CNN.com - Transcripts (2024)

[22:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, him --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): Whatever she wants is it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: -- or him?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): She will make the right decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Kamala Harris speeds towards a choice to run alongside her in November.

Plus, economic gloom steals a Harris talking point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And stokes a Trump story about your money.

And law and animal victims unit, the country gawks at a decades-old story about RFK Jr. killing a cub and then dumping the corpse in Central Park.

Live at the table, Betsy McCaughey, Clay Cane, Bill Burton, and Shermichael Singleton. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the race.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what America is talking about. We are in the final countdown, the final hours, the final eeny, meeny, miny, moe, or whatever you want to call it, we are in that right now, as Kamala Harris is minutes or hours, or maybe she's just minutes past deciding who will be on the ticket with her in November.

So, we're taking bets at the table tonight. I'm just kidding. But right now, the choice, according to our sources is narrowing between Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota. This is going to be one of those moments where either it's somebody who seems like the most obvious conventional electoral pick or the guy who has gotten us all saying weird for the last three weeks.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's going to be the guy that has a lot of Democrats saying weird. I mean, the unfortunate reality here, Abby, is that there is a segment of the Democratic Party that is anti-Zionist, perhaps even anti-Semitic, I would argue. It's unfortunate, but she can't choose Shapiro. You're looking at a state for the -- absolutely and it's a terrible predicament for the Democratic Party, but it is one that the Democratic Party finds itself, in my opinion, as a conservative.

You look at a state like Michigan, where you have a substantial percent of the population that are Muslims, you have a lot of young progressives, and they have shown that they are not willing to vote for Shapiro, as horrible as abhorrent as it may be to me, they're now calling him Genocide Josh, which is disgusting, it's despicable, but that is a reality that the vice president faces.

PHILLIP: Okay. And, look, this is a big question that he just raised. So, I'm going to read this from Tim Miller, who wrote in the Bulwark today. Twitter isn't reality, and he makes this point. Rank and file Democrats are unburdened by the veep stakes discourse. The one supposedly divisive name being discussed, Shapiro, is viewed favorably by 90 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats, 90 percent.

I guess the Keystone State progressives didn't get the Internet's memo. The reality is, concerns about whether one of these DEI whites will solve the vibes are based on Twitter brain alone.

I mean, that's a fair point. The guy is extremely popular, so popular, I don't think really anybody is that popular in this country.

FMR. LT. GOV. BETSY MCCAUGHEY (R-NY): I'd like to see him chosen for that very reason, not his popularity, but because he's Jewish. Anti- Semitism is rampant in this country, and shame on any presidential candidate who would reject him out of fear that some people don't like Jews.

CLAY CANE, AUTHOR, THE GRIFT: I think it's beyond Israel, though. When it comes to Josh Shapiro, he is pro-fracking, he is pro-corporate tax cuts, he has pro-vouchers.

PHILLIP: This sounds great for like the middle of --

CANE: I know for this side that that sounds good.

PHILLIP: No, I mean, I'm saying, not for me, I'm saying this sounds great for like the middle, the mushy middle that I think Kamala Harris needs.

SINGLETON: She needs to moderate on fracking. That's a problem for the vice president.

CANE: It's more than just, it's more than just Israel because Walz has the same position on Israel. It's that Walls, Mark Kelly, they all have the same position. So, I think for Shapiro, there's more going on there.

Listen, I'm from Philadelphia. I'm a Pennsylvania boy. I like Shapiro. But I think that right now we need the safest bet, and I really do feel like --

PHILLIP: What are your cousins telling you, Clay?

CANE: My cousins are saying Walz. And they're saying they like Shapiro, but, you know, Walz is -- there's a way that he communicates. I feel like, for me, the most important thing is the win. I think we could still win, we could still win Pennsylvania without Shapiro, because Shapiro can still fight for us. He is a believer in the Democratic Party. But there's a certain tenacity, there's a certain style that Walz has that I think we need right now to balance out the ticket.

[22:05:02]

BILL BURTON, PRESIDENT, BRYSON GILLETTE: You know, at the end of the day, presidential nominees don't generally pick for electoral votes.

CANE: Yes.

BURTON: Like, it hasn't been since, really, 1960 where we've had a V.P. nominee who's brought a state.

CANE: Trump didn't, Lord knows.

BURTON: No, Trump didn't. President Obama didn't.

CANE: Yes.

BURTON: George W. Bush didn't.

PHILLIP: Yes.

BURTON: It's just not a thing that they do.

And so I think that for Vice President Harris, the thing that she's looking at is chemistry. Like who does she get along with? Who does she think could be a good president? Who does she want to govern with? And I think that after that, she's going to look at all the other factors. But I think the most important thing to her is most likely, who's the partner that she wants at this critical time in our democracy.

SINGLETON: But I want to interject here.

PHILLIP: I'm curious, do you think that Republicans want Shapiro, or do they -- are they afraid of Shapiro? Because I see a lot of energy being put into trying to tear him down on the right. But then you also have a lot of Republicans and moderates who think, as Betsy noted, maybe this is a good kind of center left pick.

SINGLETON: Yes. I mean, look, first of all, I think it would be good if she were to pick him. I am very pro-Israel. And it's disgusting that she cannot potentially pick him because there's a segment of her party that does not want him.

With that said, no, I do not think Republicans are afraid, because if she does choose the governor of Pennsylvania, they're going to do oppositional research. And just like we saw I think an article that came out by the Philadelphia Inquirer a week ago talking about previous statements about the Palestinian people, if there were more statements, they will find them. And then they will run ad after ad in states like Michigan to say, is this someone that you want on the ticket, targeting those voters that I just laid out. Is it The moral thing to do, perhaps not, but opposition research and politics is a combative sport.

PHILLIP: I'm still not sold on this argument. The polls show that the Gaza issue is not anywhere near the top of the list for voters in general, but also for Democratic voters, for young voters, in particular geographies, yes, it's an important issue, but this is going to be a choice. It's a choice between Trump and --

MCCAUGHEY: That's why I find it offensive that anyone would disqualify Shapiro because he's Jewish.

CLAY: I don't think that's happening, though.

MCCAUGHEY: We should push back on that anti-Semitism. I'd love to see her take a moral stand and say, I've chosen Josh Shapiro, in part to say to this nation, there is no room for anti-Semitism here.

CLAY: I think it's unfair to say the Democratic Party is rejecting Josh Shapiro because he's Jewish. He is beloved in the Democratic Party. He won Pennsylvania, which was a really important win. He won by double-digit numbers. I think that it's just the style, like you just said, that kind of chemistry. It appears that Walz really is the best bet.

And I will say, either way, the GOP is afraid, because they're afraid of Kamala Harris.

MCCAUGHEY: No, they're not.

CLAY: Yes, they are.

PHILLIP: Let me play Trump on this podcast, talking about the V.P. choices that Harris has.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: All of the people that she's looking at are considered much better than her. These were people that were thinking about running. They would have run, except that they didn't want to go through this roadblock with her, and, you know, because you're the vice president. So, they wanted to go pick them. And I think virtually every one of them is considered better, smarter, would be a better president than her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BURTON: Two things. Number one, just before getting into Trump, I do take issue with the notion that Josh Shapiro is disqualified because he's Jewish. That is not the case. And I don't think that coming from the party that supported the people who marched in Charlottesville that we're going to talk about how Democrats are anti-Semitic. That's not the case.

Number two, I think that after President Trump's disastrous rollout of J.D. Vance, I think that he's scared of whomever Kamala Harris puts on the ticket. Because at the end of the day, whomever he puts on the ticket is going to take more oxygen out of the conversation about him, which is where he wants it to be, and put more conversation in the conversation around Vice President Harris, where it's going to be helpful to us.

SINGLETON: So, I want to rebut this. I did a focus group with -- four focus groups with Jewish students about two months ago. And we talked about the state of the Democratic Party. Most of them were not conservative. Most of them were not Republicans. And they would disagree with you on how they view the Democratic Party based upon their experiences on college campuses. So, respectfully, I would push back against that.

MCCAUGHEY: The point is, that very few Americans really care who is chosen. They're going to look at Kamala Harris, and they're going to ask about inflation, the impact of illegal immigration on cities --

CLAY: Which Trump blocked.

MCCAUGHEY: And the other big issue, parental control, the ability of parents to decide what their children read in school, especially young children, and what their children are taught in school. And that is a big difference between Kamala Harris and the Trump team.

CLAY: I agree. You know, kids should be able to read books on Maya Angelou and not being banned. Kids should be able to read books on Toni Morrison and not being banned. So, I think there are some parents who agree that when a kid goes into a school, they shouldn't have Moms for Liberty attacking the school or attacking teachers and librarians that really, I believe, hinders young people learning of all backgrounds.

[22:10:04]

PHILLIP: It's a real tell because -- it's a real tell because Vice President Harris actually is the one who -- she brought that issue up. They're campaigning offensively on that. I haven't heard it much from Republicans at all, actually.

MCCAUGHEY: Yes, J.D. Vance has talked about it. But the fact is, July 15th. Kamala Harris addressed the American Federation of Teachers and joined them in opposing banning of books. And here's the book that was in question.

PHILLIP: Are we talking in favor of banning books now?

MCCAUGHEY: Yes, I am. I'm talking about a book that was mentioned by the AFT. This is the particular book. It's not about banning books. It's about what young children are taught. The book in question, I Am a Gay Wizard. It pictures --

CLAY: Have you read it? You probably haven't.

MCCAUGHEY: I have two small boys giving each other oral sex. That does not belong in kindergarten or first -- don't say, oh my gosh. That's exactly what's on the American Federation of Teachers website.

SINGLETON: I think for the average voter, they're looking at three things, the economy, immigration, and the state of foreign policy here. Particularly, we just saw the unemployment numbers go up to 4.3 percent, $1.3 trillion wiped out today on the stock market, granted that could come back tomorrow, 425,000 Americans just recently filed for unemployment insurance.

So, this idea that the country, economically speaking, is doing well, I will push back against that. I think conservatives need to make the message --

PHILLIP: We got a lot more on the economy coming up. But, Bill, go ahead.

BURTON: I was just going to say, Shermichael, here's the problem, us that if Former President Trump and J.D. Vance were talking about this race like you were talking about it, Democrats would be in real trouble. But they're talking about gay wizards. They're talking about all sorts of things that don't -- that are not the center of what is going on in people's minds.

MCCAUGHEY: I think it's only fair that I can answer this.

PHILLIP: We're going to take a break, everyone. Stick around.

Coming up next, speaking of the economy, Donald Trump has blamed Vice President Harris for the stock markets' downturn after he, just a few months ago, tried to take credit for its high watermark.

Plus, it was reported that President Biden was seething with Nancy Pelosi for pushing him out of this race. And now tonight, Nancy Pelosi makes a surprising revelation about their relationship. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight. After Japanese stocks suffered their worst plunge since the 1987 crash, the market there is now up significantly in those early trading hours. Hopefully, that signals good news here at home tomorrow, where U.S. markets suffered today their biggest drop in two years.

Donald Trump is trying to capitalize on that politically, though, by blaming his new opponent. He says, quote, Trump Cash vs. Kamala Crash. He added Kamala doesn't have a clue. Biden is sound asleep, all caused by inept U.S. leadership.

It's a much different tune than the one he was singing just a few months ago, back in January, when the Dow and the S&P hit their record highs. Back then, he posted this. This is the Trump stock market, because my polls against Biden are so good.

Joining us now to make sense of all of this is CNN Economics Commentator and Washington Post Columnist Catherine Rampell.

So, what is he talking about?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICS COMMENTATOR: I don't know.

PHILLIP: But I will say, I mean, look --

RAMPELL: Presidents don't control the stock market.

PHILLIP: Say it louder for the people in the back.

RAMPELL: Yes, I know. There's no, like, lever in the White House that makes the stock market go up or go down, and certainly not one that's controlled by the vice president.

PHILLIP: But this is going to be maybe, of all the things we've been discussing, the biggest issue in this election. The CBS/YouGov poll really shows that even though the vibes have changed, the voters' views on the economy have not. Voters think that they will still be better off if Trump wins compared to Kamala Harris. They also think that they will that the economy right now is fairly bad.

Now, we've talked about this a lot, but we do seem -- I mean, are we on the verge potentially of a recession? Is that what the signals are pointing to?

RAMPELL: I think it's not the likely scenario. I think it's a possible scenario, certainly. This is generally -- this is usually what happens when we have a bout of inflation and the Fed raises interest rates. Historically, usually, that results in a recession. Up until recently, it looked like we were headed for a so-called soft landing, meaning that we were going to escape that downturn. Now, you know, the signals are kind of mixed. I do think that there was some overreaction to the jobs report, to be clear, on Friday. It wasn't great, but 4.3 percent unemployment is still relative -- very low, in fact, by historical standards and GDP growth has been very strong. So, I think people were reading a little bit too much into that. And the fact that the Japanese stock market led the declines maybe says more about the appreciation in the end and some weird trades that hedge funds engaged with related to yen that I won't get into.

So, you know, I don't think, I don't think it's necessarily a done deal, but I don't think it's rolled out.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, it's certainly pointing to uncertainty as we go into this election, which is extremely significant.

MCCAUGHEY: I think there are two things that work. The first is that the Biden-Harris economics have been bearish in the sense that regulation and also threats of raising corporate taxes are going to have an impact on the market. But, secondly, the real key here is that the Fed raised rates to control inflation, especially before the election. But when you raise rates, companies don't borrow to buy trucks and computers and then don't hire more people to use those new pieces of equipment, and therefore you have 4.3 percent unemployment.

[22:20:07]

Another way to cope with inflation, though, instead of raising rates, is to lower energy costs, which are 30 percent of inflation. So drill, baby, drill, that was the alternative to what the Fed has done.

RAMPELL: Well, okay, we have had record high oil production in this country under Joe Biden. Again, just like presidents don't control the stock market, they also don't control the oil supply. But if we're talking about the production of oil, or actually almost any source of energy, virtually every source of energy except for coal is at record high production levels right now.

MCCAUGHEY: But it could have been much bigger.

PHILLIP: Although, it seems like every --

RAMPELL: I don't know. We're producing more oil than any country in history ever. So, I don't know.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: But this is -- I mean, everybody seems to agree, they would like the Feds, perhaps at this point, to lower rates, but, Bill?

BURTON: Look, I think that what you saw out of the Trump campaign today is a signal of the spiraling that they are experiencing right now. They cannot get their footing against Kamala, and so for the stock market to tick down a couple percentage points, it's down about 900 points overall, it's still 10,000 points higher than when Trump left office at its peak during his time in office. We're a third bigger in the stock market than we were during the Trump administration.

And, again, presidents don't control the stock market, right? But the notion that this is their leading attack, this and the childless cat women, like they're lost. They're adrift.

RAMPELL: Cat ladies.

PHILLIP: I mean, to that point, I mean, the so-called crash, I mean, it wasn't, you quite the crash that he was describing at whatever 10:00 in the morning today.

SINGLETON: I mean, look, I would say for some perspective. I mean, we were in the midst of a once in a lifetime pandemic. So, I mean, I --

BURTON: Made worse by the former president.

SINGLETON: But I would say looking at some other market markers, I'm looking at household incomes at a decade low. I am looking at the number of corporations that have fallen for bankruptcies. I'm looking at the number of small banks that are shutting down. I'm looking at other indicators, such as the consumer price index. I'm looking at consumer confidence reports. And all of those things do suggest that the average American voter believes that the economy is not good for them. They do not believe that their incomes have superseded inflationary rates.

RAMPELL: I mean, they have.

SINGLETON: For some.

RAMPELL: No, overall, like they have.

SINGLETON: For some, I'm going to push back on that. Like I think it's easy for people living in big East Coast.

RAMPELL: I cover this. This is my job.

SINGLETON: I understand that it's your job, but when you go and talk to regular people, they're going to tell you, when I go to the grocery store, it is more expensive for me to pay for goods.

RAMPELL: That's true.

SINGLETON: So, you're trying to negate that fact, with all due respect to your job.

RAMPELL: Okay. I'm just saying inflation has gone up. That is very painful. I do not discount that. It's very salient, groceries, gas, among other things, that's absolutely true. But it's not true that household incomes are at a decade low. It's not true that the economy isn't growing or that we turned off the oil spigot or whatever else.

I think you can recognize how people feel and also give them the real facts about how these times are feeling.

SINGLETON: This is a part of the issue -- CLAY: Hold on, Shermichael.

SINGLETON: Okay, go ahead.

CLAY: Let's remind people. Four years ago, we were in a pandemic that was made worse by the former president. We couldn't get groceries. We were standing in line trying to get toiletries. And we have a president who made everything much worse and now it has taken time to recover. Just like Obama had to clean up Bush, Biden had to clean up Trump. And so it is going to take time to recover.

So, part of the reason why we had those issues is because we're recovering from a pandemic that the previous president made worse. That's just the reality.

SINGLETON: I agree with Clay's point that it is going to take --

CLAY: He should take accountability for that, Donald Trump.

SINGLETON: I agree with Clay's point that it is going to take time. I can't negate that. But I think it is incredibly aloof to sit here at this table and pretend that what people are experiencing aren't real because some numbers on a chart showcases the data says otherwise.

BURTON: I agree. I actually agree with you.

SINGLETON: That's absolutely insane.

RAMPELL: Inflation is real and it's painful. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

SINGLETON: And it is absolutely out of touch for people in big cities making great money telling everyday regular people that what you're experiencing doesn't mean a darn thing because my charts say otherwise. That's ludicrous.

RAMPELL: That's not what I said. I said, I'm a journalist. My job is to help people understand what the facts are. I can recognize that people are suffering and that they feel stretched, and also say, here's the context and, in fact, the United States economy has been doing better than every other economy in the world. I can say incomes are rising, even if you're unhappy that -- understandably unhappy that prices are rising as well.

(CROSSTALKS)

SINGLETON: That's not for everyone. And that was my point.

BURTON: I actually think there we're uncovering what is one of the biggest challenges for the Harris campaign, because I do agree with you in the sense in the Maya Angelou quote, right, like people won't remember what you did. They will remember how you made them feel, right?

[22:25:01]

And I think that people do feel like the economy's not doing well, like, regardless of the economic indicators.

And I think that what Vice President Harris has to do is make the case to the American people that the future is brighter under her as opposed to the chaos that former President Trump wants to bring back.

SINGLETON: Yes, that is a contrast you'll have to make. I agree with that.

PHILLIP: So, let me just play, speaking of former President Trump, what he's been saying lately about what is causing these economic numbers to look as they are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, what's causing this?

TRUMP: Well, right now you have no confidence. You have somebody that now is taking over from Biden because he just wants to stay in bed all day.

We have to get it going again. They put us in a very bad position. The worst thing is we have probably, I think, 20 million people came into our country. They're coming out of mental institutions. They're pouring into the United States, and they're hurting and damaging our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, blaming immigrants for the current economic situation. I'll let Catherine weigh in on that first.

RAMPELL: I don't even know where to start with this, because, if anything, the normalization of immigration, by which I mean reversing Trump's cutbacks for legal immigration, because most of the immigrants who come here are legal, who enter legally. Reversing that is part of the reason we've been able to get inflation down as much as we have.

We've had a lot of supply chain shortages. There are plenty of industries that have had major labor shortages. And those industries are disproportionately ones that employ foreign-borne workers, construction, agriculture, food services, et cetera, healthcare, and immigrants disproportionately fill those jobs. And the fact that we do have a lot of immigrant workers coming in has actually been beneficial for the economy.

PHILLIP: All right. We're going to end on -- I would like to end on some facts in this segment, because I think that's really important.

Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone else, hang tight for us.

Coming up, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi denies rounding up her allies to push President Biden out of the race and she gives a surprising update on the status of their relationship.

We'll discuss that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:31:34]

PHILLIP: Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi sitting down with CNN tonight, and she was asked about her relationship with President Biden since he dropped out of the race. So, here is part of that one-on-one interview with Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The lawmakers who came out, one, two, three, are some of the lawmakers who are closest to you. Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Zoe Lofgren, with statements saying that they respectfully thought it was time for the president to step aside. I've had people say to me, and I just as a longtime observer of you, thought, oh, wow, those are all Pelosi allies. You had nothing to do with that?

NANCY PELOSI (D) SPEAKER EMERITA: I have hundreds of allies in the Congress of the United States.

BASH: Oh, I know. But they're among the closest.

PELOSI: No, I had nothing to do with that. And if you ask them, it's almost insulting to them, because they're formidable figures in the Congress of the United States. They make their own judgment and their own statement.

BASH: Have you spoken to President Biden since he dropped out?

PELOSI: No, I have not.

BASH: Do you hope to?

PELOSI: Yes. I hope to.

BASH: Yeah.

PELOSI: We're all busy.

BASH: Is everything okay with your relationship?

PELOSI: You'd have to ask him, but I hope so.

BASH: Okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Very, very interesting. We're all very busy, is what she says.

BURTON: In fairness, we are.

PHILLIP: We are. I mean, but it really does suggest that the relationship is maybe --the fact that they haven't even spoken, I think, speaks volumes. CANE: Yeah, I mean, it appears there's some tension there. And listen,

I was one of the people that I felt like, I'll be honest, that the power players in the Democratic Party did Joe Biden wrong.

And my fear was they were going to skip over Vice President Kamala Harris, and they didn't. So, we still have Vice President Harris on the ticket. But I guess we won't know until Biden does his book that every president does after they leave office. We'll see what really happened behind the scenes.

MCCAUGHEY: I think what Americans want to know is not what happened between Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, but why Kamala Harris wasn't more honest with the American public in the many months before the final resolution of this. Why she kept telling everyone that Joe Biden was on the top of his game when it was so obvious that he wasn't.

BURTON: I think that this trope is so tired.

MCCAUGHEY: That was a lie.

BURTON: Joe Biden was out there doing three interviews a day for the last six months. If he's trying to hide, he wasn't doing it in a very good job.

MCCAUGHEY: No, he was totally incompetent.

BURTON: And the other thing that I will say is that Joe Biden actually is a pretty busy guy, right? Like his whole life has changed dramatically in the last two weeks, right? And so, as he figures out what his legacy is going to be, what the last months of his presidency is going to be, like having some time to actually like focus on that as opposed to a handful of interpersonal relationships. It's like, it's fair.

PHILLIP: But why wouldn't, Bill, I mean, why, why is Pelosi trying to distance herself from this?

SINGLETON: Yeah, she screws the president over. I mean, come on here.

PHILLIP: I think that maybe a lot of Democrats would be willing to admit at this point, she was right.

BURTON: No, but at the end of the day, it was his decision. Yes, there was pressure, but it was ultimately his decision. He sat down with his aides. He said, you know what? This isn't the right thing for me.

I'm going to move on. It's going to be Vice President Harris' time and that is the true thing. And you know, the palace intrigue about like the conversations and what happened and whatnot, it was ultimately him. President of the United States decided.

PHILLIP: By the way, I just want to play this because I just think it's so fascinating.

[22:35:00] I mean, she's --the Speaker of America is on a book tour, so she's out there doing these interviews and here are two different statements made about the same person, President Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: Such a consequential President of the United States, a Mount Rushmore kind of president of the United States. I wasn't asking him to step down. I was asking for a campaign that would win. And I wasn't seeing that on the horizon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURTON: Both of those things can be true. I'm not trying to take up too much airtime, but both of those things can be true.

PHILLIP: That's fair. Both very different -- yeah.

BURTON: Like he could be one of the most consequential one-term presidents of all time. And smart people could look at what was happening and think, oh, this isn't the right thing for the Democratic Party.

CANE: I think, a lot of --

MCCAUGHEY: Let's be truthful. He was no longer capable --

PHILLIP: Go ahead. Go ahead, Shermichael.

MCCAUGHEY: -- of winning an election and he's actually no longer capable of serving as president.

CANE: That's completely not true, considering the hostages he released.

SINGLETON: For a little over a year, a lot of Americans have had serious concerns about President Biden's age. I get from a strategic position where Democrats were looking at the numbers and saying, look, we need someone who's young, who's more invigorating for a plethora of our necessary coalitions to pull this thing off. I get that.

And I've been critical of President Biden's age, as well, but as I've had time to think about this, I do kind of feel bad for the president. I mean, this is someone who spent five years in public office to sort of be pushed out by your own party because he's aging. Hell, we're all going to age.

I hope to God that if I'm 81 years old, I can still do whatever in the hell it is that I love doing. And I hope no one tries to force me out of that thing. So, as a human being --

PHILLIP: Even if it's the presidency of the United States"

SINGLETON: Well, Abby, as a human being, I do have a level of empathy for the president regardless of the job. But I also, as a strategist, recognize why Democrats saw the writing on the wall and said, Mr. President, it's time to go.

PHILLIP: It was interesting also that she was asked by Dana about her relationship with Vice President Harris. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You were, and still are, always will be, the first female House speaker. She, the first female vice president. You're both San Franciscans. What's your relationship like?

PELOSI: Our relationship is fine. We're very excited and proud of her. We're proud of the --as I've said, personally, I just have so much esteem for her. She's a person of deep faith and deep commitment to public service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAUGHEY: Pretty icy.

SINGLETON: Yeah, that was cold. I mean, it seems like she doesn't really have a relationship with Vice President Harris at all. I mean, maybe she wanted someone else. I mean, she didn't endorse her immediately like the Clintons and a plethora of others. I mean, I don't know what's going on with Nancy Pelosi. I respect her, although I differ from her politically. But, like, come on, let's not try to, you know, lie to the American people like we didn't know.

PHILLIP: Look, she's been in this game for a long time.

SINGLETON: She has, Abby. I mean, let's not pretend like we don't know that she was behind a lot of people coming out saying Biden needs to go.

PHILLIP: Yeah, yeah. No, I totally, listen. I mean, I'm a reporter. Like, we're not going to just take what she says --

SINGLETON: Gaslighting.

PHILLIP: -- face value, necessarily. But I'm just saying, like, she doesn't go out there and say, it's fine. And not know that that's going to be read into.

CANE: Well, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, what was the most important to me is the Democratic Party, unlike Republicans, they are united. There is a fire, there is a passion right now. And like I said, I stand by, I do believe that the campaign against Biden was really aggressive. But right now, we are on a track to win.

That is the most important thing. It's the most important thing to Jeff Duncan, former lieutenant governor of Georgia. The most important thing to Arizona Republicans, that we're going beyond partisan lines, realizing how dangerous Trump is.

And it feels like Kamala Harris, working with Obama's previous team, understands the importance of unity. So, the Democratic Party ultimately is now together. And that's important to me. BURTON: As a California Democrat, the thing that I know about California politics is that there are factions of the Democratic Party, right? There's the Phil and John Burton Democrats. There's the Newsom Democrats, the Harris Democrats, the Villaraigosa Democrats. There's -- there's different groups. You know, I just read her autobiography. I just read Dan Morain's excellent biography of her.

PHILLIP: You've been going deep on Vice President Harris.

BURTON: I'm going deep. And I can tell you that Nancy Pelosi doesn't show up in those books.

PHILLIP: Yeah.

BURTON: And that doesn't mean that there's animosity. I

PHILLIPS: I mean, they're both San Franciscans.

BURTON: It just means that there's different circles.

UNKNOWN: What do I view?

BURTON: There's just different circles. There's just different circles.

PHILLIP: And Pelosi points out she backed the person that Kamala Harris eventually defeated in her first race. So, they weren't necessarily on the same side of things at the beginning.

BURTON: Which is fine, but I think for Nancy Pelosi did not want to be not credible about her relationship with Vice President Harris. Fine.

PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Hang on, we've got much more to discuss. Coming up next, how do we know that we are living in strange times? Well, we've got a presidential candidate who just admitted to planting a dead bear in a park. My panel will discuss this next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:44:21]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR. (I) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I had to go to the airport, and the bear was in my car, and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car, because that would have been bad. I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of, and I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park, and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike. It'll be fun, funny for people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. revealing the answer to this decades-old mystery in New York City about how a body of a dead bear ended up in Central Park. Well, Kennedy made that admission over the weekend, ahead of "The New Yorker" publishing a profile piece on him today.

It's latest in a series of a string of bizarre headlines around the independent presidential candidate, including denying allegations that he once ate a dog and saying the doctors found a dead worm in his brain. Joining us now at the table is reporter -- the reporter behind that "New Yorker" piece, Clare Malone. Clare, in the break, Shermichael was like, is this a real story? Did this really happen?

CLARE MALONE, "THE NEW YORKER" STAFF WRITER: It really happened. It did, yeah. I guess the backstory of that video that he put out yesterday is that we were fact-checking the piece. It's a 10,000-word profile, so we fact-check everything. I called him up last week and asked him about the story, and I think his idea was to get ahead of our piece, and so he told that story.

PHILLIP: He told it to Roseanne Barr, as one does. I mean, but tell us a little bit more, also, just about -- I was reading it. It's fascinating if you don't, like me, know anything about RFK Jr., but his life is wild.

MALONE: It's a wild ride, yeah. I mean, he's actually a really interesting political character, and one of the kind of basic questions I wanted to ask was, how did this guy who was in the '70s and '80s kind of seen, even though he had a pretty serious heroin addiction, as a promising Kennedy potential future candidate for office?

How did that guy turn into a really fringe presidential candidate in 2024? And his life has, you know, addiction, a lot of tragedy. I mean, he's someone who lost his father in a really violent way at the age of 14. His uncle, obviously.

So, there's a lot of his brothers at pretty young ages. So, there's a lot of tragedy to his life, but also there's a certain absurdity and larger-than-lifeness that I think the bear story speaks to.

PHILLIP: This bear story is really incredible. Okay, I have to show you this real quick, Betsy, before you jump in. This is the New York City Sanitation Department writing in on how you properly dispose of dead animals, don't dump them, don't dump Haddington in Central Park, is the moral of the story.

MCCAUGHEY: I feel a lot of sympathy for him and interest. The fact is, he has many unbearable traits, to say the least, but --

CANE: Did you plan that? Sorry.

MCCAUGHEY: He's also, in some ways, absolutely brilliant, and I wish we could use some of his ideas and maybe find a place for him in the next administration, regardless of who wins.

PHILLIP: I have to say, just to be --

MCCAUGHEY: For example, his approach to chronic disease like diabetes.

PHILLIP: Just to be clear, one of the things about RFK, Jr. is that he spreads falsehoods about vaccines. We cannot overlook that.

MCCAUGHEY: We can dismiss that.

CANE: This is the funny thing about it.

MCCAUGHEY: But, let me just point out that he has very important ideas about combating diabetes, for example, one of the biggest problems.

PHILLIP: Okay, but let's start, I mean --

CANE: And so do plenty of Democrats.

MCCAUGHEY: We could track him on something good.

CANE: Absolutely.

PHILLIP: I just think --

MCCAUGHEY - He has redeeming qualities.

PHILLIP: I'm sorry to say, this is one of those things, I'm sorry to say, I cannot let it go that on a very important issue, on something that saves actual lives, he continues to knowingly spread falsehoods, even though he has been told over and over again that what he is saying has no basis, in fact. That has to be said.

MCCAUGHEY: Yes.

PHILLIP: A lot of people do good things in their lives, but he's also doing that at the same time.

CANE: Listen, from bear roadkill to a worm in his brain, this anti- vaxxer needs a vaccine. Like, he needs a vaccine. He is unhinged, as my girl Reesey Colbert says. This is unhinged.

MCCAUGHEY: He's had a tragic life.

MALONE: Well, I'll say, I mean, part of what I was trying to do with the piece is, I think it is for a lot of people who sort of read disjointed stories about RFK and the brain worm, and then this story today, he does sort of come off as just wacky.

But I do think if you're trying to look at how did he get to this place, and frankly, how did a lot of people in American life get to, I believe that, you know, vaccines are going to hurt my child. Like, you know, it's certainly important to say that it's misinformation, that there's no link between vaccines and autism.

MCCAUGHEY: I agree with that.

MALONE: But there are a lot of people who find him very compelling, and he is, you know, a third party candidate in an election that's going to be really close. So, I think sort of trying to strain together what in his life made him believe those things. Part of it was children who had anaphylaxis, I think. Part of it was, he really is this guy who kind of prides himself, and I think pride is the big word.

And you know, I read the primary sources. I read the science, right? And sometimes people can convince themselves that everything else is wrong, that the scientists are wrong, but that they have done the work, and I think that's him.

PHILLIP: One more thing, Clare. Eric, I mean, tell us about this text, these text exchanges about Trump, because part of the story here now is that this weird closeness with Trump.

MALONE: Yeah. I mean, the past couple of weeks, obviously, we saw RFK at the Republican National Convention talking to Trump, maybe sort of Trump's hinting that would RFK like to drop out and maybe have a potential cabinet post. In my piece, yeah, there are text messages that he exchanged with someone where he calls Trump a sociopath.

PHILLIP: A terrible human being.

MALONE: The worst human.

PHILLIP: The worst human.

MALONE: Yeah, and he's someone I think--

[22:50:00]

PHILLIP: Worst president. Barely human.

MALONE: Yeah.

PHILLIP: Which is actually worse.

MCCAUGHEY: How dare he use that word -- barely.

MALONE: Yeah. So, it's, you know, as someone who's, if Trump were to win the election, I do think that, you know, that potentially Kennedy would be taken seriously in a cabinet post or somewhere else. So, certainly there are absurd things about him, but also I think he's a person who's in political life right now.

PHILLIP: It also is interesting, I mean, since the top of the ticket has changed on the Democratic side, RFK Jr. has kind of dropped in one of these polls, CBS, YouGov. He's gone from 11 percent in June, July to now about two percent in their latest poll. That's a pretty significant drop.

BURTON: Yeah. I think that if you look at the broader political impact here for RFK, this story ironically probably helps him because the way politics goes these days, it's all an attention game. And I would bet money that he raised a ton of cash over the course of the last couple of days because of this story, because he's more in the news.

And I think that if anybody is worried about the impact of that, it probably should be Trump who's sort of in a little lull here where his V.P. pick was -- has been received poorly. And people may be looking for like other options if they're like, well, maybe Trump is not the deal, which is not the case on the Democratic side right now.

SINGLETON: I mean, I wonder this decrease in approval or support for RFK, I think that probably benefits Trump a bit more. I mean, if you look at a profile of some of those voters, even the low propensity ones, I think they'd probably vote more so for Trump than Vice President Harris.

But this story is interesting to me, Abby, because what it suggests or at least reveals is that despite all of the wealth, despite all of the access, trials and tribulations does not select us based upon certain interesting features or traits. And you see this based on his history with drug use or some of the other issues that he's had that's been revealed in some of the reporting.

MCCAUGHEY: I'd just like to say, Bill, you may not like J.D. Vance, but he is the embodiment of the American story. Someone who started out with nothing and has made so much good in his life, served in the Marine Corps as an enlisted man, made it through Yale Law School on his own. You can't just say he was received badly. Some people don't like his ideas, but he is a towering person.

BURTON: I have an opinion about him, which is different than the fact that he has been received badly. He is an empty vessel who has no idea who he is, who started out a center-left Democrat and who has ended up a converted whatever he is now. And I think that for someone who has no idea who he is, he has no reason -- there is no reason that he should be one heartbeat away from the presidency. It was a mistake for Trump to pick him, and it's offensive to the American people.

MCCAUGHEY: He knows exactly who he is. He has changed his mind on some issues. I was a Democrat once. I've changed my mind on some issues.

PHILLIP: As -- well, as it turned out these last few weeks, all roads apparently lead to J.D. Vance somehow over the last three weeks in this presidential race. Clare, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stick with us, because coming up next, our panel will give us their nightcaps.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:57:44]

PHILLIP: And we are back, and it is time for the "NewsNightcap". You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Clay, you're up.

CANE: Iman Khalif, the woman boxer at the Olympics, and she has been attacked by right-wing media. They have said she is a transgender woman. She is not. It has been shameful the way they've treated her, including the former President of the United States.

The world owes her an apology, the way that she has been attacked and misgendered. But when all you have is attacking trans people or making someone trans who isn't or gay wizards, sometimes you will rely to release some hurtful tactics.

PHILLIP: Really interesting story there. Bill? BURTON: Well, this is potentially a hot take. I think that whomever

Vice President Harris picks will probably not matter. Not that they won't matter or not have an impact on the race overall, because I think that whoever it is, she'll probably see a nine-figure jump in donations. She'll have another couple of days, if not weeks, of media attention that will take all of the oxygen out of the room.

And she will help to move Democrats in a way that will get them even more energized, more excited. We've got a lot of great picks. I think they've all got their strengths. They've all got their flaws. But I think that whomever it is, we're going to see the same result, which is a continued trajectory up for the vice president.

PHILLIP: Well, I've been saying this about the vice president pick not mattering for weeks now. So, Bill, I agree with you.

BURTON: So, not the hot take. My lukewarm take.

PHILLIP: Oh, no, no. But I'm just saying, it bears repeating.

SINGLETON: We've had a lot of debates lately about Republican states, Democratic states, red versus blue. And I have been of the mindset that conservatism, philosophically speaking, when actualized via legislation and via governance, leads to better outcomes for most people.

You look at a lot of corporations, they're leaving blue states for red states. U-Haul released their data last year that showcased the most popular states are Republican states. People are leaving New York, California for Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. I think that's something we should note.

PHILLIP: Those one-way drives on the U-Haul.

SINGLETON: Absolutely.

UNKNOWN: We're just shedding the ones we don't want.

MCCAUGHEY: Okay. Kudos to Olympic sprinter and gold medal winner Noah Lyles. As he was approaching the finish line, he wasn't sure he was going to win. So, he said to himself, I'm going to lean in. And his torso hit the tape first, even though two of his competitors, their feet went over the line first.

[23:00:00]

So, it just shows, no matter what you're doing in life, lean in.

PHILLIP: You know what? A real hot take would have been that he should have lost because his foot wasn't over the line.

MCCAUGHEY: No, but that's not the rule in the Olympics. The rule is who's able to torso goes through.

PHILLIP: I know that and I think it's a real skill to be able to do that at exactly the right moment -- MCCAUGHEY: He knew.

PHILLIP: -- in order to pull out the win. And everyone, thank you so much and thank you for watching "NewsNight State of the Race." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.