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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump: "I'm Entitled To Personal Attacks" On Harris; Biden, Harris Campaign Together For The First Time Since Biden Exited Campaign; Trump Repeats False Claim Biden Forced Off Ticket By "Coup"; Trump Stokes Fears With "Unconstitutional" Talk Around Harris Nominating Process; Pew Research Poll: 77 Percent Of Black Voters Support Harris, 13 Percent Support Trump; CNN Visits Trump Store Run By A Black Woman To Speak With Voters Who Support The MAGA Movement; Five Charged In Connection To Matthew Perry's Death. Aired: 8-9p ET
Aired August 15, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRIS VAN HEERDEN, BOYFRIEND OF US-RUSSIAN CITIZEN JAILED IN RUSSIA: I'm screamed at a mother as she said, within the next 10 to 15 days, she will be sent off to a colony, and she will come away with (INAUDIBLE) will be once they have the information, but it looks like the lawyer is going to be opposed, fearful that she would be angry at me and mad that I didn't get her back home and I failed. Only to my surprise, it's the other way around, she is now more helpful than ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: Wow, her boyfriend there bought her a ticket to Russia for her birthday where she was arrested while visiting her family and charged with treason.
Thank you so much for joining us. AC360 starts right now.
[20:00:45]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the former president says he's entitled to attack his opponent personally and much, much more at a press conference that was supposed to be about the economy.
Also, tonight, nearly a month since bowing out of the race, President Biden and Vice President Harris made their first joint appearance, will it be their last?
And later, details in the multiple drug arrest made in connection with the death of "Friends" star, Matthew Perry.
Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
We begin tonight with what was supposed to be a press conference on President Trump's economic policy. Take a look This is at Bedminster, his golf club, just a few minutes before the former president started.
Those boxes of cereal, eggs and other groceries were supposed to be the props that he would talk about, which he did, but only in passing. And only toward the very end of his very long opening remarks, a little more than 45 minutes long, 45 minutes about taxes, inflation, and his desire to drill more oil. But he also rambled about stuff he brings up a lot like windmills, killing birds, and trucks with apartments in them and MS-13 gang members carving out victims with knives and Viktor Orban specifically, Trump's claim that Orban said that our enemies feared him, but the former president said he preferred the word respected.
Anyway, there were a lot of other detours, many of which you've heard before. He also made quite a few factually false statements. And again, painted an apocalyptic picture of the country. At one point saying, we're a failing nation, then he took questions and the digressions continued.
Here's what CNNs Alayna Treene asked him, followed by some of his answer, I say some, because we had to edit it because his actual answer went on for 10 minutes and it covered a lot of his often told tales.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Many of your allies who want you to win in November say your current strategy isn't working, that you need to stop with the personal attacks on Kamala Harris and deliver a more disciplined message. Do you agree?
DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I'm entitled to personal attacks. I don't have a lot of respect for her. I don't have a lot of respect for her intelligence. And I think she will be a terrible president. What's the last name of Kamala? Nobody knew. It's Harris nobody knew the last name. I don't even use it because nobody knows who I'm talking about. I did nothing wrong.
I have crooked judges, I have crooked prosecutors, it's all a rigged deal, just like Fani, F-A-N-I, Fani with her boyfriend, but with Hillary she was subpoenaed by Congress to give everything she's got and she burned it. She acid washed, BleachBit, they call it. She totally scrubbed it. And yet Hillary Clinton when it came time to make a decision, I said, I don't want to put the wife of the president of the United States in prison. I want the country to come together and to be unified.
And here it is a few years later. And these people say, let's put him -- why? Because I challenged an election, because I want to challenge an election or some other reason. It's a really disgraceful thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So that was his answer to that one question by Alayna.
Starting us off tonight, CNN political commentators Scott Jennings and Alyssa Farah Griffin, also Michael Nutter, former mayor Democratic mayor of Philadelphia.
Alyssa, I mean, you have sat through and stood through a lot of Trump talks. Does it just seem like he's tired because we've heard a lot of this before, or does he seem actually tired to you?
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, I've been saying this since the outset of this election, Donald Trump is not the Donald Trump of 2016. He seemed slowed down. He seems meandering. He seems low energy and he really is struggling to make a point.
There were brief moments where he got on message in this press conference and started talking about grocery prices and sort of the economic message he was there to deliver. But he would quickly lose his train of thought and kind of end up on any sort of tangent like dead birds by windmills.
He is somebody who is not performing at the caliber that he once was and you know what, that might have worked when he's up against Joe Biden. The contrast did make him appear at times stronger and more vibrant. It's not working against Kamala Harris, who is the younger candidate and who's the one with more energy.
[20:05:02]
COOPER: Scott, it does seem like the people around the former president, I mean, they give him props, they're setting him up to deliver the policy stuff that you and other Republicans say that they want to hear from him. And yet, he goes on for 45 minutes. Were you happy with this?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I was happy with the impulse to want to talk about inflation, and the economy, and to pre- but whatever Kamala Harris is going to do tomorrow, which appears to me to be pretty radical, actually, price controls, and price fixing, and so on. So, the impulse was correct. He did talk about it for a little bit of the time. That was correct.
But when you dilute it with everything else and you get off message and you just put so much other stuff in the basket. It kind of covers it up.
And so, ultimately, he's the only one who can make the decision to get focused and stay focused and stay on it with her and advisers, new advisers, old. It doesn't really matter. It's really on his shoulders because he's the star of the show. And when he talks, people listen and some of what they heard today was great and absolutely correct and inflation is bad and some of what they heard today was way off the beaten path.
He's going to have to decide how comfortable he is doing it that way for the rest of the election. I mean, there's an audience for it. I am not it. I think there's more of an audience for discussion of how Kamala Harris has been terrible on inflation, would be even worse if she institutes her plans.
COOPER: Mayor Nutter, I mean, the former president of course, again, mispronounce Vice President Harris' name, which is obviously part of what he often does, particularly with Black women who he doesn't like. What did you take away from what you saw today? MICHAEL NUTTER (D), FORMER PHILADELPHIA MAYOR: Well, I mean, this is the same distracted Donald Trump. He can't stay focused. He can't stay on message. This is a campaign of gripe and grievance and that's the tour, that's what he knows.
He's a performer and he is performing. He's just going to complain this entire campaign about all manner of things. He cannot talk about trying to run the country because he doesn't know how to run the country, he does know how to run his mouth.
And so, I think as Scott said -- God bless you, it is on him, he is the candidate, it doesn't matter to him what his advisers say because of course, he told us back in 2016, he has a big brain and he's smarter than everyone else. So, we'll see how that works out.
But the personal attacks, windmills and birds, EVs, vehicles. I mean all of these stuff, Donald Trump knows that he is now losing to Vice President Harris and that is driving him crazy.
COOPER: Alyssa, you mentioned the windmill thing. I just want to play what again, he said, because again, this is sort of an -- we've heard this before and it makes no more sense than it did the first time we heard it years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You've got windmills all over the place and you have birds. You want to see a bird cemetery, just go under a windmill. You see thousands of birds dead.
The Bald Eagle, if you kill an eagle, they put you in jail for years and yet these windmills knock them out like nothing and nothing happens to the people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: Savior of the birds, Donald Trump.
COOPER: I mean --
GRIFFIN: It's up there with the Hannibal Lecter rants, which I don't think anyone can really wrap their head around what he is trying to say when he talks about it.
But listen, we all say, you know, if the right advisers get around him, if he stands on a disciplined message, he's going to be able to win this thing, but this is giving me so many flashbacks of 2020 to COVID, where he would insist on giving press conferences, we would give him facts, we would prepare him with materials and the message he wanted to deliver and day after day, he would fail to stay on the script and he would frankly say incredibly damaging and dangerous things.
He's also by the way, I just think it's important we know in this moment because where we are he's also starting to sow doubt in the election itself. He's complaining about mail-in voting. He's talking about this coup of Kamala Harris now being the nominee. It really feels like late summer of 2020 when he started to institute language into his public speeches, that would later be used to undercut the results of the election and to try to say that it was stolen, and I think he's doing that again.
COOPER: Scott, do you think bringing -- he's brought in Corey Lewandowski back from the days of 2016. Do you think that's going to make a difference? It may make him feel more comfortable.
JENNINGS: Maybe, and they brought in a bunch of people today and some good people and some smart operatives. I think it's a big campaign. They will put all those people to work and it'll be fine.
But again, it's on him. It's on his shoulders. I mean, the trajectory of this campaign, he hasn't really lost any ground to Harris. She's gained ground --
[20:10:06]
COOPER: I think we lost Scott there for a second. Alyssa, I mean, you know Corey Lewandowski. Does it make a difference?
GRIFFIN: No and, if anything, I think the Harris-Walz campaign would say that's an adviser, we are okay with him and having back. Listen Corey is somebody who had do leave the 2016 campaign because of a scandal.
He is somebody who is a loyalist to Trump but there is not a suburban woman in a swing district who is going to be moved by the messaging and the presence that Corey Lewandowsky is going to advise him to give.
There's also a bit of a civil war from what I understand within Trump world right now, where some folks wanted Kellyanne Conway back in, somebody who does have a long history in messaging and who has been able in the past to have a softer touch on how you talk about issues. But some folks don't want her back in. It's really in this sort of crisis mode because they're not running the race.
They thought they were going to be against Joe Biden. They got too confident and on top of that, they have a candidate who's is undisciplined and ever, but also just slower and lower energy than he was before.
COOPER: Mayor Nutter, just in terms of Pennsylvania, which is obviously incredibly important. What do you think Harris and Walz need to do?
NUTTER: Well, they need keep doing much of what they are doing. I mean, when you raise $100 million in 24 hours, and then when the vice president became the prime candidate $36 million in 24 hours after the governor was picked to be her running mate, the enthusiasm that we see in Pennsylvania on the streets of Philadelphia and many other cities across the Commonwealth.
Recent polling seems to indicate that Vice President Harris now is leading Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. The combination of the vice president and the governor, that is a winning combination. And people who were thinking about Trump or who are undecided, are now mobilized and energized about the Harris-Walz ticket.
And so, they'll come back, I think to Pennsylvania more than a few times. But the enthusiasm, you can feel it on the streets.
COOPER: We're going to get a quick break.
JENNINGS: But enthusiasm for what?
COOPER: I'm sorry --
JENNINGS: Well yes. But enthusiasm for what?
NUTTER: The enthusiasm for this ticket and returning to the country to sanity.
JENNINGS: But sanity from who, from the current administration? The current Biden-Harris administration?
NUTTER: No, sanity --
JENNINGS: That's what I'm saying -- enthusiasm for what?
NUTTER: No one wants to go back to the insanity of the Trump years.
JENNINGS: There are no policies. The results of the current administration, but enthusiasm for what? You keep saying enthusiasm, I just -- for what?
NUTTER: Scott, the enthusiasm about inflation going down. The enthusiasm about inflation going down, that unemployment is lower, that wages are up, that crime is down. There are things going on and this administration actually has --
JENNINGS: You think this administration has generated enthusiasm?
COOPER: You asked a question, so let him finish here
NUTTER: This administration has a serious track record, you heard about infrastructure, oh Donald Trump said he was going to do infrastructure, he didn't do it. This administration did it.
More bipartisan passed bills than virtually any president in modern history. Yes, there is enthusiasm toward maintaining our rights, making sure that Donald Trump never sees the White House again.
That Project 2025, that extreme radical plan to take away reproductive rights, human rights, civil rights, constitutional rights. Yes, there is enthusiasm about making sure that Donald Trump never gets into the White House and that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are the leaders of this country, that's the enthusiasm.
COOPER: We are going to continue this conversation. We're going to take a quick break. Coming up next, we'll talk about Kamala Harris' first joint appearance with President Biden since she replaced him on the ticket.
And later, CNN's Elle Reeve visits a store in a key electoral state run by Black supporters of the former president. What they said they see in him and the impact they're having on voters in their community.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:02]
COOPER: The president and vice president made their first joint campaign appearance since he passed the torch to her. Their remarks came on a day the administration heralded a deal reached with drug companies to reduce the price Medicare pays by hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars for 10 commonly prescribed drugs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a lot of love in this room for our president --
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And I think it's for many, many reasons, including few leaders in our nation have done more on so many issues, including to expand access to affordable health care like -- Joe Biden.
(CHEERING APPLAUSE)
(CROWD CHANTING "Thank You, Joe")
JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Folks, I have an incredible partner for the progress we've made. She can make one hell of a president.
(CHEERING APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: CNN's. Eva McKend joins us now from Raleigh, North Carolina, where the vice president is going to be speaking tomorrow.
Just talk more a little bit about what the president and vice president said today.
EVA MCKEND, NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the event really served two purposes. They showed unity, but they also touted the wins as they see them of this administration.
So many voters, or at least some voters may still be trying to catch their breath from the last couple of weeks. And what we saw from President Biden is him really illustrate genuine joy at passing the torch to the vice president, but also, they were touting all of their efforts to advance Affordable Health Care. Biden also having some sharp words for former President Donald Trump, take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Trump says he wants to make America affordable again. Your response?
JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So he ought to get a job.
BIDEN: The guy we're running against, what's his name? Donald Dump or Donald whatever. You may have heard about the MAGA Republican Project 2025 Plan.
(BOOING)
BIDEN: Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is, beat the hell out of him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:20:11]
MCKEND: Anderson, Biden and Harris also talked about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, something that has really emerged as a top campaign issue for the vice president.
COOPER: And, she's speaking tomorrow in Raleigh. What's the focus there?
MCKEND: This is going to be an economic address that really centers the issue of affordable housing. She has a four-year plan to address affordable housing, it includes $25,000.00 in down payment assistance, actions aimed at spurring construction of new housing, tax incentives for starter homes, and additionally, a federal ban on price gouging.
We know, Anderson, that the cost of housing, the cost of living, groceries has been one of the stubborn, persistent issues that the administration has faced. The vice president in centering this really responding to the concerns of voters.
So many voters that I speak to time and time again, they cite the cost of rent and the ability to buy a house as among their top issues -- Anderson.
COOPER: Eva McKend, thanks very much. Back now with the panel.
Mayor Nutter, do you expect there to be a lot more events with the president and the vice president or do you think this was sort of passing the torch moment that they needed to do before the convention and we're not going to see them together much on the stage at campaign events. What do you think?
NUTTER: As I know, President Biden, he's going to do whatever he is asked to do to support Vice President Harris and Governor Walz. But at the end of the day, Vice President Harris is the candidate.
I would anticipate that the other former Democratic presidents will join the campaign trail as well. But it is always the candidate who has to set the tone and make those requests and do all the coordination.
So, I expect President Biden will do everything he can to support Vice President Harris in whatever way she and the campaign think best.
COOPER: Alyssa, from a political standpoint, would you expect -- I mean, obviously, there's an incentive for Vice President Harris to set her own course and distance herself and yet at the same time, try to get the benefit of any benefit that President Biden can bring on the trail. Do you expect them to be together a lot?
GRIFFIN: I suspect after his speech at the DNC, you're not going to see them appearing much together and I likely think he's going to stay largely out of the spotlight, perhaps doing some events in Scranton and in the final stretch.
But the reality is this the old Trump world needs to do is basically say she's an extension of what voters didn't like about the Biden administration and she's left it to the extreme.
Appearing with Biden will feed that narrative. I think the best thing she can do is appear on her own with a forward-looking message.
Biden constantly gotten his own way by wanting to get credit for policies he felt like he enacted and deserved credit for. He was often looking backward, talking about bills he passed and signed.
She's had a much more forward-looking message. If I were her, I would not be appearing with him after the convention and would deploy him where it may make sense, but on his own.
COOPER: Scott, you were making the point in the previous break about the criticizing the Harris campaign saying she doesn't really have any policies that she's running on. Obviously, tomorrow she's going to be focusing on some.
I get that argument. It's a little weakened though, isn't it? By the fact that the former president rarely speaks in-depth on any policy other than saying, like drill, baby, drill. There's no real meat on any of the bones that he occasionally discusses.
JENNINGS: Well, he did issue a platform at the Republican National Convention that has his agenda and his goals. And I think his policies are you know to do what Joe Biden is not doing.
COOPER: But he can't actually speak about those.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, look he is not the incumbent. He is the challenger. And he has said he would like to spend less money. He has said he would like to not raise taxes. He has said he would not like to do some of the same immigration policies that he had done that were reversed by Joe Biden.
I mean there are real policy differences in the campaign, or at least there were real policy differences between Trump and Biden. That's the thing about Harris. I think she's going to try to get away with essentially no one ever really knowing how she would act and she's also going to try to get away with being disconnected from Joe Biden.
I was glad to see them campaign together today because she's had a direct hand in just about everything he has done from immigration to inflation, which is not going down by the way. The rate of inflation has dropped somewhat, but inflation itself is still going up.
[20:25:00]
But that's Trump's burden. He cannot let people believe that she just dropped in here out of nowhere and has no responsibility for the last four years and that she has not been at the center of Democratic policy making in Washington for the last a several years.
She absolutely has been and she has been far to the left on most policies. But again, its Trump's burden. No one is going to do this for him except for Trump. I actually think September 10th is the most pivotal day. It will be his best chance to make that case and stay focused on.
COOPER: Mayor Nutter, the president was asked whether Vice President Harris will start distancing herself from him. I just want to play what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: How much does it bother you that Vice President Harris might soon for political reasons, start to distance herself from your economic plan?
BIDEN: She's not going to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Do you expect her to distance herself from his economic plan?
NUTTER: I would not expect that, what I do expect that when you're a candidate for office, you do have to distinguish yourself. That is the part of the whole point of being a candidate.
All of us have these relationships, connections. We come from different political families. But when your name is on the ballot, you have to make the case for yourself in addition to obviously talking about the things that you've done, but not she was vice president. She's now running for president.
And so, when my good friend, Scott talks about policies, for Donald Trump, you don't need to have policies when you have also said you want to be a dictator on day one. I don't think Putin has many policies, right? So dictators don't think about policies.
And the campaign platform that he had during the convention is very, very different, lacking in substance as compared to the radical Project 25. That's where you're going to find all of "Donald Trump's, the convicted felon's policies" are in Project 2025. That's where you want to look. Don't get distracted by what he's talking about. Pay attention to what's already written.
COOPER: Alyssa, do you think, I mean, Vice President Harris obviously, has not done interviews. She's received criticism from reporters and some others about that, but from a strategic standpoint, I understand why she would not want to do that, particularly so early on.
Do you think she can continue with the way she's been running or do you think she has to shift?
Because again, the candidate she's going against does not go into great policy details on anything ever. He never has and its worked for him. Do you think she needs too as well?
GRIFFIN: Listen, Kamala Harris is going to have to start giving interviews after the convention. I think that's the hard and fast deadline, but the way that looks may not be the way that you and I would recommend. You know, not necessarily doing an hour-long sit down on a news network, but gaggling plane sides, sitting down with local reporters when she's traveling to different areas and swing states, doing some TV appearances and different platforms. I think that's certainly helpful.
I actually think it helps her ahead of the debate to start doing more interviews because you don't want to -- you don't want to be answering for the first time, why did you reverse your call for Medicare-for-All in a debate on a debate stage? You want a chance to workshop that message in an interview type setting.
But she does its not need to be doing daily 90-minute press conferences or anything of the sort. In fact, I think as we saw with Donald Trump, it does more harm than good.
And I just want to note, he does get away with saying things that just -- there's no meat to it. He was asked about Israel today and he basically said, they need to stop the killing and they need to wrap this up. What's the plan? How are you going to do that?
He benefits from not actually giving specificity whereas normal politicians will give more, which gives more things people can poke out.
COOPER: Alyssa Farah Griffin, Scott Jennings, Mayor Nutter, thank you very much.
Coming up next CNN's Tom Foreman investigates the plan that some Trump supporters have for contesting the election by challenging how Vice President Harris got on the ticket.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:02]
COOPER: We touched on this at the top of the broadcast. Today at Bedminster, the former president repeated a familiar claim of his, namely that President Biden was forced off the Democratic ticket.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What they did to him was disgraceful, by the way, and it really is a threat to democracy. It was a coup by people that wanted him out, and they didn't do the way, not the way they're supposed to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's not only inaccurate, it's also an old refrain from him. As CNN's Tom Foreman reports, it also may be how he and his supporters are trying to lay the groundwork, as they did in 2020, to try and challenge the election if he loses.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A stolen nomination, unconstitutional, illegal, that is how some Republicans are characterizing the Democratic Party's switch from President Joe Biden to Vice President Kamala Harris.
TRUMP: This was a coup of a president of the United States.
From any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This was fundamentally illegitimate.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Their argument? Voters in all those state primaries chose Biden, not Harris, to challenge Republican Donald Trump.
MIKE JOHNSON (R), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It would be wrong, and I think unlawful, in accordance to some of these states rules for a handful of people to go in a back room and switch it out because they're -- they don't like the candidate any longer.
FOREMAN (voice-over): But CNN contacted all 50 states, and they overwhelmingly said there is no impediment to swapping Harris for Biden on the ballot. And if the GOP files a complaint in court --
RICK HASEN, PROFESSOR UCLA LAW SCHOOL DEMOCRACY PROJECT: I expect that if any court acted in some rogue way, that a higher court whether that's a state Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court or some federal appeals court, that someone would correct it. There really is no theory that would exclude Kamala Harris from appearing on the ballot.
FOREMAN (voice-over): So why keep pushing the idea? Well, remember, in the 2020 election, Republicans raised unproven claims of Biden votes coming from faulty voting machines, undocumented immigrants, dead people and many raged over the idea Donald Trump lost the election only because of rule changes to accommodate the pandemic.
[20:35:05]
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R), MISSOURI: We do need an investigation into irregularities, fraud. We do need a way forward together. FOREMAN (voice-over): Dozens of courts rejected those claims. Biden's win was certified, but for many Trumpers, their belief in a stolen election has never died. So some election watchers think Trump is angling for another excuse in case the vote again does not go his way.
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We know one thing for sure, Trump never loses. And so if he's not declared the winner of 2024 as in 2020, it must be because he was treated unfairly yet again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN (on-camera): To return to the subject of the Supreme Court, yes, maybe under some certain circumstances, they might come weighing in late. But legal analysts point out when it comes to who's on the ballot, the courts have largely said let the parties decide, let the ballots be cast, and let the voters make their pick. Anderson?
COOPER: Tom Foreman, thanks very much.
We want to get some perspective on this now from Best-Selling Author and Former Federal Prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin. So is there any legal footing for this argument that it was unconstitutional for Harris to become the nominee?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You know, Anderson, I try to give balanced answers whenever it's possible, but it's really not possible in a circumstance like this. You know, this is a completely open and shut situation. Yes, it's true that the voters voted in the Democratic primaries for Joe Biden.
Joe Biden has withdrawn as a candidate. So the delegates who were elected in those primaries now get to pick a different candidate. They have picked Kamala Harris. That's how the Democratic Party rules work. It makes sense. There is no impediment in the Democratic Party to this. And that's the end of the story. There is no legal impediment to Kamala Harris being the party -- the nominee in all 50 states.
COOPER: And just to be clear, I mean, the Constitution, which is what the former president is referring to, he's suddenly very interested in what's unconstitutional, the Constitution does not address the party nomination process, correct?
TOOBIN: No, I mean, there is a general provision in the 5th and 14th Amendment that says the government has to act in -- with due process of law. But that applies to the government's behavior. The Democratic Party is a private entity. And in any case, there is -- there's no argument that this is an -- there was an absence of due process here.
They had a candidate who won primaries who's not a candidate anymore. They have to pick someone else. They have picked someone else. That is not -- there is no constitutional provision that would bar that under any circumstance.
COOPER: It also -- I mean the Democratic Party has rule -- like layers and layers of rules and rules and rules. All of this has been thought out actually long before this ever happened. TOOBIN: Right. And, you know, going back to, you know, when Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980, you know, there was a big fight about how delegates could vote at the convention and whether they were bound by the results of primaries.
But the key issue to remember also is that the only person who could ever challenge this, the only person who has standing to challenge Kamala Harris's nomination is Joe Biden. Because he would be the victim, but he has no interest in challenging it, because he is now supporting Kamala Harris.
So, you know, look, people can make claims, and certainly, Donald Trump has made untold thousands of legal claims, both in public and in court filings that have been rejected over and over again. And no one's going to stop him from making claims. But those of us who try to, you know, inform people about the legitimacy of the claims, this one, there's really no dispute about.
The Democratic Party gets to decide who their candidate is, and they've decided on Kamala Harris.
COOPER: Right. Jeff Toobin, thanks very much.
Just ahead, as the former president works to gain ground with black voters who overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates, CNN's Elle Reeve travels to a Trump store run by a black woman to see the impact the MAGA movement has had on her and her community.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:43:40]
COOPER: As recent polls show, Vice President Harris gaining momentum in her bid for the presidency. They also show her winning over more support from a key voting bloc, Black voters. According to data this week from Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Black voters support Harris compared to 64 percent who backed Biden in July. Trump support among black voters is unchanged at around 13 percent.
Now, this comes as the former president is trying to appeal more to the black community, a group that has long and overwhelmingly backed Democrats. CNN's Elle Reeve spent time recently in Virginia at a shop selling Trump merchandise that's run by a black woman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JO ANNE PRICE, RUNS A TRUMP STORE: Every woman ought to have one of these. It's one of those things that when people see one, then they want one. Same thing with the Confederate hat. You know why? Because people don't think you have the nerve to do it.
ELLE REEVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jo Anne Price runs a Trump store in Christiansburg, Virginia.
REEVE: When Joe Biden announced he wouldn't run for president again, was there any part of you who felt a pull to vote for Harris? PRICE: No.
REEVE: Why not?
PRICE: Absolutely not. I would not vote for either one of them. I would not vote Democrat ticket. No way.
This is a white privilege card. And this is just a play, it just says this card trumps everything and it gives a barrier. Happiness and success because of the color of the skin.
[20:45:02]
REEVE: And who buys that?
PRICE: White people.
REEVE: OK.
PRICE: It's funny.
SEBRIAM VANNOY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: And then when you give it to a state trooper, they'll let you go and write you a ticket.
REEVE: You think so?
VANNOY: Yes. I've experienced it.
PRICE: Yes.
REEVE: Wait, really?
VANNOY: Yes. And then he said, OK, he laughed at it and gave it back to me and did not write me a ticket.
REEVE (voice-over): This actually happened at least once elsewhere. In 2022, a woman claimed Alaska police let her go without a ticket when she flashed a white privilege card instead of a driver's license.
PRICE: It's humorous to us. You know, it really is. It's humorous to the average Americans here, you know?
VANNOY: Chances are 2 to 1 he was a Republican, too.
REEVE (voice-over): Trump has been working to appeal to black voters, and polls showed some success when Biden was still in the race, but have since gone down.
REEVE: The Trump campaign this year has made a big effort to reach out to black voters. What do you think of their efforts?
PRICE: I think their efforts aren't succeeding tremendously. All the things that have happened to President Trump, the attacks on him, have done nothing more than strengthen black people's connection to him. Because now he's someone who is the target of a struggle, and they have always been -- felt that they've been a target. I did prison ministries for five years. So, you know, if you're a convicted felon, and then somebody else is a convicted felon, there's a camaraderie there.
REEVE (voice-over): Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris, questioning her racial identity. She's black.
TRUMP: I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.
REEVE (voice-over): He's acknowledged his commentary has provoked mixed reactions. Price is just one person and not a swing voter, but we were curious what she made of his comments given that she's a black woman and fervent Trump supporter and former local Republican Party chair.
REEVE: How do you make sense of how Trump talks about Vice President Kamala Harris, that he sort of suggests that he doesn't understand her biracial background, that first she was Indian and then she was black? What do you make of that?
PRICE: I don't understand it either. She's Indian and she's Jamaican.
REEVE: Yes.
PRICE: Is she black?
REEVE: I mean, do you not think she's black?
PRICE: Is she? Was she born here?
REEVE: Yes.
PRICE: Yes. Were her parents citizens? No.
REEVE: OK. But we have birthright citizenship in America.
PRICE: We call that anchor.
REEVE: People can't immigrate here and not be citizens, but have green cards and work permits.
PRICE: Yes, that's true. However, she can claim to be black because of her Jamaican father. You know, that's her right. We're a melting pot, you know, because I basically have a combination in my family as well.
REEVE: How do you reconcile that? Like, you have a history of blended families in your family. How do you reconcile that with Trump seeming to not understand how Kamala Harris could have a blended family herself?
PRICE: Herself? She could have a blended family. What I'm saying is, is his comments about that, I think he's making a point. And, you know, I'm not so disturbed by that.
REEVE: But what is the point he's making? PRICE: The point he's making simply is, is that she is not a black, black person.
REEVE (voice-over): There were some mixed views on the idea of a woman president.
REEVE: What do you think about Kamala Harris?
VANNOY: Kamala Harris, may I say this, and hopefully that you ladies won't get offended, but because of what happened in the Garden of Eden, there will never be an elected woman, whether she's black or white, that will occupy the White House, that God would ever stand behind.
MERRIE TURNER, REVEREND WHO BACKS TRUMP: I'm not sure America's quite ready for female leadership. It would be wonderful to have a female president if and when one arises that has conservative values that are going to lead the nation in prosperity.
REEVE: Did Joe Biden dropping out change your view of the election at all?
JOE SHANNON, OBAMA-TO-TRUMP VOTER: Oh, it surely did. I think she's going to be worse than Joe. I just don't think she has the experience. I think she was only chosen because she was a woman.
PRICE: He has been mocked, scrutinized, slandered, dragged into court. This man is still standing and he's standing strong because he knows that he was chosen. He's our David.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[20:50:01]
COOPER: And Elle Reeve joins me now. I'm wondering what you heard from other customers in the store.
REEVE (on-camera): Well, as much as identity politics was rebuked by the merchandise there, identity was still really important to the people I spoke to. For example, one younger man told me that he didn't like Harris because she was for city people who had office jobs, whereas Trump was for blue collar people like him.
COOPER: And how did you meet the woman who runs the store?
REEVE (on-camera): I met her about six months ago in Virginia. She told me this story of wearing a Confederate flag swimsuit on the beach and how so many people had come up to her. She realized she'd missed a marketing opportunity.
Obviously, I wanted to talk to her about what she thought about Harris's nomination, but she wasn't going to budge on that. And, of course, polls show that she is not in the majority among black women. Even a black woman who was our taxi driver of the story could not stop raving about how much she loved Kamala Harris.
COOPER: Elle Reeve, fascinating. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good to talk to you.
Coming up, new details from our John Miller after federal authorities charged multiple people today in the drug related death of actor Matthew Perry.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:55:39]
COOPER: Federal authorities in Los Angeles today announced charges against five people connected to the death last year of actor Matthew Perry. The "Friends" co-star died from the effects of a ketamine overdose. Investigators say they uncovered an underground network of dealers and suppliers whom they allege are responsible for distributing the drug to Perry.
The defendants are two doctors, Perry's live in personal assistant and two others, including a woman referred to as the Ketamine Queen. Here's the U.S. attorney who brought the charges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN ESTRADA, U.S. ATTORNEY: These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry's addiction issues to enrich themselves. In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr. Perry than caring for his wellbeing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Our Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller joins us with more. So what more do you know about the people who were charged?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, to break it down, Anderson, you've got Kenneth Iwamasa, that's Matthew Perry's personal assistant. He's charged in this case as being the person who, on Perry's behalf, obtained the ketamine from this network of doctors, drug dealers, middlemen, and actually supplied the injections to Perry, including those that were given to him on the day he was found dead in the swimming pool.
Then you have Jasveen Sangha, who is known in Hollywood as the Ketamine Queen. She would be the drug dealer who, when the doctors started to run out of their ability to supply the ketamine, this ring allegedly turned to, and she was able to supply a steady stream of that.
Then you have Dr. Mark Chavez, who once ran a ketamine clinic which closed, but because he had old prescriptions, he was able to supply another doctor, who was the person who was helping Perry. So he was getting drugs allegedly from drug dealers, from doctors, from doctors who used to have clinics. And all of this was because of his increasing need for volume of the drug, which ultimately killed him.
COOPER: And what was the motive -- I mean, why would two doctors risk their entire careers to allegedly sell drugs to an actor? MILLER: Well, it's interesting because at the end of it, it comes to nothing more than greed. You know, if you look at some of the evidence prosecutors have, there's actually a statement captured in the text message from Dr. Salvador Plasencia to Dr. Chavez, which basically says, let's see how much this moron is willing to pay. "I wonder how much this moron is willing to pay. Let's see."
And ultimately for the 20 vials of ketamine that Dr. Plasencia allegedly turned over to Perry's assistant, they charged $55,000. So they were in it for the money.
Another sense you get, Anderson, from the case is, they certainly knew what they were doing was wrong because another text message between two of the conspirators, once the death of Matthew Perry hits the news is to delete all of the text messages. "Delete all our text messages. Yes."
And despite the fact that they did that, investigators with subpoenas were able to backtrack the providers and platforms and recover most of them, which are part of the smoking gun here.
COOPER: Is there anything else that stood out in the indictment to you?
MILLER: Yes. Anderson, when you read between the lines, there's a lot in this case that wasn't apparent when they announced that five people, including two doctors, were charged. And that is that, quietly, at the beginning of the summer, if not before, Matthew Perry's personal assistant, who was at the center of this case, began cooperating with prosecutors and entered into a plea agreement which says he'll testify against the others.
He was followed by Eric Fleming, the middleman, who was allegedly the go between between Perry and the Ketamine Queen, and then Dr. Chavez, who was the go between between Dr. Plasencia and part of his ketamine supply. So out of the five, three got on board with federal prosecutors and have been talking to them and turning over documents and phone messages and other things for a long time.
COOPER: And were they dealing to other Hollywood stars?
MILLER: That's the really interesting question. I spoke to a senior investigator tonight in Los Angeles who said they did run into other names, other big names, other known entities in Hollywood in this case, but none of those dealings amounted to what prosecutors thought was a case that would sustain a conviction because they were still alive and hadn't suffered an overdose and there were middlemen and so on.
COOPER: John Miller, appreciate the reporting. Thank you very much.
That's it for us. The news continues. The Source with Pamela Brown starts now. See you tomorrow.
