Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Harris's campaign finally receiving more than one hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: in donations since Sunday, as an unofficial AP tally shows
Speaker 2: her securing enough delegates for the Democratic nomination. Speaking at
Speaker 2: her campaign headquarters, Harris saying, I am proud to have
Speaker 2: secured the broad support needed to become our party's nominee.
Speaker 2: I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon to
Speaker 2: have that discussion now. I'm pleased to say that joining
Speaker 2: US Democratic Congressman Jake Chincloss of Massachusetts Congressman, great to
Speaker 2: catch up with you, sir. You've been a big supporter
Speaker 2: of the president. You weren't one of those that came
Speaker 2: out and asked him to stand down. You were one
Speaker 2: of those who highlighted the success he's had his track
Speaker 2: record over the last three and a half years, Which
Speaker 2: makes me wonder how confused you might be that, given
Speaker 2: how good you think that track record has been, why
Speaker 2: people within your own party has forced him to step aside.
Speaker 3: Good morning, Thanks for having me on. General elections are
Speaker 3: one or loss. The terms of the debate are set,
Speaker 3: and the terms of the debate previously with.
Speaker 4: A president's age and acuity.
Speaker 3: Now with Kamala Harris having taken the torch, the terms
Speaker 3: of the debate are the future versus the past, our
Speaker 3: rule of law versus the law of the ruler, Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's obsession with the grievances of the past versus the
Speaker 3: possibilities of a strong American economy.
Speaker 4: These terms of debate, Democrats will win. Congressman, do you
Speaker 4: think he was appropriate though?
Speaker 5: That The President told the American people through a letter,
Speaker 5: and we've yet to hear him address the American people.
Speaker 5: He's a sitting president. We haven't seen him since July seventeenth,
Speaker 5: and he has yet to give remarks to the nation
Speaker 5: about why he is stepping aside.
Speaker 3: The President laid out his decision in a thoughtful and
Speaker 3: well crafted letter, and then he's going to address the
Speaker 3: nation this week, I believe, and I think he is
Speaker 3: going to do what he has always done, which is
Speaker 3: put the country's interest ahead of his own, which is
Speaker 3: a start contrast to what we have seen from Donald Trump, who,
Speaker 3: rather than see power, clung onto power in set it
Speaker 3: in an insurrection and cause the deaths of officers in
Speaker 3: the line of duty. That contrast will not be lost
Speaker 3: in the American public.
Speaker 5: But at the moment, there's a lot of questions surrounding
Speaker 5: why we have yet to see him and decided to
Speaker 5: do this by through a letter. Is it your understanding
Speaker 5: that if he didn't drop out this weekend, more of
Speaker 5: your colleagues in Congress were going to become public with
Speaker 5: their concerns about his age and mental acuity.
Speaker 3: I don't think conjecture about the past is particularly fruitful.
Speaker 3: Right now we have our nominee, it's Kamala Harris. I
Speaker 3: think the focus now is how do we sprint through
Speaker 3: the next one hundred days to win this election, because
Speaker 3: the contrast now is going to be on Democrats as
Speaker 3: the party of the rule of law, as Americans intuitively understand,
Speaker 3: without predictability, without law and order, we cannot thrive as
Speaker 3: an economy and as a civil society. The Republicans have
Speaker 3: nominated a convicted felon. The Republicans are trying to surge
Speaker 3: guns onto our streets and in our schools. The Republicans
Speaker 3: are voting against bipartisan border security legislation. The Democrats of
Speaker 3: the ones that the American public can trust to uphold
Speaker 3: the rule of law and that will be the conversation.
Speaker 5: Does this to you look like basically a coronation though?
Speaker 5: Of the vice president? The Wall Street Journal editorial board
Speaker 5: this morning talked about that the country's now losing the
Speaker 5: chance to see a genuine and instructive party debate unfold.
Speaker 5: She is winning by acclamation among all of the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party insiders and moneymen who've swung behind her.
Speaker 4: How concerned are you.
Speaker 5: That this looks like a coronation of vice president and
Speaker 5: not like a democratic process.
Speaker 3: I like competition. I like competition in business. I like
Speaker 3: competition in politics, and I think the Democratic Party should
Speaker 3: not be afraid of it, and we should have an
Speaker 3: open and transparent process to.
Speaker 4: Choose our next nominee.
Speaker 3: But Kamala Harris can't help it. If everybody endorses her
Speaker 3: and she gets the majority of the delegates within the
Speaker 3: first twenty four hours and she sees a surge of
Speaker 3: base support, I mean, she's going to compete hard.
Speaker 4: She said she was going to earn it and win it.
Speaker 3: She's earned it, She's going to win the nomination, and
Speaker 3: now we have to make sure that she wins the
Speaker 3: general Congress.
Speaker 1: But I think the way to put this together is
Speaker 1: there's this question of how can the Democrats be the
Speaker 1: party of democracy if they bet on a president to
Speaker 1: run again, and just months before the election date, he
Speaker 1: was pushed aside and somebody else was brought in. It
Speaker 1: raises questions about the Democrats view on the democratic process
Speaker 1: of election. How do you counter some of those real
Speaker 1: concerns that people have.
Speaker 3: I think that's a flawed premise. I was here in
Speaker 3: the chamber on January sixth. I've seen what a coup
Speaker 3: looks like. What happened here was the Democratic Party is
Speaker 3: designed to win elections in order to effectuate policy that
Speaker 3: helps American voters. Joe Biden, through fourteen million voters, won
Speaker 3: the delegates. He then decided, I'm going to step aside.
Speaker 3: Those delegates were unbound. They were free to choose whomever
Speaker 3: they wanted to carry the torch, and they chose Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: That is exactly the way that delegates are supposed to
Speaker 3: happen under Democratic Party rules. Now voters are going to
Speaker 3: see a choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. They
Speaker 3: will have the final determination of whether they like that choice.
Speaker 3: And I am confident that since seventy percent of Americans
Speaker 3: previously said they wanted to change at the top of
Speaker 3: both tickets, and only Democrats have responded by actually doing
Speaker 3: it that they're going to choo Kamala Harris gotrishin.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of concern about what people don't know,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's what the debate really highlighted.
Speaker 4: For a lot of people. What aren't we seeing.
Speaker 1: About the state of the current president, who still has
Speaker 1: to rule until early next year, regardless of who wins
Speaker 1: the White House. At what point can you truly allay
Speaker 1: those concerns at a time when we haven't seen him
Speaker 1: and there is this fear that you know, it's something
Speaker 1: more that caused to withdraw than simply pressure that has
Speaker 1: been mounting for a while, and that he was pretty
Speaker 1: defiant in the face of well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know a few days as an eternity
Speaker 3: in the media, but we actually have seen him a
Speaker 3: lot over the last month. We saw him on the
Speaker 3: debate stage, we've seen him do one on one interviews,
Speaker 3: we've seen him at rallies, and most importantly, we've seen
Speaker 3: his track record over the last three and a half years.
Speaker 3: This president took an economy that was flat on its back,
Speaker 3: and we now have strong jobs and inflat numbers. This
Speaker 3: president has restored US global leadership. This president is protecting
Speaker 3: civil rights and democracy at home. Americans can see the
Speaker 3: track record, and Americans like the policies. And that's what
Speaker 3: Kamala Harrison is going to be able to run on now,
Speaker 3: is we've put the age and acuity issue to bed.
Speaker 3: We have the policies front and center, we have a
Speaker 3: dynamic candidate, and we're going to win.
Speaker 2: Congressman, you just said that they like the policies. Can
Speaker 2: you point to the polls where that really shows up.
Speaker 3: Medicare, negotiation of drug prices, investing in infrastructure, the Chips
Speaker 3: and Science Act, a turbo charge or competition against China,
Speaker 3: Electoral count Act, reform to help close the January sixth loophole,
Speaker 3: Bipartisans Safer Communities Act that has helped push homicide.
Speaker 2: That's a long list of fifty issues. You're right to
Speaker 2: point them out. That's been a successful part of the administration.
Speaker 2: But he was behind the polls to such an extent
Speaker 2: the leadership within your party pushed him off the ticket. Congressman,
Speaker 2: I just feel like this conversation at the moment feels
Speaker 2: like we're in two different realities. You just then appreciate
Speaker 2: it about the news cycle. Let me just finish up.
Speaker 2: I felt like that was needlessleep snarky, sir. This is
Speaker 2: not about the news cycle. This is about the sitting
Speaker 2: president of the United States that chose to make one
Speaker 2: of the most consequential decisions of his career on Twitter
Speaker 2: on Sunday, and we've not really heard from him since.
Speaker 2: And I find out that you don't think that's strange.
Speaker 4: It's Tuesday.
Speaker 3: He issues a letter on Sunday. He's going to address
Speaker 3: the nation. He laid out his reasoning. This country, over
Speaker 3: the last two hundred and fifty years, has seen some
Speaker 3: of its most consequential moments described in print. There is
Speaker 3: nothing that's an affront to the American public about laying out,
Speaker 3: in black and white text his reasoning. He will address
Speaker 3: the public, and most importantly, he has demonstrated to the
Speaker 3: public over the last and a half years that not
Speaker 3: only can he be president, but he can be a
Speaker 3: top ten president in American history.
Speaker 2: So why isn't he running?
Speaker 3: He isn't running because the concerns about his age and
Speaker 3: acuity are undermining his ability to beat Donald Trump and
Speaker 3: undermining the constituent's confidence that he can discharge.
Speaker 2: The duties own that concerns that you'll colleagues have, correct,
Speaker 2: let's come from within your own party. That's not like
Speaker 2: some thing that's come from the media. It's officials. I've
Speaker 2: been very clear about sons or if they don't believe
Speaker 2: the policy is more important than his age.
Speaker 4: I've just really struggled here.
Speaker 2: You've come out a few times, and I've seen some
Speaker 2: of your comments previously, and we keep going back to
Speaker 2: this track record, the policies, the policies the last three
Speaker 2: and a half years. Don't you think if the public
Speaker 2: thought those policies were that good, we wouldn't be in
Speaker 2: this position to begin with.
Speaker 3: No, because the public was focused on the president's age
Speaker 3: and acuity. We now have a different candidate at the
Speaker 3: top of the ticket, and elections are about the future,
Speaker 3: and what we are going to say to the American
Speaker 3: public is, look at what we have accomplished over the
Speaker 3: last four years. Let's take this forward as we debate
Speaker 3: tax policy in the next congress. Let's take this forward
Speaker 3: as we debate immigration policy in the next congress. Let's
Speaker 3: take this forward as we debate reproductive freedom in the
Speaker 3: next Congress, and let's demonstrate that we can make this
Speaker 3: economy work for everybody. Let's demonstrate that we can continue
Speaker 3: to heal our democracy after the depredations of the trial administration.
Speaker 3: And all Trump is going to be able to say
Speaker 3: is that same spew of grievances and self pitying and
Speaker 3: egocentric lamentations that we heard from his convention speech where
Speaker 3: he tried to go for twenty minutes and sound statesmen
Speaker 3: like and he couldn't get past.
Speaker 5: Ten Congressman, if it's your own colleagues, the elder state's individuals,
Speaker 5: if you will, of your Democratic your leader's Pelosi Schumer,
Speaker 5: all these leaks, if they're the ones that are concerned
Speaker 5: about his age and mental acuity, then should the president
Speaker 5: step aside? How can the American people be confident that
Speaker 5: he can fulfill his duties for.
Speaker 4: The rest of his term.
Speaker 3: He absolutely should not step aside. This president is fully
Speaker 3: able to be commander and chief. We've seen him walk
Speaker 3: a tightrope in the Middle East, protecting the security of
Speaker 3: Israel while not allowing for a regional conflagration.
Speaker 4: We've seen him rally NATO to Ukraine's side.
Speaker 3: We've seen him bind together South Korea and Japan and
Speaker 3: the Philippines in Australia to help counter Chinese belligerents in
Speaker 3: the Indo Pacific. This president is a highly successful foreign
Speaker 3: policy president who is also implement memented monumental domestic policy legislation.
Speaker 3: He has demonstrated he can do the job. He's eighty
Speaker 3: one years old. Voters, he concerns about his ability to
Speaker 3: do the job for four more years. Democrats listened. Democrats
Speaker 3: put forward a younger, dynamic candidate, and now the Republican
Speaker 3: Party is going to have to explain why they're not
Speaker 3: doing the same thing, because seventy percent of Americans wanted
Speaker 3: a difference at the top of both tickets, and Republicans
Speaker 3: responded with a mosh.
Speaker 4: Pit in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: Congressmen appreciate the stern defense. Thank you, sir, Congressman Jake Arkincloss. There,
Speaker 2: I'm the latest out of Massachusetts, a stern defense of
Speaker 2: the President of the United States.