Transcript of Charlamagne tha God says this is why Harris has to do to win crucial battleground state

On the road again in trying to make major enroads with voters in the state where she defied the odds with President Biden in 2020, that would be Georgia. And Vice President Harris is taking her campaign through GOP strongholds in Southern Georgia. It's part of a two-day tour with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walsh, their first appearance together in the state, and first time back on the trail since the convention, visiting a barbecue joint and dropping by a high school.

We wanted to come by to remind you that our nation is counting on you. We're so proud of you and everything you have achieved. And I will tell you, I was in a band when I was your age. So I know a little bit about The coach knows about the players, right? And all that you all are doing, it requires a whole lot of rehearsal, a whole lot of practice. But all that practice makes for beautiful music. And that is a metaphor. That is for everything that you all do in your lives.

And tomorrow in Georgia, Harris and Walls will sit down for their first interview as their party's nominee. It airs 24 hours from right now, 9:00 PM tomorrow night, only right here on CNN. A lot riding on that appearance for the vice president. And as the Democratic ticket tries to put the peach state back in play, a brand new poll tonight shows it might already be. A Fox News survey shows Harris gaining ground in Sun Belt battlegrounds. Among Among them, Georgia. Harris with 50 % support among registered voters, and Donald Trump at 48 %, so incredibly tight within the margin of error, so there is no clear leader. But the fact that Georgia is competitive right now is big news in itself. The survey attributes Harris's gains to strong support among women, black voters, and young voters. So let's take the pulse of the people in Georgia and beyond. My sources tonight are multimedia mogul Charlemagne the God, host of The Breakfast Club radio show, and author of the new book, Get Honest or Die Line: Why Small Talk Sucks. I could not agree more with that sentiment. And Angela Ryde, CEO of the political advocacy firm Impact Strategies, and the co-host of The Native Land podcast.

Great to see you both. I'm excited to see what you have to say tonight. Charlamagne, let's kick it off with you. You see that poll that I mentioned earlier. It's a snapshot in time, of course. No clear leader. But Georgia What is a swing state again? That was not the case of President Biden. What does this signal to you? Do you think she can keep the momentum going and keep Georgia in play?

Oh, absolutely. First of all, thank you for having us tonight. And absolutely, the VP is doing exactly what she needs to be doing. We all know this isn't a traditional campaign because of the short window she has. So she's got to go out there. She's got to leave no stone unturned. She's got to shake every hand, kiss every baby. That is what campaigning is. Campaigning is explaining yourself and your policies to everybody. And don't let social media fool you. I like the vibe, but the vibes aren't going to be what wins you this election. People want policy. People want something tangible that they can feel, that can make them feel better about their circumstances. And she's going to have to go out there every single day and explain how she is going to do that for the American people. And she's doing it.

Angela, to bring you in, those battleground polls also show Donald Trump pulling in 19 % support from Black voters. That is actually triple what he got in 2020. What do you make of that? What is he doing right to win them over?

I don't make anything of these polls that are talking to imaginary Black folks. I would love to know, for one, who they're talking to, because I've not seen it.

So you think that they don't exist?

I think that they are maybe... You know what they might be? They might be the invisible man that Ralph Ellison talked about in his book. I don't know who these people are. There was a Trump ad that was released, I believe today, that's targeting black women voters. And there are these these people who allegedly exist all throughout the country, and they're reading scripts. You can see their eyeliner going over here. And I think some of them might be paid to say some of these things. I'm not sure, but here's what I do know, Pam. You talked about Joe This not being the case, Georgia not being the case for Joe Biden. Joe Biden did actually win Georgia in 2020. And I also want to give some credit to Kamala Harris, who has been to Georgia seven times this year. And so I think it's important for us to acknowledge the work that has been done. Their state directors talked about 35,000 new volunteers on the ground since Kamala Harris announced. They have well over 24 offices in that state. They're doing the work. And so what you do see with polls, and what you do hear from folks who are registered voters, is that the tide is changing, that they're excited about the change and the excitement that Kamala Harris brought to the top of the ticket.

And I think we really got to give more credit to the work. I'm not I'm not giving any credit to these polls. Polls end up being wrong all the time. And I've seen polls that say 15%, 19%, 18% of Black folks. I don't believe it at all. I really don't.

So I want to follow up with what you had said about who are these voters as I said, the 19 % of Black voters supporting Trump. Our CNN's, Ali Reeve, actually recently spoke to a Black voter in Virginia who owns a shop that sells pro-Trump merchandise. Here's what she said about his outreach to Black voters, and I'll get your reaction on the other end.

I think the RFS aren't succeeding tremendously. All the things that have happened to President Trump, the attacks on him, have done nothing more than strengthen Black people's connection to him because now he's someone who is the target of a struggle, and they have always been felt that they've been a target.

All right, Charlamagne, what do you think about that?

I think I think that I can't speak for all Black people because we're not monolithic, and that woman cannot speak for all Black people because we're not monolithic. Yeah, I think she sounds like a damn fool. To be totally honest, I think she sounds like a damn fool, but that's her opinion. And I do feel like Democrats do owe black people a lot, but last election, 92 % of black people voted for Democrats, and that has been the case for a long time. I see that being pretty much the case this year as well.

I want to follow up on that. Can I just make one observation on that video real quick? Go for it. Did you see the message that she had on their Trump bulletproof 2024? She should at least take that one down, right? That's just tone death. It's inappropriate. This man just survived an assassination attempt, right? Based on reporting on this network. That is in and of itself crazy. So to Leonard's point about a damn fool, I would have to agree with that, too.

All right. All right. So let's go back, Charlamagne, to bring you back in. Earlier this year, I was going back to look at some of your past interviews you've done, right? The dynamic It has clearly changed. But when it was a Biden-Harris ticket, you said that you wouldn't support Biden's re-election, even if it meant Harris was VP. You told Politico in January that once the two got into the White House, Harris, quote, disappeared. You told Politico, and it reported that you felt burned by backing her. What has she done specifically now to change your view?

Well, I had an unrealistic expectation of what I expected of her as the vice president. And the truth of the matter is that just comes in my belief of her. If you go back and watch an interview on Breakfast Club in 2018, I told her then that I thought that she could be the President of United States of America one day. So I had a belief in her that Over those three and a half years, over the last three and a half, four years, I know that that administration handcuffed her a lot. So what changed is that she's at the top of the ticket now. For her being at the top of the ticket now, she's the person that I believed in back in in '18. That person did disappear over the last three years, but that is the role of the VP. I mean, if you're a vice President, you, I don't want to say do nothing because she did do a lot. But if you don't rock the boat and you let the President be the President, you did a great job. You did a great job.

Let me just follow up with you because you said, the last administration handcuffed her a lot. What makes you say that? I know you talked to Harris as well. Has she conveyed that to you? What makes you say that? Or is it just Like your observation?

No, she never conveyed that to me. I just know that that's what I observe. She's the vice president. That is the vice president's role. The vice president's role is to push the agenda of the president and support the president. And she did that very well. But she's still the VP, but she's at the top of the ticket running to be the president. And I think that over the last three to four weeks, the person that I know that I started supporting way back in 2017, that's who I'm seeing front and center right now. And I love it.

Yeah, because you had said also earlier this year, she could still pivot. It seems like what you're saying is she has pivoted to your liking.

Definitely pivoted. I also said that the language of politics is dead. And if you hear a lot of the things that she's saying now, she's really speaking her mind. Like, earlier today, she said, Donald Trump is out of his mind. She should have said, Out of his mother effing mind. But she was right in that sentiment, too.

The vice President and Governor Walls just arrived. What do we expect to see and hear from them on this bus tour over the next two days?

Well, we expect them to talk about the kitchen table issues, the economy, for example. But it's where they're going that is notable about this visit to this critical battleground state. Of course, they're heading Southern South Georgia with its rural counties. And it's a page from a playbook from Senator Warnock back in December of 2022 during his runoff, where strategists and his campaign manager at the time, Quentin Foulkes, they tried to peel off voters from Republicans. And Quitten Foulkes is now the Deputy Campaign Manager for the Harris campaign. And when I spoke to him, he told me that he thinks that he can use a similar strategy in Georgia this time around. Again, what this boils down to is essentially winning big in Metro Atlanta, but also trying to close margins with Republicans, essentially losing by less in South Georgia. By doing that, the campaign thinks that they have a path to victory in in a state, a state that, as you mentioned, President Biden only narrowly won in 2020. Now, of course, the strategists I've spoken with also say there could be a Tim Walsh factor in all of this, too, and that's going to be critical as they both hit the stops today and tomorrow.

That factor is the fact that he comes from a rural upbringing. He has roots in football and his military background. How does that resonate with voters? That is what strategists say that they are focused on. But again, Phil, certainly a critical time for this campaign in in a place unlikely, but one they think they can make in Rosen.

The margins certainly matter. Priscilla Alvarez in Savannah, Georgia. Thanks so much. Let's discuss now with former Democratic congressman, Cedric Richmond, co-chair for the Harris Walls campaign. Congressman, appreciate your time. I want to start with If six weeks ago, did the campaign think, then President Biden's campaign, think that Georgia was slipping out of reach? And if so, what's changed since then?

Well, we thought that Georgia would be a challenge. We still think that Georgia is It's going to be a challenge, but we have to put in the work. I think that that strategy is the same that it was then, which is if we put in the work, we do what we need to do, Georgia is a state that we can win. You see 190 staff in Georgia. You see 24 coordinated offices all across the state. We're going to go there and make our case to the great people of Georgia.

Priscilla did a great job outlining the bus tour and the key goals, Clinton folks, obviously. Michael Tyler, also a Warnock alum, if you will. You guys know the state. You flipped the state in 2020. When you look at the demographic makeup of the state, everybody talks about the Black voters in Fulton County and pushing outside. Also, Savannah is a majority population Black as well. Black men has been an area where the Trump campaign feels like they have made inroads, and the cross tabs in the polls would seem to back that up, at least to some degree. Do you think that's changing?

I do think that's changing. I think that you see that Black men are realizing exactly who Trump is and take his word for the things that he said he was going to do. But look, Trump thinks that he can get Black male vote because he's now a convicted felon. It's foolish assertions like that that I think that people are starting to see exactly who he is, and you see more African-American men gravitating back to the Harris campaign. The other part I will tell you, though, is that we had a broad coalition to win Georgia, and you can't count out the Asian-American vote that was in Georgia that showed up in 2022. We expect them to show up again, and we're going to knock every door and try to earn their support.

Congressman, as a former member of the House. Some of your House colleagues spoke to my colleagues in the Capitol Hill team here at CNN, and they made the point that they don't want this to be necessarily from the campaign's perspective about detailed policy discussions or policy proposals. They want this to be about character, about values. Do you think that's the case? That there shouldn't be in-depth policy here?

Well, I think that part of your values is your policy. I think that what you will see us do is articulate the values of the Harris Walls team, and that is to help the middle class ease the prices and burdens on families. We don't want them to just get by. We want them to get ahead and prosper. That's the overarching goal. Yes, character absolutely matters. But I also think you have to show your values through policy.

Congressman, you served in the White House with President Biden. I know he thinks very highly of you. You're a close advisor of his. He will have his first joint campaign event in Pittsburgh on Labor Day with the vice president. He's going to be out in Wisconsin next week as well. Is there an understanding right now of what his role in this campaign will be? Have those conversations happened and what did they entail?

Well, I I don't know about any detailed conversation, specifically on Roe, but you saw the incredible response that Joe Biden, President Biden, received at the Democratic Convention on the first day, late into the night. You know the excitement and the love that Democrats have for him. The one thing they know is his character. They know he woke up every day focused on them and how to improve their lives. I think that that's going to be an asset around the country, and we're certainly going to use the President in that way.

With a specific focus on those blue-wall states, Pennsylvania, he goes there quite often, as you know well.

Well, I do. He calls himself a boy from Scranton, and he has tremendous relationships there, tremendous accomplishments and affection from the people. We expect to use him a lot of places. As much as he's willing to do it, you know he's a fighter. You know he cares deeply about the people in this country, and he understands the threat that Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Project 2025 are to the future of this country.

Former congressman, Senator Richmond. Always appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Let's bring in our panel of political experts. Guys, thanks so much for being here. Michael Eric Dyson, I want to start with you. The vice president has faced a lot of pressure from Republicans since she became the nominated to give this in-depth interview, which she will be giving with our own Dana Basch tomorrow. One of my questions has been, how important is this for voters to hear her actually go in-depth on policy, to explain where she stands on these issues?

Well, I think it's extremely important. Obviously, as congressman Richmond just indicated, vision and value. Policy is critical, but public character is critical as well. Those Republicans hankering after a word from vice president Harris will certainly get it. They would do better, of course, to ask for consistency and logic from their own candidate, but that notwithstanding. I think she's quite capable of doing so. If you saw her speech at the convention, she laid out basic elements of her vision, but she also wanted to communicate to people, I care about you. You remember, I think it was Maya Angelou said, People won't remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel. Now, it's not that feeling is a substitute. Emotion is a substitute for serious concrete forensic analysis and policy. But it does suggest that given the history of this country recently, with President Trump having so disrupted the politics and the protocols of normal everyday existence, her since it's a reassuring one, and then to drill down on specific policies is exemplary as well.

It will be instructive to watch her explain some of the evolution on some key policy issues. When she ran for President, she advocated for banning fracking. We understand from her team that that is no longer her position, especially for Pennsylvania voters. She's going to have to explain why. I'm looking at how she talks about immigration. I'm reading her memoir now. Her very first visit after she won her Senate seating 2016 was to Chirla, an immigrants rights activist group in California. She advocated for undocumented immigrants pretty forcefully in this book. She called out the Trump administration for what she described as indiscriminate enforcement. So going after immigrants that weren't necessarily committing crimes after they were in this country. She now advocates. She said that she will sign that border enforcement bill if she's elected President. That bill, of course, does not have a pathway to citizenship for documented immigrants.

Now, she might have a very good reason for her evolution on some of these policies, and she is following the party Democrats who have lurched right on immigration, but she should have to speak for that. Let's get right to what America is talking about. Tasha, more and more polls reflecting the shift in the state of the race, the contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump now is virtually deadlocked in the places on the map that matter the most in this 2024 election. We're here with our panel in New York. This race Just according to the latest Fox News poll that looks at some of these Sun Belt states, is within the margin of error, which for Kamala Harris is a huge turnaround. Should this be a red flag for the Trump team? Well, I think it adds to a collection of red flags that the Trump team has to look at. What Trump had going for him above all was Joe Biden's age and the perception of Americans that he wasn't up to the job for another four years. Once that was removed as a factor, the Democrats jumped in the polls. It's not so much Trump losing support, it's the Democrats gaining support among people who don't want Trump.

Yeah, I mean, that is the very dynamic that I think they didn't think was going to happen. And also it's notable. I mean, we're talking about Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina. None of these are places that have to be won in order to win this election. So these are actually places where Harris is now putting Trump on defense. Absolutely. I mean, her presence has expanded the map. I mean, she can play in so many different places. I think the other thing we've not been paying much attention to is she's got $540 million on hand to actually play heavily in those states. But here's the thing. I think at this stage of the game, what matters most is money on hand, is infrastructure and messaging. Each one of those, Trump is failing on. To your point earlier, this is only one additional sign that there's a crisis happening within his campaign and is raising questions about whether or not he can make up the difference in any of these states with any of the constituencies. I think that's the real challenge with him now is she's raised three times as much money as he has. He has very little infrastructure in the States.

I think he just went up in Georgia last month. And then in terms of messaging, the border crossings are down, the inflation is down, unemployment is down. So all of the attacks on her are now working to her advantage. Those three areas, I think, are, again, double downing on the fact that Republicans are having a problem. One of the things that I've asked, I think, myself and other people on this show early on was, is this really going to be about all this slate of issues, or was the real problem with the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden? It does seem like right now, voters are saying, Yeah, the problem was Biden. With Harris, it's a different race.

It's the Nikki Haley observation that whichever ticket replaced it, it's near 80-year-old first would likely be the one to win. Having Having a next generation of leadership, turning the page on what was seen as a chaotic and crisis period, whether you like Trump or not, whether you liked Biden or not, they're both thought of as relics of the pandemic era of COVID, of one of the saddest periods in our nation's history.

Something that people had to do at that moment, but they didn't really want to do it.

This is something fundamentally different, and she creates optionality for Democrats. To Ashley's point, putting these Sun Belt states in play that make it that she could perform a number of places. I mean, two months ago, Donald Trump was talking about potentially winning Virginia. He wasn't having to be on the airwaves in North Carolina and Georgia because he had such a commanding lead. Florida. Exactly. Now the money starts to matter. When more states are in play, the person with more money to put ads on the airwaves there is the one that can win.

Look, I think much of this is true. I think we do start with the reality that because of the fact that there was this baked-in perception that Joe Biden was not up for the job, we actually had a real conversation about what was required to do the job and what were the responsibilities of the person sitting in that chair. And so now you have the results coming out saying that President Trump's lead on the economy and crime is slipping with Kamala Harris. But I think that is a direct result of the fact that we are no longer having that conversation. Conversation. We're going to have a great interview where Kamala Harris gets to sit down with her choice to be the vice president of the United States of America. And we're not actually having the more prudent conversation that at a time went for better and for worse, that a decision was made that Joe Biden had to get out of the way and she had to be put in that chair, that we still have not had the opportunity to hear from her directly about her plans, about what her allies are doing in places like California, people that might potentially end up in a Harris cabinet.

So that substantive, robust conversation that is now truncated because of this shortened campaign that she's going to be running is not actually happening. I believe that is in many ways an overlooked aspect of why the numbers are truly changing.

The reality is she spoke at the convention. She's laid out an opportunity, economy agenda. I think to your point earlier, though, the focus is now on who's sitting in that chair, and the lens is hyper-focused on Donald Trump, and that's why he's slipping in the polls. That's why he has no room to grow, because people are over the Trump show. They're exhausted by it. There was a fatigue around both of these candidates, but now the lens is hyper-focused on Donald Trump. I think that's what she captures with the message of change, which interestingly enough, even though she is the sitting vice president, she's one point ahead of Trump in the Fox News poll on who's the candidate. In four weeks. I think what it changed means isn't a particular policy agenda. What it means is, let's turn the page on this era of politics that has been defined by Donald Trump. By the way, you just mentioned that the one point advantage, that's really a margin of error situation. But is that good for her? Because you could argue she's in the incumbent seat here in this race. It's startlingly good for the incumbent. For But even it to be an even race on change, that seems good.

She needs as much separation from Biden as possible. I actually think there's an elegant way to do it. I worked for the former vice president. I don't think anyone believes Mike Pence was responsible for everything Donald Trump did in office. I think she has this unique flexibility, if she can communicate it, to own the good and walk away from the bad. There are some real baked-in unfavorability with the Biden era, the inflation, the economy, and if she can try to seem like she's signaling a different direction. But to Joe's point, there are some really bad policy proposals, in my opinion, on both sides, whether it's Trump and 18% import tariffs or giving $25,000 to first-time home buyers. In theory, a good idea will likely drive up demand and therefore the cost of homes. I'd love to have a robust debate around those things, but in the Trump era, we don't even get to talk about policy. It becomes name calling. It becomes the memes that he's put out. It becomes this race to the bottom. Glad we have a debate, but we don't even live in a society these days where we're functionally talking about policy.

Look, Trump could make this about policy at any time. We've all been waiting for it. We'll talk a lot more about that coming up. But I think your point is well taken. The other part of this is the coalition, right? What does the Harris coalition look like? Trump is doing pretty well, about 20% with Black voters. Better than he did in 2020. So we'll see if that sticks. I did want to play this new Trump ad that they put out today targeting Black women who are not for Kamala Harris. Watch. This November, I am not voting for Kamala Harris. I am not voting for Kamala Harris.

I am not voting for Kamala Harris.

I am not voting for Kamala Harris. I am not with Kamala Harris. I am not with her. I support President Trump and the economic policies our country experienced under his leadership. Now, my first thought actually watching this was like, they probably could have done a little bit better than Skype videos for these things. Low production value. It's pretty low production value for a constituency that they say that they're trying to appeal to. But I mean, will that thing work?

Well, look, I think that it was clearly a strategic choice to make it feel a little bit less produced. I think that was actually on purpose. I don't know why it falls to me to say this. That ad doesn't have anything to do with Black women. That ad has everything to do with the fact that the Republican Party is trying to ensure that the Black men that are potentially inclined to vote for Donald J. Trump don't spend the next 70 days sleeping on the couch, sexist in Seattle. That, I think, is the real conversation here. It's about the suburban man who doesn't want to spend the next 70 days on the couch because his wife doesn't want to be ostracized from the late club or wherever they're going to be hanging out. That's what the ad is about. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, a turtle is going to probably get north of 95% of the vote for Black women because the position of most Black women across this country is they want Donald Trump nowhere near the oval office. But again, that has very little to do with the issues that are vastly impacting Black communities, which is why you see that trend, particularly from Black men, away from the Democratic Party when it comes to the economic basis, when it comes to your Black children being trapped in failing schools, when it comes to the fact that this three-strand code of despair, lack of educational opportunities, the crime in our communities, and the poverty has prevented us from making this essentially a part.

See, that's such an eloquent argument that I wish a more competent Republican would make. Every time Joe talks about this, I'm always like, Joe, are you talking to the trope? No, but by all means, I have my vote because Donald Trump instead leans into, Black men resonate with me because I'm a felon. It's insulting. Pandering is not the word. It's just deeply insulting to the community. I do think with Kamala Harris in the race, yes, she is still going to have ground to make up with Black men, but she's doing better than Joe Biden was, which is part of bringing back the core Democratic base, which I think is why we're seeing these polls tightening. However, I just always mentioned, in the era of deep polarization, I don't think we are ever going to see her with a commanding lead well outside of the Marjoleera era or him. This is going to be a squeaker of a race.

Okay, last thing for you guys on this, because the opposite of a squeaker, down ballot, is also what the Fox News poll shows. Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, these are key races there. Democrats with double-digit leads in this race. I mean, that's going to have an impact. A very unpopular Republican candidate's down ballot will bring out voters. I think there are some particular races, some Kerry Lake Race in Arizona being one of them, against Ruben Diego for the Senate, where you've got a particularly toxic Republican nominee. And this Mark Robinson in North Carolina. And Mark Robinson, governor in North Carolina. It's a huge problem for Republicans. I think in other places, those polls are implying a level of ticket splitting that is unlikely to happen in this era. But when you've got those particularly, the Trumpier than Trump candidates, they could, in fact, do significantly worse than.