The Lead with Jake Tapper Aired July 03, 2024 - 17:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:00:15] JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: …The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. In a moment the dire situation in which President Biden finds himself. Plus, Donald Trump's Miami rally plan. Is he close to making a VP announcement? And then there is the Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is currently denying a rather devastating article in Vanity Fair, it describes how he once ate a dog apparently. He's also not denying a much more shocking and hideous accusation one of an alleged sexual assault. Leading this hour, Democratic governor standing by to meet with President Joe Biden in the next 90 minutes, some of them will do so virtually others will do it in person at the White House as a source told me yesterday. Many governors pushed for this meeting, many of them looking for reassurances after hearing almost nothing from the White House or the campaign in the days immediately after the debate, the debate where were they watched President Biden stumble through lines and apparent -- appear to lose his train of thought midsentence. Today, I also spoke with multiple House Democrats who described panic within the larger Democratic Party people on the ballot in November, especially one of them telling me, quote, "The phones don't stop ringing. Everyone's talking. There is a split between staying the course or moving to Kamala. Seems those that have a relationship with Biden want to stay the course," unquote. Another House Democrats said, quote, "The ultimate goal is to make sure Donald Trump is not the president again," unquote. And the third House Democrat said this about those close to President Biden, quote, "Sometimes when you're with someone every day who's declining you don't see as clearly, you see what you want to see," unquote. Those are just the opinions of only three Democratic lawmakers. There's still many who support Biden. The White House said today that the President is, quote, "Absolutely not contemplating stepping down from running for reelection." Listen to CNN's MJ Lee pushing White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during today's briefing just a few hours ago. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MJ LEE CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I know you will remember this back in 2020 referred to himself as a transition candidate. He also said back then that he would be a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders. Does he still believe that? KARINE JEAN-PIERE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes, I mean, I think his statement stands. I mean, one of the reasons why he picked the vice president, President Kamala Harris, is because she is indeed the future of the party. (END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: We now know that Vice President Harris is going to be at tonight's meeting with President Biden and the Democratic governors. And one of those Democratic governors joins me now. John Carney of Delaware, Governor Carney, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. What do you -- what do you want to hear from President Biden at the meeting today? GOV. JOHN CARNEY (D-DE): Well, I'm that here too as the President's biggest cheerleader as the governor of Delaware. Of course, we know Joe's service for the last 50 years as first as a United States Senator, then as vice president and now as president, he's got a tremendous record. He cares about people. He's honest, he's got the character. And he's proven that to all of us. We ought to get focused on this comparison between the President and the former president and really get on with it. I hope that he lay some of the concerns of some of my colleagues across the country. TAPPER: You don't have concerns? CARNEY: I don't have concern. I'm confident that he can do the job. He's proven that he can do the job. We know the character of this man. We know the character of this man compared to the opponent. And everybody's eager to get on with. We need to bring people together, when you answer some of the questions that you've been talking about prior to this segment. And tonight, I hope that that will happen with the President and my colleague, governors across the country. TAPPER: You know that there are a lot of Democratic governors and Democratic officials who are more worried than you are apparently, based on his performance at the debate, but also other moments that they've seen here and there. What do you tell them? CARNEY: I tell them just fine. Joe is a leader, Joe is our nominee, Joe is ready to go, Joe is the best person to beat Donald Trump. And by the way, let's look at the comparison between President Biden and Donald Trump. And it's not even close. The contrast is dramatic. Joe's a much better person. He's focused on the people. He tells the truth, all the things that we should look forward to in the leader of our country. And I know my Democratic governors understand that. And hopefully some of the concerns that they're hearing from their constituents, understandably, can be answered tonight. TAPPER: He could settle this right now if he just like did a long extended press conference and took a lot of questions and showed himself to be agile and able to, you know, deliver coherent thoughts the way that you're doing so right now with me, why hasn't he done so? CARNEY: Yes, I think he has. I mean, he has since the debate. I mean, I don't if you saw him the next day. I don't -- sometimes we -- in Delaware we all say let Joe be Joe, get up there and show the enthusiasm, show what he has to that crowd in North Carolina, he needs to get back out there on the campaign and do that and get the race focus back to the contrast between President Biden and Donald Trump. There's no question. [17:05:22] And of course, I've heard you talk about the polls. It's really a narrow part of the voters that's going to decide this election. And that's what we need to focus on. And we need a full Democratic team to do that. TAPPER: Do you -- how do you respond to people who say, it's -- you know, whatever happened at the debate, it's not going to get better. These concerns are there, they're not going to get better. And it would be better for the Democratic Party, better for people like Josh Stein, the Attorney General of North Carolina, who's running in a competitive state for governor, better for the senators. I mean, you're from a true blue state, generally speaking. CARNEY: Right. TAPPER: But people in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey is running for reelection, Jon Tester in Montana, Sherrod Brown in Ohio. What do you say to people who say, you know what, it would be better to have somebody else at the top of the ticket. They agree with everything you say about Biden's record and his performance and his service and his character. They agree with all that, but they say it, we need somebody else. CARNEY: Yes, we say, we have this somebody else. And he's our best opportunity, our best candidate to beat Donald Trump to show that contrast between a guy that cares about other people and a guy that just cares about himself and a guy that's dealing with the facts and with the truth against the guy who couldn't find the truth and get focused on that difference. He's our guy. He's our nominee, he's the candidate. We -- he needs us to rally behind him to get those undecided voters in our column. TAPPER: What about -- there was a CNN poll yesterday that suggested that Kamala Harris was actually more competitive in a head to head race with Donald Trump than President Biden was. It's just one poll. CARNEY: Yes. TAPPER: I understand. CARNEY: And I don't know what to do about the polls, other than to say it's always been a bad bet to bet against Joe Biden. He likes to say it's always been a bad bet to bet -- a bet about the United States of America, the same is true betting against Joe Biden. And our job, my job is to help my Democratic governors relieve some of their concerns and let's get going. Let's pull these folks together and help our president get reelected. TAPPER: But what do you say to the battleground folks who don't see it the way you do? CARNEY: Same thing. You know, I say the same thing. Obviously, they'll have their perspective and they'll be working with a campaign to do the things necessary to win in those states. And I don't pretend to be an expert in any of that and how to win in Delaware. The President knows how to win in Delaware. We know Joe Biden, he knows us. And that's why we're standing behind him strongly. TAPPER: All right, Governor John Carney from the great small wonder state of Delaware, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Good to see you, sir. CARNEY: Thank you, Jake. Good to see you. TAPPER: I want to get back to the new CNN reporting interrupted before the President spoke to the White House Donald Trump using this week's immunity ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to try to fight every criminal case against him. The reporter is breaking that story. We'll come back and we'll tell you all about that. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:12:05] TAPPER: Let's get back to our law injustice lead, which was interrupted when President Biden started speaking, we were talking about new reporter from -- new reporting from CNN's Paula Reid on how Donald Trump plans to use this week's immunity decision from the Supreme Court to attack the evidence in all four of the criminal cases against him. Paula is back here with me along with CNN's Katelyn Polantz. So you were saying that the evidence is an issue here? PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this was an unexpected gift that the justices gave the Trump legal team when they gave former president some immunity. And they also said that official acts also, in many cases, cannot be used as evidence to support whatever charges survived immunity. And this is where they're going to be focused over the next few months. They're going to use this, for example, down in Florida to attack the Mar-a-Lago documents case. They're going to say -- TAPPER: But that was post presidency. REID: Well, here's what they're going to argue, they're going to argue that the way he came to have these classified documents and how they got into the boxes, that this was all part of his official duties. Now that requires a very expensive interpretation of the opinion. But that's the argument they're going to try to make. Now, when it comes to the January 6 case, they're going to try to argue that anything that happened before he left the White House was part of some sort of official act, that's going to be the focus of their litigation, because they say, look, whatever charges survive, this analysis by the district court judge, they're not covered, right, that are covered by this opinion, they're going to try to undercut them by getting evidence tossed out. KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, one of the things that we're going to see is a very big difference between the way these two judges handle it. Judge Tanya Chutkan in D.C. where the immunity challenge arose, she can't have the case back for 30 days. But when she does, she moves fast. TAPPER: Yes. POLANTZ: She doesn't like to hold a lot of hearings, she has arguments written to her and then writes very quickly, and she will be able to take action with some of the input from the Justice Department that's going to have to tell her what they want to do, possibility for hearings, witnesses, things like that. And then in Florida -- TAPPER: Yes. POLANTZ: -- with Judge Aileen Cannon, she loves the hearing. And this presidential immunity question that Paula is talking about that the Trump team is still arguing to her, that actually has had a part of it sitting before her in court totally briefed with no arguments scheduled for months now. So, she is very likely to have to take this up as well, how these two judges eventually land on the question. They could go totally different ways. They're in totally different jurisdiction. TAPPER: It sounds like, and tell me if you disagree with my prediction, OK, but it sounds as though like there will be an evidentiary hearing on the January 6 case, the Federal January 6 case from Jack Smith, but probably not enough time to do the actual trial before the election. And then the other three, it doesn't sound like you're saying that there -- anything's going to -- well, I guess it's the Florida case and the other Jack Smith case, those probably won't happen before. And then there's the reviewing the New York case -- REID: Yes. TAPPER: -- and that could actually potentially even overturn the conviction potentially? [17:15:01] REID: I think it's a long shot but they're trying. And already the judges push back sentencing. I mean, that's the big victory there. They have clearly staved off any additional trials before the election. They could potentially even delay sentencing until after the election. TAPPER: It already is delayed. It was supposed to happen next Thursday. Now it's -- REID: Exactly, early -- TAPPER: -- September? REID: Yes. Early September, if needed, because the judge recognizes that this is going to kick off a whole new round of litigation. The Trump team is specifically focused on testimony from Hope Hicks during her time -- from her time at the White House, and some tweets. They believe that this evidence is covered by this opinion. Now, the judge also chose to proceed with this trial and not wait for the Supreme Court to rule. Will this litigation result in a new trial? That's a long shot, but they're succeeding here by delaying the sentencing and again, finding a new line of attack. Of course, it's also Georgia out there, which is pause that case. If and when it resumes, they believe by that point, they'll have already seen how judges are assessing this opinion and they'll have a roadmap for exactly how to attack that case as well. TAPPER: Is the Georgia thing just about, at this point, in addition to the immunity which we -- POLANTZ: It's pause, it's really pause as appeals courts look at -- TAPPER: Just about the immunity thing or does it also have to do with Fani Willis and the relationship? POLANTZ: No, it's largely about Fani Willis. But in the two federal cases, the big picture going forward, the phase we're going to be in pretty soon is bringing witnesses in both in Florida and in D.C. to testify about exactly the parts of the case that are in dispute, whether it's a presidential immunity question or other challenges. Judge Cannon already said she wants to have evidentiary hearings, potentially about the government where people from the FBI could be put on the stand like Fani Willis was in Georgia. And then in D.C. we could see potentially people up to and including Mike Pence brought it. REID: Yes. TAPPER: Wow. All right. Thanks to both you. Appreciate it. Back to our politics lead, as the nation focuses on Joe Biden's future in Donald Trump's trials, there is another candidate running for president, one that you've heard of. And a new article in Vanity Fair is raising a lot of questions about Robert F. Kennedy Jr's, quote, "darkest secrets." Warning, this includes a photo that might be disturbing to some dog lovers, a photo that we're going to show you now. The article -- somebody pretending to eat a dog, Robert F. Kennedy pretending to eat a dog. The article claims that RFK Jr. texted a friend this image telling the recipient that he on a trip to Korea should try dog. This is Kennedy posing with a carcass as if he's about to eat it. The article also reports on allegations that Robert Kennedy Jr. sexually assaulted a woman working as a babysitter for his family at the time. Kennedy has responded that the piece is, quote, "A lot of garbage." I don't think so. And the author of the story, Joe Hagan, joins us now. Congratulations, Joe, on the story deeply reported very credible. Let's start with the photo. You report that Kennedy texted it to a friend just last year. JOE HAGAN, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: Yes. TAPPER: The metadata from the picture indicates it was taken in 2010, likely around the time he says -- HAGAN: Right. TAPPER: -- that he got a brain worm. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to this part of the story saying that that is a real photo. It took me at a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River eating a goat, which is what we eat down there. Vanity Fair said they talked to veterinarians who assured them it was a dog, that they had meta- analysis that showed it was Korea and that it was in Korea meeting the dog and the statement is emblematic of the entire article on the lack of sort of journalistic standards of that entire article, unquote. Your response, sir. HAGAN: Well, what I would say is that what we report is that Kennedy himself identified that as a dog to our source who received the picture. So it's really a Kennedy versus Kennedy story at the end of the day. But the reason this picture in this story was shared along with a lot of other stories by this very lifelong friend of Bobby Kennedy, by the way, and along with the members is to the question of his judgment. Throughout the last couple of months of reporting, in which I talk to brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, longtime friends go dating back to college, and even before, they are all saying to me, either on the record or on background, this guy's judgment is off. And here's why and here's what -- you know, here are the myriad ways in which we think that's true. And, you know, this is a story that I hadn't seen in the media before. In fact, I think the media generally has dropped the ball on reporting about his personal history. And how is it that 20 years ago, he was a leader of the environmental movement and kind of a sterling example of the Kennedy name, and 20 years later, he's got crackpot ideologies and he's talking about -- telling people not to take vaccines, and by the way, leading to a lot of unnecessary, you know, tragedies as described in the story, an entire events that nobody talks about really as much as they should. In 2019 him telling people in Samoa not to take a measles vaccine -- a vaccine in a measles outbreak occurring, and many people died. So that's really the point of it. [17:20:03] TAPPER: Yes you also outline these very disturbing allegations that Kennedy assaulted a woman in her early 20s. He was in his 40s. She was working as a babysitter, a caretaker to watch his kids. Kennedy did not directly deny the allegation. He said, I'm not going to comment on it. And then I want to roll a little bit about what he said. Now, keep in mind for those watching at home, this is in the context of this allegation reported in this Vanity Fair story that he sexually assaulted a 23-year-old woman when he was in his 40s. Here's his response in part. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., (I) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am not at church boy. I am not running like that. I said in my -- I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have -- if I have so many skeletons in my closet, that if they could all vote I could run for king of the world. So, you know, the Vanity Fair is recycling 30-year-old stories, and I, you know, going to comment on the details of any of them. But it's, you know, I am who I am. (END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: I'm not a church boy is quite a thing to say in the context of a sexual assault allegation. HAGAN: Yes, I would say it's disturbing. And by the way, I thought this was a race for the president United States, we're not allowed to look into your closet? So that's a little odd. And by the way, that's what our story is about. This is about going through his personal history and asking the question, how is it that he came to be a candidate for president United States believing and saying the things he's believing? You know, I, myself, was surprised by what I found. And yet, not everybody knows about this personal history, and maybe they should. And the other thing I found was that the family, the Kennedy family is highly reluctant, many of them to tell what they know in public because it's their brother, it's their cousin, it's their nephew, they're, you know, they're conflicted. I get that on some level. On another level, there's a country at stake. Last week -- you know, starting last week, we're now in disarray about who the Democratic candidate might end up being, and whether Biden should be running right now. And if you saw that poll, the big break away for Trump in this latest poll, that's giving Robert F. Kennedy quite a bit of oxygen in this election. And so now it's time to ask the hard questions. TAPPER: Yes. HAGAN: This guy have the substance, the credibility and the judgment to be president and we'll ask the hard questions. Yes. TAPPER: We only have a minute left. But I want -- your story opens, and I do recommend that people go to vanityfair.com and read it. The story opens with this incredible anecdote. His sister, I believe, is a documentary filmmaker, and she's doing a profile of him as this, you know, righteous environmentalist. And he says so many false things that she can't use a lot of her interview with her own brother. HAGAN: That's right. Well, that anecdote was telling to me for a very strong reason, which is that well before he became the Kennedy we see today, you know, spouting misinformation about science and vaccines, he was already known within the family to have this predilection for, you know, blending facts and fiction and seeming very convincing at it. The man is a very charming and, you know, charismatic figure. But the content of what he's saying can't always be trusted, and people need to take a look. TAPPER: Joe Hagan with Vanity Fair, thanks as always. Good to see you, sir. HAGAN: Thanks for having me. TAPPER: Coming up, one VP, two VP, three VP. One is flush with cash, one's a TV natural, another lives in the Sunshine State. We're going to bring you inside the Trump campaign as the former president quietly, or not so quietly, molds (ph) his next race defining move. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:28:13] TAPPER: In our politics lead, former President Trump appears to be showing relative restraint as he watches his opponents candidacy seemingly self-Emily. Right now Trump is hunkering down and waiting for the perfect moment to make a big race defining announcement his running mate who on Trump's shortlist will be his vice president. CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us. And Kristen, we hear there's a big rally in Florida scheduled for July 9. But sources tell you it's just a coincidence that it happens to be near the home of Florida Senator Marco Rubio. KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Apparently, even though there's a rally in Miami, we should not look into it. But obviously we're going to look into it because we're speculating about everything when it comes to the vice presidency. But here's one thing we know. We know that right now everything is in flux when it comes to timing because of what we are seeing happen on the other side, what we are seeing happen with President Joe Biden. They knew, the Trump team, that obviously they believed Donald Trump outperformed Joe Biden on the debate stage, but they didn't quite realize how this was going to spiral until earlier this week. And that's also when I started getting calls from the campaign asking me what I thought was happening when it came to Joe Biden. So clearly, they're trying to find any source of information they can as they move forward, and then also pertains to how they look at when they announce something like vice president. Now, if you talk to anybody who's on the campaign, they will tell you that is ultimately Donald Trump's decision. He could announce it at any moment. But there is of course, his first public event since the debate as well. He did have that rally in Virginia. But in the last couple of days in Miami, as all of this speculation is building and we'll just go over who we have been told by sources are at the top of the list, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator J.D. Vance. So obviously, a rally in Miami, Florida. Trump's Doral Resort has spiked interest in possibly Senator Marco Rubio but we are told over and over again not to read too much into anything right now. Donald Trump is the ultimate decision maker. And when he decides well, know. [17:30:11] TAPPER: All right, Kristen Holmes, thanks so much. …