Trump says he had ‘every right to’ interfere with presidential election

Former President Donald Trump is off the campaign trail today. But in a preview of what may come in his first debate with his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, next Tuesday, Trump is sounding off about the federal election subversion case and a heck of a lot more. CNN Steve Cantore now is joining us. Now. What are we hearing from Donald Trump, and what clues does this give us as to what's going to be said during the debate? Well, Trump, discussing the new charges filed against him by special agent her special counsel, Jack Smith. In response to that, Supreme Court ruling on immunity, and Trump suggesting that he had, quote, every right to interfere in the counting and the results of the 2020 election. Take a listen to what he said. It's so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted and you poll numbers go up. Elsewhere in that interview, he also said that Vice President Harris was nasty, and that's his direct word. In her previous debates against Vice President Mike pence. The irony there, of course, is that Mike pence is not endorsing Donald Trump. This go around in Trump supporters actually stormed the Capitol. Some of them saying hang Mike Pence on January 6th. So the choice of words there is quite notable. I also want to point out that over the weekend, he did respond to the news that several of the hostages had been killed by Hamas, and he said, quote, that there was a total lack of leadership by the Biden-Harris administration on that front. He also linked it back to his own, legal cases and saying that because they are focusing on, quote, weaponizing the Justice Department against him, they didn't take care of business on these foreign affairs. Sarah, Steven Torno, thank you so much for your reporting, Mary. Appreciate you this morning, John. All right. With us now, Democratic strategist Matt Bennett and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings. But I just want to start very quickly. Look, Donald Trump said, because I can think of a time when Joe Biden was still a Democratic nominee, were Donald Trump saying, I had every right to interfere in the election might become a big deal in the election. How much do you think election interference in his attempts to overturn the results are playing right now? Yeah. You know, to your point, John, it's very clear that the Harris campaign has not made that a central plank in their argument in this race. And I think that's probably wise. the Biden campaign ran on that in 2020. And it worked. You know, the restoring the soul of America. I think what we were seeing by the end of the kind of Biden run here was that that was no longer resonating as deeply as it had been. It's amazing. I mean, Trump is threatening essentially a coup and saying that he had a right to, to take away America's most fundamental democratic rights, but it just doesn't seem to land with voters. So I think Harris is smart to make this a future oriented campaign to warn voters that Trump is extraordinarily dangerous. Project 2025 is a 900 page blueprint that would fundamentally alter the country, but not to focus as much on that particular issue. Yeah. On the other hand, Scott, when he's talking about having the right to interfere with the election, he's not talking about inflation or immigration. Right. Yeah. I mean, what I assume he means is he has a right to challenge results that he thinks are unfair, which he did have a right to do that and would again, what you don't have a right to do is go beyond that and beyond what the courts, allow you to do. So, hopefully, hopefully we don't see a repeat of what happened in the last election. I mean, look, his his best opportunity to win the election is to have voters view Kamala Harris as an extension of Joe Biden and an extension of more of the same. I mean, that's his best opportunity, particularly when it comes to the economy. I know when that, that when they're talking about the economy, they are winning that that is just going to be an immutable fact, whether it's in the debate or whether it's in the weeks after the debate. So, hopefully he knows that. And, and executes on it. That's what Republicans want to see him do. So so man, if Scott is right in that tying Vice President Harris to Joe Biden is a winning strategy for Donald Trump. How useful is it for the Harris campaign to have Joe Biden out for them today in Pittsburgh? Well, if there's one constituency that loves Joe Biden, it's organized labor. It's Labor Day. Biden speaks to that world in really authentic ways, and it's always worked well. So I think it's smart to put him out there. And the vice president has not tried to distance yourself from Biden in any way. We saw that in the CNN interview last week. What she's going to do was talk about her plan for the future, because elections are about the future and not the past. So she's not going to dwell too much on the things that she and Biden have done. But she's not going to try to in any way, you know, push Biden aside. and I think it's important to note that there has been a real consolidation around Harris in ways that we weren't seeing with Biden earlier, in some constituencies, even, that Trump is strong. And I mean, we're showing far less weakness with, white male voters, for instance, than we were before she took over the race. Let me, if we can get in the control room. The ABC news poll has a vote preference by gender. It deals with the gender gap here. And it's very interesting if you look at these numbers from the ABC news poll. well, no, that wasn't this number. This is among likely voters. You can see Vice President Harris is up six among likely voters she's up for among registered voters. The numbers I'm looking at right now talk about vote preference by gender. There you go. You can see that pre convention in among women. She had a six point lead post convention with women. It's a 13 point lead in among men a little bit of a shift for in the Trump direction but not a not a statistically significant one. She she trails now among men by five points before the convention. It was three points. But that chasm among women. Scott, how problematic is that for Trump? Well, it's problematic if you don't maximize the other side of it. which is, I guess, the male gender gap. As you pointed out, Trump leads among men, Harris leads among women. There are more women than men in the country. So I'm only moderately good at math, but you can see how it would fundamentally work out. I mean, that, but but it is true. We are heading, I think, towards a huge gender gap in this election. It doesn't mean Trump can't win on it. but you do have to then, find those votes elsewhere. And so, it's kind of fascinating. I mean, if you look at the two, characteristics in this country that best determine how you're going to vote, it's gender and, educational attainment. And that was true for the last several years. But it's very true, right now. So it's that working class men versus college educated women, sort of cohorts that probably are most divergent in the, in the data that you're looking at. But among women, Matt, it's getting better for Kamala Harris, at least according to the polls. If you look at it, is there a Y behind that? Do you think? Well, I think it's a whole bunch of things. First of all, women do not like the fact that Donald Trump bragged about getting rid of reproductive rights and changes his view on that in the course of a single sentence. I mean, who knows where he stands anymore on those things? Although we do know fundamentally what his party wants to do, because we've got the Blueprint Project 2025. The other thing that women are very concerned about, like all voters, they're worried about the economy. And they certainly don't like the idea of 20% across the board tariffs that would immediately increase prices. I mean, the idea that Trump is going to lower prices is exactly backwards. All of his plans would increase prices. And that really worries women. Scott. You know, Donald Trump has had a heck of a journey on abortion and reproductive rights over the course of his life, but he had a heck of a journey over a 24 hour period, Thursday and Friday, I think where he ended up that he's going to vote no on amendment four in Florida, which would overturn the six week abortion ban there. Though the idea of the confusion around his position on Friday. How much of a mark is that leave going forward? I don't I'm not really confused at all by his position, to be honest with you. Look, he obviously doesn't have very, very strong personal feelings about it. He never has. As you pointed out, he's been more moderate on it, than some, ardent pro-lifers probably personally want him to be. He does have a record as president. He operated a pro-life administration directionally. He's a pro-life guy who's going to have a pro-life administration directionally. Kamala Harris is pro-abortion, and she'll have a pro-abortion administration. His position is no different as I understand it, than Ronald Reagan, which is he's pro-life. He believes in some reasonable limits. He also believes in the three exceptions of rape, incest, and life of the mother. And he's been a strong supporter of IVF, no matter what any of Kamala Harris's surrogates, want to say about it or lie about it repeatedly, hour by hour on cable television. So he's got what I think is actually a pretty moderate mainstream position. And again, in the Republican Party, there are some people who want him to go further. And in the Democratic Party, there are some people who think he's gone, too far. Also, one other issue on this thing in the next administration, no bill banning abortion can pass the US Senate. He's never going to have to deal with this as president. and so this is largely going to be left to the states. And he's expressed his personal preferences about it. And I think his personal preferences are kind of center cut for most Americans. Reasonable limits, three exceptions support IVF. That's a mainstream view. All right. Matt Bennett, Scott Jennings, thank you both for being here