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Trump Vows "Largest Deportation In The History Of Our Country"; Harris HQ Drawing Up New Strategies As Hard Campaigning Begins; Post- Debate Polling Shows Harris With Small Lead Over Trump; Boeing Workers Vote To Strike After Rejecting New Contract; FAA Investigating Near Collision On Nashville Runway. Aired 3-3:30p ET
Aired September 13, 2024 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Targeting swing voters in a key swing state. Right now, Vice President Kamala Harris is on the trail in Pennsylvania campaigning in two counties today that former President Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020. It comes as Harris looks to keep her wave of momentum going following Tuesday's debate.
Meantime Trump just wrapped up speaking to reporters in California and repeated his vow to launch the largest deportation of migrants in the nation's history.
Let's take you there now live with CNN's Kristen Holmes.
Kristen, let's walk through some of the former president's claims. You got to ask him a question. Take us there. What happened?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So first we'll start with some of his claims because a lot of this is what we had heard before. He was clearly trying to talk about the economy and immigration, but often went off track. He talked about Kamala Harris' record as a prosecutor. He went on and on about how she had ruined the state of California, which is where we are currently. He tried to link the fact that here - we were here in California to these conversations about crime about immigration.
And to be clear, he is here because he is doing two major fundraisers one last night and one later today. That's where he's on his way to right now just outside of San Francisco. He did take questions.
The question I asked was about Laura Loomer the far-right conspiracy theorist who has been traveling with him, who has been a staunch supporter of his. And he said, one, he didn't know why I was asking the question. I was asking him specifically to respond to the Republicans who have questions or have expressed concern about their relationship. And two, he went on to say what a great supporter of his she was. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Laura's been a supporter of mine just like a lot of people are supporters and she's been a supporter of mine. She speaks very positively of the campaign. I'm not sure why you asked that question, but Laura is a supporter. I don't control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants. She's a - she's a free spirit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: And then again he continued to ask why I was asking that question, if there was any response to that and he said he had no control over her. As we have reported, a lot of Republicans have publicly called out Loomer saying they didn't know why the president had brought her on the plane, was increasingly closer to her, at least it seemed that way from the fact that she's been traveling with him.
We've even been told privately that some Republicans are concerned it could impact his chances in November.
SANCHEZ: Free spirit is quite a way to describe Laura Loomer and her track record. Kristen, the former president also talked about the situation in Springfield, Ohio. We talked about possibly doing a town hall or some kind of event there. Him and his running mate have made a number of remarks about the Haitian immigrant population there. What else did he say today?
HOLMES: Yes. And he was asked about those claims. He was asked about the fact that there have now been threats to schools in Springfield, Ohio following what they have said the fact that the Springfield was - city of Springfield has said that none of these claims are true. And this is what he said about it.
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TRUMP: Twenty thousand illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people destroying their way of life. And for years, it was a great place, safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: And he didn't answer questions about those threats. He said the real threat was the fact that there was an immigration crisis in America and ignored any questions about these claims being debunked.
SANCHEZ: Yes, we should point out the 20,000 or so that he's describing is between 15- and 20,000 Haitian migrants who are there legally, they're protected by TPS. Kristen Holmes from California, thank you so much for that update.
Let's get you the latest from the Harris campaign with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, because Kristen - or rather, Priscilla, there is a new strategy from the campaign in battleground states. And she's going to a place in Pennsylvania today that has gone for Donald Trump in the past two elections.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Not only that, Boris, but these are two counties that are deeply red counties and this is a strategy that we're seeing the campaign deploy not only here in Pennsylvania, but in other parts of the country. You'll recall that not long ago the Vice President was also in South Georgia, other counties that are red and also voted for former President Donald Trump.
So, clearly, what they are trying to do here is trying to shave off some of the support for the former president and try to appeal to those voters. Now, moments ago, the Vice President arrived to Pennsylvania. And while she was in a local bookstore, she was asked by reporters how she was feeling about the state. She said she was feeling very good trying to reach voters.
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And so those are the types of messages that we'll be hearing when she arrives here later this afternoon for a rally. Now, of course, the campaign has been looking for multiple ways to those 270 electoral votes. But consistently, Pennsylvania is crucial to that strategy, which is why the Vice President has spent seven of the last eight days in Pennsylvania, so that's a good indicator as to how seriously they are taking the state and how they are trying to appeal to these voters that they think could still be persuaded.
And that is, again, part of that strategy with battleground states is appealing to that sliver of voters who may not be diehard Democrats, but also are not interested in former President Donald Trump and trying to make inroads with them. Now, the way that they also do this is by deploying the Vice President and surrogates, but it's also using other unconventional methods, not using traditional media, but other ways to reach voters and also trying to capitalize on recent endorsements. For example, that of Taylor Swift to see if they can bring her along on the campaign trail.
I asked a senior campaign spokesperson on Tuesday night when we had just learned about that endorsement, whether they were going to invite her on the campaign trail. And he told me that they're open to anything she wants to do.
So take this all together and what it is, is a campaign that wants to try to put the Vice President out there as much as possible, keep the energy that they've had over the last several weeks to try to make the most of what has been a very condensed race for the Vice President. Now, again, she will be on the stage behind me later this afternoon, where she, again, will be continuing her narrative about being the underdog.
She's also going to be introduced by a local Republican. And I note that because that is also part of the message that we've been hearing from her on the campaign trail, which is that Democrats, Republicans and Independents have been backing her.
So all of this, again, to try to appeal to these voters in areas that you may not expect.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for that report.
And we are getting a fresh look at where this race stands. There's some brand new polling to take a look at. It's the first major poll since this week's debate showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.
SANCHEZ: Let's break down the numbers with CNN Senior Data Reporter and chief free spirit, Harry Enten. Also with us, CNN Senior Political Analyst and senior editor for The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein. Thank you both for being with us.
Harry, we heard Donald Trump cite some figures during this question and answer period with reporters. You are rolling your eyes. What does the data show you - the scientific data - show you about the results of the debate on Tuesday?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I'm a believer in science, Boris Sanchez. I'm a believer in science. You know, we had that post- debate poll that showed that Harris beat Trump. Other polls coming out since then have showed the same thing.
But let's just take a look at the horse race numbers right here, all right? So this is Harris versus Trump margin. This is late July. What do we got? We got Kamala Harris up by two, August Harris up by four. And then we got our first real look at the post-debate number here and we got Harris up by five.
Now, that's not much of a difference, four and five points. But it's part of a longer, larger pattern. That is the longer that Kamala Harris has been in this race, the better she has tended to do.
Now, I will note that the Reuters-Ipsos poll is one of the more friendly results to Kamala Harris among all of the pollsters. But the bottom line here is, if there's anybody who gained after Tuesday's debate, it's not Donald Trump, it's Kamala Harris. At worst, she held her ground.
But my guess is, as we get a few more surveys down the road, we'll see bumps like this, one, two, three points, which might not seem like a lot. But you guys know this country, it's so, so tight nationally and in those key battleground states, even a movement of just a single point could make all the difference in the world.
KEILAR: Yes. Ron, looking at the head-to-head matchup, Harris is leading Trump 47 to 42 among registered voters. But what does that tell you?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Look, the likelihood is very high that Donald Trump, in the end, is going to win somewhere around 46- or 47 percent of the national vote. That's basically what he got in 2016 and 2020. His support is, you know, pretty hard to dislodge. I mean, if you think of everything that's happened since 2020, January 6th, indictments, evidence that he is not quite - doesn't have quite the same zip on his fastball as he did in those earlier races, it's just hard to dislodge. So the question is, can Harris build a big enough lead in national polling that it translates into an advantage in the swing states, all of which lean a little more Republican than the nation as a whole? And, you know, you can see a world in which Democrats feel they are establishing a little bit of separation in Wisconsin and Michigan, and that they may have put themselves back on track for the usual 7,500- vote Democratic culinary workers-fueled win in Nevada.
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And what that means, Brianna, is that Trump has to win all three of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina if Harris wins those other three states. And that's why I think you see Pennsylvania and Georgia in particular generating so much interest, time, money and attention from the candidates.
KEILAR: All right. So, Harry, what does it look like there in these key battleground states?
ENTEN: Yes. So, you know, we don't have any fresh polling from those key battleground states, but we do have these betting market odds. And I think they kind of translate very well what Ron was saying in terms of that split between the national popular vote, which Harris is most likely going to win, and then how close it is in those battleground states.
But let's take a look here, right, pre-debate, Wisconsin and Michigan, which I think are the two best bets for Kamala Harris. She had a 56 percent chance of winning in both. But in Pennsylvania, it was just 45 percent.
Now, if we look post-debate, we see these gains in Wisconsin and Michigan. Still close races, right, with a 60 percent chance to win. But then the key nugget here, the key nugget, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, get used to keep hearing that commonwealth over and over and over again, because it is such an important state in building up to 270 electoral votes. We see that slight movement, again, from a 45 percent chance of winning to a 50 percent chance.
That's not exactly a lot. But this election is so close that these small little movements, any movement, can mean everything. And that's what I think we're going to be talking about with the weeks and months ahead is there's a reason Kamala Harris is in Pennsylvania. It's because it is so, so tight there.
SANCHEZ: Ron, how much of this has to do with Donald Trump deciding that there's not going to be a third debate or at least at this point publicly stating that there won't be a third debate? A second debate, I should say.
KEILAR: A third ...
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, look, I don't ...
SANCHEZ: (INAUDIBLE) presidential ...
KEILAR: ... (INAUDIBLE) for him, yes.
SANCHEZ: ... third presidential debate.
KEILAR: We got you.
SANCHEZ: Second debate with Kamala Harris.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
SANCHEZ: You know what I mean.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I don't think Republicans feel they're going to win this election if they do, through the interactions between Trump and Harris, either on a debate stage or on kind of the daily back and forth that is now going to become more heated between now and Election Day.
They think that if they win, they're going to win by grinding her down with negative advertising in these swing states, primarily aimed at blue collar, non-college white voters portraying her as a coastal liberal and weak on immigration and crime.
I mean, I remember one Republican saying to me even before the debate, there are two tracks in this campaign, one centered on Trump that isn't particularly helpful on many days and another in which we are just running this kind of textbook Republican campaign against a Democrat in those, you know, in those swing states.
The reality, Boris, is, as you know, the big three states that were in the blue wall, that fell out of the blue wall in 2016 and came back to Biden in 2020, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin have voted the same way in every election since 1980, except 1988. And even more dramatically, they have voted the same way for governor in every election over the past 30 years, except for one in 2014.
So it is possible that Pennsylvania and does look as though Pennsylvania is a click or two harder for Harris than Michigan or Wisconsin. But these are demographically, economically, culturally pretty similar states. They have tended to move together. And the ultimate difference in the margins in these three states for the two candidates in all likelihood is going to be very small.
KEILAR: Yes. Harry, Ron, thank you so much to both of you. Appreciate it.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.
KEILAR: And coming up, 10s of thousands of Boeing workers walking off the job. What this strike means for the company and the economy.
SANCHEZ: Plus, new details about Russian efforts to use crowdfunding to get weapons and equipment to Russian soldiers in Ukraine. And then there's this ...
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ROBERT BRADEEN, FIRST OFFICER, FEDEX EXPRESS FLIGHT 1432: It was very routine right up until the very end.
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SANCHEZ: Hear from the pilots who spoke exclusively with CNN about how they narrowly avoided slamming into another plane on a runway, missing it by fewer than 200 feet. Those stories and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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KEILAR: A new crisis for Boeing, some 33,000 of their union workers are on strike. They started walking off the job early this morning after voting overwhelmingly to reject a proposed contract with the troubled aerospace giant. This is the first strike at Boeing in 16 years and it involves workers who helped build the 737 MAX and also Boeing's 777 commercial airliners. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is with us now.
What are the details of this strike, Vanessa?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the union leadership and Boeing believe that they had a really good deal to present to their membership. A membership said absolutely not. It's not a good deal, 95 percent voting the deal down and then 96 percent voting to go on strike, and that is what we've been seeing all morning. Workers on the picket line saying that the 25 percent in wage increases, the signing bonus, the promise of a new plane to work on in production is simply not good enough.
Listen to some of the union members that have been on the picket line since early this morning and what they have to say.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Recognize who's building these planes out here on the floor and the quality that we put into our work every day to make sure that passengers and crew members that fly our airplanes are safe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We definitely need more wage increase, that's for sure. More time off would be nice and if they bring back the pension, that would be really nice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe we deserve way better because without us, there's no Boeing.
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YURKEVICH: Now the union leadership says that they are listening to those members on the picket lines trying to go back to Boeing and hammer out a deal. Boeing says they want to get back to the negotiating table as soon as possible. And Boeing for their part though does expect that this strike is going to have an economic impact.
Listen to the CFO of Boeing, Brian West, who spoke at a conference earlier this morning.
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BRIAN WEST, BOEING CFO: The strike will impact production and deliveries and operations and will jeopardize our recovery. So our immediate focus is to be laser-like focused on actions to conserve cash, and we will.
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YURKEVICH: Now, Boeing is one of America's largest manufacturers and largest exporters. U.S. airlines, foreign airlines rely on Boeing to fly planes around the world. Boeing says for their part they generate about $79 billion in the U.S. economy and account for a ripple effect of 1.6 million jobs. So the longer this strike goes on, the more financial impact it'll have on Boeing, on their suppliers and on jobs throughout the country. Both sides says they're - say they're eager to get back to the table. Just no word yet on when that's actually happening, Brianna.
KEILAR: All right, we'll be monitoring this. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you for the report. Boris?
SANCHEZ: The FAA and the NTSB are investigating another close call, this time at Nashville International Airport. Apparently a Southwest Airlines plane was given clearance to cross the runway as an Alaskan Airlines jet was taking off yesterday.
The Alaska Airlines pilot had to brake so suddenly that the impact blew out the plane's tires. Fortunately, no one was injured. But this is just the latest in a string of recent close calls at airports across the country. CNN's Pete Muntean spoke exclusively with two FedEx pilots who averted disaster last year in Austin with another commercial airliner.
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BRADEEN: Cleared to land 18 left FedEx 1432 heavy.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): The voice that you are hearing is that of FedEx pilot Rob Bradeen approaching Austin-Bergstrom International Airport before dawn on February 4th, 2023. Bradeen, alongside Capt. Hugo Carvajal, thought this was going to be an uneventful landing.
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BRADEEN: It was very routine right up until the very end.
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MUNTEAN (voiceover): This investigate animation shows the disaster that was unfolding in front of the FedEx pilots. A Southwest Airlines flight was cleared for takeoff in front of them, but it sat on the runway for 19 seconds, a delay invisible to even the air traffic controller in the tower with thick fog blanketing the airport.
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AUSTIN TOWER: Southwest 708, confirm on the roll?
SOUTHWEST PILOT: Rolling now.
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MUNTEAN (voiceover): The two airplanes continued barreling closer together when Bradeen began looking out of the windshield.
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BRADEEN: And I saw a position light in the silhouette of the Southwest airplane right over the glare shield with closure.
MUNTEAN (on camera): You saw the silhouette of the other airplane?
BRADEEN: I saw the silhouette of the other airplane, which is when I called for - called go around, go around, go around.
Southwest, abort. FedEx is on the go.
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MUNTEAN (voiceover): Investigators say Capt. Carvajal nosed up immediately, missing the Southwest flight by 150 to 170 feet. The move not only spared the lives of the FedEx crew but the 131 people on Southwest flight 708.
This is the FedEx team's first interview since their close call.
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MUNTEAN (on camera): How terrifying was that? What was the feeling like?
BRADEEN: It was definitely a shocking moment. You don't expect to see an airplane that close.
CAPT. HUGO CARVAJAL, FEDEX EXPRESS, FLIGHT 1432: I knew it was pretty close because I knew Rob's - just the inflection in his voice when he said go around. And then the focus at that point is just getting away from the ground and getting away from the airplane.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (on camera): The Austin incident is now known as the closest near-collision during a time when they kept happening at airports coast to coast. The National Transportation Safety Board has now investigated at least a dozen similar incidents since the start of last year.
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JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIR: Great job.
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MUNTEAN (voiceover): During an NTSB hearing this spring, chair Jennifer Homendy thanked the FedEx pilots for saving lives.
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HOMENDY: This incident could have been catastrophic if not for the heroic actions of the FedEx crew.
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MUNTEAN (voiceover): On Thursday, Carvajal and Bradeen received their union's Superior Airmanship Award for their teamwork and vigilance that prevented what could have been one of the worst air disasters in decades.
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CAPT. JASON AMBROSI, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION: This could have been a tragedy if there were not two well-trained and qualified pilots on the flight deck that day. We could certainly be telling a very different story right now.
MUNTEAN: Are you heroes?
BRADEEN: I guess it depends on your perspective. To us, we did our job. That's what we're trained to do.
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MUNTEAN (voiceover): Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
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SANCHEZ: Yes, there's no question they're heroes. Pete Muntean, thanks so much for that.
Still ahead, new details about Russia's widespread efforts to influence elections around the world, including here in the United States.
And the White House downplaying a new threat from Vladimir Putin as officials maul Ukraine's urgent plea to use Western weapons to hit targets deep inside of Russia. We'll be right back.
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