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tv   Alex Witt Reports  MSNBC  July 13, 2024 12:00pm-1:00pm PDT

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a good day to all of you from msnbc world headquarters in new york, welcome to alex witt reports. bernie sanders coming up with a ringing endorsement of joe biden , despite their different views on some progressive issues. sanders admonishing bellowing democrats riding, enough, joe
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biden may not be the ideal candidate that he will be the candidate and should be the candidate. sentiments shared by another progressive. >> joe biden has been incredibly strong when it comes to our platform and he is really the best candidate who can defeat narcissist donald trump. we are running out of depends and we have to rally around an incredible record. voters are not interested in the man's age, they are interested in trump's project 2025 . >> vice president harris is speaking in philadelphia, donald trump will be speaking in butler. to milwaukee, the countdown is on to the republican national convention two days away. donald trump says north dakota governor doug burgum and jade
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events and marco rubio are on the shortlist for vice president. the president will shift the focus to donald trump now. >> he has filed bankruptcy six times. he went bankrupt running a casino. i did not think that was possible. [ laughter ] doesn't the house always win in a casino? >> a number of reporters covering these new developments , we first go to butler, pennsylvania where donald trump is holding a rally in about two hours. i understand the republican national committee just released a list of headliners for the convention this week. what stands out to you? >> reporter: what is notable, both who is speaking and who is not speaking most notably, the former president's wife melania trump will not be speaking at
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the convention this year. she had a prominent role in 2016 and in 2020 when the republican convention was held virtually because of covid. his daughter ivanka will not be speaking. the people in the primetime slots are all of the republican personalities, all the people who at any point had been on the vice president shortlist including the menu talked about in the introduction, and some of the people on the longer list, including tim scott, ben carson, and elise stefanik. the former president has been teasing this announcement, he was asking voters, should i announce today? we think that is unlikely, he continues to say he wants to
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announce at the convention. here is what he said recently about how he is making this decision. >> it is like a highly sophisticated version of the apprentice. okay, if you think about it. and they are great people and they are really great. i got to know them very well. i would say four people, you know, four or five people, but i got to know them very well. some dropped out over the course of, they didn't drop, you know, there were reasons they would not have done as well. >> reporter: whoever the running mate is will debut on the big stage at the convention on wednesday night. >> i want to get a little bit more information on the speakers. you talked about who is in and who is out. do we even know if there was a presence of nikki haley anywhere at the convention? >> reporter: she has given her delegates over to the former president.
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she said she was not invited and she says that that is okay with her. this is a show and she does not want to step on his time. it is interesting, there are operatives that have advocated to break her more into the fold given the fact that primary voters, in states like pennsylvania, in pennsylvania and she got some 16% to 17% of the primary vote pennsylvania held as primary after she dropped out, so there were voters that sent a message saying we are not thrilled with who we have at the top of the republican party ticket. there is a split weather to bring her in or just cater to the base and to the voters that do not want the presence of someone like nikki haley in the party. >> do we know who will be introducing the vice president that will be presumably wednesday night? i heard a rumor but do you know who it is? >> reporter: we know that don
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jr. will be speaking on wednesday night, a big fan of jd vance, not clear if he will introduce that person but likely speaking somewhere near to when the vp will be speaking. sources say that prepare for any scenario, the former president is approaching this like the apprentice which you just heard. it is a show for him, he wants to build the anticipation and he wants the element of surprise. really, anything can happen at any moment. the things we are hearing could change, for as or for his staff. the people behind the scenes getting ready and have to make plans to have a real rollout, they are also on the edge of their seats waiting to see what he is going to do. >> had you said that trump jr.
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would be introducing the vice president, i would put my money on jd vance. now, i will not bet. let's go to delaware where joe biden is spending his weekend. we said that bernie sanders, putting his full support behind president biden. what message is ascending to democrats who have not done the same? and the president is meeting with some democrats a few minutes from now, can you tell us about that? >> reporter: the biden team is hoping that this full throated endorsement from bernie sanders is going to be enough to calm the fears of some of these democratic lawmakers who are privately deciding whether to publicly come out and call for
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the president to step aside. senator sanders in this new york times op-ed has a stark message to these nervous democrats saying it is time to stop the bickering and nitpicking and support biden. he says this election offers a stark choice on issue after issue, it is mr. biden and his supporters focus on these issues and refuse to be divided and distracted. the president will rally working families to reside in the industrial midwest swing states and elsewhere to win the november election. he says, let me say this as emphatically as i can for the sake of our kids and future generations, he must win. you mentioned the president outreach, that is the message he is trying to get out to as many lawmakers as he can. he is holding these virtual meetings today from his home in delaware with these different groups, different caucuses trying to restore confidence in him by these democratic lawmakers. the meeting with the new democrat coalition and the congressional progressive caucus , and all of this is in an effort to stem the tide of defections as we note 19 lawmakers in congress have publicly called for him to step
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aside. we can imagine that the present on these virtual meetings he is having is issuing the same message at the same tone we saw from him last night during the rally in battleground michigan where we heard him deliver the most full throated defense of his candidacy since that bad debate performance on june 27th . we heard him address the criticism of that debate performance as well as some of the blunders he has made since the address that head on. he also listed all of the reasons he says that former president donald trump is not fit to serve another four years in office. he really issued a reminder to these nervous democrats of the democratic process that got them to this point, reminding them that the democratic primary voters got him to this point and elected him to be the democratic nominee, but no doubt some of those democrats will continue watching him, extremely closely and try to find any missteps that would
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convince them to finally make that call to have them step aside. the president going to texas on monday where he will sit down with lester holt and the misuse of interview and he will go out west to go get support with black and latino voters. >> thank you very much . we go to pittsburgh, pennsylvania, a key state which narrowly broke for joe biden in 2020. what are voters telling you today? >> reporter: i have been speaking with voters all morning in pittsburgh, many of them democrats, from these conversations i have are the two things can be true at the same time, these motors can have concerns about the longevity of joe biden and his ability to serve another four years, and still be planning to vote for him this fall. many of these voters acknowledged the reality of this election cycle is a two man race, joe biden saying he is staying in and a few months until the general election. what is motivating many of
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these voters to go out and vote is concerned about the opposition, the donald trump factor, what is motivating many democrats to go to the polls in november. take a listen. >> the state of the presidential race is concerning. i know that i will vote for the democratic nominee, the candidate, whoever that is. it is up to president biden. >> i am beside myself about the selection because i am a democrat and will vote for whoever the democrats put up, i think it will be biden, i do not understand the republican side. >> very nervous. because our democracy is at stake. i worked for many years and places that do not have accountable government. i feel really strongly about process. >> reporter: alex, as for
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electability, some voters i spoke with said they are concerned their fellow democrats who have concerns about joe biden or who are feeling unenthusiastic this election cycle may stay home on election day but they are worried that could cost the democrats this race, especially in a battleground state like pennsylvania, joe biden narrowly won the state in 2020. every vote really counts in a purple state. >> it absolutely does. everything you wanted to know about project 2025 that were afraid to ask. we are back in 90 seconds. r-o-l-a-i-d-s rolaids' dual-active formula begins to neutralize acid on contact. r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief.
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because it's completely changed our lives. project 2025 is run and paid for by donald trump people, donald trump policy people, campaign press secretary, personal bank met in the white house, the biggest funders and more, a project built for donald trump. project 2025 is the biggest attack on the system of government and our personal freedom ever been proposed in the history of this country. >> mounting fears over the conservative policy blueprint known as project 2025 . that is the heritage foundation's wish list of right-wing proposals that could be adopted in a second donald trump administration. the nearly 1000 page document including such measures as rolling back abortion and lgbtq rights, abolishing the department of education, and replacing much of the federal
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workforce with donald trump loyalists joining me now is a new york times journalist, robert draper. about 140 people or so involved in this project 2025 , former donald trump administration officials. you have seen donald trump trying to distance himself from the heritage foundation and its policy blueprint. i will place a newly discovered video of donald trump from 2022 which repudiates his claim that he knows nothing about project 2025 . and who is behind it. take a listen. >> heritage does such an incredible job, they will lay the groundwork and detail plans for what our movement will do and what your movement will do, and the american people give us a colossal mandate to save america. that is coming. >> that was not very long ago. why is donald trump disavowing this group and its plans for a second term? >> alex, so your viewers know,
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project 2025 is the brainchild of the heritage foundation, the conservative think tank that donald trump was referencing he is trying to distance himself from it for a couple reasons, one is political and the others personal, the political reason because he knows that there are strident things relating to the gutting of the federal bureaucracy relating to defunding the abortion pill, to slashing funding for green energy, and he is concerned that made alienate suburban voters. he would rather get by with the minimum. that is the political part. the personal part, donald trump likes to take credit for the things that come from his administration or his campaign, he wants people to believe everything came from him and he does not like the idea that anyone else is giving credit for his policy notions. when he does have policies in
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place, he will claim full credit for them and does not want it to look like somebody's whispering what his administration is going to be profound in. >> but the heritage foundation, to your point, it has shaped the policies of republican administrations since the ronald reagan presidency. if you look at 2025, contains positions much further right than previous administrations. give us an example of some of its most extreme proposals, who they would impact, and is the joe biden template accurate when he calls the project on authoritarian blueprint ? >> you mentioned a couple yourself, to reiterate, basically eliminating the department of education, there is more insidious stuff relating to gutting the federal bureaucracy, but also so-called de-politicizing the intelligence community and using the department of justice as a weapon to go after -- to enable a president to go after his
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opponents. this is something we have never seen before. you are correct, the heritage foundation has played a role in a love conservative presidency, most recently donald trump's, in 2017, they played a very big role in staffing middle- management. for him to suggest that he has nothing to do with this despite the fact that 140 former donald trump administration sappers have worked on this is a bit disingenuous. >> this week you have republican national committee, adopted the platform of donald trump, as it's 2024 policy platform as we have the convention on monday. you write about that, saying, the very 15 page document reads like a transcript from a donald trump rally opening with 20 statements including, stop the migrant invasion, stop inflation, keep men out of women sports, are the rnc platform and project 2025 similar in tone or detail at all
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? >> they are somewhat similar in tone but in detail they could not be more different , at least insofar as the platform is a so-called short form. the last republican platform we saw was written in 2016, something like 67 pages. this is less than one quarter of that amount and very deliberately. much to the consternation of social conservatives, people in the antiabortion movement, who wanted to see very strong language and very unambiguous language supporting the pro- life movement, that is not in there. there also is not a lot of language in the project 2025 document relating to abortion, there is some. again, the people who crafted project 2025 are prominent social conservatives like the head of office and management of budget in the trump administration and his feelings
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regarding abortion are quite clear. >> the rnc platform, why is it so deliberately vague? is there something more sinister behind it? the word abortion appears once in the entire platform for the rnc. >> again, there were i think 112 representatives from all of the states and territories who gathered in milwaukee to sit down for a couple of days and produce a document. one hour after they sat down, they were handed a document, in other words, a cake that was our debate that said, here is the platform and we are about to vote on it it was quite shocking to a lot of them expecting to see very specific language. alex, the direct answer to your question, the trump campaign wants to get by with a minimum, they don't want a document that would circulate that they cannot distance and themselves from.
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they have a plausible denial about project 2025 as it was not written by the campaign the way the platform was but it is a bit specious to suggest there is no association whatsoever. the platform is clearly tied to the trump administration, the trump campaign, so they wanted a small document that would not give anyone anything to weapon eyes against them. >> one major concern is the shakeup of the federal workforce, making it more loyal to donald trump, do you have expectations the heritage foundation could make their way into positions within the trump administration? >> i don't just have expectations or suspicions, i am confident they will, that happened the last time come in 2017, and they were proud of the fact their pac arm were proud of the direct role of placing their own and that administration, no reason to believe there will not be more
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of the same. >> robert draper, great article, come see us again. everyone has an opinion about it but they may not know as much as my next guest, after the break, the former nato allied supreme commander reacts to what joe biden said at his news conference on thursday. when you're a small business owner, your to-do list can be...a lot. ♪♪ [ cellphone whooshes ] [ sighs ] that's why progressive makes it easy to save with a commercial auto quote online so you can take on all your others to-dos. already did. see if you could save at progressivecommercial.com.
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new alarms of what a second donald trump president to be with resistance to russia as hungarian prime minister visited donald trump at mar-a-lago after orban attended the nato summit in washington, the second time this year the autocratic leader visited donald trump in florida and it follows his unannounced recent meetings with putin in moscow and xi. we have admirable james stavridis with us . before we
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get to the meeting between orban and trump, what did you think about the joe biden press conference and his command with the issues versus donald trump's adversarial approach to nato? i will play what present divided had to say about his and trumps relationship with the alliance. >> during the week , several heads of state made it a point to thank the united states and to thank me personally for all that nato has achieved. meanwhile, my predecessor has made it clear that he has no commitment to nato. he has made it clear, that he would feel no obligation to honor article 5. he has already told putin, do whatever the hell you want. after putin invaded ukraine, he said it was genius. >> how important is the
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dissension between these two leaders as you're shaking her head? >> it is striking at over the last week in washington, in the summit, two conversations unfolded, one was about the current president, joe biden, and by the end of the week he had performed strongly. frankly, that press conference that you alluded to, if you step back and just listen to and -- an hour about high-level foreign-policy, nato specific questions, i think all of our european partners came away satisfied. he was someone who showed deep foreign-policy chops. i know he has those. contrast those with donald trump my so i could were former president trump said, i did not know what data was that it only took me two minutes to learn about it. i have to tell you,
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it took me decades of time to learn it, to understand it, the same kind of decades that our current president has and certainly when it comes to nato , there is no contest between these two leaders and i can assure you that the vast majority of our european partners would much rather see an experienced, steady nato oriented president biden over a donald trump returning to office . >> i tell you, his arrogance is something to consider, donald trump. we mentioned victor orban, his meeting with trump, orban openly endorses donald trump for president and hopes donald trump will broker an end to the war if he is back in the white house. is it alarming that orban is visiting with donald trump, vladimir putin, xi, does
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anything about this not pass the smell test? >> none of it passes any test, i will put it this way, let's back up a bit, for the last couple of years, orban has been an enormous thorn in the side of the alliance and in the side of the european union. a perfect example of this, his personal refusal to admit finland and sweden to the nato alliance is two super militaries pounding at the door to come in. makes enormous strategic sense. orban stood and wait until overwhelming pressure , including that of president biden, was applied to him and he had to cave in. if orban is the answer, you are asking the wrong question. he does not have the status, he does not have the connectivity with the rest of europe, he
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certainly does not have connectivity in the u.s., and he will, in my view, put a lot of sand in the gears that will hurt the nato alliance. that has been his modus operandi since coming in to power. >> speaking adorning delights, the nato members declared that ukraine is on on the reversible path to membership as the biden administration's announced the a package. was the summit and overall victory for ukraine? how much will this promise military aid -- >> it was an overall victory for ukraine. you cannot come if you are ukraine, president of ukraine, zelenskyy, don't let perfect be the enemy of very, very good, he got a very, very good package, he improved by 75% majority in the house and the senate in the united states. $60 billion from the united states, $80 million from the
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european nations, all of that left under his wings. as announced, five new patriot air defense systems, the gold standards are headed his way, f- 16s are landing in ukraine right now. going to operations. he gets a statement from the alliance saying he is on an irreversible course to membership. that is a very, very good package i will close with this, sometimes people say, i don't know, do we really want ukraine in the alliance? man, i do, as a former supreme allied commander that is going to end up being the most experienced, high-tech, highly bloodied and courageous land army in europe coming out of this war. we want them on our team, believe me. secondly, a huge nation full of agrarian resources, oil, gas, black sea
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coastline, geopolitical importance, we want them in the alliance. if i am zelenskyy, i will take irreversible at his webster's dictionary definition and say, i am in it. >> one more question with regard to reports that nato is trying to trump proof the alliance, possible? >> i don't think it is possible to trump-proof anything as he can figure out ways to get around almost anything what the europeans could do and what i've advised him to do is increase the level of defense spending. they are now two thirds of them are meeting the 2% goal. if they can get that up to 100% of them, saying 2.5% goal, that becomes very attractive to a transactional thinker like donald trump. i think that is the most effective thing europeans could do and they are on track to do
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that. >> i appreciate you and your efficacy and coming on the show and its planning everything. thank you so much, admirable reverend al sharpton is next on the nerve-racking couple of weeks for democrats and the one voting block that is standing by president biden. president bn and inconvenient, but with a generac home standby generator, your life goes on uninterrupted. because when your generac detects a power outage, it automatically powers up, giving your family the security and peace of mind they deserve. we don't have to worry about whether we lose power or not. if the utility company does not come through, our generac does. after the hurricane happened, we just want to be prepared for anything. 8 out of 10 home generators are generac, with thousands of satisfied customers. number one thing to prepare for is extended power outages. don't make it so hard on yourself, have a generac home standby generator. and owning a generator is easier than ever.
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should the conversation about the president getting out of this race, should the conversation continued? >> it shouldn't. i am all in, i
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am writing with -- riding with biden, if he were to change his mind, i will answer the question, i would be all in for the vice president. >> jim clyburn, one of the president's top allies and pivotal in helping you secure the nomination in 2020 saying that joe biden still has his full support joining me now is reverend al sharpton, host of "politics nation." rev, glad you are here. you will have a jim clyburn on your show. that is pretty cool. he is calling for the debate to stop. but he did say he would be supportive if joe biden stepped aside, he was support kamala harris. do you think the public debate over this needs to stop and, privately, should these
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conversations with joe biden continue? >> i think that the debate is all right if it is within the boundaries of seeking for what is best for the country and where we are going. when you hear the general, what is going on around the world, who can handle world crisis and domestic issues that all of us are concerned about. we need to make that the goal. who can best serve, who is best demonstrated, since we are dealing with two people in president biden and former president trump, who are both served, and see what the agendas are. a lot of the age questions that have been raised, though they may be legitimate, i think they have been far overblown because we are talking about two men who are roughly the same age, who have roughly shown some
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flaws in public. i think donald trump has fumbled more words, more lines and more situations than president biden has. when we hear someone of high esteem like jim clyburn raise that issue, it is not out of bounds and i will is for that with him on our show this evening. >> good, we look forward to that . perspective from ernest ellis who wrote that black voters should be the one to decide if joe biden continues to run, saying black voters are more risk-averse because they recognize that their livelihoods are the ones most likely to be under threat if things go wrong. no members of the congressional black caucus have called for the president to exit the race doesn't joe biden really appeared to be less than a risk? >> i think, if you give the record, with president biden, record unemployment among blacks
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, what he has done in terms of standing up for student debt loans, a put black woman on the supreme court and as vice president, aggressively standing for affirmative action, with donald trump stacked to the supreme court that stop affirmative action. what he has done for criminal justice reform when we could not get the senate to pass the george floyd justice in policing act, when george floyd was killed and erased an international outrage and donald trump was president, and said nothing, he went in front of the church across from the white house holding up a bible denouncing the protesters whereas joe biden gave an executive order around george floyd justice in policing, when the senate would not vote as long. i think that clearly black voters have a vested interest in protecting their interests. this is not about who is winning a beauty contest. or an age contest.
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this is about every group in america especially blacks having to protect their interest and donald trump has shown nothing but outright hostility to indifference around black issues. >> donald trump in front of st. john's church, he was holding the bible up upside down. it was disrespect, dishonor having done so. the democrats have made it clear that vice president harris would be the replacement for joe biden, one black voters be more willing to have joe biden step aside if she were guaranteed to be his replacement? >> i think that, if there is an urgency or an emergency, that kamala harris has proven she can step in. the one that lead that charge was joe biden, he chose her to be his vice presidential candidate. i do not know why everyone is
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acting like we are choosing between joe biden and kamala harris when he chose harris. the fact that she is vice president means that the president feels, if there was some situation, he feels she is most qualified to fill that role. i was one of them urging him, he already committed to a black on the supreme court, a black woman, i said to put a black woman on the ticket, he said that publicly we are on the verge of doing that and he did it. he did it making a statement that she was qualified. the issue is not biden or harris, the issue is biden or trump at this point. if somewhere down the line it becomes different, i think that he has said that he has confidence in kamala harris who is now the vice president and has been a good one. >> jim clyburn will be on your show coming up in a little bit. what are you going to be
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listening for in his answers? do you want direct answers, nuanced answers, what do you think he will say? >> i have no idea what is going to say , no one can tell jim clyburn what to say but i want direct answers and he is always talk to me directly. i will remember, as if it was yesterday, we had gone to south carolina, charleston for the debate of the presidential candidates in the primaries. the next morning, the action network which i am president of , had a ministers luncheon with 300 ministers and all the candidates came to speak, jim clyburn came with president biden, now president biden, he was intended biden, and pulled me aside for some of the civil rights community was going with some of the opponents and he said, i want you to know straight up, before you finish breakfast, i am endorsing joe biden. i said, really? it froze me from doing other things.
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he has always been direct with me and i believe he will be direct tonight in saying what he feels and what he wants to see all voters, particularly black voters, to do or not do, whether we agree or not, you will get a straight answer from our congressman, maybe from south carolina but he has been a congressman to all of us around the country, jim clyburn. >> i will race home so i can set myself in front of the television and watch the interview. thank you, my friend and i am glad you are already in the office. you are preparing. >> i am here early for alex witt. >> sometimes you do call me from the car. >> it is because of traffic in new york, but i am here for you. >> that is true. we love you. catch the interview with jim clyburn today on politics nation at 5:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc.
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former ohio congressman tim ryan on why he wants president biden to drop his reelection bid, whether he is damaging the president's prospects by speaking out, we will ask him. i sa i thought i'd buy stilts. hi honey. ahhh...ooh. look, no line at the hot dog stand. yes! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.♪ my name is brayden. i was five years old when i came to st. jude. i'll try and shorten down the story. so i've been having these headaches that wouldn't go away. my mom, she was just crying. what they said, your son has brain cancer. it was your worst fear coming to life. watching your child grow up is the dream of every parent. you can join the battle to save the lives of kids like brayden, by supporting st. jude children's research hospital .
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. she has had a very busy schedule, this is midpoint for with two appearances later today , staying in the state of pennsylvania. joining me is former democratic congressman tim ryan. he left congress last year after 20 years representing northeast ohio. we had you on a lot of times during those 20 years and am glad to welcome you back. days after the president's poor debate performance, you wrote an op-ed calling for him to pass the torch to the woman we just saw, vice president harris . after his press conference this week and rally yesterday, are you doubting that call taking he may still have it in them to win this race? >> i am not. i will tell you why, alex, looking at the polling in the swing states, we are down in almost all of them. the trump campaign has not run any ads yet. they have the debate clips,
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they have the george stephanopoulos clips, they have the putin and trump clips from the press conference the other night and they will put about $1 billion behind us and those voters who kind of pay attention are going to have those memories seared into their minds. it scares the heck out of me i love joe biden, he has done a terrific job with an amazing list of accomplishments to campaign on. but the reality has set in and the narrative has set in in people's minds that he is not up for the job. again, that is up for grabs, who knows? i will not force anybody out but there are high-level democrats who need to ask him to step up and give us an opportunity and a clean slate, kamala harris is crushing it the last couple of weeks from when i said she should be the nominee. she is exceeding my expectations we could prosecute this case
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against donald trump, when the house and usher in a new era of politics in the country. >> unless there are a bunch of people, a groundswell of influential voices like yourself, that convinced the president that he needs to step aside, he said he is staying in the race and that is that. these calls right now for him to step aside, the closer it gets to election day, don't they do more damage rather than presenting a unified democratic party, supporting him, putting the wind at his back and saying, we are behind you? >> at some point , at some point that will be the case. i don't think we're there right now, we are fresh off some of these events. i think there is a groundswell of support will people say that publicly? i know because i have been talking to members of congress and senators, their offices, so
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one and so forth, and there is i think a desire to change course and give us an opportunity. one of the things that is starting to set in, people need the courage to do it, being loyal, a big part of being loyal is being honest. in any relationship that you have and you want someone to be loyal and that means being honest, not when it is easy but honest when it is hard. we need that. >> question is , we are hearing about the biden campaign doing some polling, they are putting kamala harris in polling up against donald trump, is that an honest move on their part? are they looking to see what her viability as a candidate is? >> i hope they are. i hope they are. again, i am a citizen and i have an opinion, 20 something years in congress fighting for democrats up and down, wins and losses, i have been on the front lines i am worried. i
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hope they are. i think she is a very compelling candidate, i think she prosecutions -- she can brag about all of the accomplishments from the administration. energize our base just like this and that she is at now. energize young people. and then come into these three great lakes states and campaign hard on the re- industrialization of the country. this is doable, she will crush donald trump in a debate, it will not be close, she will damage him irreparably and damaged the cold he represents -- cult he represents. she is the perfect person to do it. let me say quickly, alex, the voters are dying to have a new era of politics ushered in. this nonsense, this toxic politics has been going on since the vietnam war. we have been divided and more and more, and we need a
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generational shift. what a huge political advantage that would be to the democrats? why wouldn't we take it? i understand it is complicated but i can see the pathway forward for kamala harris in us holding the house and putting the error of donald trump and the negativity and the toxicity to bed for a long time. >> i need a 15 second answer, the reason i am calling you tim and not congressman because you ran for senate and jd vance beat you. what would you bring to the ticket as vice president? >> in the 15 seconds? he is in many ways more extreme that donald trump and will prove it is a cult, he was an anti-trumper for a long time, no hope for moderates, no home for independence, you have to be for the nationalism, fascism
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, which he talks about, and that will all be rehashed. we had fun in the debates and i hope the debate clips you back out there because it will show what kind of guy he is. >> if he becomes the vice presidential nominee, i want you back on the show and i will give you more than 15 seconds. that will do it for this edition of alex witt reports. i will see you tomorrow. up next, the beat: weekend . it's a mouthful. one of the harder things is the little things that i need help with: getting dressed, brushing your teeth, being able to go out with your friends by yourself. those are hard because you don't want help, but you need it.
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