Return to Transcripts main page
The Situation Room
Biden, Harris Debut As Running Mates; Interview With District Of Columbia Mayor, Muriel Bowser (D); Trump Takes Questions After First Biden-Harris Campaign Event. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired August 12, 2020 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MAYOR LONDON BREED (D), SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: But what we can do is control the message and make sure that people know who Kamala is and how important it is to make sure she and Joe Biden are elected in November.
[18:00:04]
That has to be the focus every time people try to go to a different direction.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Mayor London Breed, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
BREED: Thanks.
COOPER: It is the top of the hour. I'm going to hand it off to my colleague Jim Acosta, who picks it up from here. I will see you later tonight.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Thanks, Anderson.
If you're just joining us, welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off. I'm Jim Acosta in THE SITUATION ROOM with breaking news on the debut of a historic pairing in the presidential race.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris just appeared together for the first time as running mates, Biden touting Harris' groundbreaking role as the first woman of color to join a major party's presidential ticket, both of them forcefully arguing for the defeat of President Trump, with Harris declaring the case against him is open and shut.
President Trump may respond soon. We're standing by to see if he takes questions at a White House briefing.
Let's get more on what we just heard from Biden and Harris in their first joint event.
CNN Political Correspondent, Arlette Saenz is in Delaware.
Arlette, you were in the room for that debut. What was it like? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Jim, we saw Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris walk into that room wearing masks as they made their debut as the Democratic ticket.
And they both forcefully spoke about the reasons they believe President Trump should be defeated, pointing to his handling of the coronavirus. That was a big argument that they were making that they believe the president has failed.
But, as you mentioned, this is an historic moment, as Kamala Harris has become the first woman of color to be chosen as a vice presidential nominee. And take a listen to that moment when Kamala Harris talked about the women who came before her and the future that she hopes to bring.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): Joe, I'm so proud to stand with you.
And I do so mindful of all the heroic and ambitious women before me, whose sacrifice, determination and resilience makes my presence here today even possible. This is a moment of real consequence for America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAENZ: And Biden talked about the significance of selecting a woman of color as his running mate, saying that there are little girls of color around the country who are now seeing the possibility that they could be a president someday or a vice president as well.
And Biden also pushed back on some of those attacks that we have already heard from President Trump against Kamala Harris, Biden urging his supporters and other Democrats to stand up for Harris and have her back. Take a listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump has already started his attacks, calling Kamala -- quote -- "nasty," whining about how she is -- quote -- "mean" to his appointees.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: It's no surprise, because whining is what Donald Trump does best, better than any president in American history.
Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman or strong women across the board?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAENZ: Now, this event was completely different from any other vice presidential announcement that we have seen in the past.
You saw the two of them wearing those masks as they entered the room, even when their spouses came in, the spouses wearing their mask, and then the two couples socially distancing.
And, really, this event also, you had reporters who were socially distanced. There was very little staff that was in the room. And when Biden introduced Harris as the next vice president of the United States, you could hear cheers and applause from the staff gathered behind the event.
Now, at the end of the event, I had a chance to ask both of them, will they appear together on the campaign trail in the coming months? The former vice president told me that, if the science allows it, they will be campaigning together.
And I also asked Kamala Harris what her message was to the young girls and the young children of color who were watching this moment today. And she told me that she wants them to know that they should believe in the future of the country and the next president of the United States. She said, pointing to Biden, anything is possible.
And one other thing I just want to note is that both of them spoke about Joe Biden's late son, Beau Biden. Kamala Harris had a personal relationship with him, a friendship. That is something that factored into this decision. And you could see the former vice president grow a little emotional as Kamala Harris talked about his son.
ACOSTA: We certainly saw that as well.
Arlette Saenz, thank you very much for that.
Let's go to our team of political experts and analysts. David Chalian is with us, Dana Bash, and Abby Phillip.
David, let go to you first.
This was our first time seeing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris together as the Democratic ticket. We heard Biden lay out why Kamala Harris was his pick, and the possibilities for Americans with a Biden/Harris administration.
[18:05:05]
Kamala Harris almost sounded like she was laying out the opening arguments for the prosecution there. David, what did you make of these speeches?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes.
I mean, listen, it was a successful event. There's no doubt about it. I think Arlette highlighted, though, it also just looked different than we normally see in these events, given the COVID era in which this campaign is taking place.
But what you had here was clearly a focus, a desire on the campaign that both speeches, which were about introducing the ticket, but making sure to keep the focus on Donald Trump and the reason that they believe that he must be defeated for a second term. Back into the battle for the soul of the nation is how Joe Biden launched his campaign about a year-and-a-half ago at this point, and that has been a consistent through line, and you heard it again today.
And what you saw was Kamala Harris joining in that messaging, join in that pursuit of a better nation, a better vision of ourselves than Donald Trump, they say, allows Americans to have.
I think the way Kamala Harris put it was that this is not the nation or the people as we aspire to be. And that is an argument that you're going to hear for the next 83 days in whatever kind of campaign trail exists.
ACOSTA: And, Dana Bash, I want to talk to a bit of sound from Kamala Harris from her speech just a short while ago, sounding like the prosecutor, laying out the opening arguments, talking about an open- and-shut case when it comes to the Trump/Pence team.
Let's play that and talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: And it's the people who I have fought for as the United States senator, where I've worked every day to hold Trump officials accountable to the American people. And the people are who Joe and I will fight for every day in the White House.
And let me tell you, as somebody who has presented my fair share of arguments in court, the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: And, Dana, there were some emotional moments during the speech.
But I was struck by the pointed comments that she made going after Trump on the coronavirus and so on.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Listen, the -- as you well know, the sort of historic, at least in modern times, role of the vice presidential candidate is to be what has been known as an attack dog.
Today -- in today's politics, everybody takes on that role at certain times and in certain venues. But she certainly showed that she knows how to get under Donald Trump's skin. And you cover him every day, Jim. You understand what I'm talking about, and even to the point where she used some of the lines that we have heard from her many times, even from Joe Biden many times.
But it clearly sounded different and was delivered in a different way to try to really get at him, including the fact that she said that everything he inherits, he drives into the ground.
The other thing is that I just kind of -- beyond the message that she gave and the imagery and the fact that they presented themselves together as this ticket, going back to what Joe Biden said as he began to introduce her, I think it's -- it bears repeating that he talked about his decision-making process, and talked again about the fact that, when he was vice president, what he and Barack Obama, the deal that they made, when Biden was packed, is that he wanted to be the last person in the room before President Obama made a big decision, so that the two of them could hash it out, and he -- and President Obama could get the real genuine, candid assessment from his number two.
And the fact that Joe Biden said very clearly that he was looking for that in a partner, but also that he made Kamala Harris make that promise that she would be that person for him, I thought that was very interesting and very telling about Biden's decision-making process, because we know that there were 20 people interviewed by his team.
He talked to 11 of them, and so on. And then one other point I want to make, because she said it pretty quickly, but it was not an accident. She said that she is mindful of the heroic and ambitious women before me.
That word ambitious was used as things got a little ugly between the potential contenders, not directly, but about them, as Joe Biden was making his decision. And there was a report that Kamala Harris was too ambitious.
[18:10:00]
Well, she turned that into a positive, as she did a couple of weeks ago. But the fact that she did it standing in this moment, as Joe Biden's pick, was clearly not an accident.
ACOSTA: Not an accident at all.
And, Abby, I want to talk to you next, but I first want to play a little bit of sound of Kamala Harris talking about her family's story. This was obviously a big moment for Joe Biden. All the networks were watching. He was able to speak to the entire nation.
But this was the rollout of Kamala Harris as his vice presidential pick. And she took a moment to talk about her own story, her own biography. And let's talk about that. Let's look at that real quick.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: My mother and father, they came from opposite sides of the world to arrive in America, one from India and the other from Jamaica, in search of a world-class education.
But what brought them together was the civil rights movement of the 1960s. And that's how they met, as students in the streets of Oakland, marching and shouting for this thing called justice in a struggle that continues today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: And, Abby, when we're in the middle of a summer where we're seeing protests like that happening today, that obviously is going to resonate with big parts of the Democratic Party.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a couple of things strike me about that.
And, really, the first is watching Kamala Harris' evolution on the national stage, where I think, at the beginning of this process, she really had to be coaxed into bringing out more of her personal story, using her personal story to unfold another story about her values.
And I think that that's what she was doing by bringing that into her speech today. But, secondly, as you point out, we are in this national conversation about race and about racism in this country. And we are also in a moment of generational transition, where Joe Biden is in his late 70s, picking a running mate who is in her 50s.
And that is a generational passing of the baton. And what Harris was doing there was essentially saying: I'm with you. I am of this -- of this era, in a sense, where I grew up in the streets with my parents.
And it's a reminder to Democrats in particular, especially progressives, who have had a lot of questions over the last several months and even years, about how committed Kamala Harris is to social justice and criminal justice reforms.
They know that this is something that she has to continue to work on. And I do think that is a big part of what that part of the speech was about.
I do also want to bring up something that I -- that really perked my ears at the beginning of Joe Biden's introduction of Kamala Harris. He talked about her being a prosecutor, about her kind of fighting for families, but he also made an appeal to Democrats, saying to them, you got to fight for her to, in the face of these racist and sexist attacks coming from the president and his allies.
I thought it was extraordinary, because you don't often hear politicians saying, get behind this person who is my running mate. I'm picking Kamala Harris, but we need to all get behind her.
And it's an interesting strategy, but I think it's one that is aimed at other women just like Kamala Harris, who understand what it's like to be sort of denigrated in sexist terms and don't want that. It's part of, I think, this broader campaign strategy that is really geared at saying to many voters that this is not the kind of president you want, this is not the kind of country or tone that you want, and even using Kamala Harris and the attacks being lobbed against her to make that case.
ACOSTA: And, David Chalian, I mean, we saw Joe Biden get pretty fiery during this speech as well. He talked about what he described as the failures of President Trump, hit him on Charlottesville once again, which he does often from time to time.
And this being the third anniversary of what took place down in Charlottesville, he took the opportunity again.
Let's listen to a little bit of what Joe Biden had to say in going after President Trump in what was some pretty pointed attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Donald Trump is on track to break another record, on track to leave office with the worst jobs records of any American president in modern history.
But instead of doing the hard work, of meeting face to face with congressional leaders, Democrats and Republicans in the White House, like every other president has done in a crisis, to get Americans the relief they need and deserve, Donald Trump is on the golf course.
If I told you this three years ago, you'd look at me like I was being crazy. He hasn't even met with the leadership. He doesn't have time, it appears.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: David, your thoughts on that?
[18:15:00]
CHALIAN: Yes.
When I -- I said, wow, when I saw it live, that he sort of did the golf course attack and went at him, and realized that the Biden team was not going to let this moment go, understanding they had a really big audience, and that you can't let up making the ultimate -- yes, the purpose today was to introduce Kamala Harris, but you can't let up for a moment in making the case.
And I thought you heard Biden at the top of the remarks, Jim, set the stakes really high for this election. He said that this election is going to set forth where the country is for a very long time, and that it is a more serious choice than he believes has existed for quite some time in America.
And so he set the stakes big. And he just came in and hammered the president here. And I think what you saw there was, A, a preview to what we might hear next week at the Democratic National Convention from Joe Biden, from his running mate, and from all the surrogates prosecuting the case against Trump next week.
But I think you heard there the very core of the message that Joe Biden is going to take into the fall as to why he believes Donald Trump has abdicated his responsibility entirely, his failure of managing this crisis. Not meeting with the leadership was an example of that.
But the failure to manage the coronavirus pandemic successfully is going to be at the very core of what Joe Biden presents to the American people as a contrast this fall.
ACOSTA: Yes, Dana Bash, I mean, that seems to be -- I mean, if I had one takeaway from this -- obviously, there was a lot of biography that was a part of this rollout today. But it was going after Trump on the pandemic, on the coronavirus.
BASH: Yes.
ACOSTA: At one point, Kamala Harris said that Donald Trump talks about miracle cures he sees on FOX News and so on.
I mean, this is shaping up, as David was saying, to be the core issue of this very brief campaign. I mean, this is going to get going very quickly after these conventions are over.
BASH: Because it is the issue that is touching everybody. And it is disrupting so many people's lives, whether they have had the unfortunate event of having somebody close to them either get sick or pass away or, like some -- like all of us are dealing with who are parents, their children not being able to go to school, or people losing jobs, and the ramifications and the ripple effects go on and on and on.
And the way that Kamala Harris framed it was at -- was very fundamental in the way that people run campaigns, which is as a contrast, and they didn't -- she didn't just say, Donald Trump is really bad at leading. She said Donald Trump and Mike Pence didn't do a good job with the coronavirus pandemic, and look at that compared to Ebola.
Look at that compared to during the Obama administration, when two people passed away. Now, fact-check here. They're very different viruses. And there are a lot of ways to dig deep in that.
But it is true that there was a potential for a very big health scare during the Obama administration, and it had a very different ending. And that is something that there is no question we are going to hear much more. We have heard it from Joe Biden. But, again, it sounds different when it comes from somebody who is kind of -- who was not there and is trying to bracket those kinds of arguments from the man at the top of the ticket.
ACOSTA: And in some ways a response to when the president says falsely that the Obama administration left empty shelves and so on, and how they didn't have a vaccine for the coronavirus, even though...
BASH: Which didn't exist.
ACOSTA: ... coronavirus didn't exist and so on.
BASH: Right.
ACOSTA: So it is -- you're right. They did sort of get out in front on that.
And, Abby, Senator Harris' relationship with Beau Biden, that was -- I did not anticipate that coming up. That sounds like something that you would see perhaps during the Democratic Convention.
I fully expect them to tell the story of Beau Biden and what Joe Biden went through when he lost his wife and daughter so many years ago, and how he went back and forth from Washington to Wilmington to take care of his children during all of that.
But this was a big part of this rollout today. And it seems to be a core part of this ticket, a core part of this campaign message moving forward.
Let's play a little bit of that sound, talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: I learned quickly that Beau was the kind of guy who inspired people to be a better version of themselves. He really was the best of us.
And when I would ask him, where did you get that, where did this come from, he'd always talk about his dad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[18:20:00]
ACOSTA: What do you think, Abby?
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, this is the heart of the relationship that exists between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
They have this bond that's a result of her relationship with Beau Biden bringing her sort of into the Biden family in a certain way. And I do think that you're right. Like, you -- this is something that you would see at a Democratic Convention, but it's also something that you saw today because it's their way, I guess, of explaining not just their relationship, but she used it as a tool to explain something about Joe Biden.
So, to the question of taking someone who -- Kamala Harris is someone who ran for president in her own right. She is a United States senator. She formerly ran the attorney general's office of California, the largest state in the union. She has her own world.
But can she put to the side and boost Joe Biden? I think that's the answer to the question. It is in the way that she uses these anecdotal relationships to help develop that softer portrait of Joe Biden, which is his greatest strength in this campaign so far.
One of the problems for the Trump campaign has been they have had a hard time convincing voters that Joe Biden is the boogeyman, that he is someone who is a radical, that he is sort of fire-breathing liberal activist.
And some of that has to do with this perception that Biden is a decent guy. And I do think that is one of the things that Harris was trying to really nail home, which is that she knew that about Joe Biden because of the relationship that she'd been able to forge with his late son Beau. ACOSTA: And, David, where are you seeing President Trump's attacks on
Kamala Harris take shape. He's painting her as nasty and phony. Those are the words that they're using.
I talked to a Trump campaign adviser today who said, look for us to use the term radical over and over again regarding Kamala Harris.
But, today, the president put out a tweet essentially warning voters that, if Biden wins, more people of color will move into the suburbs. It's an astounding thing to even contemplate a president tweeting in the year 2020. But that's what happened.
CHALIAN: Yes, this is called racist fear-mongering. That's the tactic that the president is employing in his ability to get reelected as president of the United States of America.
It doesn't belong in a race to become president of the United States of America. But that isn't going to stop President Trump from using it as a tactic.
I don't know that he will meet with success. I guess we will find that out in November, Jim. But what we have seen is that the suburbs have now moved in the Trump era, what had been part of the Republican coalition in American politics, to the Democrats, helped deliver the Democrats to the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms.
It is Trump's repelling of people, voters who live in the suburbs that actually had made Nancy Pelosi speaker and is going to be a key part, if the Biden/Harris ticket is successful. So it is -- it's clearly a tactic he's employing. It is one that has -- should have no place in modern-day American politics.
And we will see if he can -- what he's trying to do here is take some wary Republicans who voted for him last time, don't like his tone on stuff, some wary independents that voted with him last time, don't like his tone on stuff, drifted away, and see if he can sort of scare them back into the fold.
BASH: And can I just add one thing about that tweet?
I mean, that is the biggest takeaway, of course, the race-baiting. But the other thing is suburban housewife used in quotes, oddly. I mean, I said to somebody in Trump world today, I said, 1950 called and they want their term back.
And the response was, yes, the message has been relayed to the president, please don't use that term again, because even the people that he claims to be trying to reach, most people who are stay-at-home moms call themselves in 2020 stay-at-home moms and not suburban housewives.
ACOSTA: Yes, that was a Trump twofer, racist and chauvinist message all in one tweet.
OK. Dana, Abby and David, stand by. Much more of the breaking news next. We're also standing by to see if the president takes questions at his briefing.
More on that when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:29:03]
ACOSTA: And we're back with breaking news, voters getting their first look at the new Democratic presidential ticket, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appearing together for the first time as running mates a short time ago.
We're joined by the Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Mayor Bowser, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Let's get right to it.
MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER (D), DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Thank you.
ACOSTA: You saw Biden and Harris attacking President Trump's record in the White House during their first event together. They spoke about the possibilities under their leadership.
What did -- what was your first takeaway from their message today?
BOWSER: Well, I was so delighted to see the vice president introduce Senator Harris.
I thought she was the picture of vibrancy, of toughness, and of the future. And you heard her say that she would make the case against Trump and Pence and what they have done to our country. And she thought it was an open-and-shut case.
And when she said that, I believed her.
[18:30:00]
ACOSTA: And how does it feel to see the first black woman and the first South Asian woman on stage as the nominee for vice president of a major political party? I mean, there's just no doubt about it, it's a huge day.
BOWSER: It's affirming to all of us black women who have been toiling as Democrats and leadership, in support of campaigns, in support of candidates, to know that this extremely qualified woman who's already put herself out there to the American people is being recognized and will be on this ticket.
And she is going to be a great part of why Joe Biden wins this election, and helps restore the soul of America, bring our country back from the COVID pandemic and the economic destruction that it's caused. We need steady leadership, competent leadership, and I think we saw today that Biden and Harris is what we've been missing. ACOSTA: President Trump, as you saw, responded to this announcement. He called Senator Harris nasty at one point. His campaign has labeled her as a phony. One personality on Fox News purposely mispronounced her name. What does that tell you about in terms of what she's up against in this campaign?
BOWSER: Well, as a woman who's been attacked by Trump and his machine, I know that strong women scare them. And so that's exactly what Kamala is. But not only is she strong, she's smart, she's strategic and she is has the record and experience to back up all of what she's going to do in this campaign.
And so I call on all the women and men who support us not allow Kamala to be maligned, to reject sexist remarks and misogyny for what they are, and stand up and speak up and support this historic campaign.
ACOSTA: And, Mayor, what did you make of the president's tweet this morning about the suburban housewife, as he put it, saying they'll be voting for him, because he ended a program to stop racial discrimination in housing? What kind of message do you think that sends?
BOWSER: I have no idea what that tweet means. But what we know is cities in the suburbs are suffering under this administration, and that we need steady leadership to bring us back from COVID. I know a lot of moms and dads in the suburbs and the cities wants their kids to be able to go back to school and they want to be able to go back to work and they want to eat safely out in restaurants and enjoy all of the things that we have enjoy in our country. But we cannot do that because of the chaos that has been created in our country.
So I don't want to focus on the president's tweets. I want to focus on what our country needs. And I think what we saw today with Vice President Biden and Senator Harris is the type of competency, empathy and serious leadership that our country is longing for.
And I also have felt, among my circle among Washingtonians the very real excitement about this ticket. And I think what Senator Harris and Vice President Biden demonstrate when we look at them together, we see the future of our country. And we see the diversity and strength of our country.
ACOSTA: Okay. Mayor Muriel Bowser, thanks so much for joining us. Great talking to you and we'll talk to you again soon.
BOWSER: Thank you.
ACOSTA: Thanks so much.
Just ahead, we're standing by to see if the president takes questions at the briefing. We're monitoring that. Much more of the breaking news, it's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- $400 and we are in constant touch with governors also. They'll be making perhaps a contribution. They have options. They can do it or they don't have to do it. I think most of them will do it.
We're also doing a payroll tax cut, which is a massive number. That's a very big number. And that's a number that's bigger than any of the numbers we talked about. And the beauty of that is that it really incentivizes companies and because it's both a company cut and an employee cut, so that much -- really, very much incentivizes people to go back to work and work hard, and a company to hire people back.
And we've had some of the great economic minds saying that's the most important cut. That would be the best cut we could do. We couldn't get the Democrats to even think about agreeing to it.
[18:35:00]
It's not the Democrat way, I guess, because it just seems that whether it's Larry Kudlow or any of your many friends, that's the one they wanted the most. We'd just sit there (ph)? And so we're doing that and that was never even really discussed because that was taken off the table by the Democrats immediately. And this is every week. Every week, you get a check, or a month or biweekly. This is major amount of money you're getting directly.
So it's really a very big number, It's a very substantial number. And don't forget, this is an addition to the $400, and this is a big number. And now, at the end of the year, the resumption that I win, I'm going to terminate the payroll tax, which is another thing that some of the great economists would like to see done. We'll be paying into social security through the general fund, and it works out very nicely.
If Biden would win, he wouldn't do that because he's going to double and triple everybody's taxes. He's going to have to explain that one. And, as you know, he's also going to quadruple regulations. He wants to put regulations on.
One of the reasons that we had the kind of numbers and big bounces that you have seen, I mean, we've we closed it up, we saved millions of lives, and now we open it and we bounce right back to where we were. It looks like we'll be bouncing right back where we were. It looks like we'll be bouncing right back where we were. But one of the reasons is because we cut so many horrible regulations.
And Biden with his new partner, Kamala, will -- if you think he's going to put it all back but many times more. I mean, they want to increase regulation. And that's just going to drive companies out and it's going to drive people out, it's going to drive them to other countries and it's going to make us not competitive with other countries.
Please, over here.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. I could highlight a kind of an odd situation. The last hour or so, you Googled antifa.com, it would take you straight to Joe Biden's website, his official campaign website. Odd situation, we don't know who is behind that, but it raises an interesting leadership question. Should Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris, should they publicly denounce Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization?
TRUMP: they should. I think they're afraid to. It's -- in my book, it's virtually a part of their campaign, Antifa. The Democrats act like, gee, I don't know exactly what that is. Take a look at Portland. Take a look at any place you want to take a look at. They're all over the place. They were here. We put on a ten-year prison sentence if you knock down any statues two months ago. And since then, we haven't seen much of them.
We had to send border security. We sent actually homeland and border, different forms of homeland to Portland in order to -- you know what we had to save. We had to save -- they wanted to knock down a courthouse, a $500 million courthouse. They wanted to burn it down, knock it down. And they were easily able to defend.
But the mayor and the governor of the state, they didn't want to do that, and we actually sent our people there and they did a great job. And they did it easily. But in the meantime, they went to other parts of the city and they're doing damage. And we're recommending to the governor that they call in the national security, call in the National Guard. We're willing to get -- we would stop that problem in one hour.
We set just defensive measures to protect and save that courthouse from being burned down or knocked down. We also saved a couple other buildings, federal buildings, because they were unable to do the job.
I have to say this, they have really good police. They have a great group of people that if they were allowed to do their jobs, same with Chicago, and same with New York, and a couple other cities. If they allowed in Chicago 25,000 police, and they're really good, but they're not allowed to do their job.
In New York, you have New York's finest, but they have totally taken away their incentive, they've taken away their lives in a sense, because they don't allow them to do their job. They could do their job so easily you wouldn't have a problem in New York. And that includes with terrorism and everything else. They disband it.
They've cut by $1 billion the budget in New York, $1 billion. And crime is up by 200 percent, 250 percent, it depends on what week you're looking at. It's crazy what's going on in New York. We could solve that problem easily. But we don't have to because they should be able to do it themselves.
[18:40:00]
But they have to give -- they have to give the honor back. It's an honor. They have to give the honor back to their law enforcement groups.
New York is great, so is Chicago, and in Portland they could do the job. If they don't want to do that, we would send in gladly, if they want, the National Guard will take care of it in one hour. They'll do it very quickly.
And, by the way, if you take a look in Minneapolis when they were burning down Minneapolis, a wonderful place, but nobody has ever seen anything like it after days, the very liberal -- and these were all run by liberal Democrats. Every place I talk about is run -- because we have great cities, and they're run by Republicans, okay? It's -- there's no magic to it. It's obvious what's going on.
And the cities that I mentioned are all run by liberal, very liberal Democrats. And it's very sad when you see what's happening to New York. It's very sad when you see what's happening to other cities, not just those three, other cities. When you look at what's happening, it's not even believable.
I left New York almost four years ago and you could see signs of problems because de Blasio was there. He's a horrific mayor, just horrific. I mean, people don't want to go there anymore. Not only is it bad with crime and the way he talks about the city and what he does, he's horrific.
And when I see that, it's a very sad thing. I left almost four years ago, right? And when I look and see what's happening to a city that I love that still has great potential, but it's going to have to be brought back, because what happened in New York is -- it's not even believable. What's happening in Chicago where one weekend, you have 78 people shot and 18 die in a weekend, and then successive weekends, you have so much of that happening and it's not even -- it's really not even believable.
And if you let Democrats run this country -- and we have stopped it from going other places. If you let Democrats run this country, you'll have all of your cities be just like that.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. The heads of Boston and Dallas Fed today said that the economy hasn't recovered strong enough because the country hasn't contained the virus. What's your response to them, and what would that argue for a stronger federal response?
TRUMP: Well, you just saw it. Other countries were doing much better than all other major countries, peer countries. This chart came out just a little while ago, I thought I'd say. See, it's that kind of question, a wise-guy question, because I just went over the whole thing.
We are doing better that almost everyone with the economy, and I think we're -- you know, we face a headwind because Democrats perhaps, for political reasons, don't want to open up their states. And it's having a huge toll. That's taking a huge toll on people within those states.
When you look at North Carolina, you have a man doesn't want to open it up. You look at Michigan, you look at some states, I mean, they just want to keep these people in their houses, in their prisons. They call them prisons. And I think a lot of it is for political reasons because they want to look as bad as possible on November 3rd. but I don't think it's going to matter because we're doing so well in so many ways. As far as the plague is concerned, when you look at the numbers, take a look at what's going on now with other countries. They're having flare-ups that are very, very substantial. And we've done very well. We're helping a lot of those countries. And those were model countries that you used to talk about and say how well they were doing, except they just exploded. They just had very big flare-ups. You'll understand that.
Now, we're doing very well, and I don't have to show you the charts again, but those charts are at a level that nobody even thought possible. I think we're going to have a fantastic third quarter. I think next year will be one of the strongest years we've had.
And this is with California being closed down. This is where North Carolina and Michigan and tremendous states, great states are being closed by the reasons, I think, that Scott would tell you disagree with, right? You disagree with.
We spent a great amount of time talking about it. We can open up our country. We understand the disease. We understand who it hits. We have to protect our elderly people, especially our elderly people that are not well.
[18:45:00]
We have to protect them, but we understand it and understand it well. We've learned a lot.
And we're going to have the vaccine soon and we're going to have the therapeutic soon. It's coming out very soon and we're very proud of the people and the job they've done.
Yeah, please?
REPORTER: Mr. President, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris just appeared together in their first campaign event right before you got up on this podium. Can you tell us if you watched their remarks and your reaction to them?
TRUMP: I didn't watch. I saw just a moment of him speaking, a moment of her speaking. And it was enough.
Look, he made a choice. He picked her. I watched her. I watched her poll numbers go, boom, boom, boom, down to almost nothing.
And she left angry. She left mad. There was nobody more insulting to Biden than she was.
She said horrible things about him, including accusations made about him by a woman, where she, I guess, believed the woman. And now, all of a sudden, she's running to be vice president saying how wonderful he is. I thought it was a very unusual pick, because she said such bad things.
You know better than anybody what -- you won't write it, because, you know, you don't want to do that, but you know better than anybody. She said horrible things about him, horrible things, and she mocked him, openly mocked him. That's why I thought that was a very risky pick, because I'm sure that will be played back, not necessarily by me, but others. It would be played back.
The other thing if you look, she wants a $3 trillion tax hike, no fracking. How do you think no fracking in Pennsylvania is going to play? That's a big fracking state.
If you didn't have energy produced that way, you would have taxes that would triple and you have unemployment that you wouldn't believe. In Pennsylvania last year, they had the best year they've ever had. Texas last year, had the best year they've ever had. And they're going to have that again next year.
And you can see that, but think of it, she wants no fossil fuels, no fossil fuels. Really? Tell that to Texas.
Then I hear that Trump is only one point up in Texas. They said the same thing with crooked Hillary Clinton. They said Texas is in play, Trump is down in Texas.
Then I won Texas immediately when the polls were closed, Trump has won Texas. I won by a lot. And I won Georgia by a lot.
The same thing over, it's almost like a duplication of what happened before, except we have much more energy than we ever did in 2016. And we had a lot. We had record amounts in 2016.
But you take a look at the tax cuts. We gave the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, and the biggest regulation cuts in the history of our country by far, right? He wants to increase everybody's taxes, and she's one of the people that wants that.
I mean, you look at that, she wants to defund or at least substantially reduce money going to police departments, and you can't do that. You can't do that.
It's actually going to be the opposite. I've been endorsed by so many police departments. I'm getting a good one this week, which you'll be seeing. Really big, really good.
But who could ever -- what police department, what law enforcement group could ever support Joe Biden? Where he said things that are so bad and so foolish, frankly so stupid in terms of -- in terms of crime and what would happen.
So we're getting all of law enforcement. We're getting the military. She wants to spend much less on our military. I have rebuilt the military. We have the strongest military now, much of the equipment is coming in, all made in the United States, $2.5 trillion we spent.
When I took over, we had a military that was totally -- it was in terrible, terrible shape. It was depleted. It was a depleted military. Old planes, old tanks, old everything.
And we have a beautiful brand-new military with the best people in the world. We've never had anything like it. Some of the equipment is still coming in.
No, we have -- we've done a real job. And I think we're going to be extremely successful.
I was surprised he picked her because of the horrible way she talked about him, and frankly because she dropped like a rock. I didn't. When I ran, I ran against 17 people, mostly governors and senators, some others, Ben Carson was very strong, very good. A couple others, but mostly governors, mostly senators, and I ran, and I went up.
[18:50:08]
She ran and she went down to rock bottom. I don't think she ever got to run her first -- to take a vote in the first -- in the first state. And so, generally speaking, you don't want to pick somebody that went down. She went down, but she went down in a very terrible way and she said horrible thing about Biden.
She said far worse about Biden that I ever did, and now she's running as vice president. So, how does that work?
Please, in the back.
REPORTER: Mr. President, thank you for taking my question.
I'm wondering if you have any words of encouragement for middle schoolers or high schoolers starting the school year strictly online, who might be frustrated, wondering how they're going to get through the next quarter, missing their friends and teachers.
Just wondering if you have any words of encouragement for them.
TRUMP: It's such a fair question, such a big question. Yeah, I mean, you hear what I was saying, Scott will be involved and he'll be talking over the next couple days, what he's saying from great experience. No, I feel badly for him.
And I have a feeling that on November 4th somebody is going to announce schools are open, the country is open. Everything is open. I really believe a lot of it's done for political reasons, if you want to know the truth. I think so.
But you're right. Online is not the same as being in the classroom, and that's been proven. It's been proven, loud and clear.
Yeah, any other questions?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Go ahead, please.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. You have warned several times if Joe Biden is elected president, there will be an invasion in suburban neighborhoods, it's (INAUDIBLE) that you tweeted that again this morning. What exactly do you mean by invasion? TRUMP: What I mean is people are going to become -- they're going to
be opening up areas of your neighborhood, which they're doing, and now, they're going to do -- they want to do expand it. They will expand it. For any reasons they're going to in my opinion destroy suburbia.
And just so you understand, 30 percent-plus of the people living in suburbia are minorities. African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic American, they're minorities, 30 percent.
The number is even higher. They say 35, but I like to cut it a little bit lower. You know why? That way I can never get myself in too much trouble with the fake news.
But 30 percent-plus are minorities living in suburbia. And when they go in and want to change zoning so that you have lots of problems where they want to build low-income housing, you want something where people can aspire to be there, not something where it gets hurt badly. And that's what happened.
So with suburban women, suburban men, I think they feel strongly about what I'm doing. It's a very -- I mean, it's a very fair question. It's a very important question.
But they fought all their lives to be there, and all of a sudden, they have something happen that changes their life and changes what they fought for for so many years.
John, please?
REPORTER: Two quick questions, Mr. President. I know you were briefed on it. Have you decided where you're going to give your acceptance speech?
TRUMP: We're looking at Gettysburg, a magnificent site. We're looking at the White House. And I would say it's really down to those two.
The White House would be -- much easier from the standpoint of Secret Service. And, you know, the movement of hundreds of people as you know.
I would say -- we'll have them both. I love Gettysburg, but it's -- this is simpler, would be magnificent. The White House is a -- the White House is a White House. Gettysburg is one of the great and historic sites of our country, frankly as far as I'm concerned, of the world.
So, one of those two. I'll probably be announcing it over the next week or so. Maybe --
REPORTER: I have a question about payroll taxes. If you permanently rescind the payroll tax, how do you pay for Social Security?
TRUMP: We're taking it out of the general fund.
REPORTER: What about deficits? TRUMP: And what we'll be doing is, if we do that, we'll get it
approved, in that case by Congress, and we'll take the money from other places, other than, we will not take it from Social Security, in any way, shape or form.
REPORTER: How do you fund it -- take it from the general when the general fund just incurred a debt of $2.8 trillion?
TRUMP: Right, but we're going to have tremendous growth. We have tremendous growth. You take a look at what's happening here.
Next year, unless somebody comes in who doesn't know what they're doing and they start raising taxes and forcing everybody to leave the country or leave their jobs and companies to close, we will have tremendous growth. You'll see growth like you haven't seen in a long time.
OK --
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President, since you didn't see Kamala Harris remarks today, I was wondering if you could respond to one of the things she said.
[18:55:06]
TRUMP: Sure.
REPORTER: She said that your refusal to get testing up and running, you're -- I'm paraphrasing here, flip-flopping on social distancing and masks, and your delusional belief that you know better than the experts. All of that in her words are reason that one American dies of COVID-19 every minute.
What do you think of that remark?
TRUMP: I think that's probably one of the reasons she was a terrible candidate and was forced to leave the race because she got her facts wrong. She's very bad on facts. She's very weak on facts.
And just so you understand, we've done more testing than any country in the world by far, that includes India which has 1.5 billion people. That includes China, that includes every country in the world we've done more testing.
We have better testing that any country in the world. They call, they want to know where do we get it, how do we get, we have better testing that any country in the world.
When you do as much testing as us however, as you understand you develop more cases. If you tested instead of 65 million people, which is what we've done, when you test that many people, you're going to find cases that normally you wouldn't see.
If you go to Mexico and you go to other countries, you'll see they do almost no testing. They test if somebody is not feeling. They test if somebody is symptomatic. They test very little. They test very little.
We've done more testing than anybody in the world. We've done the best job of any country in the world, and that includes making ventilators that nobody else could have done.
We are the ventilator king in the world. We're supplying the whole world now in a few short months with ventilators that are very hard to produce, very expensive, very complex, very delicate, very, very important. We've done a great job.
And then on top of that when you look at the numbers, how we were impacted less than that these other countries and now you look at the explosion of countries that you would have said did such a good job, and some of them had advantages over us for obvious reasons, having to do with the pandemic. But when you look at the job that we've done compared to others, we've done a great job.
And she -- and I've read today that she's very short on facts. She -- I think she's going to be a big failure, and I think -- I look forward to the debate between her and Mike Pence, because I think that he'll do better against her than he did against Senator Kaine, which was a total wipeout. So, we'll see how it works out.
One more. Yeah, please?
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President, thank you very much. Thank you.
What do you say to those critics who argue you are trying to sow distrust in democracy and trying to sabotage the post office to undermine (INAUDIBLE)?
TRUMP: I say the Democrats are sabotaging the Post Office because they're not approving $25 billion that was requested. So they're sabotaging the Post Office and they're not allowing the Post Office to function properly. And they're certainly not allowing universal mail- in votes when they do that.
But equally importantly, they're not allowing $3.5 billion dollars in funds to do voting that they like to do. Therefore all of this -- and all of the tremendous mistakes that were made with regards to mail-in voting, all of these tremendous mistakes, you can't even -- you can't even do it. I would imagine the courts, you know, this is in many courts right now, they're showing all of the disasters that have taken place just in the last short period of time, in the last two months with respect to universal mail-in voting.
It's just like a total catastrophe what's happening, and we can't let that happen. Go ahead, real fast. Go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: One is about, if you had graphs about economics of COVID, but deaths in America are still going up, whereas in Europe, right now, zero deaths in U.K., zero deaths in France. TRUMP: Yeah. It's going up by cases -- if you look at cases. And the
cases are going up because we do so much testing and we find it. And I call it fake media gold because we do so much more testing than any other country and when you do all of that testing you find cases.
Go ahead, Steve, real quickly.
REPORTER: With regards to trade, you've got these trade talks with China going on. Is it possible you would pull out of trade deals with China if they're not meeting their commitment?
TRUMP: We've taken a lot of money from China in the last year and a half that no other president has taken in. We've done things to China that nobody else has done to China or even thought of doing it -- with 25 percent tariffs and taking in billions and billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars, and giving them (ph) -- giving the farmers, as an example, $12 billion one year, $16 billion another year, and made the farmers extremely happy. You don't hear them complaining. They were targeted by China.
But I'm very angry at China because they let this horrible disease, they let this horrible plague come into our country and come --
