CNN.com - Transcripts (2024)

[23:00:00]

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And so, there's something happening here tonight that I think Democrats who want to win in November should take very, very close note of. You cannot take our voters for granted, Democrats, labor, Black, female or otherwise.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And we are going to continue our coverage here for the next hour with this panel and also opposite the team at the convention. We have more coverage starting right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Let's take another look at the emotional capper of this opening night of the Republican National Convention here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Donald Trump entering the hall to love and applause. His ear bandaged, a visible reminder of that bullet that hit him during the attempt on his life on Saturday.

The former president, now the official nominee of the Republican Party for a third consecutive time. He was joined in the Trump family viewing box by his newly-named running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, an eventful day amid truly extraordinary circ*mstances surrounding this convention.

Let's go to Kristen Holmes. Kristen, what are you hearing from the Trump campaign, from Trump allies, about his appearance today, which seemed to be quite emotional for him?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it clearly was. Jake, this is somebody that I've now been covering for over a year. This is the most emotional I have ever seen him. And I have certainly seen him in what could have been various vulnerable positions.

But Donald Trump himself, talking to his allies, the people who know him the best, people who hadn't seen him yet in public until this situation, they were shocked at what they saw. They said he appeared softer, that at times it looked as though he might cry. They said that they themselves were crying. I even spoke to people who used to support Donald Trump, who no longer do, who said that it made them choke up. But this was an incredibly emotional experience, and they felt like they were seeing a different person up on that stage or in that box when he entered onto the convention floor.

The other thing to point out here is that Donald Trump himself has been telling people, both publicly and privately, that he believes that he is lucky to be alive, that he believes that there was some sort of divine intervention. Of course, that is notable given the fact that Donald Trump, we know, is not a religious person. He's not even a spiritual person.

But this is something he has said over and over again, that he fundamentally believes that he shouldn't be alive right now, that there is some reason he tilted his head the way that he did to look up at that chart, and that is what kept him alive. And we saw a lot of that in his face tonight. And that is what allies said as well, that they just felt like this was so much more of a human being than they had ever seen the former president look before.

TAPPER: All right. Let's go over to Boris Sanchez now. He is near the convention stage here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Boris, tell us what it was like from your vantage point when former President Trump made his entrance.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jake, it was an extremely emotional moment. I'm sitting just across from that VIP area. I could see the actual podium where we heard speakers tonight. And I could see the way that the president was responding, not only to them, but to the crowd. When his face first appeared on the Jumbotron, there was an audible sound from the crowd, elation, and literally thousands of people taking out their phones to get ready for his appearance. Once he finally emerged, Kristen was just outlining the emotional response from the president. I saw several people in the crowd appearing to be emotional themselves, really the power of the moment landing heavily on them.

And throughout the evening, you could see the responses from folks not only in the crowd, but also other speakers. When we watched Amber Rose seeming to charm the former president, he appeared to make several remarks. I watched them make a comment to Congressman Byron Donalds and now the presumptive vice-presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, during her speech, all the way to Sean O'Brien, when the president stayed standing during the speech, seemingly expressionless. I did watch Byron Donalds sort of make a gesture to him. But he was very receptive of what was going on.

And one interesting thing, I'm not sure if the cameras could capture this, but a large portion of the crowd over by that VIP area wasn't even turned to the speakers. They didn't turn away from the president once he emerged after the speeches began. But overall, obviously a very powerful moment for this crowd that was eager to the president all the way toward the end of the benediction, watching the president in that moment, as Kristen outlined, not known for his spirituality, but seeming to absorb the importance of the moment, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Boris, thank you so much. And let us talk about the biggest thing that happened at this convention today, other than Donald Trump appearing in public for the first time with a bandage on his ear after the assassination attempt on his life just two days ago.

[23:05:05]

And Dana Bash, that is, of course, the selection, the nomination of J.D. Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, who was one of the very first and most outspoken Republican critics of Donald Trump back in 2015, 2016. He was at the time known as a commentator, the author of Hillbilly Elegy. I think we have a mashup of some of the things that J.D. Vance -- you see J.D. Vance there earlier today with the guy at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump. I think we have a mashup of some of the things he said back then followed by comments that he made earlier tonight on Fox, in which he tried to explain where those remarks came from.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH) (voice-over): Half of the things that he says don't make any sense or a quarter of the things that he says are offensive. I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton. I can't stomach Trump. I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.

I'm a never Trump guy. I never liked him.

He seems to like actively antagonizing a lot of the Black vote.

I don't hide from that. I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016. But President Trump was a great president, and he changed my mind. I bought into the media's lies and distortions. I bought into this idea that somehow, he was going to be so different, a terrible threat to democracy. It was a joke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Well, he did try to overturn a free and fair election. But beyond that, what do you make of the conversion by Mr. Vance on the way to Damascus?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Uh, you know, that conversion happened a couple of years ago, when he decided that he wanted to be a United States senator from the state of Ohio, which is now a red state, and he needed the endorsem*nt of Donald Trump, and he got it. And so, he did that mea culpa over and over again, and he will have to continue doing it over and over again. He wasn't getting information from the media. He was getting information from the then candidate in 2016, and then the president after -- starting in 2017.

And, I mean, as much as he wants to say that it's the way that Donald Trump was portrayed, it's just not true. He's a smart guy. He saw what he saw. And he made his own opinion based on that, an opinion that he has changed so much that he is now a 39-year-old running mate to that very same Donald Trump.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: It's very emblematic of a broader trend, I mean, among Republicans. There is -- it's something strange with Donald Trump where he has such fervor, that he gets from the base of the Republican Party, that it's almost impossible to succeed in republican politics, this has been true since 2016, without being somewhat aligned with Trump. And yet, Trump also has a lot of political liabilities that make him a complicated and even toxic figure in the broader electorate. But for J.D. Vance, as Dana said, I mean, the paradigm was very simple. If he wanted to be elected, he had to be aligned with Trump. And the thing that probably changed his mind was that Trump's hold on the base kept getting stronger, not so much that Trump did anything different or said anything different as president. I mean, he acted as president the way that he ran as a candidate, and nothing really changed. The only thing that changed --

(COUGHING)

-- was that Republican base voters said, this is our guy, and anybody who wanted to be associated with the Republican Party needed to get in line.

TAPPER: David Urban?

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, look, it is -- this is the problem when you run in the primary, when you have a record, when you go on television, you speak your mind and it ends up coming back to bite you in the ass, right? This is what we're seeing here. It is amazing that he said those things. I mean, they're pretty strong.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Shame on him for speaking his mind. What are we going to do about that?

URBAN: Those are pretty strong statements against his current running mate right now. He's going to have to explain them way a little bit more. I think that, Dana points out, you know, J.D. Vance is a Yale- educated lawyer, very smart guy. And so, look, you can have a conversion. You can change your mind about someone's performance and how they've done the job and how they perform in the job. But he's going to need to have a little bit better explanation of how he was so vehemently opposed to somebody, and then now he's on the ticket.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: But can I say one thing with this? You know --

TAPPER: One thing. I want to go to Daniel Dale right now. He's our resident fact checker. And there were many things that were said at the convention that were, shall we say, contrary to the facts, fact- challenged. Daniel, just give us a -- just give us a sampler because we don't have all night.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Indeed. So, Jake, two of the biggest lies came from former President Trump.

[23:10:01]

He didn't speak live, of course, but he gave pre-recorded video comments in which he repeated some of his usual election nonsense, talking about the 2020 election having been unfair, Democrats supposedly being serial election cheaters, just nonsense.

There are also smattering of false or misleading claims from others. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, claimed there was peace in the Middle East under President Trump four years ago. Not even close to true. There were a whole bunch of ongoing wars, not to mention, of course, the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A pre-recorded video claimed that Trump signed the largest tax cut in history. He did not. Other pre-recorded videos talked about inflation being at a 40-year high. Didn't explain that that high was actually hit two full years ago, June 2022. That inflation today is about a third of what it was then.

Same with gas prices. They had a video in which people complained that they have to deal with a national average of more than five bucks per gallon. Didn't explain that that was the June 2022 average. It's now way down from that as well.

I also want to fact check a claim from Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She was talking about the Biden-era economy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): They claim that our economy is thriving, yet hundreds of thousands of American-born workers lost their jobs these past few years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: This claim is misleading at best, and I think I'm being generous. Data actually shows there has been major job growth for American-born workers under President Biden. Four point seven million more American-born workers had jobs in June 2024 -- last month -- than three years prior.

Now, I said misleading rather than false because, sure, it's possible hundreds of thousands of particular American-born workers lost their jobs under President Biden, but Greene certainly created the impression, I think, Jake, that American-born workers on the whole have lost jobs during this presidency, and that's just wrong. This group has gained big on the whole. Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Daniel Dale, thanks so much. All right, when we were -- when we were talking --

COLLINS: I was just going to say about Senator Vance, I think everyone has reckoned with the fact that he said very critical things about Trump, raised the question if he was a Hitler-like figure and what that looks like. One thing that stood out to me is whenever you're getting a job, you always wonder, well, why is the job open? Who had it last? Why are they no longer in it? Obviously, Mike Pence is not here tonight for a reason.

And to look at, you know, why that was, when I spoke to Senator J.D. Vance a few months ago, I asked him, he was very clearly in the running to be Donald Trump's vice president, I asked him if it gave him any pause, how Trump treated Mike Pence, someone who was a very loyal lieutenant of his, navigated him very well during those four years that they served together. Obviously, Donald Trump, as we've seen with other members of his cabinet, is not always easy to work with or doesn't always get along with people that he has picked and put in those positions. And J.D. Vance's response was actually not, you know, that it gave him any concern. He actually said that he didn't believe. He was skeptical of Pence when he claimed that his life was at risk on January 6th.

And it just kind of puts into perspective also the caliber of people that Trump was considering, not just their resume and what they've done on the Hill, but also what they would do in a situation like that. That is really the number one issue to Donald Trump.

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: You know, we've been talking a lot tonight about what J.D. Vance does for the ticket. I think maybe the better question is, why did Donald Trump pick him? And I think that goes directly to what you were just talking about, Kaitlan. And that is the fact that this probably is more a governing pick than it was a campaigning pick, and he's thinking less about who's going to put him over the top. I think Donald Trump thinks, I'm going to win this election on my own, but I got to live with somebody for four years.

And if there's one thing -- I mean, when you think of Mike Pence and how he just kind of checked his -- anything he believed in at the door and for four years did Donald Trump's bidding, and then, of course, on January 6th, 2021 did not, I think that was the unforgivable sin. And maybe what Donald Trump sees in J.D. Vance, not that it'll -- not necessarily be on January 6th, but it's somebody that he can count on to do what Donald Trump wants and to be faithful to Donald Trump's wishes.

TAPPER: Anderson?

COOPER: Jake, thanks very much. We talked earlier, and I want to talk a little bit more about some of what we saw, particularly earlier on during the convention through the outreach to Black voters, a number of speakers, in particular, John James, a Michigan congressman. I want to play a little bit of what he said and talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN JAMES (R-MI): Yeah, I heard a little bit earlier today, if you don't vote for Donald Trump, you ain't Black.

(APPLAUSE)

But see, here's the thing. By the grace of God and the proven leadership of Donald Trump, for every American, regardless of race, color and creed, we could once again have a land where a child's outcome isn't determined by their zip code.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Van, you had made the point earlier that there was not a great time years ago when a child's outcome was not determined by zip code.

[23:15:04] JONES: Well, yeah, I mean, that's just -- it's a weird thing to say because, I mean, that's true. And it's also true for poor white kids. I mean, if you grow up in a neighborhood that's impoverished and don't have opportunity. So, I think those kinds of comments don't move Black voters because they just seem out of touch and bizarre. And so that's part of the challenge they have here. They're reaching out to the Black community.

But Amber Rose, when she talks, it lands, it's authentic, it makes sense. You can tell she's coming from within the experience and she's talking -- that cuts -- she was perfect. I mean, if you want -- she gave a master class on political conversation. Those speeches to me, and I don't mean to take anything away from their leadership, but they seem to be coming from people who talk about Black people, not to Black people. They talk about black issues, not to Black people.

And the thing I thought was most harmful was Tim Scott, who I love and admire. When he talked about the thousands of Black children that are being killed in Chicago, he had a glee in his voice. He was like, sort of like a kind of point scoring. But, you know, those of us who go to those funerals and sit with those grandmothers and those mothers and look at young people in the caskets, there's no glee about that. That's not -- politicizing funerals in our community is not a good strategy for moving the Black vote. So, I understand what they're trying to do, but I think they got to really look at this because there's a way you can give offense.

And also, the other thing that James said that I thought was bad, he talked about, you know, that Black children can't read. Look, we have some challenges, but please don't take away from the millions and millions of Black children who can read, who do read, and who are held by teachers in tough schools learning the joy of reading. There's just a way that you can sometimes try to play with these tropes for an audience like that, that really lands badly in the community.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I've got a nugget from a Republican pollster source friend of mine who's doing some testing among Black and Hispanic voters in the wake of the assassination attempt, and I'll just tell you what they said. Minority men, especially middle age and young minority men, are enthralled with how Trump responded to the assassination attempt. These are not overtly political people, but it's obvious the story transcends politics in their minds, and it's all about strength and courage under fire. Put another way, the testosterone is flowing.

JONES: Now listen, you are correct on that. 50 Cent came out and played "Many Men," and showed a picture of Donald Trump. Anybody who knows anything about hip-hop, you know, "many men wish death on me," it's a very strong, defiant anthem in the Black community, and 50 Cent played that. So, there are things that are happening here. There are ways that there's a -- you know, unfortunately, having court TV all summer has created Donald Trump as almost like a John Gotti folk hero among some people, Black and white. So yeah, there's stuff going on here. But I just think that the particular way they dealt with it tonight, I have criticism.

COOPER: You mentioned Tim Scott and also Amber Rose. Let's just play some sound from both of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: America is not a racist country.

(APPLAUSE)

AMBER ROSE, MODEL AND RAPPER: I realize Donald Trump and his supporters don't care if you're Black, white, gay or straight. It's all love.

(APPLAUSE)

And that's when it hit me. These are my people. This is where I belong.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, listen, Donald Trump is also playing to the youth vote, the Gen Zers who maybe haven't voted in a previous election and don't have deeply baked in perspectives on either of these candidates who probably feel very disillusioned by the fact that we have basically two octogenarians running against each other.

But if you look at TikTok, if you look at social media, which is where young voters are watching this, they're not watching on linear, Donald Trump knows how to use messages like that and blast it out to tens of millions of people. He knows how to play the meme games. He knows how to create viral moments and share them. So, that's also something I wouldn't sleep on in this election because that's traditionally been something that's more of a democratic coalition, something that Obama obviously turned out. And I think he's making a real play there.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But I think Trump also has, look, he has a personal history of things like the Justice Department coming after him because he refused to rent to Black voters -- to Black renters in his properties. I mean, he obviously has said many things that are, I would argue, deeply problematic in terms of aiding and abetting some of the white supremacist factions in this country that I think are, you know, as I think voters of all colors should look at and say, that's not what we want the president of the United States.

So, I think he has a personal history on race that I think Biden and the Biden team has an opportunity to really put front and center for people because there's no question, for Biden to be re-elected, he has to do the kind of numbers that he did with Black voters in 2020. And I think we've seen in a lot of the polling some slippage there. And so, I think there's got to be, you know, an aggressive argument from the Biden campaign.

[23:20:00] I think in addition to Trump's kind of personal history, I think they also have a substantive argument they can make about what the economy looked like for black businesses under Donald Trump. You know, black unemployment was higher under Donald Trump. So, you know, I think there are both personal and substantive arguments here that give the Biden campaign a lane. And I think they have some work to do and they need to do it.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, so I -- I'm a text guy, right? I listen to some of these speeches and I'm like, that doesn't sound right, whatever. Vance criticism --

(COUGHING)

-- is based on text. The subtext here is very good for Republicans, right? The subtext is, you know, there's this rule in politics that says before people are going to listen to your policy solutions, they first -- you first have to prove that you care about them. And so, you can be ham-fisted in some ways about how you reach out to Black voters. I mean, they introduced one woman as a Latino woman and then read her name.

(LAUGHTER)

You know, you would never say white American, Joe Schmo, right? And so, but so there's some ham-fisted stuff because Republicans aren't good at this historically. At the same time, you see -- if you were -- if you're doing this, the sort of -- we can all stipulate that Roger Ailes was a flawed human being, but he was onto something about watching TV with the sound off. And if you watch this with the sound off, you would say, oh, Republicans care about Black people. And then you see the chyron on the Teamsters guy. Oh, they were reaching out to Teamsters. That -- I think the osmosis of that is -- is -- is pretty powerful.

And I agree there's all sorts of text, substance, however you want to put it, for Biden to execute or the Democrats to execute against Republicans, particularly against Donald Trump and his actual record, but you need to be really nimble to execute that. And I just don't have a lot of confidence I can.

GRIFFIN: Can I mention one more thing? if I may just praise Amber Rose again, this political savant. She alluded to her Democratic friends who would say, you know, you can't say that, you can't do this. That is so much more effective. That's something I hear constantly with American voters, left, right, and center, is feeling like we kind of have speech codes, and if you use the language that was good five years ago, but it's not now.

The way she articulated it in basic English is so much more effective than some of the earlier language of the woke mind virus. If you don't live on Twitter, that means nothing to you. But feeling like, oh, if you slightly, you know, mischaracterize how we now talk about this, you're going to be ostracized. It was very, very effective.

JENNINGS: I think to answer you, Kate, some of the what's going on with the African-American debate here, you know, who's better for these voters, is just wrapped up in the fact that they are largely working class. African-Americans are working class Americans. This election is not necessarily, as we've seen tonight, just R&D, just red and blue, just urban and rural. It's working class feeling like the elites in this country have stopped listening to them and left them behind.

And Trump seems to be agnostic of your race. He only cares whether you are a working-class person. And when you continuously tell groups of people, just shut up and show up, and hey, I know you think cost of -- I know you believe cost of living is going to be here, eat some of these charts and graphs for dinner tonight, they get sick of it. And I think that's why you're seeing folks, to your point, more willing now to break out in the past. You got your head shot off. You jumped up out of the ditch, you know, in some certain communities. Now, people are feeling more free to express it.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: -- Van and then we get to --

JONES: Just to keep us somewhere close to reality.

(LAUGHTER)

The vast majority of Black people will be voting against Donald Trump. I mean, 80, 90%. We're going to -- Black people --

JENNINGS: You're confident of 90?

JONES: I'm not confident of 90 --

(LAUGHTER)

JENNINGS: How about 85?

JONES: I'm confident -- I'm confident that Black people will vote against Donald Trump more than any other group with no peer. And some are beginning to move. So, I just want to just keep us somewhere close to reality.

COOPER: Let's check in with -- with Jeff Zeleny for more democratic reaction about the pick of J.D. Vance. Jeff, what are you hearing?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, there's no question that Democrats were eagerly watching this republican convention as well, largely because of the new man in the race, J.D. Vance. And for the first time, of course, we got the look, the first look between Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, how their body language was.

But Democrats are looking much deeper into his record. And we heard from President Biden today. He immediately sorts of phrased Senator Vance as a clone of Trump. I am told that that is going to be a bumper sticker message going forward, particularly on abortion. They are going to try and look into some of previous comments on abortion rights that Senator Vance has talked about, including his support for a national abortion ban.

Now, of course, this race is going to revolve around Donald Trump. There is no question about that. But they do believe, at least on the margins, that Vance being added to this ticket offers them some opportunities.

But, Anderson, as Democrats were watching the convention tonight, just checking back in with them, it was the speech from Sean O'Brien, the Teamsters president, that had some alarm for Democrats as well.

[23:25:02]

Some of his words certainly were speaking to what we're all seeing here is a potential realignment in the parties. We do not know where that will go this year. But that is one thing that Democratic officials, both here in Wisconsin and others that we've been speaking with, are looking at very carefully. So, this election in 2024, again, sort of cycle by cycle. We have seen the working class and the country club Republicans sort of occupy one another's space. So, Democrats watching that tonight as well.

But for here going forward, J.D. Vance's big speech on Wednesday night, you can bet Democrats will have a lot to say about that. And, of course, Vice President Harris, I'm told, she'll be talking about him as well. Anderson?

COOPER: Jeff Zeleny, thanks very much. The other factor which we haven't talked about in the last couple of hours is the assassination attempt and what the ripple effects of that are. I mean, it has fundamentally changed things. It has fundamentally changed, in some people's minds, sort of the perception of Donald Trump. I mean, his --

JONES: Humanized him.

COOPER: Humanized him tonight. He looked more -- you know, it humanized him on that stage. You know, the presence of mind he had, that -- that extraordinary sense he has to tell his Secret Service detail to wait so he can have this iconic moment, all of that happening in real time. Do we know yet how -- I mean, for many in that crowd tonight, there's a messianic feel to his survival.

JENNINGS: I think it has changed him based on his own words. He told the "New York Post," you know, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be dead. He told -- he said he ripped up his speech and he's starting over. So, I guess we're going to see just how much he has changed. But I also think it has reinforced Trump's basic framing of this election. It has always been strength versus weakness.

And when I look at him on that stage, standing up, fighting through his detail to raise his fist and say, fight, fight, fight, juxtaposed against the video of Joe Biden at the debate, Joe Biden, some of these interviews, the strength versus weakness frame has been magnified a thousand times right now, and I don't know how in the world a Democrat campaign would ever change that at this point.

GRIFFIN: I'm still struck, though, by the announcing of J.D. Vance today, and I say that because there was sort of this tone within the media, political circles, pundits, that after the assassination attempt, we need to take down the temperature and even having conversations around, is Donald Trump a threat to democracy, which, by the way, I believe he needed to kind of stifled for a bit.

But by choosing somebody who used language far more outrageous and offensive than that and equivocating him to Hitler as your running mate, you basically just welcomed that conversation, which I think has kind of been the core democratic message back into the ether.

So, I think that that kind of what could have been even half a week of sort of people really holding what they were going to criticize Donald Trump over, it welcomed that back into the discourse with the selection of this.

BEDINGFIELD: I agree with that. And I think that there's -- I think you can kind of feel almost like a champing at the bit of people to sort of get back to like everybody knows we're in the midst of a hard- fought presidential campaign, and you can sort of feel everyone is creeping back closer to criticizing each other. You heard it from some of the speakers tonight. You heard it some from President Biden in his interview. I mean, I think everybody recognizes there are significant stakes in this election. And I think it's even given the significance and, you know, the horribleness of what happened over the weekend, it -- I'm not sure, like Scott saying there's no way to change the dynamic between now and 112 days from now, 14 days from now.

JENNINGS: There is --

BEDINGFIELD: That's not -- look, I don't disagree -- I don't disagree that the strength -- the strength contrast --

JENNINGS: Yeah.

BEDINGFIELD: -- Trump had his instinct to throw his fist up, that photo, all of it reinforced strength. I'm not disputing that. But I also think we can't sit here 100 plus days out from the election and say definitively we know what the dynamics are going to look like, you know, three and a half months from now.

JENNINGS: Do you believe there is a 1% chance that on election day, more Americans will view Joe Biden as a stronger leader than Donald Trump?

BEDINGFIELD: I think there is a very good chance more Americans will view Donald Trump as a bigger threat to their future than Joe Biden.

JENNINGS: I think -- I think if -- if you want to --

BEDINGFIELD: And that's the task for the Biden campaign, to make that case.

JENNINGS: I think if you want to return to the rhetoric that you were using previously, that Trump is going to end the country, burn the Constitution, and he's a modern Hitler, it's going to backfire.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: But -- I mean, that is true. I mean, Trump uses that language.

GRIFFIN: -- if you have another four years --

JENNINGS: We'll see what happens this week. But I think -- I just think --

JONES: But even in his statement --

JENNINGS: It would backfire to go back to that right now.

GRIFFIN: He called Nancy Pelosi a threat to democracy just two days ago on True Social.

COOPER: And also, even in the statement he put out today about, you know, unity. If you read the sentences before, I mean, I don't have it in front of it, but it's -- it's all about, you know, the getting rid of all the court cases or, you know, it's still the election lies. I mean, it's -- it's not as if there has been -- I just feel like we've seen multiple campaigns where people talked about a change of tone in Donald Trump.

GRIFFIN: Yeah.

[23:30:00]

COOPER: And how -- I mean, I remember in 2016, interviewing him and talking about, oh, I can be so presidential. You know, I'll have a presidential tone.

GRIFFIN: And by the way, on teleprompter, I expect him to be presidential. I actually think he will have a well-written, thoughtful, substantive, forward looking speech. It's what he does when he's not on prompter, when he's rallied up by a crowd, when he's out there campaigning or the things that he's actually going to do from a policy perspective.

GOLDBERG: So, look, I've been running columns for almost 10 years now saying Donald -- I predicted Donald Trump's presidency would end badly because character is destiny. I've been saying how expecting Donald Trump to pivot to being presidential is like waiting for Godot. It's just not going to happen. But I want to give due credit to Scott's point that getting shot at --

JENNINGS: Yeah.

GOLDBERG: -- can change a person. So, we'll see. But my one source of skepticism, other than the fact that 78-year-olds, even when they go through something dramatic, don't tend to change their fundamental natures too much. But it's possible. I'll credit you that. I don't know that he knows how. I don't know that he knows the language of being a conciliator for more than five minutes.

And the idea that he is going to not go back to calling his opponents vermin and Marxists and fascists and communists and all that kind of stuff, that's the language he has learned how to speak in, and I don't know that he can get a Berlitz phrasebook and get up to speed on how to be like a middle-of-the-road guy.

JONES: And what I would say is, you know, I do feel that Democrats right now feel frozen because we don't want to be mean or insensitive or whatever. But if they keep giving us the permission structure to get out of this box, we have to get out of it. J.D. Vance is unlocking a door that you guys don't want unity. You pick somebody who's mean to us. You pick somebody who's a barn burner. You didn't pick a Nikki Haley. That begins to open the door back up for us to get out of this crouch. Right now, Democrats are in a crouch. We're not going to stay here if we continue to see this kind of stuff.

BEDINGFIELD: I also think, by the way, Biden laid out in the interview a path forward on this, which is, you know, you don't -- you can criticize somebody, you can criticize the substance of what they're putting forward without doing it in terms that are, you know, going to incite violence. And he, I think that was a piece of the interview tonight that I thought was very good for him in that he sorts of -- he laid down a roadmap of how he clearly intends to get back into taking this to Trump. It doesn't mean using, you know, hateful language, which I would argue is not Joe Biden's memo anyway, but --

JENNINGS: If he was laying out this roadmap of how we're going to have this respect, why was he so mad? Why is he snapping at Lester Holt?

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: You guys are snapping turtle.

COOPER: We're going to continue -- we're going to continue this discussion. Let's get back to Jake.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Thanks, Anderson. And guess what it's time for? It's time to break out the magic wall. John King, we brought -- you brought your portable magical wall here to Milwaukee. It's beautiful. And walk us through where the race stands right now.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the most striking thing, Jake, is on this first night of the republican convention. And let me turn this way so you can get a closer look. Just take a look between the then and now. This is the then. This is the 2020 presidential election. This is Joe Biden's overwhelming and convincing win in the Electoral College. Yes, the former president was in the room here tonight. Others in the room here tonight. Still say this was a rigged or unfair election. That's not true. It's just not true. Joe Biden won, and he won big. That was that, 306 to 232.

But this is our current CNN projection of where we are now. And look at this. If Donald Trump won, what we have here, dark red states, solid Republican. Light red states, leaning Republican. If he won just those right there, he would already have the path to 270. He would have 272 electoral votes. Look what is different. We have Wisconsin as a toss-up. We have Pennsylvania as a toss-up. Two critical states for Joe Biden. Michigan right now, another critical state for Biden, leaning Republican. Georgia, a state Biden flipped, leaning Republican. Arizona, a toss-up state. That was a state Biden flipped. Nevada, a state he won, leaning Republican. This is the dire strait for Joe Biden right now on the first night of the republican convention. Tomorrow is 16 weeks to Election Day. Sixteen weeks from tomorrow, we count the votes. It is tough to change a map like this in that amount of time.

And here's why Democrats are so worried. Why so many Democrats are saying, Mr. President, please reconsider and get out of this race. Because right now, Trump is leading here. And Trump is leading here -- leading here. Narrowly, but he's ahead in those states. Trump is leading here. That's 312 electoral votes. Trump is leading in this Nebraska congressional district. Let me change it that way. Nebraska does it by congressional district. That's 313 electoral votes.

And Democrats are warning that Trump may not be well ahead. It may still be margin of error. It might be a tie. But right now, Trump is competitive here. That's blue Virginia. That's blue New Hampshire.

[23:35:00]

So, the warnings to the White House are Donald Trump could conceivably, if the current dynamics in the race hold, get 330 or more electoral votes. That's what they believe. Now, if you're a Democrat, if you're in the Biden White House, yes, there are 16 weeks to Election Day. So, can it be done? Come back to this. Can it be done? Yes. But it's a very narrow path for Joe Biden. He must win this. He must change this. Michigan has to go blue, and he must win this. Look at that number. Even if he did that, won the three blue wall states, he's at 269. So, he either has to get Arizona or Nevada back or get Georgia back and win the Nebraska congressional district. So, Joe Biden has essentially one, maybe two narrow paths to 270.

Donald Trump has so many. There are viable paths to get him as high as 330, which means you can take some states away, Jake, and he would still get to 270. Donald Trump, on the first night of his convention, and Democratic people who are studying the data closely say it keeps getting worse for the president. Donald Trump opened his convention tonight in a commanding position in this race, period.

TAPPER: Yeah. John, stay right there because I want to play some fresh sound from the new vice- presidential running mate for Donald Trump, Republican Senator J.D. Vance, talking about the phone call that he got when Donald Trump offered him a spot on the ticket. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: He just said, look, I think you've got to go save this country. I think you're the guy who can help me in the best way. You can help me govern. You can help me win. You can help me in some of these Midwestern states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and so forth.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: So interesting. We talked about that earlier, J.D. Vance, son of Ohio, and the ability of him to help with those blue wall states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Western Pennsylvania, key part of Pennsylvania, key part of the commonwealth, right across the border from Ohio. And so that's one of the reasons that he was picked, according to J.D. Vance.

KING: You just made an excellent point when you said Western Pennsylvania. This, I think, will be the interesting test case to watch, J.D. Vance get on the road. Watch where they put him, not just on the ground campaigning, but on television interviews. One of the things a vice presidential nominee does, a lot of local television interviews. So, let's see how they use J.D. Vance.

Let's use your home state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Is J.D. Vance going to flip Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is, from blue to red? No, no. Most unlikely, anyway. But -- but does he change the margins? That's the question, right? So, you're in a place like this. You know, this Allegheny County, Pittsburgh is right here, strong democratic stronghold. But as you move up, where the president's rally was, in Butler, is up here, to the north of that, as you go up, as you move up here, there are voters who are available to you, 59% to 39% there. If you go back to 2016, you come back there, 56%. You might say 59, 56. That's close, doesn't matter. It matters a lot. It matters a lot.

The third-party candidates -- again, we're talking about Trump, Biden, Vance, Kamala Harris tonight, but the third-party candidates matter as well. The issue is you have places like that. Will we see -- my question is, do we see J.D. Vance over in places like this? Bucks County, the more blue collar, the more competitive of the Philadelphia counties, maybe plays there. Some blue-collar people here.

As you move into Montgomery County and you come down here into Chester County and you move over here to Delaware County, those are where -- that's where Donald Trump's kryptonite. The American suburbs is Donald Trump's kryptonite. And does J.D. Vance help there? His record on abortion, his record on other issues, there's nothing on paper today that says J.D. Vance will help you here

But -- but Western Pennsylvania, then you come across again, Michigan. The Teamsters president was here tonight. Joe Biden has trouble with some autoworkers. There are places in Michigan. Notice Donald Trump came into the hall tonight before a gentleman from Western Michigan spoke. The Trump people timed his entrance for a reason, because they know where this race will be won or lost. So, can he help here? Can he help here?

Well, remember, you know, he's from here in Ohio, a reliably red state here. And if you remember back on the night of 2016, Jake, the first clue that Donald Trump was going to have a good night was when the votes started coming in, in Northern Kentucky, right along the Ohio border. And yes, you knew Donald Trump was going to win Kentucky, it's a red state, but the turnout was coming through the roof. That's when we first started seeing, because if that happened there, then would it happen here? And there are communities just like that here in Pennsylvania. And there are also communities just like that to the west, in Michigan and Wisconsin. Turnout matters.

Can J.D. Vance get more white Trump voters, maybe disillusioned with both candidates? A lot of voters out there who don't like either of these major party nominees for president. One of the things that gets forgotten sometimes is, look at that, 62 million votes, right? Sixty- three, if you round up billion votes for Donald Trump in 2016. He got a lot more votes in 2020. He still lost because Joe Biden and the Democrats turned out so many more voters. President Biden has an enthusiasm problem right now.

[23:40:00]

If J.D. Vance can help Donald Trump turn out every MAGA Republican, every maybe non-Trump Republican but by DNA Republican who can't vote for Biden, that number might be enough this time. If you can match that number or turn it up a little bit, it might be enough. If the third-party candidates are more of a factor in 2024, they were not a factor in 2020. And if Biden loses just a little bit in Black turnout, a little bit in Latino turnout, a little bit in the suburbs. So that's J.D. Vance thing, try to get Trump back to the 2016 model of where he did well, but with the 2020 numbers, bring them out.

TAPPER: So, let's turn to something that I think is under discussed when it comes to policy and what we heard tonight. J.D. Vance, Senator Vance, is not just this quintessential American success story. He is also one of the leading skeptics in the United States Senate of aid to Ukraine.

And what we heard from David Sacks, this entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, today, this evening, in a prime time speaking slot, was a very curious interpretation of the war in Ukraine. Noah Rothman, who is a conservative writer for "National Review," writes, David Sacks alleges that Joe Biden -- quote -- "provoked" -- unquote -- Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And he perpetuated the war by failing to endorse a Russian-backed peace proposal. This is Rothman still saying Sacks laid the blame for Ukraine's civilian casualties, not at Vladimir Putin's feet, but Joe Biden's.

And that is a fairly shocking statement to be made at a Republican Party convention. Yes, we know that Donald Trump is of the more isolationist wing of his party. But now, we have conservatives basically saying that they are stunned that David Sacks was given this speaking slot to basically blame the war in Ukraine on Joe Biden instead of Vladimir Putin.

BASH: Which maybe not in those stark terms. But we've heard Donald Trump do similar, effectively saying that if I were president, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe not about those terms and about the potential deal, I understand, but it is definitely another example, a very big, a very consequential example, Jake, of the way that this Republican Party is so different from the one that we covered early on. And I've heard from other national security-minded Republicans that they are concerned for the reason you just said about J.D. Vance on the ticket.

TAPPER: Coming up, what's next for the Republicans here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and how President Biden is responding to the GOP convention. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:46:52]

COOPER: Donald Trump's party wrapping day one of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with an appearance by their presidential nominee still bandaged after the attempt on his life. Now, it is on to day two. President Biden is in Las Vegas tonight, so is CNN's Kayla Tausche. So, Kayla, how is the president responding to what has been happening at the republican convention?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, this evening, President Biden called Senator J.D. Vance, the vice- presidential pick, a clone of Trump. That was a carefully calibrated soundbite sized line that we expect to hear a lot of as the president, as well as Vice President Harris, respond to the news of what the ticket looks like for the Republicans.

Vice President Harris sending out fundraising emails and many campaign officials talking about the desire to really frame at least the vice- presidential discussion on reproductive rights, as well as the future of democracy.

But the big moment for President Biden today was his sit-down interview with Lester Holt of NBC News. That was expected to take place in Austin, Texas. But when Biden postponed that travel in the wake of Trump's assassination attempt, that interview still took place at the White House. It was yet another opportunity where Biden was hoping to prove to the American people and the American media, as well as the democratic class writ-large, that he was up to the task of four more years.

He was extremely defensive in that interview. He apologized for some of the rhetoric that he'd used as it related to his opponent on the campaign trail. But he reverted essentially back to some of his campaign rhetoric, saying that he was not the one who pledged to be a dictator on day one, that he, President Biden, was not the one who challenged the outcome of the 2020 election. So, hitting back at President Trump on some of those very familiar topics.

Here in Nevada, he's going to try to turn to policy tomorrow, talking about housing specifically and actions he's taking for workers. But where workers are concerned, Anderson, we all saw the president of the Teamsters on stage tonight. I'm told that the Teamsters are withholding an endorsem*nt until after the conventions, as they usually do. But as of right now, the Democrats have not extended an invitation for O'Brien to appear at their big convention in August, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Kayla Tausche, thanks so much. I want to play some more, another clip of President Biden talking to Lester Holt. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLT: Who do you listen to on deeply personal issues, like the decisions whether to stay in the race or not?

BIDEN: Me. Look, I've been doing this a long time. The idea that I'm the old guy, I am. I'm old. But I'm only three years older than Trump, number one. And number two, my mental acuity has been pretty damn good. I've gotten more done than any president has in a long, long time in three and a half years. So, I'm willing to be judged on that. I understand. I understand why people say, God, he's 81 years old. Whoa. What's he going to be when he's 83 years old or 84 years old? It's a legitimate question to ask.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Back with the team here. I mean, then how long can this go on for?

[23:50:00]

I mean, this -- I mean, yeah, on the democratic side.

JONES: Well, look, I think it's probably going to go until November. And I want to give the president some credit. Before, it was -- he's hiding Biden. Hiding Biden. He won't come out. He won't do unscripted. He won't do interviews. He hasn't done enough interviews. So, then he does them. And he sounds like an old guy. But this was not a rambling, incoherent mess the way he was on that debate stage. And he's trying to stick up for himself.

And by the way, he's got a reason to stick up for himself because he has gotten a lot done. It's -- I think it's hard for Americans to feel it the way that he wants us to. But, so, anyway, I --

COOPER: My question, by the way, how long has this gone for? I mean, the -- the -- the indecision on it, I mean, are they overhang?

JONES: Yeah.

COOPER: Whether --

JONES: Look, man, we -- the clock is running out on us. We're going to have to make decision. At some point, the DNC is going to have to just decide, if nothing else for Ohio, that this is the ticket and that's it. And when that happens, we're going to fight till the last dog barks for Joe Biden because we believe Joe Biden is better for this country, even if he is old than Donald Trump.

But in the meantime, I think it's a healthy sign for this party to have a discussion. It's a cult. You would be in a cult if your candidate did something awful and you couldn't debate it and you couldn't talk about it. The Republicans, apparently, no matter what happens, they won't debate it. You can have all kind of felonies, all kind of terrible stuff. It's all right with them. But with us, we get new facts and new data. We discuss it. We debate it.

JENNINGS: We had a primary.

JONES: Well, yes -- JENNINGS: Many people -- well, many people ran, including Trump. We had a primary. We had debates. There were votes. Trump won. In the Democratic Party, you know, they ran RFK Jr. out of the room, wouldn't let him challenge Joe Biden. Where'd that get you? Not in a good place right now. They rigged the thing for Biden. You have not had a debate. And it's why right now in the latest NBC poll, that like 30% of Democrats are satisfied with their party's nominee.

The most important thing Joe Biden said right there, by the way, he said, I've got a record and I'm willing to be judged on it. He just asked the American people for a referendum on his record. He currently has a 32% approval rating. I'll take it.

GRIFFIN: Well, from a P.R. perspective, I just find that every time they've put him out since the debate, it hasn't gotten better. You could argue the NATO press conference was maybe neutral. It didn't do a ton of harm. But frankly, if our bar for the Democratic nominee is simply that he can answer basic foreign policy questions on issues he has worked on for 40 years, it's a pretty low bar and acknowledging there's a low bar that we have on the right. It's not he has been unable to get past this place of defending why he should be in the race and what he has accomplished. There's no forward- looking vision. He's not talking about here's what we're going to do next term, here's what your next four years are going to look like. And that's what keeps him stuck in this sort of stagnant place, and why, frankly, I think conversations are going to continue with dumb leadership because, listen, people might be willing to sacrifice the presidency, but down ballot races, I don't think.

COOPER: I think we have another -- I think we have just another bite from this Lester Holt interview. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Why don't you guys ever talk about the 18 to 28 lies he told? Where are you on this? Why didn't the press ever talk about that? Twenty-eight times, it's confirmed, he lied in that debate. I had a bad, bad night. I wasn't feeling well at all. And I had been -- well, I'm not going to make any -- I screwed up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Should point out we did extensive fact checking on all the lies told by Donald Trump in that debate. The question is, you know, why couldn't he on the stage push back on -- on those -- those -- those lies effectively? But to the question of -- you know, also, John King is reporting earlier. Stanley Greenberg has been sending poll numbers to the inner circle of President Biden, making the argument that it's -- it does not look good.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, look, it shouldn't go on much longer if Democrats want to win this election. I mean, I think there has been -- look, you know, Scott can say the process was rigged, but he's the incumbent president. Others got into the race. Dean Phillips actually got in the race and made this exact case and didn't get the votes that he needed to become the nominee. Joe Biden became the nominee by the -- the votes of voters who -- who voted in the democratic primary. He has said many, many times after having been questioned many times about this, that he's not stepping down and he is going to be the nominee.

So, at some point, Democrats have to decide that they want to try to win this election and turn their fire on Donald Trump. I think there is -- I shouldn't have said turn their fire. I apologize. That was not the phrase that I meant. They need to turn their focus on Donald Trump. So, you know, but I do think there has to come an end to this. I think everybody in the party leadership has -- has made their case. They've spoken to the president privately, as we've heard from, you know, a lot of reporting. And the president has said that he's not going to step down.

[23:55:00]

So, I -- at a certain point, we can -- you know, we can keep arguing in circles about this or we can decide that we want to put our full throat, our full chest, our full voice behind Joe Biden and go try to win this race. And I do think that this -- that the -- the finish line for this needs to be in sight here.

JENNINGS: What do you do, though, when the guy who's running believes he's destined to win, and virtually, every other single person in your party, strategist, elected official and otherwise, thinks he is destined to lose when the core argument is up until now, if we lose, the country is over? How do you square that? How do you square that as a -- as a Democrat? Do you believe it or not?

BEDINGFIELD: Because there is no guarantee that somebody else is going to win this election. That's where the argument starts to fall apart, that people are making. There is no magic one. No one has a crystal ball. No one can say if we inserted fill in the blank here, Vice President Harris or any other nominee into this race, they are guaranteed to beat Donald Trump. That's where that argument starts to fall apart.

GOLDBERG: They are guaranteed to be able to campaign. And that's -- that's the thing I look at. I don't think Joe Biden can campaign for president. I think Kamala Harris can. I think a lot of the other people can. I mean, I have my preferences. But I got no party loyalty to defend here. I just think as a -- just -- I don't think he's good enough to -- I don't think he's in good enough shape to serve for four more years.

COOPER: Twenty seconds, man.

JONES: Here's the thing. There is a character piece here that I think people might be missing, which is that the diligence, the perseverance that he's showing is itself an argument for his character.

COOPER: A history making night at the Republican National Convention. There's much more ahead. Laura Coates picks up our coverage after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)