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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Harris Delivers Closing Message To Capacity Crowd In D.C.; Harris Focuses On Economy, Trump's Character In Speech; Biden Says, I Wasn't Referring To Trump Supporters As Garbage; Trump Makes False Claims Of Cheating In Lancaster County; Barbara Pierce Bush Supports Harris And Walz. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 29, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, time and place. With one week to go, Kamala Harris delivers a closing message centered on democracy from the very place Donald Trump inspired an attack that nearly ended the American experiment.
Plus, out of brotherly love.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The other night at Madison Square Garden, the love, the love --
PHILLIP: Trump heads to Pennsylvania to pick up the pieces. His hate- filled rally broke as a former rival --
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they've got going.
PHILLIP: -- rips his campaign's blatant misogyny.
Also, do no harm, President Biden drops a gaffe from the sidelines --
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.
PHILLIP: -- to haunt the Harris message.
Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Scott Jennings, Marc Lotter and Leigh McGowan.
With seven days to go, Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening and welcome. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. The message tonight, it is both the words and the wear that Kamala Harris is using to convince the country to vote for her in these final days. The setting tonight was The Ellipse in Washington, D.C. And this is the split screen that the campaign wants to be seared into your memory, Kamala Harris promising a future full of possibility, clashing with Donald Trump's insurrection carnage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I pledge to be a president for all Americans and to always put country above party and self.
I love our country with all my heart and I believe in its promise, because I've lived it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was supposed to be the kind of set piece moment for her to end this campaign, but it's a little bit of a navigation that she's doing between this message that is very much strongly against Trump and that message that you heard there, she's talking about loving the country, she's talking about bringing people together, it's not an easy thing to do.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, SOCIAL MEDIA HOST AND CONTENT CREATOR, POLITICSGIRL: It's not an easy thing to do, but I think she leaned right into it. She went right back to the place where we had our democracy almost get destroyed, and she said, I'm offering you an alternative. It's a binary choice between democracy and dictatorship, between hope and hate, between the future and the past. She showed us over and over again with her policies, with her words, with her voice, with what she's trying to say, that she's talking about what she can do for the American people while Donald Trump is talking about what he's going to do to the American people. And I think we have to be really clear that those -- that's the dichotomous choice that we're looking at.
MARC LOTTER, FORMER STRATEGIC COMMS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: But I think the problem is, is that we are seven days away from an election. January 6th happened three and a half, almost three and three quarters years ago. Everybody who's going to make a decision based on January 6th has already made that decision.
And so in a razor tight election, where there may just be a small fraction, a small percentage of the people who are undecided, it wasn't January 6th that pushed them over the edge. It's going to be something else. Now, is that gas and grocery prices, the border, immigration? That might be -- I think I would believe that that's what --
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think you're I think you're kind of missing the point and that's that happens here a lot where we're sitting around a table and people are acting as if we're in a persuasion phase of the election and we're not. Nobody's here -- nobody -- Kamala Harris was not trying to persuade anyone to go from one side to the other. She's not trying to persuade Trump voters to come out and vote for her. What she's doing is she's making sure that those individuals who may sit on the couch or those people who may not come out and vote for her understand what this election is about.
And it's a clear choice. This is a binary decision. And you articulated it perfectly. This is what it is. Either you vote for Donald Trump, which is a vestige of yesterday, or you vote for Kamala Harris, who can turn the page on that. And so tonight was something that was amazing.
And it wasn't 75,000, it was a hundred thousand people out there. We're talking about where we remember January 6th to Pete (ph). And January 6th is actually seared in a -- when you say January 6th, it's like Madonna.
[22:05:00]
It's like Mike. It's like Jordan. I mean, these things are just phrases. April 4th, 1968, you ask people that question. They're like, that is the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated. People remember these things. January 6 is one of those days. And she stood on there and said, look, you remember this day. Let me show you what tomorrow can look like. It was perfect.
And one more thing, the events team, I think that all of us -- I mean, I see Scott already frowning, but the events team --
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm literally smiling.
SELLERS: That was a smile? But the events team for Kamala Harris, we've all seen campaigns, I just was a lowly figure at the state level co-chair of Barack Obama in '08, but tonight, this events team put on a million dollar production. The backdrop, the flags, just everything about, it was great.
PHILLIP: The stagecraft of it was part of the story. I mean, she went back to where Trump was. She, on the eve of this election, a week out, put together, we're hearing from authorities, 52,000 in The Ellipse itself, and there was overflow. That's a huge crowd for this. That's, you know, 2008-size Obama crowds. I mean, that says something about what's happening with Kamala Harris.
JENNINGS: Yes. I mean, she's going to get 90 percent of the vote in Washington, D.C. So, I would hope she could draw a crowd from her town that's going to give her the most support from a bunch of government bureaucrats. I would hope they would turn out for that.
Look, I was sort of taken aback by the absolute full on attack on Trump. We've heard it all before. It sounded a little frantic to me, to be honest, this close to the end of the election. I took a few notes. Again, they're still pushing the lie about Project 2025. It doesn't matter how many times she says it, Donald Trump did not write it. He has disavowed. This is not his agenda. He has his own campaign agenda. It is not Project 2025.
MCGOWAN: No, it's Agenda 47, which is exactly the same as Project 2025. And you can say that as many times as you want, Scott, but it's not true. So, just to stay here and say, I've said this a million times, and it's not his plan. His plans are -- that's a very smug way to look at me, my friend. The thing is, is that what we're doing is we're talking about what she's planning for us. And you're saying 100,000 people, she could draw that anywhere if it was in Washington, D.C.
You're totally overlooking what she has done here. She's brought together 100,000 people to say, I look forward to the future. I will be a president for everyone and not just a president for the people that I like. And if you look at it in contrast to what we looked at Madison Square Garden's, which said, hey, man, we don't like you, we don't like you, we don't like you, we don't like you, we're not for you, we're not for you, and she's saying, everyone is an American, everyone will be taken care of. And to the point that we were making earlier, she's saying, here's what the future looks like under me.
PHILLIP: Let me play a little bit more from -- I'll let you jump back in Scott, don't worry. I just want -- so people understand what we're talking about here. I mean, this is when we talk about the contrast. This is the contrast that the Harris campaign was pretty much actively playing on. Let's play Trump today in Palm Beach, Harris also today in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's a campaign of hate, a campaign of absolute hate. And, you know, I said yesterday that she's a vessel. She is a vessel.
They're vicious and they're perhaps even trying to destroy our country.
HARRIS: These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, what do you make of that, Scott?
JENNINGS: Well, look, she's simultaneously trying to argue that only she can save the country. They've obviously put all their chips in on this idea that there are just enough people who hate Donald Trump and you just have to accept me as I am. I was trying to articulate earlier before I was interrupted that I don't think the policy argument she's making is going to be fully persuasive about that.
People don't necessarily just have to look at the president and say, well, as long as you're not Donald Trump, that's good enough. It's not good enough for a lot of people. She said on immigration, politicians need to start taking this issue seriously. Well, the building over your shoulder is where you work. Were you taking it seriously for the first three and a half years again? She also --
MCGOWAN: (INAUDIBLE) just lying to people. So, it's nuts to say that she's not running on any policies, she's only running on anti-Donald Trump. That's crazy. JENNINGS: She also said that she would never disrespect our military men and women. And she attacked Donald Trump on that. But I guess the offer doesn't apply to the Gold Star families who had soldiers lost at Abbey Gate and Afghanistan.
So, I think there were a number of issues where she's trying to do two things, present herself as a unifying figure, and at the same time, I think offering up divisive and unsatisfactory answers on several of the most important policy issues in the --
[22:10:00]
SELLERS: But it's not a difficult thing. And so, I mean, I know -- I understand the premise of your question, but I don't think it's that difficult. I mean, to be completely honest, as someone who loves and adores and tries to send unsolicited comments to Kamala Harris in the campaign often, you guys were -- Marc and Scott, in the Republican Party, you guys were actually benefiting from just kind of backing into having, I don't want to say unprecedented, but decent to sex with Hispanic voters. I mean, you guys were doing well because of things like inflation in the economy. And you saw it kind of creeping right around 35 percent and above. And all you had to do, and I'm saying you generally, was not be racist. That's literally what the bar was.
The Republican Party simply had to go out and not be racist and xenophobic. And then you saw Madison Square Garden, you were backing into numbers that would put you --- and the Kamala Harris campaign wants you at 35 percent or lower with Hispanic voters. That's kind of the number where you need to be. Everybody knows that. That's not rocket science. And you were creeping slightly above that number, anywhere between 35 and 40. with Joe Biden, you were probably between 40 and 45. And all you had to do was not be racist.
JENNINGS: Can I ask you a question to test your proposition? So, you're saying that after several years of experiencing the Biden- Harris economy and moving away from the Democratic Party over inflation and culture issues and whatever it was that was causing all this gravitation towards the Republicans, that one goofball insult comic's joke was all it took to cause people to get amnesia about why they were moving to the Republican Party?
SELLERS: But I think I think you I think you underestimate or devalue because you want to look at it as an isolated incident.
JENNINGS: No. It's been -- in your mind, what's more important? All your lived experience about why you're having --
SELLERS: -- All your --
JENNINGS: Or this one insult coming?
SELLERS: All your lived experience is more important and all your lived experience when you have to go out the house. And this is one of the things I appreciate about the show. Like how many of you all at this table have to go out the house and run two times faster than the person that you are competing against? How many people have to go outside and make sure their kids come home safely? How many people have to go out the house and make sure that their children are humanized?
And so when you talk about inflation and all these other things, I hear you. Those are real issues. But when you go outside the house and you realize that you're being demonized just because of the color of your skin or where you're from, or the fact that you actually are American, but you just happen to be from Puerto Rico, I mean, those things matter that much more.
And so, yes, I think that it's I think that that actually put in perspective a lot for voters in this country and it crystallized it, especially when you're coming towards the telling of a race.
MCGOWAN: But if I may, I really do think that we keep going back to this idea that people were unhappy with the economy. They're unhappy with inflation. They're unhappy with the border. And a lot of the reasons people are unhappy with those things is because they're constantly told they're bad when, statistically, they're actually not. The border is not open. It hasn't been open since the 1920s.
LOTTER: There were 12 million illegal immigrants in this country in the last 20 years.
MCGOWAN: Inflation is at a three year low. U.S. employment is at a -- unemployment is at a 50-year low.
LOTTER: Inflation adds on top of each other. Come on now.
MCGOWAN: America's doing better than every other country in the world post-pandemic. But you guys keep telling people the --
SELLERS: I hear you and I agree with you. I would I would actually argue, though, in one of the things that Democrats have done wrong for a period of time when it comes to inflation, immigration and crime, is we have not paid attention to how people feel. And I agree with you on the numbers, because what we've seen is that we've had a softer landing than any other country that has experienced, a major country that's experienced COVID the way that we have. But what we also have to realize is that people feel it differently.
MCGOWAN: They absolutely feel it differently and I think that that's a truth.
PHILLIP: It always comes back to -- I mean, I think if you want to criticize the state of the current economy, inflation, all of that stuff, that's fair, right? Americans feel like they're not able to afford as much as they could before. But I still don't see a lot of evidence that if you're criticizing Kamala Harris, you're claiming that she doesn't have policies, I don't see a lot of policies coming out of Donald Trump.
LOTTER: Oh, absolutely.
PHILLIP: I see a lot of catchphrases about and, and giveaways that he's not explaining how they would work economically or paying for them. I'm not seeing policy provisions that really actually address the cost of living. He's just complaining about the problem.
LOTTER: No. I think the first one, he's said this many times, the first one is very easy. It's restore America's energy independence. When we bring the cost of --
PHILLIP: America is producing more energy --
(CROSSTALKS)
LOTTER: We are pumping more oil, but it did not keep up with the rate of growth that we had. It didn't keep up with the growth of the economy.
PHILLIP: Yes. But I'm saying they're -- Joe Biden's presidency is doing better than Donald Trump's was on this metric. So, if that is true, how is that -- that should be bringing down and that should be solving the problem.
LOTTER: That's one metric. It's not the metric The price of electricity, the price of utilities has gone up 30 percent.
[22:15:00]
MCGOWAN: But a lot of that is corporate greed, which we keep trying to tell you guys.
PHILLIP: Okay, but --
MCGOWAN: And then we have --
LOTTER: Okay. But anyhow you bring down the price of energy, you bring down the price of energy.
PHILLIP: Okay.
LOTTER: That's the quickest and easiest way because everything, from the farm, the factory, the warehouse, your house, requires fuel, it requires --
PHILLIP: Gas prices are -- okay, gas prices are --
LOTTER: Electricity, all of it.
PHILLIP: What else? What else? I mean, that clearly is not enough because it hasn't solved the cost of groceries.
LOTTER: You bring down the cost of -- you bring down inflation, you lower the interest rates. Now, you've dealt with the housing issue.
SELLERS: How do you do that?
MCGOWAN: So, then why did the Republicans vote against the -- wait a second. Why did the Republicans vote against the Inflation Reduction Act?
LOTTER: Because it doesn't reduce inflation. It's like it was a giveaway program.
MCGOWAN: It did reduce inflation. We have the lowest inflation of all the G7 countries. So, it didn't reduce inflation?
LOTTER: It's gone up 20 percent since Kamala Harris and Joe Biden went into office.
MCGOWAN: People are feeling it, and it's not like I don't go to a grocery store. I know how --
SELLERS: Marc, how is Donald Trump going to reduce inflation?
LOTTER: How's he going to reduce inflation?
SELLERS: Yes.
LOTTER: First off, you start -- you get control over government spending, we set too much money on chasing too little goods. You lower the cost of energy, which lowers the cost of production. You remove government regulations, which lowers the cost of production.
PHILLIP: We don't have time to get into all of this, but just to be clear, Marc, Donald Trump -- just in the last two weeks, Donald Trump said that he was going to look at getting rid of the income tax, no taxes on Social Security, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, tariffs, none of those things do what you're talking about. So, there's a disconnect between what you're saying the agenda is and what Trump is saying the agenda is.
We have more to discuss, but everyone just stick around for us. Coming up next, Joe Biden may have stepped on the Harris message tonight. He referred to Trump supporters as garbage, and now he's trying to clean it up. A special guest is going to join us in our fifth seed to discuss that. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, there's new reporting about Joe Biden and a moment that explains why things are the way that they are. Sources tell CNN that the president is in do no harm mode, stapling himself to the bench at the direction of the Harris campaign.
Well, even from the White House, he may have done some pretty significant harm in the final week of the campaign. Just listen to this, and you be the judge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you something. I don't know the Puerto Rican that I know, or Puerto Rico where I'm in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it's unAmerican. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now, Franklin Leonard, he is in our fifth seat. He's the founder and CEO of the Black List.
That was a moment, and not a moment that the Harris campaign wanted. I want to just read, this is Biden on X, trying to clarify all of this. He says, earlier today, I referenced to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage, which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That's all I meant to say. His comments at that rally don't reflect who we are as a nation,
FRANKLIN LEONARD, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE BLACK LIST: It's a nothing burger.
SELLERS: I couldn't agree more.
LEONARD: I mean, you all are trying to make the -- listen --
LOTTER: You don't get to have it both ways. You can't say it's a joke, and so -- but it's serious. And let's do round the clock media coverage when it's a comedian. But when the president of the United States says that, no, no, no, no, no, we'll give him a free pass.
SELLERS: You know what's crazy. I want you to take the president of the United States to task. You do that. And I want you to do that as well. Take him to task and say that his comments were inappropriate. Actually, I want you to get a warm, cozy blanket and say it reminds you of 2016 when Hillary Clinton called the deplorables, right?
And then what I'm going to tell you is the fact that Kamala Harris got on stage tonight in front of 100,000 people and talked about the America that she wanted. I'm going to tell you about the fact that Kamala Harris said that she's going out on the campaign trail with people like Liz Cheney, that she has Bush's campaigning for, that she's going to put a Republican in her cabinet, that there is nobody on God's green earth that can look you directly in the face with any level of intellectual honesty and tell you that the America that Kamala Harris wants versus the America that Donald Trump wants is the exact same.
And so, yes, listen, you want to talk about foot and mouth disease, that's Joe Biden. Do we want him on a campaign trail? You know that the sources that we have, we actually do want him on a campaign trail. Contrary to popular belief, because he still does well.
PHILLIP: I will say, though, Bakari, he was in his house, the White House. He was in his house doing this. And the reporting is that there are places that he can be useful, but he's not everywhere like you might expect a sitting president to be for his vice president.
LEONARD: I don't know that I would expect this president to be everywhere in this moment. I mean, look, a critical element -- any coach will tell you, any CEO will tell you, a critical element of running a team and winning is assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your team members and making sure you allocate them in the right way.
Joe Biden has never been a big arena speaker. He's never been the most fluid speaker. And, by the way, as someone who had a stutter growing up, it's very obvious to me that there's an apostrophe at the end of supporters there. He was referring to the garbage spewed by supporters, not simply the supporters themselves.
But Joe Biden has been on the campaign trail. He's best getting ice cream in Maryland, like he was today. He's best showing moments of empathy in Arizona, like he was last week. He's best with union folks, as he was in Pittsburgh last week as well.
[22:25:02]
You use people where they are best. You put Obama in a big arena, you put Michelle in a big arena, and you put Joe Biden in front of a bunch of union people doing retail politics.
PHILLIP: And you could make the argument that they would be fine if Joe Biden wasn't anywhere near a microphone between now and next Tuesday.
JENNINGS: Let me just accept the most charitable framing of this, which you just gave. Why is he sitting in front of a laptop at the exact same moment Kamala Harris is out on his backyard trying to give the closing argument to her campaign? What in the world is he doing?
Now, I don't accept your framing of it personally, because I actually do believe he, Harris, the Democratic Party, and most of their campaign do believe that half the country is garbage. They've also said people who go to Trump rallies are Nazis. And so it's pretty apparent the disdain with which they hold half of the country in.
LEONARD: Scott, that's not true. Bakari already mitigated it in Kamala's speech tonight.
JENNINGS: But as a tactical matter today --
MCGOWAN: No. But you don't just get to say that.
JENNINGS: -- why in the world Is Joe Biden giving remarks at the same time?
LEONARD: I'll give you that. I'll give you that. But, look, we're going to talk about --
SELLERS: I thought he was going to be here for a couple of segments. I'm sorry, go ahead, fair enough.
LEONARD: If you want to talk about who's running with various candidates and what they're saying, where's Mike Pence? Where's Nikki Haley? Where's every single Republican living vice president and president? They're not speaking for Donald Trump. SELLERS: Oh, except for Sarah Palin.
LEONARD: You got me there.
JENNINGS: Haley's for Trump.
LEONARD: Haley is not on the trail. Haley is not not on the trail. They haven't spoken since June.
JENNINGS: She spoke at our convention. She gave a speech.
LEONARD: She's not been there. She's not been on the trail. They haven't spoken since June.
JENNINGS: She spoke at our convention on --
MCGOWAN: I think Kamala Harris is running a young and modern and fresh campaign. It is very rare to be the vice president of a president running while he is still president. That does not happen a lot. So, she has to walk a very fine line. And I think the thing is, is that she has to separate herself from the Biden-Harris campaign to show us that what the Harris-Walz campaign would look like. So, I think it makes sense.
LOTTER: It's more of the same. She couldn't even answer a simple question of what would you do differently. She stood tonight in The Ellipse and said, I will be honest with you. I will never lie and I will say difficult things, but I can't tell you one mistake that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made. It's because she believes all of the -- not all of the horrible policies that they have done.
MCGOWAN: Have you ever had a boss? Did you ever work for anyone?
LOTTER: Yes, and I still do.
MCGOWAN: Okay. So, hypothetically --
SELLERS: I was about to say, I'm married, so there you go.
LOTTER: Yes, Bakari and I agree.
MCGOWAN: So anyway, you have a boss, you're working with your boss, you're at a dinner, you might be going for another job. You're not going to insult your boss while you're at the table, right? She is still the vice president of the president of the United States. So, if you ask me, hey, what has your boss done wrong at this company? You're not going to say, well, he's done this wrong and this wrong and this wrong. You're saying, I think while I'm here at this company, I'm doing my job. That's her job as the vice president.
LOTTER: That is why there's only --
MCGOWAN: As the presidential candidate, she's going to speak differently.
PHILLIP: Isn't there an argument to be made though, that even from a strategic perspective, there's no harm necessarily in her saying, actually, I would do something differently?
JENNINGS: There's no harm at all, you're exactly right, 100 percent.
PHILLIP: The American people might actually want to hear her say that.
MCGOWAN: But don't you think she is --
SELLERS: That's also kind of blind to say, because what you don't -- what you're discounting is the fact that this individual actually got 84 million votes, which actually discounting is the fact that in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan, there are demographics, particularly in the blue wall states, where he does extremely well.
PHILLIP: But do you think that even all -- even --
SELLERS: I actually said 48, 49 percent, 39 --
JENNINGS: No, Bakari, oh Lord have mercy.
SELLERS: Your political average is 39.
PHILLIP: Do you think that even the people who voted for Joe Biden believe that he did everything right?
SELLERS: No. I don't think Barack Obama did it.
(CROSSTALKS)
SELLERS: But, respectfully, Abby, that's an insane argument to make because I don't even think Barack Obama did everything right.
JENNINGS: The standard here is she has an important question.
PHILLIP: What I'm saying is that even the people who support Joe Biden, it sounds to me that like you're suggesting that she can't distance herself from him because they all voted for him. But those people are not saying he's perfect either.
SELLERS: That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying though, is that contrary to the belief around this table, there is value to Joe Biden. And I'm also articulating because we can have a nuanced conversation that although there is value to Joe Biden, we also have to realize that Kamala Harris did a great job articulating tonight what her presidency would look like versus Donald Trump.
Kamala Harris is not running against Joe Biden to be president of the United States of America. She's running against Joe Biden, and it's a binary choice. You get hate division, or you get Kamala Harris.
LOTTER: Or you get low gas prices, low grocery prices, a secure border and a world that's not at war, which is the opposite of what you have right now.
PHILLIP: We did just talk about this. Gas prices are --
LEONARD: Gas prices are actually going down.
LOTTER: And as soon as they stop draining the SPR, they're going to go right back up again.
MCGOWAN: Oh my God.
[22:30:02]
LEONARD: Oh, look, I think this is all a piece of a double standard that I think is being applied to Kamala Harris, left, right and center. If you want to talk about people and their ability to acknowledge where things might have gone wrong or could have gone differently, I'd encourage you to name one time that Donald Trump has said, you know what, I got this wrong.
LOTTER: He said he could have hired better people and the first he made some mistakes was him hiring.
LEONARD: That's because none of them will work with him.
MCGOWAN: Because none of them will work with him again.
LEONARD: That's the same word, brother. I work with him --
LOTTER: I'm there.
LEONARD: No, okay, so if your claim is that the only thing that he has acknowledged doing wrong is hiring John Kelly, Esper, Millie and all the people who are sending it.
LOTTER: She can't even say that.
MCGOWAN: No, but here's the thing. Well, again, look at the reasons why he's saying that. It's because they have all said this man is a threat to the way we as a country function. So sure, I guess if hiring people that are not loyal enough to you and too loyal to the country, fair play.
LOTTER: But here's the fundamental difference. He has a record that people remembered.
MCGOWAN: Which is what he wants to change the second time.
LOTTER: He's served the American people in their country on the wrong track.
JENNINGS: You're actually raising a correct question. The problem is, is that the most adjacent person to Harris is Biden and he is the current president and contrary to Bakari's new math, he does not have a 49 percent approval rating. There's a reason he's not the candidate he has -- he has -- he has an approval rating for most of his term below 40 percent.
SELLERS: What is Trump's national approval rating?
JENNINGS: And Donald Trump -- and Donald Trump's retrospective approval is now over 50 percent. And so, the reason and I think --
LEONARD: Wait, what is his current national approval rating?
MCGOWAN: I think you're mired down - the approval rating and the percentages. That's not an approval rating.
JENNINGS: So, the reason, what you said is correct, the reason you would separate yourself from the less popular person is because people clearly don't want it anymore and she's not yet done that which is I think the point you were raising.
MCGOWAN: And if I may make a point before we carry on, I think it would be great if she could run on what Biden has done. Because what Biden has done is actually tremendous.
UNKNOWN: I agree.
MCGOWAN: And I think it is absolutely bananas that she has to even think of distancing herself form the Jobs and Infrastructure Act, from the CHIPS Act, from the PACT Act. We haven't done infrastructure. Why are you laughing?
LOTTER: Please keep talking about the CHIPS Act.
MCGOWAN: No, because --
LOTTER: If you look at the polling on the issues --
MCGOWAN: I don't care about the polling. I care about jobs that are happening in the country. Oh my God. I can't even speak.
LOTTER: -- Joe Biden is 60 percent disavowed on every single major issue.
MCGOWAN: Listen, Marc.
PHILLIP: All right, Leigh.
MCGOWAN: There are things that have passed in this country that haven't been done in years --Infrastructure. We're going to start seeing things five years from now, two years from now, three years from now. People are going to say in retrospect, holy heck, was Joe Biden a fantastic president.
But right now, we have to pretend that he was some God-awful president when honestly, he passed more major infrastructure bills, more things for guns, more things for the climate, more things for the veterans, and the Republicans voted against all of it. So --
LEONARD: And what is -- on immigration?
MCGOWAN: --to say that we have to run away from him is absolutely crazy, and yet the propaganda works, and you guys keep banging on the same things and you say he was terrible, and we're going to see in the future, he wasn't terrible, he was fantastic. But she has to differentiate herself from him right now. PHILLIP: All right, everyone, hang on. More to come. Coming up next, Donald Trump hits the key electoral prize of Pennsylvania, and he's already making false claims of cheating there. We're going to fact- check that and discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:37:32]
PHILLIP: Tonight, you want evidence that Donald Trump plans to contest the election results? Well, he pretty much gave the country just that tonight, saying this in Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (R): They've already started cheating in Lancaster. They've cheated. We caught them with 2600 votes. Now, we caught them cold -- 2600 votes. Think of this. Think of this. And every vote was written by the same person. Ha-ha, I wonder how that happened. It must be a coincidence. It must be a coincidence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Of course, all of those claims are just not true. There are no fraudulent 2600 votes. What's actually happening, according to the Lancaster County District Attorney, is that detectives are investigating 2500 voter registration forms for a variety of problems, such as duplicate handwriting of mismatched signatures. But those aren't votes. And this is the same old playbook as before. Why not just -- why -- well, we know why he does this, but in the last week of the campaign, it's just sowing fear.
JENNINGS: Well, first of all, it's my sincerest hope and belief that we are going to have a free, fair election in this country, largely because of the diffused nature of it and all the volunteers and county clerks and secretaries of state who pull it off. So, that's my number one view.
Number two, the story he is referencing is a real story. I mean, I'm looking at the headlines right here, "Pennsylvania election office is on high alert following potential voter registration fraud investigation in Lancaster County. So, it's a real story."
PHILLIP: Yes, yes. But Scott, Scott. I just, I just -- we played what Trump said. I fact checked it. He said there are 2600 votes. They're not votes.
JENNINGS: He's wrong about that. It's registration.
PHILLIP: Registration that's being investigated. There's no scandal at all.
SELLERS: But let me tell you, this isn't rocket science though. Like -- and Scott is absolutely correct. I voted today in South Carolina. My wife and I, we went to the Strom Thurmond or the Blot, excuse me, we went to Strom Thurmond -- the Blot piece on the campus of University of South Carolina full of volunteers. They were there ushering us around, making sure we got there correctly, no long-line -- shout out to them.
But this isn't rocket science. We see it on X every single day. What Elon Musk has created, what they've created is this echo chamber whereby people just come online and simply say, oh, it's hashtag, too big to rig, or they're doing this, or Elon will say something and quote tweet something that is the most far out conspiracy theory ever and simply say community notes is this true and we know that my five year olds know that it's not true.
[22:40:02]
And the reason that they're doing this is to sow distrust in the elections so that when Kamala Harris actually has the most votes on November 5th you see the tweets that say I have sources inside the campaign from a random guy who doesn't exist who doesn't -- no one is ever talking to. Like, it's all about sowing distrust so that people can say that Kamala Harris didn't rightfully win.
PHILLIP: He is actually bringing up --
LOTTER: But then why can't Democrats come out and say 2600 --
PHILLIP: Wait, wait.
LOTTER: --voter registrations that are either manipulated illegal or fraudulent.
PHILLIP: Marc, Marc. Wait a second.
SELLERS: No, no -- wrong. No -- no. But time out. Put them in jail.
LOTTER: Okay. Why is the Biden DOJ suing the state of --
PHILLIP: Marc, Marc, there is an investigation about this.
SELLERS: No, no, you asked me a question and I answered it directly.
LOTTER: I like it.
SELLERS: Put him in jail. And you know what, I'll get you to find out. The voter fraud that we've seen in this country, the one, two, three, four dozen instances we've seen in this country, contrary to Elon Musk, contrary to Charlie Kirk, who you've advocated your little voter harvesting to. You know what's happening? Those are from Republicans. If somebody is committing voter fraud in the country, lock that ass up.
PHILLIP: Look, Marc. Look, the reason Donald Trump actually is where he is because he's actually still cleaning up the mess from Sunday in Allentown, where, you know, more than half the population is Hispanic or Latino. This is a problem.
I mean, contrary to the idea that this was all a joke and nobody cares, the Trump campaign cares because they're there talking about Puerto Ricans and why his campaign, in his words, loves them. So, he's doing damage control.
MCGOWAN: Sure, he's doing damage control, but I just feel like aren't we tired of this? Aren't we tired of like, oh, these people they're not trying to win. They're just trying to make sure, as you said, that when she wins, if they don't we don't believe it. That we can -- we can accuse the other side of cheating.
It's exhausting and honestly -- that the damage control that he's trying to do for Madison Square Garden, it wasn't just from one joke, from one comedian. It was every single speaker that spoke just doubled down on the hate.
PHILLIP: And let me just play a little bit from Nikki Haley who responded to this. She's supposed to be a Trump surrogate. She endorsed his campaign but here's what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos. This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they've got going. You've got affiliated PACs that are doing commercials about calling Kamala the C-word, or you had speakers at Madison Square Garden, you know, referring to her and her pimps. That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump's style.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That is quite the endorsement of the Donald Trump campaign strategy. I've never heard anything like it.
SELLERS: Mark and Scott.
PHILLIP: Okay.
SELLERS: Respond to it. Go ahead. They're waiting on Nikki.
JENNINGS: Yes, no, she's right. I mean, the pre -- I mean, look, the pre-program at this event did not match what I think the campaign wanted to do on Sunday. They released a couple of really, really well- done ads. They obviously wanted the centerpiece of their day to be Trump's speech, which was largely focused on immigration and the economy. Those are the issues that work. And people were let up onto the stage, including this comedian and others, who obviously, we're not --
MCGOWAN: Sorry, guys. They weren't let up onto the stage. You can crawl out of the audience and get up on front of a mic.
LEONARD: I love the idea that the MSG rally was just an open mic and people just rolled on stage and delivered a set.
JENNINGS: It was kind of a silly variety show. MCGOWAN: It was not a silly variety show.
LEONARD: No, it's not. I completely agree. It was a silly variety show that was programmed by the Trump campaign and vetted in depth. Every single speech, every single joke had been vetted by the campaign.
LOTTER: They've already come out and said that those jokes were not in that script and that ends and that was it.
LEONARD: This is the point. It's not just -- it's not just Tony Hinchcliffe's jokes.
PHILLIP: They took out a C-word joke, but they left the rest of it.
JENNINGS: But he made jokes that were not on the script.
LEONARD: No, no, hang on, please.
LOTTER: But I get it, though. She's got nothing else to talk about. She's got to have grievance and play the victim.
PHILLIP: One at a time.
MCGOWAN: Oh my God, bro, what do you mean she has nothing else to talk about? Please stop saying that. I am begging you to stop saying that.
PHILLIP: Leigh, let me let Franklin finish his point.
LEONARD: Okay. But first of all, it was not just Tony Hinchcliffe's jokes. There were -- there were references to her being -- to her pimp handlers. And you can try to make the argument as much as you want. I would encourage people to go back and watch that Trump speech, just like Kamala did during the debate.
The purpose of that speech was not immigration and economics, and to the extent that it was, it was a piece with demonizing the Latino community, all right? This is not -- the problem with, I think, with Nikki Haley's point of view is, she views this as an error, as a mistake, as a misplacement. It's not a bug. It's a feature.
This is Donald Trump's closing argument. It is a closing argument that he has doubled down on in comments subsequent to that. And meanwhile, in Las Vegas, later this week, Kamala Harris is going to be on stage with Mana and Jennifer Lopez. And there could not be a clearer separation between the Trump campaign and the Harris campaign in terms of who she's prioritizing than that.
SELLERS: Marc, I think one of the things that we're talking past each other is you said she doesn't have anything else to talk about, right?
LOTTER: Correct.
SELLERS: You said that she's losing, she doesn't have anything else to talk about. When the fact is that if this was a normal year and you all were running a normal candidate that could stick to issues, we would be having a totally different discussion today. But we're fundamentally having a conversation about what type of country we want for our children. That is literally the conversation that we're having.
And I don't want my kids to grow up where they are being bastardized because of who they love or what they look like, right? And when you have people who go on stage, and I am doing everything but accusing you of this, right? I am not doing that.
LOTTER: I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
SELLERS: Before we jump off the side of the mountain, let's just make sure we know that I'm not accusing you and I know you know that. But what I am saying, though, is Donald Trump has given the green light to a lot of this. And what happened in Madison Square Garden, again, was the fact that that green light happened under Donald Trump's umbrella.
I'm old enough to remember when racists stayed inside, right? Kill Tony -- I think that's his name, has been a racist. He's been a bigot. He's been a homophobe. And you, I mean, he's little so I would actually say that to his face. I'm not going to allow Joe Rogan to -- but I will call out --
PHILLIP: Well, hey, Bakari, Marc, we got to leave it there. But to Bakari's point, he was, it wasn't just let up there, he was invited to this rally.
LOTTER: But we have been called fascists for three weeks and Nazis for three weeks.
PHILLIP: Everyone, hang tight.
SELLERS: J.D. Vance called you that, too.
PHILLIP: Coming up next, could anti-vaxxer, R.F.K. Jr. end up being in charge of the nation's health? Well, he seems to think so. And Trump also has something to say about it. We're going to discuss next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:51:14]
PHILLIP: A conspiracy theorist in the cabinet, a junk science believer in charge of science. R.F.K. Jr. says that is what is going to happen if Donald Trump wins the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others, and then also the USDA which, you know, is key to making America healthy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And if you think he's making that up, I'll just read what Trump said tonight. He says, I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines. Somebody explain to me why that makes any sense.
MCGOWAN: It doesn't make any sense. Honestly, at the end of the day, that is terrifying. That thought is terrifying. There's a guy that was banned from META for disinformation about medicines. This is the guy that was pulled offline because of his massive disinformation about the vaccines around COVID. This is a guy who --
PHILLIP: And by the way, vaccines even long before. His claims are completely debunked.
MCGOWAN: Long before and like as someone with a child in school -- I'm sure a lot of Americans have children in school, the idea of having vaccine mandates for all diseases pulled from schools, we're going to have a resurgence of smallpox, of measles of polio. Why would we do that to ourselves? Who asked for that?
PHILLIP: Is it cynical? I mean, is this a just a cynical play for votes? I mean, he's on the ballot in some places. He wants those people to -- to come to his side. He's promising the nation's health and science to somebody who is a conspiracy theorist on those very issues?
LEONARD: I mean, one of the -- the sub-agencies that he did not mention in that list is CMS, which administers all of Medicare and Medicaid. So, do you want RFK Junior responsible for your parents' health care?
SELLERS: I mean --
MCGOWAN: I don't think he cares to have health care under this administration.
LEONARD: Well, I think that's the point is --
MCGOWAN: I think that's the point.
LEONARD: I mean, what we're talking about is the health care of arguably a hundred million Americans being overseen by --
MCGOWAN: The guy who cut a whale's face off with a chainsaw and loaded on his car?
PHILLIP: I do want to hear from Marc and Scott because I'm curious if you all are cool with this.
LOTTER: Well, I mean, first off, the secretary of HHS, secretaries of USDA are Senate confirmed, and so they're also separate people. What I would say is that what we have seen --
LEONARD: I think he's arguing that it won't be.
PHILLIP: According to RFK, it's not going to be.
LOTTER: And one thing I would say, whether it's all -- I'm not saying specifically about RFK Jr., but the only thing that you can do with conspiracy theories is provide fact and truth and hope that eventually it wins.
PHILLIP: Are you saying that you don't think RFK can be Senate- confirmed?
LOTTER: That would -- I would have to ask the new Senate leader.
SELLERS: When you are -- if you happen to be press secretary by November 7th --
JENNINGS: Don't start with that.
SELLERS: You're just going to be a tough job.
PHILLIP: But, Scott, your take.
JENNINGS: You know, I'm a superstitious person when it comes to campaigns and I don't like it when people put the cart before the horse this way.
SELLERS: That's true.
JENNINGS: Out talking about, I've been getting this job and I'm getting that job. I wouldn't advise any political person, any campaign to ever make that mistake. And I actually do have a high-level of confidence in the people running the Trump transition. So, I'm interested to see how this plays out.
PHILLIP: All right, we will see. We've got one more week left, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us. Former President Bush is staying quiet when it comes to this presidential race, but his daughter is not. We're going to explain next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:11]
PHILLIP: George W. Bush is silent about the 2024 election, but one of his daughters isn't anymore. Barbara Pierce Bush told "People" magazine that she spent part of the weekend with the Harris-Walz campaign in Pennsylvania, and she added this, "I'm hopeful they'll move our country forward and protect women's rights."
Now, Barbara previously supported Planned Parenthood back in 2017. She said that she's politically independent, but like many other women and some of politically prominent families, she is now speaking out while the men stay quiet.
Take Laura Bush back in 2010 when she spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage and abortion access, or even Liz Cheney, who was speaking loudly in favor of Vice President Harris, and she was the one who revealed her dad's endorsement of Harris before he did. And just like the rest of America, you could say these political families have something of a gender gap on display.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight State of the Race". "Laura Coates Live" -- they're up right now.
