'He's afraid': Sen. Mark Kelly on Trump's racial attacks against Harris

Joining me now is the Democratic senator from Arizona and potential vice presidential pick for vice president Harris, Mark Kelly. It's great to have you here. Senator, I know you have had a very busy day, but I just I do want to know your reaction when you heard what Donald Trump said on stage in Chicago today, questioning Vice President Harris's heritage. Well, Caitlin, my first reaction was, you know, this is the reaction of a desperate and scared old man. It was very obvious to me watching him and just what I've seen over the last week while she's been, you know, across the country just kicking his butt that he's afraid, that he's probably afraid to debater. He's certainly afraid to lose an election to her in November, and he's afraid about his own future. So I'm not surprised to see it. And I understand, you know, what he's up against. I mean, he's up against an experienced prosecutor, somebody who served as a D.A. and an attorney general in the Senate and now the vice president very successfully. You put Kamala Harris's record up to Donald Trump, but there's no comparison. And the contrast is just is can't be more significant. So you think this is just a sign that he's essentially spooked by by her momentum? And what we've seen over the last week and a half since she's been at the top of the ticket. Yes, probably that I mean, I think it is it's that I mean, she's been across the country. She's got great momentum. She's a fantastic, historic candidate. And who is he is a convicted felon. He's got a sentencing hearing, I think, in September. He's been indicted for other felonies. She's going to take this country forward. Now, Donald Trump wants to drag us back to, you know, his prior administration, which was a bad deal for Americans. So I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here. Is it clear to you that this was a racist attack by former President Donald Trump? Yeah, I mean. It's overtly racist. Yes. And do you expect to see more of that over the next 97 days until the election? Donald Trump has shown the American people who he is. He's been doing this now for a decade. If you're paying attention before that, he was doing it before he was on the national stage as well. So, of course, he's going to continue to do it. That's all he can do. This is all he has in his playbook. And it's to be honest, it's sad. I mean, it's really sad to watch. I think the good news for the American people is Kamala Harris is going to beat him in a debate and is going to beat him on November 5th. And it's going to be our next president. That's the good news for the American people. How do you think the Harris campaign should handle something like what we saw today? Well, I think they should, you know, call him out on what he said. I mean, it's I've never seen a president or former president or United States senator say anything like this. And it is we've seen a lot of sad days for our country when Donald Trump was president and while he's been a candidate, this is another one. And I think the American people need to listen to what he says. The line of defense we're seeing tonight from from J.D. Vance, his running mate, is, you know, that Trump was brave enough to go in there and take questions from from black reporters at a conference. And he called Vice President Harris a coward. What's your response to that? Kamala Harris has been across the country, you know, for the last week, you know, meeting with the American people. She's she's a she's available, accessible. And where's Donald Trump? I mean, he's he spends you know, I don't know how long that interview last night. My understanding was they had to get him off the stage because his campaign was afraid of the next horrible thing that he was he was going to say. So that ended pretty quickly. And Kamala Harris is the candidate of the future for this country. She wants to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, make child care affordable, reduce the cost of health care for the American people. What does Donald Trump want to do? I mean, he made it pretty clear he wants more tax cuts for billionaires and the biggest corporations. If he was president again, he would weaken our alliances. And he want to wants to take away fundamental rights for women, especially especially women. So I'm not surprised with what he what he said. But the consequences of four more years of Donald Trump is, you know, more loss of reproductive rights, including things like birth control and IVF. Caitlin I've got two daughters and a granddaughter, and I really worry about the future of this country with Donald Trump tending to have any sort of power now. That's not going to happen because Kamala Harris is a great candidate. She's a great leader. She's going to be the future president of the United States. Well, and of course, Senator, you're under consideration to be potentially her vice presidential pick. And you were on that short list. We understand that, that your team has received vetting materials as part of this process. How far have your conversations gone with the Harris team for this? Well, Caitlin, I'm not going to comment on that. And, you know, we're not going to get into that. You know, especially today, you know, this is not about me. You know, this is about Donald Trump. And what a sad figure he has become. Sad and desperate. And Caitlin, we know guys like this. I mean, I've seen them before and, you know, just, you know, put him in the in the category of a desperate, convicted felon who is lashing out. Do you believe that you'd be able to help make that argument that the one that you just made here on on a broader national stage, should you be her selection? Well, I mean, I'm happy to talk about, you know, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris all day. I mean, it's a very easy thing to talk about. It's probably the easiest topic I've dealt with while in the United States Senate, because the contrast is just so clear. And I think it's clear to the American people as well. Senator Mark Kelly, thank you for for joining us tonight on this. Thank you for having me on, Caitlin. On her reaction here in studio now, I'm joined by former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and CNN political commentator and Spectrum News host Errol Louis joins me. I'll start with you, Mr. Mayor. Just on the political lens of how how Vice President Harris handled this tonight. What did you make of of what she said about this? I think she handled it right. I mean, look, first of all, when your opponent does something so outrageous, so inappropriate, so obviously overtly an appeal to race in the worst sense, just let it be. I think she showed sobriety clarity, a vision of a better America and let him sort of stew in his own juices, as it were. I do have to say Mark Kelly tagline there, the way he summarized it a desperate convicted felon who's lashing out. I think that's a beautiful, powerful summary and kind of points to the desperation we're clearly seeing in Trumpworld right now. Something's gone off the rails. They just were not ready for a reasonably popular candidate. They were used to a Joe Biden who unfortunately had fallen into unpopularity that originally ran against Hillary Clinton, who unfortunately was dealing with a lot of challenges. Here's a brand new day and they don't know what to do. They're all just watching that today. I think there was a moment where all newsrooms were kind of glued to the screen. What did you make of that? It was like a flashback to 2015. This is Donald Trump pulling out some of the old tricks from when he first came on to the national scene where he would say something completely outrageous. Bursting the norms. Going outside the normal guardrails of of political discussion. And that became the story. And that's what I think is going on here. Whatever else he is, Donald Trump is not in the news cycle. And if he hadn't said something crazy and outrageous today, we wouldn't be talking about him right now. We know that there are, what, 97 days until the election. If you put in early voting, which starts in Arizona, by the way, in 70 days, you know, we're at the stage where every single news cycle counts and you can't win the news cycle if you're not in the news cycle. So I read this as Donald Trump just saying anything to try and get himself back into play because the last week has been horrific for him. All of the excitement. Hundreds of thousands of people in these Zoom calls, $200 million raised for his opponent. He can't touch any of that. And all of what they did, which was a very successful Republican National Convention, is basically forgotten. It's yesterday's news. And so he's trying to get back into it. And he's doing it the way that he knows best, which is to say something inflammatory, absurd, crazy, non factual and try and get back into the game. Look at what's at the Trump rally tonight that he had after this this event where that he flew to. They have this screen up and it showed these headlines identifying Harris as Indian-American in headlines. I mean, she can be both and she is and she has talked about that. And I think we've talked about that collectively when she made history by becoming Vice president. But but what do you make of the fact of how they're leaning into this at a rally tonight? Well, first of all, to pick up on Errol's point, I think the worst thing in the world is happening to Donald Trump, you know, humanly, emotionally, which is he's being ignored. This is the one thing that flummox him the most. And I think when you think about that kind of language, it's just obviously patently false to say, you know, she was not being authentically black. I mean, that's stunning in a campaign that just a week or two ago was saying they actually hope to win black voters, particularly black males, over to their cause. Well, his numbers have been going up. Yeah. And his number is unfortunate. And let's be honest, as we saw on the challenges Joe Biden was facing, we did see some drift in the black Latino community. That was an area of real concern. But if you had that hope, why on earth would you attack an authentically black woman and challenge her blackness that just says to the community that you're not only out of touch, you're absolutely insensitive and uncaring about the community. He's like driving his own nail into his own heart here. It makes no sense. And also, it's worth pointing out in her book, she talks about how her Indian-American mother knew that she was raising two black girls. I mean, this is not something that's never come up before. So I'm not sure where they expect this to go. Anybody who actually looked at this has heard from her for years now that she is a black candidate. She is a black woman. She has also has Indian-American heritage. No big deal.