis. We've actually all been talking amongst ourselves. It has been a really great conversation.
There was another critical moment, and this was Donald Trump's best moment, based on your guys' responses, and it was when he was discussing Afghanistan. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We were getting out. We would have been out faster than them. But we wouldn't have lost the soldiers. We wouldn't have left many Americans behind. We wouldn't have left -- we wouldn't have left $85 billion worth of brand-new, beautiful military equipment behind. And just to finish, they blew it.
The agreement said you have to do this, this, this. And they didn't do it. They didn't do it. The agreement was terminated by us because they didn't do what they were supposed to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: So, that is the former president talking about the Afghanistan withdrawal where 13 U.S. Service members were killed in that chaotic process. You're a veteran?
UNKNOWN: Yes, sir.
MATTINGLY: There, obviously, personal feelings here as well. That answer, it has been an issue.
[23:55:00]
This is talked about constantly on the campaign. What stood out to you for?
UNKNOWN: When I first heard that we were abandoning or we were withdrawing from Afghanistan and the way it was happening, I had my Kennedy moment. It was very similar to when we decided to invade Iraq back under President Bush.
And when I saw that we were leaving that amount of high-tech equipment in the hands of our enemy, and later that day or later that week, I saw on the news, with them celebrating with our guns in their hands, I realized what a travesty that was, A, in the loss of money, we abandoned when we left, plus the very bullets that we left there that they were shooting at us as we flew away in the plains.
MATTINGLY: We have a lot more to get to with this group. We're going to get to them in a moment. We're going to keep talking here. But in the meantime, Anderson, I want to toss it back to you.
COOPER: All right. Phil, thanks so much. We're about to get a read from Americans Nationwide on which candidate won tonight. The first results of our exclusive instant poll of debate watchers, that's coming. Plus, Kaitlan Collins just caught up with Donald Trump. Our special coverage continues after a break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
