TRANSCRIPT

                          June 27, 2024

                          NEWS PROGRAM

                                

        MICHAEL TYLER, BIDEN 2024 COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

                                

                                

                                

   FNC INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL TYLER, BIDEN 2024 COMMUNICATIONS
                              DIRECTOR

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     FNC INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL TYLER, BIDEN 2024 COMMUNICATIONS
     DIRECTOR

     JUNE 27, 2024

     SPEAKERS:
     MICHAEL TYLER, BIDEN 2024 COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

     DANA PERINO, FNC ANCHOR

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Biden 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler joins us live from Atlanta. And it's great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.

MICHAEL TYLER, BIDEN 2024 COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Happy debate day.

PERINO: Yes, we have -- happy debate day, indeed. So two polls came out over the last 24 hours, "New York Times" and "Quinnipiac," showing President Trump in the lead.

Our own "Fox News" poll from last week showed that it was more of a tie but these two recent polls makes me want to ask you the question. Do you think going into the debate tonight that President Biden is the underdog in this race?

TYLER: Well no. Listen, I think what the state of polling speaks to is the fact that this is going to be an incredibly close and competitive presidential election the way that all modern presidential elections are, right? We know 2016 was incredibly close. 2020 was incredibly close.

This is going to come down to tens of thousands of votes in a handful of states. And so, that's why tonight is an opportunity for President Biden to communicate directly to those voters that are going to decide this election.

And tonight he's going to present a clear choice between himself who's fighting for the American people every single day and he's going to be debating against Donald Trump, who's now running his campaign as a convicted felon who's fighting for himself. That's going to be the fundamental choice that we present on the debate stage tonight and that we relentlessly campaign on for the duration of the presidential election right now.

And we're confident that if we continue to present that choice to the American people, they're going to side with Joe Biden once again just as they did in 2020.

PERINO: One of the things that those polls also showed was that Donald Trump's conviction did not seem to have an impact at all on the electorate and enthusiasm on Republican side is very high.

I want to get your reaction to Van Jones from last Thursday. This is his take about how Biden has to do tonight. Watch here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Because if Biden goes out there and messes up, it's game over. If he -- if he walks out there and a week later he's lower in the polls, it's panic in the party. But if he goes in there and he can handle himself against Donald Trump, a runaway train, a locomotive, a raging bull, then this guy deserves another shot to be president because that is tough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Do you agree with him? It's game over if it doesn't go well for Biden tonight?

TYLER: Well, listen, the President is ready. He's excited to debate tonight. I think if you want to talk about Donald Trump, he's obviously not going to present the Donald Trump who's been out at his MAGA rallies on the stump.

But the problem for Trump is that he's going to have to answer for all the things he has been saying at those MAGA rallies. He's going to have to answer for the role that he played in overturning Roe v. Wade.

He's out there on the stump saying the extreme state level abortion bans that he's responsible for are working out brilliantly. He's going to have to answer for the threat that he continues to pose to American democracy. You have Republicans now like Adam Kinzinger and Jeff Duncan, the former Lieutenant Governor of this state in Georgia, who are endorsing Joe Biden because they understand that if the sacred cause of America is going to continue to be democracy, that there's a home for you in Joe Biden's campaign. And he's the one to continue to carry this nation forward.

And so Donald Trump, his demeanor may not be the same demeanor that we see on the debate stage or that we see at the MAGA rallies. But the problem for him is he's going to have to answer for all the things that he does say at those rallies on the debate stage tonight. That's what the President is focused on going into the night. It's what the American people will see in the debate stage.

PERINO: Wanted to ask you about this as well, because I think it's really pretty stark and get your take on it. So "Fox News" voter analysis from 2020 had Biden winning black voters at 91%. The presidential preference amongst black voters today in the in the last week's poll for "Fox News" was just 73%.

And in fact, the "New York Times" poll that came out today, in June of 2020, Trump had 5% of the black vote. Today, it's 30% of the black vote. And Jim Clyburn said this. If you could pull it up here, the older black voters need to talk some sense into Trump inclined Children saying, "They should try and talk some sense into their kids. If you believe that, your parents should have sent their mule to school and kept you at home." What will Biden be able to do tonight to talk to black voters who are tuning in, who have walked away from his campaign?

TYLER: Yeah, well, I think one of the things that tonight is it's an opportunity to actually break through to a larger slice of the electorate that hasn't been paying as much attention as you and I have, right? You still have a lot of Americans who have not begun to tune into the choice in this election.

And in an increasingly fractured and fragmented media environment, opportunities like tonight allow the President to talk about his historic record of accomplishment for black America, record low, black unemployment during this term. Black wealth growing by 60% since before the pandemic, record number of the fastest rate of black small business growth in a generation.

And of course, it's an opportunity to contrast that against the damage that Donald Trump caused to black America when he was in power. I think the only things that went up for black America at the end of Donald Trump's first term were the unemployment rate and the uninsured rate, not to mention all the incredibly --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: But, Mike, black voters are telling --

TYLER: Go ahead, go ahead.

PERINO: I was saying, a lot of black voters are saying that the economy is the most important thing to them. And they're looking back and saying, like, I paid a lot less or I had to charge my customers a lot less than I do now. And so, can Biden provide some sort of explanation for that? And then a vision going forward that would be different from what people felt during Trump?

TYLER: Oh, absolutely, because the economy that Donald Trump inherited was on the rise. By the end of his term in office, he'd run it into the ground. Black businesses were shuttered across this country.

What Joe Biden has done is --

PERINO: Because of the pandemic, Mike?

TYLER: -- he cut -- because of his mismanagement as president of the United States, fundamentally failing to manage a threat to the American people. And that was the end result. The mess that Joe Biden inherited and the progress that we have made since then speaks for itself, 15 million jobs --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Do you think that President Biden would have kept businesses open?

TYLER: -- 800,000 manufacturing jobs.

PERINO: Would President Biden have kept businesses open during the pandemic?

TYLER: I think the president has proven that he is far more capable of handling the job of commander in chief and protecting American citizens, which is the primary duty of the president of the United States. He's proven that since the day he took office in the economic record of 15 million jobs, 800, 000 manufacturing jobs, the work that he has done to cut black child poverty in half to lower costs for Americans, capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for our seniors, capping prescription drug out of pocket costs at $2,000 annually for seniors. The work that we're going to do in a second term to make sure that a billionaire never pays less in taxes than a schoolteacher and a nurse.

That is the economic contrast we're going to draw against Donald Trump, whose only economic policies for a second term is more tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, more corporate giveaways. Moody's is now saying that Donald Trump's economic policies would spike inflation and likely cause another recession in 2025.

PERINO: OK.

TYLER: So that's the choice that the American people are going to see on the debate here tonight.

PERINO: I would say this, you represent your boss very well and make a good case and we'll see how all of those issues are dealt with tonight. I have -- I do want to ask you this. Will President Biden commit to the ABC debate on September 10th, regardless of the outcome of tonight?

TYLER: Yeah, we have committed to these two debates. We challenged Donald Trump to two debates. We accepted this debate tonight and obviously the ABC debate on September 7th -- September 10th. President Biden will be there. We hope Donald Trump will as well.

PERINO: OK, I have one last question. I have secondhand anxiety whenever I watch a debate for whoever is on stage. How do you like to watch a debate? Do you stand? Do you pace? Do you sit? Are you quiet? How do you do it?

TYLER: I'm on multiple screens pacing, moving around. I'm going to be amped up for my boss who's going to communicate his vision for the country on the debate stage tonight. So I'm excited. I'm going to be excited tonight.

PERINO: All right. Well, you represent him well and we appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Mike.

TYLER: Thanks for having me.

PERINO: Take care.

END