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Inside Politics
21 Days Until Election: Harris Ramps Up Outreach To Black Men; Trump Campaign Attacks Harris In New Anti-Trans Ad; Don Lemon On Being "A Gay Black Boy In The Deep South"; Report: Harris Campaign In Talks To Do Interview With Joe Rogan; Trump Promises "Strong Tariffs" If Elected President. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired October 15, 2024 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
DON LEMON, HOST, THE DON LEMON SHOW: -- there's not a better retail politician, not even Barack Obama, that is as good as Bill Clinton. He is -- he's amazing. And if anybody other than Barack Obama can draw black folks in, I think it's Bill Clinton.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
LEMON: Do you disagree with that?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: There's no doubt that Bill Clinton has an extraordinarily close political relationship with African-American voters. It's been proven time and again. I don't disagree with that.
LEMON: Yes.
CHALIAN: I think he's an advanced age. I don't know if his retail politicking is like quite as sharp as it was 30 years ago.
LEMON: I love the McDonald's.
MERIDITH MCGRAW, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: But the (INAUDIBLE) is making a serious play for those --
BASH: Yes.
MCGRAW: -- black men.
BASH: And by the way, he's the same age as Donald Trump.
CHALIAN: He is.
BASH: Yes, so, anyway.
All right, coming up, Kamala Harris is trying to rev up support among black men in the Motor City. Why does polling show that she is falling behind with this critical group of voters compared to Democratic candidates for president in the recent past? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:35:29]
BASH: Today, Kamala Harris is in Detroit. The Vice President will participate in a town hall style event with Charlamagne Tha God, the co-host of the nationally syndicated and very popular radio show, The Breakfast Club.
The event will air on some 140 radio stations nationwide and it comes as the Harris campaign deploys powerful surrogates, including former President Barack Obama, to help solidify her support among black men.
Don Lemon is back with me. We're going to talk about his new memoir, "I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America."
Let's look at the numbers, Don, when we look at these black voters. This is according to the New York Times poll, all black voters, Kamala Harris 63 percent. And then when you look at the real votes, the exit polls in 2020, Biden got 75 percent, Hillary Clinton got 81 percent, got even more than Biden.
Then specifically -- and that's the margin, I should say. These are the margins I'm talking about. Black male voters specifically, Harris is plus 53, Biden plus 60, and Clinton is 69. Now you have been traveling.
LEMON: Yes.
BASH: You've been talking to a lot of voters, and I will just say that you texted me right around the Democratic Convention and you said, I am talking to people and Kamala Harris has a problem with black men.
LEMON: Yes. And I told the campaign, I did not hear from them. I mean, who am I for them to get back to me? But there's a problem. And, look, I went to -- from battleground state to battleground state. When they invited me to the convention, I didn't just want to fly there. I said, I'm going to go and talk to voters in battleground states. And I did.
It was not curated. I went up to people just doing man on the street. Who are you going to vote for? Black men. And time after time after time, they said, I'm voting for Donald Trump.
BASH: Why?
LEMON: Now, there are reasons why, they said because most of the time they said, well, you know, for economic reasons, right? Or because he gave me a stimulus check and I had to correct them over and over and tell them where that stimulus check came from a Democratic Congress and from Nancy Pelosi. And that Donald Trump actually held the check up so that his name could be put on the check. So they think they got the check directly from him.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has given one or two stimulus checks as well, but they seem not to know and understand that. You can vote for whoever you want to vote for. But the reasons that you're going to vote for them, I think that they should be accurate and factual and you should know why you're supporting someone. BASH: One of the more fascinating dynamics that we have seen over the past couple of weeks is the Trump campaign and Trump campaign allies really hitting hard the question of trans rights and Kamala Harris's stance, particularly when she was running for president the first time in 2019 about the trans community.
Let's watch part of one of their ads, the Trump campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kamala supports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners.
KAMALA HARRIS (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Surgery --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For prisoners?
HARRIS: -- for prisoners. Every transgender, inmate in the prison system would have access.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hell, no, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kamala is for they, them. President Trump is for you.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
BASH: Don, Trump campaign officials tell me and tell others that a big target vote, demographic voters for these ads are black men. Why do you think that is?
LEMON: For the -- I think the reasons that Charlamagne said, and I think it's also because of lack of knowledge about the LGBTQ community -- LGBTQ plus community and lack of knowledge about trans people. And, by the way, I would ask everyone who's out there, how many trans people do you know? How many trans people have you come in contact with on a daily basis?
It's such a small percentage of the population that Republicans are using what as a political cudgel to what, as a wedge issue, right?
BASH: But is it because of culturally, there's a more conservative sort of philosophy?
LEMON: I think culturally, yes. But I think anything that you can do to drive a wedge between Kamala Harris and the black community or any community that they're going to use it. And I would encourage people to try to understand people, to be more curious about it rather than judgmental about what the Vice President has said and to add some context behind why she's saying it. But I think it's just because they know that it can drive a wedge between her and the black community.
BASH: I want to talk a little bit about your book.
[12:40:01] LEMON: But the black community is also very conservative, especially when it comes to LGBTQ issues.
BASH: Well, that's OK. So you just led right into the first code (ph) --
LEMON: OK.
BASH: -- I want to use from your book, "I Once Was Lost," which is just a terrific book. You write, "As a gay black boy in the Deep South, attending Baptist churches and Catholic school, I heard homosexuality defined as an abomination. I prayed as hard as I as a child could pray. Please, Lord, make me not be gay."
LEMON: I did.
BASH: That's tough.
LEMON: It is tough.
BASH: But -- connect what you just said before to this.
LEMON: Well, it's tough because people automatically think that African-Americans are liberal, right? And many times they can be socially conservative, right? And accepting in ways that are not seen in public. But I think that it's tough because -- and it's not just the African-American community because you can have -- in the larger culture, white folks, you know, denigrate LGBTQ community.
But as a child growing up, because of how people, and especially evangelicals, which is why I wrote the book, how they take scripture and the Bible out of context and they interpret that scripture in ways that they want to. They use the same scripture to subjugate women. They use the same scripture to enslave people of color.
And so, and then use the same scripture to denigrate the LGBTQ community, to denigrate gay people. And so growing up, it was tough. So I thought, you know, having a belief in God, especially when I was going to be born again, right, from being baptized, that I could pray it away. It was a magical thinking.
And then the older you get, you start to think critically and you start to realize, you know, around the time of Santa Claus and the whole realization, I won't say here because people may be watching, then you realize that that's actually not what faith and God are about.
BASH: And you have such a strong faith.
LEMON: I do.
BASH: And that is a big reason why you wrote this book.
LEMON: It is. And I don't wear it on my sleeve. Most people don't know. They were surprised. And they said, well, you know, you got let go from CNN. You became -- no, I've been faithful for years. And since I was a child, I started writing this book in 2022. And when after I left CNN, it became a different book. I was just going to talk to faith leaders and political leaders about God and faith and how politics -- how religion was infecting our politics. And then after that, it became a -- I put the book down for the entire summer and it became a much more personal book about my journey and my search for God in America.
BASH: It's terrific. It is terrific to see you, my friend.
LEMON: So good to see you.
BASH: Thank you for coming, Don, and coming out.
LEMON: If you weren't in this table, I'd give you a big hug if the table wasn't so large afterwards.
BASH: Afterwards.
LEMON: In the commercial break. Good to see you.
BASH: All right. Thanks, Don.
LEMON: Thank you. Thank you.
BASH: Coming up, Kamala Harris is reaching beyond, shall we say, her typical audience. Are we going to hear her soon on Joe Rogan's podcast? We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:47:34]
BASH: Vice President Harris is looking to reach new voters and she's willing to go on very different media platforms to do so. Tomorrow, she's going to sit down with Fox News' Bret Baier in her first formal interview with the network. And then there are new reports that she may go on Joe Rogan's podcast.
I'm back with David Chalian. Remember back when everybody was asking why she wasn't doing any interviews? And here we are, I mean, obviously, with 22 days out, this --
CHALIAN: 21.
BASH: 21.
CHALIAN: Yes.
BASH: Thank you. This makes sense. But it's not just interviews, obviously. It's, I mean, Joe Rogan in particular. Let's talk about that.
CHALIAN: I mean, obviously, they are looking for large impact audiences, right? And both sides, right? Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in discussions with Joe Rogan for appearances. That's also really interesting.
BASH: He has like the number one podcast, or like number one, number two.
CHALIAN: Right up there.
BASH: Yes.
CHALIAN: A massively popular podcast. I find it hard to go anywhere and not encounter somebody who says, did you hear what they were talking about on Joe Rogan? You know, I mean, there's no doubt that it infiltrates the ether, certainly in the podcast listening world.
So why would this be appealing for each of them? So obviously, big audience. That's one thing. But also, he is not -- Rogan is not sort of a fan of either one of them, is a proven fan in any way, and yet has a really, really dedicated following.
You do get points in the press coverage of such events for going somewhere that's not a natural home, right? And so --
BASH: Yes, considering the fact that he has spread January 6 conspiracies, he gave a platform to Alex Jones. I mean, he also has different points of view that maybe are -- I don't know if they're aligned with Kamala Harris, but he's applauded her for a couple of things.
CHALIAN: Yes. And so you go and you try to reach voters where they are. That's critical number one. But also, the Harris campaign, especially -- I'm now talking with the Fox News interview, they are in the attention-grabbing phase. They want to dominate the attention of the narrative of the day, each and every day for the rest of this campaign.
That's something Donald Trump usually proves very good at, and they want to take him on in that game. So announcing, you're going to go sit down with Fox News, and you've never done that before. Enemy territory, a hostile environment, potentially.
Bret Baier's an excellent journalist, I'm not saying, but it is not a natural home for her. That kind of thing just gets attention in and of itself. Then, of course, you've got to execute and do the interview.
BASH: Speaking about not a natural home for a candidate, Donald Trump is now at the Economic Forum in Chicago. Let's listen. Economic Club.
[12:50:06]
JOHN MICKLETHWAIT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BLOOMBERG NEWS: -- that would add $7.5 trillion to the debt. That's more than twice the total for Vice President Harris. You're on course to push up debt up to 150 percent of GDP. You know, this is a very business-like audience. Why should they trust you with that?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Because we're all about growth. She's about government (ph), whatsoever. And we're all about growth. We're going to bring companies back to our country. You look at -- even today, as I was driving over, I see these empty, old, beautiful, like steel mills and factories that are empty and falling down.
Some have been converted to senior citizens' homes, but that's not going to do the trick. And we're going to bring the companies back. We're going to lower taxes still further for companies that are going to make their product in the USA.
We're going to protect those companies with strong tariffs, because I'm a believer in tariffs. I'm not sure that you are. I don't think you are, but I congratulate you on your career. But to me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. And it's my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm to help it, but to me, it's the most beautiful word in the dictionary.
MICKLETHWAIT: Tariffs, do you think that will bring in the revenues to use another bipartisan group?
TRUMP: Yes.
MICKLETHWAIT: The Pearson Institute, they say they'll only bring in $200 billion. That is --
TRUMP: Yes.
MICKLETHWAIT: -- only -- that's barely the cost of two of your promises.
TRUMP: Yes, but that's like for what company are you talking about, OK? Look, I've brought in with tariffs and I was just getting started. Then COVID came and we had a watch -- you know, because I tell you what, I did a very good job in COVID. Nobody knew what the hell it was. I call it the China virus because I like being a little more accurate.
But when that came -- but we got hundreds of billions of dollars just from China alone. And I hadn't even started yet. But tariffs are two things if you look at it. Number one is for protection of the companies that we have here and the new companies that will move in, because we're going to have thousands of companies coming into this country.
We're going to grow it like it's never grown before. And we're going to protect them when they come in, because we're not going to have somebody undercut them. And I could give you an example of this if you want. Would you like me to? Because it just --
MICKLETHWAIT: Give me a quick example and I will come back.
TRUMP: I just found out about it. So I've been talking about for the last year about Detroit and how horribly it has been. You know, it's just horrible because we've been talking about Detroit's coming back for 40 years and it's never come back. And it's very dependent on the car industry. Well, they've lost 60 percent of the business over a long period of time. And what happened is I found out a friend of mine builds auto plants. That's all he does. He builds auto plants. That's what he's good at. He doesn't want to build an apartment. All he wants to build is -- and he builds the biggest in the world.
And for the last year and a half, if anybody's heard me speak, I would -- I was talking about Mexico is a tremendous challenge for us right now. Tremendous. China is building massive auto plants in Mexico and they're going to build them and they're going to take those cars and sell them into the United States.
They're very near the border and they're going to have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. And that's going to be the end of Michigan. It's going to be the end of frankly, South Carolina, going to be the end of everything.
So I've been talking about this and I said to him about nine months ago, I said, you know what? I want you to do me a favor, John. His name is John. I don't want to give his last name because he might not like it. But I said, I want to see an auto plant. I want to go and see one of these.
You know, you press a button and everything works, right? I want to see one of the big ones. He said, all right, good. I said, where do we go? I'd like to go to Michigan. I'd like to go someplace in the United States. He said, no, we can't do that.
We're not building anything big in the United States. That's not what -- we don't build the big ones here. I said, where are you building the biggest ones? He said, in Mexico. We're building giant plants, the biggest plants anywhere in the world.
In Mexico, I said, so you mean they're going to make cars cheaply, they have advantages over labor and other things, and they're going to sell them into the United States and they're going to put Michigan out of business. Is that what? I don't know anything about that.
All I do is build the plants. If you want to see a plant, we'll go to Mexico. I'll show you the biggest plant in the world. That was nine months ago. I saw him and I talked about it all the time because I think it's a serious threat to our country because not only autos, but other things.
So then I see him two days ago, I was talking at another club, very nice club. And like this, except I don't know, I think you people are probably even wealthier, OK? This was in Detroit, OK, which was appropriate. And I was talking -- I was showing him all sorts of charts about how their car, you know, it's just gone down. It's like terrible.
And I saw him and I said, oh, how are you doing? How have you been? I said, could I ask you, how are those plants that you mentioned, those giant plants that you're building in Mexico, how is that coming along? Have you finished them?
[12:55:05]
No, sir. They abandoned the project when they heard you were running. They abandoned the project when they saw that you were winning and doing well. I said, well --
(APPLAUSE)
MICKLETHWAIT: All the same --
TRUMP: Because I told them, I told them and I said it publicly, they're not going to sell one car into the United States. I said, if I run this country, if I'm going to be president of this country, I'm going to put 100, 200, 2,000 percent tariff. They're not going to sell one car into the United States because we're not going to destroy our country, right?
So when -- because I know you're an anti-tariff guy, but I'm the exact opposite. If I had -- there was no other way I could have stopped them other than what am I going to do, negotiate with Mexico or China? You're not going to get anything from that.
I said, I'm going to put 100, 200 or 300. I'm going to put the highest tariff in history, meaning, I'm going to stop them from ever selling a car into the United States. So I just see the guy by accident. I see him. He says, sir, they've abandoned. And, by the way, they built foundations.
They were really rocking. They were going to do it. They thought that I was going to win or maybe they're just holding off. I tell you this, if I don't win, those factories are going to wipe out this country. They're the biggest factories ever built for cars. They're going to wipe out our country.
If she wins and she won't -- she doesn't know what the hell she's doing. If she wins, she's -- and she's not going to be thinking about -- I couldn't -- every speech I made having to do with cars, but every speech I made having to do with tariffs, I'd mentioned that our country is being threatened by Mexico.
Now, all of those things -- beyond even the car companies, all of those things are now dead. They're dead. I asked him, will they start? Probably not. They're dead as a doornail. If she gets in, it'll start up again.
MICKLETHWAIT: President Trump, I let you give your example.
TRUMP: No, I --
MICKLETHWAIT: You talked a lot about tariffs. You look at the American economy, 40 million jobs rely on trade. It counts for 27 percent of GDP.
TRUMP: OK.
MICKLETHWAIT: You cut that off. That's also going to affect on many, many business people here. TRUMP: Yes.
MICKLETHWAIT: Tariffs also have another side. Isn't that something that you have to acknowledge?
TRUMP: No.
MICKLETHWAIT: You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war since we --
TRUMP: But there are no tariffs.
MICKLETHWAIT: You're going to stop -- you're going to -- there are tariffs already.
TRUMP: There are no tariffs. All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don't have any tariffs.
MICKLETHWAIT: People -- there are a lot of places --
TRUMP: This is not our war (ph).
MICKLETHWAIT: Lot of places like this, they rely -- there are a lot of jobs that rely on foreigners coming here. You're going to basically stop trade with China. You're talking about (technical difficulty) on that, 60 percent tariffs on that. You're talking, as you said, 100 percent, 200 percent on things you don't really like.
You're also talking about 10 percent, 20 percent tariffs on the rest of the world.
TRUMP: OK.
MICKLETHWAIT: That is going to have a serious effect on the overall economy. And yes, you're going to find some people who will gain from individual tariffs. The overall effect could be massive in terms of the economy.
TRUMP: I agree. I agree, it's going to have a massive effect, positive effect. It's going to be a positive, not a negative.
MICKLETHWAIT: Well, just use --
TRUMP: Let me just -- no, no. Let me tell you.
MICKLETHWAIT: Give me an example.
TRUMP: I know how committed you are to this. And it must be hard for you to, you know, spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you're totally wrong. It'll have a -- it will have --
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I'll go a step further.
MICKLETHWAIT: 40 million --
TRUMP: If you don't do this --
MICKLETHWAIT: 40 million --
TRUMP: This country has no chance.
MICKLETHWAIT: 40 million jobs is a lot of jobs to rely on trade.
TRUMP: They're all coming back.
MICKLETHWAIT: Those are 40 million jobs.
TRUMP: You've lost --
MICKLETHWAIT: Those are 40 million jobs in America that rely on trade.
TRUMP: Are you ready? John Deere, great company. They announced about a year ago they're going to build big plants outside of the United States, right? They're going to build them in Mexico.
MICKLETHWAIT: And you threatened them with tariffs and they stopped.
TRUMP: That's right. I said, if John Deere builds those plants and not selling anything into the United States, they just announced yesterday they're probably not going to build the plants, OK? I kept the jobs here and I'll keep the -- John Deere will stay here.
And I'll tell John Deere, if you do build outside of the United States, you can if you want. For instance, India is a very tough country. It's not only China. You know, China is the, I would say probably, the toughest, but there are a lot of tough.
You know what's very tough? European Union, are beautiful. European countries, wonderful, wonderful. If you add them up, they're almost the size of us. They treat us so badly. We have a deficit.
I said to Angela Merkel when she was there, she's not there anymore. I wonder why. But when she was there, I said, Angela, how many Chevrolets do we have in Berlin? Why Donald, you have none? I said, that's right. How many Fords do we have in Frankfurt? I don't know. None.
I said, that's right. You know how many cars we have? Mercedes Benz, BMW, all of the Volkswagen, millions and millions of cars. And then I said, farm products, you know, they don't want to farm -- they don't want anything from us.
We have deficits that are crazy and we're not going to have any more. We're going to put tariffs on them and they're going to do -- and you know what they can do? The Mercedes Benz will start building in the United States. And they have a little bit. But you know what they --
