Summary of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on August 4, 2024

On “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” this week, moderated by Ed O’Keefe:

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of ArkansasUAW president Shawn Faindeputy national security adviser Jon FinerWall Street Journal assistant editor Paul Beckett

Click here to browse full transcripts of “Face the Nation.”

ED O’KEEFE: I’m Ed O’Keefe.

And today on “Face the Nation”: Two weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket, what difference has that made? We will tell you.

Former President Donald Trump, still adjusting to his new opponent, is testing new lines of attack.

(Begin VT)

DONALD TRUMP (Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate): We have to work hard to define her. We – I don’t want to even define her. I just want to say who she is. She’s a horror show. She will destroy our country.

She supports mandatory gun confiscation. Harris is a radical trans activist. She wants to get rid of your cows. No more cows.

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: Harris, exploiting a sudden burst of Democratic enthusiasm, is trying to turn the page on the former president.

(Begin VT)

KAMALA HARRIS (Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate): It was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.

(APPLAUSE)

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: As for the American people, what are they thinking with just three months left until Election Day?

Our new CBS poll that takes a look at the state of the race nationwide and in the all-important battleground states.

Trump ally Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton will be here, along with United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, whose union endorsed Harris last week.

And we will get the latest on the rising tensions in the Middle East with Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer.

Then, inside the historic deal to free three Americans, including “Wall Street Journal” reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russia. We will hear from “Journal” editor Paul Beckett, who made it his daily assignment to bring Evan home.

It’s all ahead on Face the Nation.

Good morning. Welcome to Face the Nation. Margaret is off.

We’re now just hours away from presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris announcing her choice for a running mate. And, today, CBS News has learned at least three of the contenders, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, are traveling here to Washington to meet with the vice president in person.

And as she holds those meetings, we’re getting a fresh look at the state of the race nationwide. A new CBS News poll shows Harris has something President Biden never enjoyed this year, a slight edge over Donald Trump. And across the battleground states, the two candidates are tied, 50/50, all in all, an essentially even race.

For more, let’s go to our executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto.

Good to see you. Happy Sunday.

Out on the road this week talking to Democratic voters, there was a sense of increased enthusiasm, excitement, a sense that they might actually be able to win this thing now. Is the polling reflecting that?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Good morning, Ed.

And the short answer is yes. Let me remind everybody this is a shift because Joe Biden, when he was the nominee, was down five points nationally to Donald Trump. So, what’s behind this is really interesting, because you see more Democrats now say not only are they excited about Harris as the nominee, but that they’re going to vote.

And that will make your poll numbers go up. In fact, if you look at our estimates across each and every one of the battleground states, from Pennsylvania, to Michigan, down South, Georgia, Arizona and others, they’re all even or close. And that is your reset race.

You see core Democratic constituencies saying they’re going to vote. Specifically, black voters are enthusiastic. Their numbers of saying they’re going to vote are up from July.

And I want to talk about the women’s vote, because not only does Harris do better than Biden was doing, but women tell us they think that Harris would look out for the interests of women much more so than Donald Trump. So it’s not just the demographic break. That’s the rationale behind it, Ed.

ED O’KEEFE: And they were the ones that seemed most excited, women.

But, bottom line, what you’re saying is that, over two weeks, she’s brought the race back to even, in essence?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Yes, big reset.

ED O’KEEFE: Now, she’d make history as the first black woman to be nominated by the Democratic Party, potentially the first black woman to win the presidency. Does the polling suggest the country’s ready for that?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: So, when people assess the state of the country, that answer is yes.

And I will give you some historical context. There’s an old CBS polling question. It goes back 25 years, which was, was America ready to elect a black president? By around the year 2000, that number was low. It changed when Barack Obama was running, and it went to a majority saying yes.

And now you ask a similar question, is America ready to elect a black woman president, and you get over two-thirds, including people who aren’t voting for her. That’s the state of the country.

ED O’KEEFE: Hmm.

ANTHONY SALVANTO: But what’s also interesting, Ed, is the way the script has flipped a little on some of these campaign dynamics, like who has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president? That was something, obviously, Joe Biden was trailing on before he left the race.

Now it’s Harris who’s seen as having more of that. And she’s also closer to Trump on key views, like being competent, being effective, more so than Joe Biden was, which, all in all, goes back to that idea of Democratic excitement, like they think they have got a better candidate to take on Trump.

ED O’KEEFE: And it explains part of why they have been attacking Trump and calling him weird and raising questions about his age as well, because they must be seeing that as well.

Now, the race to define Harris is underway. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars in her campaign to play up the fact that she was a prosecutor and has worked with the president on various issues, the former president calling her a San Francisco liberal and doing other things.

But on the issues also, does he still enjoy an advantage over Harris, now the Democrat, on the big issues or concerns of voters?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: So, that’s really important because some things in this race have not changed.

The idea that you would be better off financially if Trump were elected, Trump still has a big advantage over now Kamala Harris on that. And the idea that his policies would slow or decrease the number of migrants trying to cross the border, that, he still has an edge on.

But to your point about defining Harris, well, there’s a larger number who say they think her policies are similar, mostly the same, but not entirely the same as Joe Biden’s. So it’s that little bit of difference defining what that is that I do think is going to be key to watch in the campaign in the next few weeks.

ED O’KEEFE: Anthony Salvanto is our executive director of elections and surveys.

We will talk more about it later in the broadcast. Thanks for now.

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Thank you.

ED O’KEEFE: We turn now to Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a good friend of the former president and a big ally of the Trump/Vance campaign.

Senator, great to see you. Thanks for being here.

COTTON: Thank you, Ed.

ED O’KEEFE: I want to start with something that Mr. Trump said last night in Atlanta. He attacked the governor of that state, Brian Kemp, and the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, both of them Republicans. Take a listen.

(Begin VT)

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Raffensperger and Brian Kemp, your governor, who I got elected, by the way – if it wasn’t for me, he would not be your governor. I think everybody knows that.

He’s a very disloyal person, isn’t he, very disloyal. Your governor, Kemp, and Raffensperger, they are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win. They – what are they doing? I don’t know. They want us to lose. That’s actually my opinion. And we can’t let that happen.

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: It’s a must-win state for the former president, and he also said both Raffensperger and Kemp – quote – “don’t want the vote to be honest.”

Why attack a governor and a secretary of state who are popular with Republicans in that key battleground state?

COTTON: Well, Ed, I think it’s obvious that those guys have their differences, and they have had them for a long time.

But what they agree on and what we all agree on is what a disaster Kamala Harris would be as president. She is a dangerous San Francisco liberal, who wants to do things like take your health insurance away on the job and give it to illegal aliens, because she wants to decriminalize illegal immigration into this country.

That’s just the small tip of the iceberg of her radical views. So, obviously, they have their differences. But we’re all united in the need to stop Kamala Harris, because, if you think the last four years have been bad for your family, the worst is yet to come if Kamala Harris gets elected president.

ED O’KEEFE: And Governor Kemp made that point: I want to defeat her as well, but stop attacking me. Focus on the issues.

He continues to not do that. Do you think he’s underestimating the potential strength of the Harris campaign now that she’s at least brought the campaign back to even?

COTTON: No, I think we always knew this campaign was going to be a close race.

But remember, she’s only been the nominee for two weeks now. She hasn’t answered a single question, not one single question by the media, Ed. She’s only had one single unscripted moment, Thursday night at Andrews Air Force Base, welcoming those hostages back. And she served up the kind of incomprehensible word salad for which she’s become famous.

When she has to encounter the media, and I’m sure you’re going to insist that she does, she’s going to have to answer for things like why she wants to eliminate oil and gas production in this country, why she wants to ban gas-powered cars, why she wants to confiscate private firearms.

So we knew this race was going to be close all along, whoever the Democrats wanted to put up against President Trump. But Kamala Harris has only been the nominee for two weeks and hasn’t answered a single question. When the American people get a better look at her and her radical positions, I think you’re going to see that they don’t want her to continue the Biden/Harris legacy.

ED O’KEEFE: I appreciate that you’re critical of her not doing more interviews and engaging in more unscripted events.

You’ve just done a decent job there of explaining the potential policy differences between the former president and the vice president. But Trump doesn’t do that himself. He wants…

(CROSSTALK)

COTTON: No, Ed – Ed, I dispute that. I dis…

ED O’KEEFE: Well, but he wants – let’s – hold on a second. What earned him the most attention this week? Questioning whether the vice president is black. That became the big focus on him this week, instead of those conversations about policy that you suggest should be the focus of the campaign.

COTTON: But, no – no, Ed, I dispute that.

I – I watched his conversation at the National Association of Black Journalists. I watched last night at his rally in Georgia. The