Harris Aide; Major Drop in Poll a 'Low Point of Campaign'.
CAMEROTA: All right. There are jitters inside Kamala Harris's campaign after a new CNN poll showed that her support has plummeted pretty significantly since her strong performance after the first debate. One of Harris's advisers tells CNN that the day the poll came out that you're seeing on your screen was, quote, "the lowest point of the campaign so far." Meanwhile, "The New York Times" is out with a new article outlining signs of trouble for former Vice President Joe Biden in Iowa. So back with us now to talk about all of this, we have Catherine Rampell, Alex Burns, and M.J. Lee. So Alex, what's going on with has Kamala Harris? I mean, the fact that she has dipped 12 points after that really strong performance. And also, again, I always bring this up, but I think that it is telling. Her town hall on CNN was the most -- had the highest ratings. People always search for her. There's a lot of interest in her. So why isn't that reflected in the poll numbers?</s>BURNS: Look, I think what you have seen so far from the Harris campaign, I think you saw it in the town hall, I think you saw it in the first debate, is that she is very, very gifted at delivering these big individual moments. Right? And it causes -- Democrats are excited about the idea of her. There are a lot of voters who would like to believe in her. And she can sort of generate these big set- piece moments of ignition for her campaign. And then after that, it's not really clear where she goes; that she doesn't have the same kind of clear, crisp vision that she communicates the way a candidate like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders does. She doesn't have the long prominence and loyalty that somebody like Joe Biden does. And she spends a lot of time fundraising. She spends a lot of time, essentially, in forums that don't drive a big national message. And one thing that we've seen in this campaign, very consistently in this race, whether we're talking about Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg, is that the national conversation is what drives events on the ground, as much as what the campaigns are doing themselves in terms of organizing. Right?</s>AVLON: Sure.</s>BURNS: I spent some time in Los Angeles with Harris after the first debate. And she was very, very focused on this idea of wanting to put out sort of concrete, tactile policy ideas that ordinary people can wrap their minds around. And I think there is some evidence that that approach works in places. But without the larger architecture of a compelling vision that people feel like they can really understand what it means, it's been hard for most of the candidates in this race to gain traction.</s>AVLON: And M.J., you just -- You were in Iowa four days ago. I mean, there's -- that is a precipitous drop. There's maybe the sense that the attack on Biden in the first debate may have boomeranged on her. What are you seeing and hearing on the ground in Iowa when it comes to Harris and Biden, the candidates who had been in poll position just a month ago?</s>LEE: Well, look, I think Alex is absolutely right that Harris is very gifted at creating these sort of set-piece moments, as you said, and those moments, actually, really do go a long way. And I think that's why we have seen her really go up and down in the polls a lot, right? There have been a lot of fluctuations. After the first -- after the last CNN debate, for example, her poor -- her poll numbers, obviously, went up noticeably. And that's something that was reflected in conversations with voters on the ground, right? That moment of Kamala Harris going after Biden actually played very well to her strengths. People -- The thing I heard, probably, most from people after that debate was, "Boy, I cannot wait to see a Kamala Harris take on a Donald Trump. Because it showed -- her performance against Joe Biden really showed and reminded me that I want to see somebody, a Democratic nominee who has that kind of strength and can take on a President Trump in that way." But I think you're also right that once those moments are over, I think people are looking for sort of a longer vision, and I don't know that she has been as adept at communicating that as some of the other candidates. When it comes to Joe Biden and what people are saying about him, I mean, it has been very consistent throughout the year since he got into the race. I think the trouble for him is that a lot of people sort of view him as the default candidate to support, right? That he is a known. That they feel comfortable with him. They know what he's about. He may not be, obviously, the youngest candidate or the fresh face, but that they feel like he is sort of the stable candidate and somebody that they know as having been Barack Obama's partner. I think the thing that we're going to see in the next couple of months is, are the people who are supporting him as sort of the default answer, are they going to feel like, "Actually, there's somebody else that I have done my homework on, and that is the person that I, in my gut, would like to support. Not Joe Biden, the default candidate"?</s>CAMEROTA: I mean, you know, do you need a lot of enthusiasm to win? Sometimes you order vanilla ice cream. I mean, sometimes you just go back to vanilla ice cream. You're not in the mood for, you know, strawberry that day. You do vanilla.</s>AVLON: We've been having tutti-frutti for three, four years.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>AVLON: Now, I'm back to vanilla, people.</s>CAMEROTA: I mean, do you --</s>AVLON: But it's not the most exciting. I mean, with Joe Biden, it's not --</s>CAMEROTA: No, but I just wonder, is that a deal breaker? If you don't have a lot of enthusiasm, is that considered a deal breaker or do people just go with the vanilla?</s>BURNS: I don't think that is a deal breaker. But I do think that you want a more assertive version of vanilla that's more confident about the fact that it is -- that it is vanilla. Right? That --</s>RAMPELL: You want to know -- you want to know why the vanilla is running.</s>BURNS: Right.</s>RAMPELL: Right? And I think, to torture this metaphor further, and I think that's part of the problem for Harris here. People kind of understand what Elizabeth Warren's -- her vision in, what her values are, even if they don't know the nitty-gritty of all the policies. They understand that for, to some extent, you know, Biden; to some extent Sanders. For Harris, you know, her policies on health care have kind of wobbled a little bit; and she's gone back and forth on busing and other things. It's a little bit hard to understand what's motivating her, what her vision is for the country.</s>AVLON: So but Catherine, let me stick with you, because politics is perception. But so, to a large extent, is the economy. And before we go, I want to give you a chance to set what you believe the goals of Fed Chair Powell are going to be when he gives this major speech in Jackson Hole today at 10 a.m., because markets around the world will be watching.</s>RAMPELL: Yes. They'll be hanging on every word to try to look for clues for what they're going to do with interest rates. If I had to guess, I would think he has probably two objectives. One is to inspire confidence in the economy, say here -- here are the good things, you know, because confidence matters. But also, if things go bad, if it turns out our confidence is overstated, we will be there to make sure it's not so bad. This is the line that the Trump administration has sort of tried to walk recently and completely failed. Right? If there's a tightrope there, they're way off the tightrope. I think his second objective will be to convince the world that the Fed is still politically independent. That if they cut interest rates further, which -- which they've sort of been boxed into doing to some extent by market expectations -- if they do it, it will be because they think it's good for the economy and not because they've been cyberbullied by the president. Because if, in fact, the perception is that their political independence is compromised, whether or not it is -- and I don't think it actually has been, I don't think that they're responding to pressure in that sense -- their credibility if, in fact, we fall into recession, is shot. Right? Doesn't matter if they are independent or not. If people just think that they're just doing the bidding of the president, of the administration, they will not be able to be as effective as they would otherwise be.</s>AVLON: Cyberbullied by the president. Sentences you only hear in 2019. All right. Thank you all very much for joining us. And right now the Amazon rainforest is burning at rates never seen before. And Brazil's president is facing criticism for doing virtually nothing to stop it. More on the international effort to combat the crisis, next.