Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We go now to a Congressman from Florida. Democrat, Debbie
Speaker 2: Wasserman Schultz is here with us on set in Chicago.
Speaker 3: Great to see you, Great to see you both.
Speaker 2: Congresswoman, if we could just begin knowing that you just
Speaker 2: had a decisive victory in your primary in Florida last
Speaker 2: night as well, what are you seeing on the ground
Speaker 2: in Florida. Do you think it would be wise for
Speaker 2: the Harris campaign to be investing resources in the state,
Speaker 2: Knowing the many many media markets it has, It's a
Speaker 2: very expensive state to be competitive in. But if she
Speaker 2: made the decision to, could she actually be competitive.
Speaker 3: I'm telling everybody, as our most political folks in Florida,
Speaker 3: don't sleep on our state. We have some metrics that
Speaker 3: are emerging. Remember, for most election cycles in this century,
Speaker 3: we have been a purple state. We've been hyper competitive.
Speaker 3: Barack Obama one Florida both times that he ran. And
Speaker 3: I'll give you an example from just yesterday's primary. The
Speaker 3: enthusiasm among Democratic voters is off the charts. I mean,
Speaker 3: just to give you an idea, I won my primary,
Speaker 3: but it's not the win, it's the difference in the
Speaker 3: voter turnout between Democrats and Republicans. Thirty four thousand people
Speaker 3: voted in I got thirty four thousand votes. The primary
Speaker 3: winner on the Republican side got thirteen thousand votes. So
Speaker 3: just in terms of enthusiasm, you can see the difference.
Speaker 3: But polling last week, both national polls that came out
Speaker 3: that polled Florida had the race within three and five.
Speaker 3: And then if you look at the volunteer organization on
Speaker 3: the ground, twenty two thousand people signed up to volunteer
Speaker 3: to elect Kamala Harris President of United States. So with
Speaker 3: the resources and also the Republicans have continued to distort
Speaker 3: their advantage. They say they have a million more registered
Speaker 3: voters in Florida. They don't. What they did was that
Speaker 3: they suppressed the vote who haven't voted in two elections
Speaker 3: and now show them as inactive even though they're still registered.
Speaker 3: So there aren't a million more Republicans registered to vote.
Speaker 3: We have huge enthusiasm. We beat almost every mom's for
Speaker 3: a liberty candidate that Ron DeSantis endorsed for school board races.
Speaker 3: Last night, about almost two dozen that he endorsed, and
Speaker 3: he only won six of them. So the momentum is
Speaker 3: in our direction. No one should sleep on Florida.
Speaker 1: Well interesting and looking more broadly Florida and across the
Speaker 1: country and not just the swing states. Congressmen, our listeners
Speaker 1: and viewers should be reminded that you were chair of
Speaker 1: the DNC during Barack Obama's second convention. Yes, as president
Speaker 1: of the United States, will you seek to duplicate his map?
Speaker 3: Well, what we're seeking to do is make sure that
Speaker 3: we can capitalize on the enthusiasm and the contrast between
Speaker 3: the momentum that we have under a Kamala Harris and
Speaker 3: Tim Walls because hope and optimism like we had during
Speaker 3: the Obama years and joy is what is pushing people
Speaker 3: forward because they want a president who was going to
Speaker 3: fight for them to reduce prescription drug prices.
Speaker 1: But you were talking about more states than you were
Speaker 1: when Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 3: There is no question right now that we have different
Speaker 3: math in multiple different directions than we had just five,
Speaker 3: five or six weeks ago. And so what we can't
Speaker 3: do is just you know, move forward without pivoting and
Speaker 3: making the kind of adjustments that we need to and
Speaker 3: being nimble and that's what our campaign operations are doing
Speaker 3: right now, and they're doing some recalculations so they can
Speaker 3: be ready for any opportunity.
Speaker 2: Well, and I wonder how those recalculations are factoring into
Speaker 2: the likelihood of not just getting the majority in the House,
Speaker 2: but how large you think your majority could potentially be
Speaker 2: with Harris at the top of the ticket. You obviously
Speaker 2: remember of House leadership. Has the goalposts moved? Initially it
Speaker 2: was like, you just got to get those four seats,
Speaker 2: but what's the target now?
Speaker 3: Well, we have the net four seats and we have
Speaker 3: a very clear advantage in the fundraise. We have consistently
Speaker 3: outraised the NRCC, the Republican Campaign Finance Operation, every single
Speaker 3: quarter of this election cycle. But it's not just that
Speaker 3: our incumbent frontline marginal members. They've outraised their opposition, our
Speaker 3: red to blue candidates. They have a recruitment problem. They've
Speaker 3: got right wing extremists all over the map. So the
Speaker 3: contrast is clear all the way down the ticket, from
Speaker 3: the White House pair of candidates down to legislative races,
Speaker 3: and voters are going to come out to the polls
Speaker 3: elect our candidates because they want someone who's thinking about
Speaker 3: moving forward, not a maga extremist Republican who's buried in
Speaker 3: the past, who's morose and brooding and unhappy. We've got
Speaker 3: to make sure that we have a positive, forward thinking
Speaker 3: government so that we can ensure that this booming economy,
Speaker 3: fifteen million plus jobs, making sure that we continue to
Speaker 3: bring prescription drug crisis down, that we make sure that
Speaker 3: we have a plan like Kamala Harris does, to make
Speaker 3: home ownership affordable, and child tax credit reinstated, so many
Speaker 3: things that are important on the kitchen table. Not a
Speaker 3: president like Donald Trump was, who cared only about making
Speaker 3: sure that the wealthy and the profit and the profitable
Speaker 3: businesses are able to do even better.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about an issue I know
Speaker 1: is very important to you and a lot of progressive Democrats,
Speaker 1: and that's our policy in Israel right now. Is the
Speaker 1: reason why we've been talking about protesters that in some
Speaker 1: cases have not materialized here in Chicago. Congresswoman, there are
Speaker 1: reports today that US and Israeli officials think that this
Speaker 1: proposal for a bridge ceasefire deal is on the verge
Speaker 1: of collapsing. We heard from Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln
Speaker 1: in Doha here's what he said. Our message is simple,
Speaker 1: it's clear, and it's urgent. We need to get the
Speaker 1: ceasefire and hostage agreement over the finish line, and we
Speaker 1: need to do it now. Time is of the essence.
Speaker 1: How important will it be for a ceasefire to be
Speaker 1: struck to find unity among progressives in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: What's important is that Hamas released the hostages. What's important
Speaker 3: is that Israel not be expected like any other nation,
Speaker 3: shouldn't be expected to live with a terrorist threat sworn
Speaker 3: on their destruction and the killing of all Jews on
Speaker 3: their doorstep. What's important is making sure that the terror,
Speaker 3: the terror threat that Palestinians and Gaza live with, is
Speaker 3: ended so that they don't that they can free Gaza
Speaker 3: from Hamas and that when we reach a ceasefire deal
Speaker 3: that releases those hostages, that ensures that we can have
Speaker 3: governance in Gaza that is peaceful and non threatening. That
Speaker 3: is absolutely essential. The time that's running out is that
Speaker 3: we have one hundred and nine hostages still there, at
Speaker 3: least eight that are American that need to be freed.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have to make sure and thanks to
Speaker 3: the Biden Harris administration for staying at the table pushing
Speaker 3: the negotiations forward. But Hamas needs to take this deal,
Speaker 3: that is the bottom line.
Speaker 2: Well, and we'll wait to see if they do so
Speaker 2: and on what timeframe, knowing that they also could be
Speaker 2: considering that it will be a different government come January
Speaker 2: if they drag this out long enough. You just mentioned
Speaker 2: what the Biden Harris administration has done. Do you expect
Speaker 2: that there would be a serious departure from this administration's
Speaker 2: policy if it were instead of Harris Wall's administration. How
Speaker 2: does she not go from the incombent.
Speaker 3: Press, She doesn't differ. She's made very clear that she
Speaker 3: is right alongside President Biden. She's been a part of
Speaker 3: those discussions, the negotiations. Kamala Harris supports making sure that
Speaker 3: we have a ceasefire deal that brings the hostages home,
Speaker 3: that ends the terrorist threat on Israel' storestep, that ensures
Speaker 3: that we can get humanitarian assistance and relief to the
Speaker 3: Palestinians who are victimized by Hamas themselves, and also continuing
Speaker 3: the strong usaid to Israel. She said very clearly she's
Speaker 3: not for an arms embargo. We have the strong plank
Speaker 3: in the Democratic Party platform strongest pro Israel plank of
Speaker 3: any party in decades, and the Republicans come nowhere near
Speaker 3: the commitments and the specificity in the Democratic Party platform
Speaker 3: that we have. And that's because the Democratic Party is
Speaker 3: the one that has solidly and consistently stood with Israel,
Speaker 3: not just in words, but in actions.
Speaker 1: What happens to Gaza donald Trump is elected.
Speaker 3: You know, when it comes to how foreign policy is
Speaker 3: dealt with in general, I'm very fearful about what happens
Speaker 3: because Donald Trump doesn't actually care about how to make
Speaker 3: sure that Gaza is governed in the aftermath, and how
Speaker 3: you end the terrorist threat and ensure that the security
Speaker 3: apparatus that needs to be in place for Israel is
Speaker 3: put in place in a way that allows a peaceful
Speaker 3: transition and the negotiation over an Arab forward governing coalition.
Speaker 3: He re acts only emotionally and not with thought or commitment.
Speaker 3: And I'm very fearful because of Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: of who he's going to put in place in these
Speaker 3: important state department positions to ensure that we have real
Speaker 3: professionals who are able to do things like Joe Biden
Speaker 3: has getting these negotiations together and making sure that we
Speaker 3: have a diplomatic apparatus that has the experience and the
Speaker 3: commitment they need.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming to see us.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: We left the rest of this convention there. Thanks Congresswoman
Speaker 1: Debbie Wasserman Chelsea of Florida, former chair of the DNC.
Speaker 1: We're live in Chicago on ballance of Pout Bloomberg TV
Speaker 1: and Radio.