‘Never Trumpers’ line up to support Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 election

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‘Never Trumpers’ line up to support Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 election   #kamalaharris #donaldtrump #2024 Cornell Belcher, Democratic strategist, joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction to the continued momentum of Kamala Harris' campaign for president. Plus, how some Republicans coming out against Donald Trump signals this time is different than Trump’s first and second run for the White House.  » Subscribe to MSNBC:    / msnbc         MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of politics headlines, as well as commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Beat with Ari Melber, Deadline: White House, The ReidOut, All In, Last Word, 11th Hour, and Alex Wagner who brings her breadth of reporting experience to MSNBC primetime. Watch “Alex Wagner Tonight” Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern.

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00:00This time next week, Democrats, freshly propelled by sales so full of energy and genuine enthusiasm,

00:07will begin the process of formalizing what is self-evident.

00:10They will make Vice President Kamala Harris officially the party's standard bearer.

00:15She'll take up that mantle, having already assembled a mighty and fired-up coalition

00:19as formidable as it is diverse.

00:22Just in the last few weeks, the Harris-Walls appeal has cut across all demographics, reaching

00:27voters of all stripes.

00:29Some of them previously turned off or tuned out.

00:32And this is what they are hearing.

00:34Unlike Donald Trump, I will always, I promise you, put the middle class and working families

00:43first.

00:46I just made a very clear observation that they seem to be really concerned about.

00:52I pointed out that taking away reproductive freedoms, banning books, raising the price

00:57of insulin, trying to hurt labor unions, nobody's asking for that weird crap.

01:02No one's asking for it.

01:07Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never

01:17again stand behind the seal of President of the United States.

01:28Now these rallies are, those are not the highlights.

01:32The rallies are sustained energy, sustained enthusiasm, sustained punchlines and applause.

01:40And the vice president and her running mate's gravitational pull, unsurprisingly, is now

01:46extending well beyond what Democrats typically think of as their winning coalitions, all

01:52the way out deep into Republican territory, many of those Republicans deeply disaffected

01:58by the MAGA movement.

01:59We have called them never Trump Republicans, people who recognize the existential threat

02:04posed by the disgraced ex-president and those small few who understand the concept of publicly

02:11putting country over party.

02:13These Republicans out in the country have spent nearly a decade now out on the margins

02:18supporting Biden in 2020, but otherwise biding their time.

02:23Well, now they seem to have found an unlikely new champion, a disciple of Barack Obama,

02:28a vice president to Joe Biden, a standard bearer for their one-time rival party.

02:34Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan, a lifelong Republican, has already endorsed

02:39Vice President Harris.

02:40And David French added his voice.

02:42He's a leading voice of conservatism.

02:44He submitted this opinion article to The New York Times, quote, the only real hope for

02:49restoring a conservatism that values integrity, demonstrates real compassion and defends our

02:55foundational constitutional principles is not to try to make the best of Trump, a man

03:01who values only himself.

03:04If he wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his ideological transformation of the

03:10Republican Party.

03:11If Harris wins, the West will still stand against Vladimir Putin and conservative Americans

03:16will have a chance to build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a

03:21force for genuine good in American life.

03:24And then there's the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, a lifelong Republican.

03:28Listen to what he said at Kamala Harris's rally on Friday night.

03:34The Republican Party has been taken over by extremists that are committed to forcing people

03:40in the center of the political spectrum out of the party.

03:43So I have something to say to those of us who are in the political middle.

03:51You don't owe a damn thing to that political party.

03:57You don't owe a damn thing to that political party.

04:00The crowd went wild, could practically reach out and feel the crackling energy infused

04:08by Vice President Harris and Governor Walz just in the last 72 hours of these huge rallies

04:13in city after city.

04:14The Harris-Walz ticket is bringing that roaring approval from the crowds, crowds that swell

04:21to 15,000 people with people not getting in, waiting outside, so full of life and energy

04:27and purpose that Donald Trump, after first attacking it, now literally refuses to believe

04:34it, believe what he sees with his own eyes.

04:37The man whose first act as America's president was going to the CIA and lying about crowd

04:42size did it again this weekend when he falsely suggested images of jam-packed Harris rallies

04:48of the size of her crowds were AI generated.

04:52Trump who made news today for simply scheduling a rally in the midst of a where's Waldo period

04:58of his 2024 campaign is now left to join some of the rest of us, sitting back and seeing

05:05just how far and how high the Harris-Walz ticket will soar.

05:10Joining our coverage, so we start today, joining our coverage of some of our most favorite

05:14experts and friends, distinguished political scholar and professor at Princeton University,

05:19Eddie Glaude is back.

05:20Also joining us, Democratic pollster and president of Brilliant Corners Research, Cornell Belcher

05:24is here and former senator and co-host of MSNBC's How to Win 2024 podcast, Claire McCaskill

05:30is here.

05:31Cornell stipulating that Vice President Kamala Harris describes herself as the underdog in

05:36this race.

05:37You did that in that big, huge rally in Philadelphia and that the country is pretty closely divided

05:46in terms of how they self-identify.

05:48There is no denying what is before our eyes and what we can hear with our ears at these

05:53events, and that is that the Harris team has all the momentum.

05:57The Harris campaign has changed the structure of the race and there will likely be, and

06:03I want to hear your opinion, but I imagine sort of a political dogfight for battles of

06:06momentum.

06:08But in terms of structural changes, it doesn't feel like there are a ton of opportunities

06:12to reshape the race.

06:14What do you think about where the race stands today?

06:16No, I actually think there's a ton of opportunity to reshape the race.

06:20And look, as someone who worked on, you know, 08 and 12 Obama campaigns, where I think we

06:24expanded the electorate and certainly expanded the political map in a profound way, I think

06:32the Harris coalition has an ability to even be larger and grow that.

06:37I mean, look, they're already expanding their paid media and their time and attention into

06:44more battleground states.

06:46And I think that's the key thing here is, you know, they're not going to be sitting

06:50around on election night waiting for the results of one state to come in, which is something

06:53David Plouffe famously said of us in 08.

06:57They're expanding the map.

06:58So they're bringing more states into battle.

07:02And look, the Republican thing is interesting.

07:06In 2020, Donald Trump garnered 94% of the Republican vote.

07:13And so you see that, you know, is there opportunity now to garner more of that Republican vote?

07:19I don't know.

07:20But I certainly think that Republicans, you know, like you've talked about here, coming

07:24out prominently speaking against Donald Trump in a way that we've never seen Republicans

07:29come out and talk against their nominee, opens up a whole nother door, an opportunity here

07:36for us to, for Democrats to make even more inroads.

07:39And look, and if you look at the way Democrats are winning college-educated white voters,

07:45particularly college-educated white women, look, in 2012, we were not winning college-educated

07:50white voters like this.

07:52So I think the playing field and the coalition opportunities now are actually larger than

07:57we saw in 2012.

08:00So I think that the Democratic coalition, or at least the Democratic coalition, little

08:05d and those who believe in democracy, I think can grow, Nicole, in a way we haven't seen

08:10before.

08:11Yeah.

08:12I forget who said it first, but to the point you're making.

08:19I'm not sure that polls capture the movement of the pro-democracy movement because I've

08:24kept a close eye on Republicans because there were like four of us in 2015 and the rest

08:30were sort of in witness protection.

08:32But this David French piece is so interesting because it's not just I'm disgusted with Trump,

08:38we should get rid of him.

08:39It's an intellectual argument for the heart and soul of pro-life evangelical conservatism.

08:45Let me read a little bit more to you on this point about reshaping the race sort of beyond

08:51which states fall into battlegrounds and you add a trip to.

08:55I think there's an opportunity to have almost like generate, like the way there were Reagan

09:00Democrats for a generation and people remembered their parents sort of switching parties because

09:05it was so seismic.

09:06I think there's an opportunity to have the inverse of that and sort of like a Harris

09:11conservatives for this reason that I'm going to read you that David French sort of puts

09:16his finger on. He writes this, quote, while there are voters who are experiencing a degree

09:20of Trump nostalgia, remembering American life pre-COVID as a time of full employment and

09:25low inflation, there's a different and darker story to tell about Trump's first term.

09:29Our social fabric frayed.

09:32It's not just that abortions increased.

09:33The murder rate skyrocketed.

09:35Drug overdose deaths hit new highs.

09:37Marriage rates fell.

09:39Birth rates continue their long decline.

09:41Americans ended his term more divided than when it began.

09:44I'm often asked by Trump voters if I'm still conservative and I respond that I can't vote

09:48for Trump precisely because I am conservative.

09:51I loathe sex abuse, pornography and adultery.

09:55Trump has brought those vices into the mainstream of the Republican Party.

09:59I want to cultivate a culture that values human life from conception through natural

10:03death. Yet America became more brutal and violent during Trump's term.

10:07I want to defend liberal democracy from authoritarian aggression.

10:11Yet Trump would abandon our allies and risk our most precious alliances.

10:15You never, ever, ever, ever, ever hear a prominent conservative

10:21articulate that Trump brought the specific vices of adultery

10:27and sex abuse into the mainstream.

10:30But that is exactly what he did.

10:32And I talked to you and Sarah Longwell now for months about permission structures.

10:37This feels like a new one.

10:39It does. Right.

10:41Because it's laying out the very conservative case against Donald Trump.

10:45And look, we've had this conversation on your show before.

10:47It's like none of us think Trump is actually a true conservative.

10:50And so you have true conservatives stepping up and giving them a permission structure.

10:55And look, let's lean in also gives kudos to Liz Cheney, who I think started this.

11:00Right. And and sort of leaned in and leaned into this.

11:04And I think she began giving them permission structure.

11:06And that tack on it, I think, is coming full full fruition.

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