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Former GOP Representative Liz Cheney Campaigns With Harris; Oil rising as Middle East Conflict Escalates; At least 200 found dead across six states after Hurricane Helene; Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 03, 2024 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[14:00:56]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Next hour, former President Donald Trump speaks in battleground Michigan as he tries to recreate some 2016 magic and tear down the Blue Wall, while Vice President Kamala Harris works to reinforce the wall with the help of a high profile Republican.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus a couple of new problems could throw a wrench into the economy ahead of Election Day, a major port strike and a rise in oil prices could make for an October surprise, how these two major headlines could affect you and the 2024 race, plus another reason to always check the fine print a court ruling that a couple involved in a terrible accident during an Uber ride can't sue the company. Wait until you hear the reason why.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: Happening today, an unlikely duo hitting the trail here in just a few hours, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Vice President Kamala Harris will join forces in battleground Wisconsin. Cheney, of course, is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and she says she is committed to doing what it takes to prevent former President Trump from returning to the White House.

Today's stop is part of a broader push by the Harris campaign to move undecided voters and on the fence Republicans away from Trump. And the timing here is critical. There's just a little over a month ago until Election Day. CNN's Eva McKend is live on the trail in Wisconsin. Eva, what message can we expect to hear during this surprise joint appearance?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the message here is Country Over Party. The Vice President going to argue to Republican and independent voters that a Harris Administration would be principally concerned about upholding the rule of law, about upholding democracy and the Constitution, and it is those fundamentals that are most important, even if there are policy disagreements.

She will be joined by Liz Cheney to make that argument in hopes of appealing to Republican voters. We spoke to one woman from Ripon. This, of course, is the birthplace of the Republican Party. She is an independent voter, and she seems receptive to this message. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH GRAHAM, INDEPENDENT VOTER: I voted for President Reagan then but the last few years has been Democrat because I don't go for party. I go for who represents me. I'm not going to agree with what everything they say, you know, but I wanted to represent what I feel, you know, the best.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And so Brianna, this is a message that Republican and independent voters will not only hear in Wisconsin, but the campaign is deploying Republican surrogates in all of the battleground states across the next four days.

And I think it's important because while the former President Donald Trump does in fact have former Democrats out making the case for him, they don't have a similar organized effort. There is no Democrat for Trump equivalent here, and it just speaks to how the Harris campaign is prioritizing this and believes this is a winning strategy.

But not every Democrat is on board. I've spoken to Democratic lawmakers who think the campaign instead should be investing in core coalitions, black voters, Latino voters, Asian voters instead, and shouldn't be so aggressively trying to go after Republicans and independents. But the Wisconsin Democratic Party, I spoke to them as well, they think it is the right strategy, especially in a state like this one that is so evenly divided. Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's a really interesting tension there. Eva McKend live for us in Wisconsin. Thank you. A slew of Republicans have backed the Vice President in her bid to defeat Trump, including this gentleman here, my next guest, former Georgia Lieutenant Governor, Geoff Duncan, sir, who is she trying to win over here? And why do you think that they're still gettable at this point?

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GEOFF DUNCAN, FORMER GEORGIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Well, I think common sense, Republicans that are sick and tired of making excuses for Donald Trump, at home, at work, at church, at the ball field. And quite honestly, I'm one of those. You know, there's some personal issues with myself and Donald Trump and but this is more important than personal issues.

I think the message that's resonating over and over and over again are, Donald Trump is a direct threat to democracy, one, and there's lots of proof around that. Two, he was a fake Republican, lots of proof around that. And three, Kamala Harris, in this period of time for our country, is going to be a steadier hand and a better president. And I think that resonates.

I look at this as like a corporate restructuring project. And the first thing you do when you restructure a company is you fire the CEO. If we're going to get this Republican Party back to where it's operating with policy, empathy and tone, it's going to have to be without Donald Trump. And the quicker we come to that conclusion, the better off we're going to be as a party.

KEILAR: We've seen this new ad out from the Harris campaign today with a former two-time Trump voter, Bob (ph), is his name, emphasizing the economy, is that a concession that defending democracy, January 6, that isn't the way to win over new Republican voters, that this issue, the economy is more salient?

DUNCAN: Well, I think in tonight's appearance that I'm going to make in Roswell, Georgia, the economy is a tale of two stories. If you're somebody in your 50s or 60s looking forward to retirement, your 401(k) is worth more than it's ever been. Your house is worth more than it's ever been, but your groceries are also more than they've ever been.

And so it's a mixed bag of stories in the suburbs. But look both parties are guilty of inflationary pressure. I mean, Donald Trump spent $8 trillion we didn't have that. He promised he wouldn't do. Joe Biden is going to, at the end of his term, spend a little more than $8 trillion and so we've got to go to work. That's one of these issues with the Republican Party looking forward with a GOP 2.0.

We've got to be better at actually delivering on the promises we make. I mean, Donald Trump, when I said a moment ago, he's a fake Republican. He's a bonafide fake Republican. He lied about protecting the border. He had lots of strong rhetoric. He scared South America away from coming across the border, but he built 20 miles or 2 percent of the border with a wall that was about a photo-shoot, that was about a political opportunity, that wasn't about actual border security.

KEILAR: Should Harris meet Republicans where they are? Should she be doing an interview with Fox? We've heard a lot of smart people who are, you know, not necessarily partisan, say that is where she should go.

DUNCAN: Well, I can't even do an interview with Fox. They gave up on me a few years ago when I called honest balls and strikes (ph) about the 2020 Election --

KEILAR: But they probably say yes to her, they probably say yes to her or should she do it?

DUNCAN: Well, I think the momentum is building. Sure, absolutely. I think she's been willing to show a movement towards listening to the middle. And I think as I try to convince folks in Pennsylvania and Arizona and Georgia to vote for Harris as Republicans, I think it's really obvious to see her moving and listening to the middle, right? Her position on fracking. I mean, it really was a great conversation in Pennsylvania last week when I talked about her willingness to stay on with the fracking, the Green New Deal universal healthcare. These are issues that she's progressing on towards the center. And I think that's important.

KEILAR: We saw J.D. Vance on the debate stage this week demonstrating what maybe, perhaps, is the future of the GOP without Trump, right? Without bombast, perhaps without the personal hang-ups of Trump. Is that a Republican Party that you could support?

DUNCAN: Yeah, it was really refreshing, right? I've been critical of J.D. Vance and some of the rhetoric I've heard early on, and the cat thing and all that stuff going on, but he did a really good job in that debate of really projecting what the Republican Party should be. At one point when they talked about, you know, what, you know, acknowledging the fact of another January 6th, or if he was to lose. And he looked Tim Walz right in the eyes, and, you know, said, I'll shake your hand and pray for you.

And I mean that that is, that is GOP 2.0 at its finest, the problem that he's got, J.D. Vance has got is he's married to the MAGA mob, and he's going to have to act with the way Donald Trump wants him to act on the stretch. The last guy to be in the position, JD, Vance was, was Mike Pence. And of course, we all know what happened on January 6 to Mike Pence.

KEILAR: Yeah, we do know, former Georgia Lieutenant Governor, Geoff Duncan, thank you so much.

DUNCAN: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: With barely a month ago before the U.S. Presidential Election, oil prices are rising, and if that leads to a spike in gas prices, it might blunt some of the momentum, not just for the economy, but also for the incumbent Vice President, Kamala Harris, experts say that one possible nasty October surprise would be if the conflict in the Middle East then sends oil prices and gas prices much higher.

CNN Business Senior Writer, Allison Morrow, is here to break it all down for us. Allison, where are oil prices now?

ALLISON MORROW, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR WRITER: Thanks, Boris. Yeah. Oil prices are shooting up about 5 percent today, and that started on Tuesday when the Middle East escalation sort of began.

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So oil markets have been on edge. There's a real threat that if supply is curtailed, that prices will go up. And that's bad news for, you know, American drivers and drivers around the world, but especially at this critical time before the election, that could be a problem for Kamala Harris.

And it's, you know, if there was ever any doubt that the President doesn't control and the White House doesn't control, gas prices, this moment makes it abundantly clear this should have been an issue. That was a wind at Kamala Harris's back, but now that gas prices could be going up, you know, we might see them come from $3.20 where they are now, which is pretty low, and in many states it's below $3. I even paid $3 for gas in New York of all places. So you know, that should have been a good thing for voters to feel

right before the election, but we may see an uptick depending on what happens in the Middle East.

SANCHEZ: And there are a couple of other factors that could create headwinds getting to November. What are those other issues?

MORROW: Yeah. So there's kind of two big headaches that emerged on the economic front, and then does tend to reflect more on the party and power in the White House. So, you know, I would say there are problems for both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris because whoever wins is going to have to inherit these problems.

But you also have this massive port strike going on the East Coast, and don't forget the Boeing machinists on the West Coast who are also on strike and what -- and then there's also Hurricane Helene. So what that translates to is that there are going to be a lot of temporary job losses, and that could end up in the distorted job report that will come out about four days before the election.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Important to read it in the context of what we're in right now, which, as you noted, the strikes, the recovery from Hurricane Helene, etcetera. Allison, thanks so much for setting the table for us. Appreciate it. Allison Morrow.

Let's discuss the political fallout over this with the Director for the Center of politics at the University of Virginia, Larry Sabato. Larry, thanks so much for being with us. Let's start with oil because President Biden, in his latest remarks, appeared to leave the door open for Israel and retaliation to these Iranian strikes to go after oil facilities in Iran, what do you make of that? What kind of impact could that have on oil prices?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER OF POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, I'm not an economist, but obviously, if the supply goes down, then the price will probably go up. But look, there are more important things in paying, you know, another nickel or dime per gallon for gasoline.

And also, you have to remember the context. The context is the Middle East, probably the most critical region in the world right now, and the fact that gas prices are so low compared to where they were. They've been falling pretty rapidly. So as always, there's a bigger picture in the bigger picture is more complicated and more mixed.

SANCHEZ: And Larry, when it comes to this port strike, President Biden has urged the parties to come to the table, but he has said that he is not going to actually intervene directly, if these strikes persist and the economy suffers and we see a weird jobs report come out at the beginning of November, days before the election, what impact could that have on the race?

SABATO: Since it would come out on the Friday before the Tuesday Election, although remember, we've been voting for weeks already, but a lot of people still vote on election day itself, November 5th, so the jobs report would come out Friday before the Tuesday Election. If it's a bad one, no doubt Kamala Harris and the Democrats will point out that we have had very, very low unemployment numbers for a long time, in fact, this entire Administration. So that adds context to it.

But you know, let me just put this in a larger context myself. People talk about October surprises. They look for the October surprise. Now, almost every October before a Presidential Election, you have multiple October surprises, some of them help candidate X, some of them help candidate Y. The special counsel's report that was submitted yesterday is full of October surprises that aren't helpful to Donald Trump.

So campaigns use what they can, they can't change reality, although one would suspect the White House is working pretty hard behind the scenes to get the dock workers strike ended.

SANCHEZ: Larry, quickly, I wanted to follow up on what you said about that Jack Smith filing that was unveiled yesterday, because I've heard discussion from analysts that some of that is already baked in to voters' minds to sort of discussed with Donald Trump's handling of the 2020 election, his loss and then what ended up precipitating the riot on January 6th.

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Do you think it's baked in or do you think these new details might actually sway some voters?

SABATO: Well, it isn't so much that the new details. And there are some, and they're pretty shocking. The quotes right out of Donald Trump's mouth are very shocking from a president of the United States. People know about what happened, but many have forgotten it or the impact of it faded a long time ago since it was four years ago, essentially. So a reminder at this point in the campaign, while millions of people are actually voting, is quite useful.

And again, it's an opening for Democrats to point out that to some degree, the republic is at stake. That is not an exaggeration. And people need to focus on that. They need to focus on what Benjamin Franklin said at the constitutional convention to a citizen asking him what had been done. And he said, we created a republic if you can keep it, if you can keep it. And sometimes, I wonder.

SANCHEZ: Fateful words. Larry Sabato, always appreciate the perspective. Thanks for joining us.

SABATO: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. says the response to Iran's missile attacks will be quote "strong, painful, and soon." The Ambassador is going to be joining us live to talk about what that retaliation could look like.

Plus, the aftermath of Hurricane Helene turning some communities into cash-only economies. The problem is not that many people carry cash nowadays. We're going to actually speak to an Asheville comedian who's acting as an ATM, driving money across the state so that family and friends can buy basic needs like gas and food. And accord says that a couple badly hurt in an Uber crash cannot sue the company because of their daughter's pizza delivery order. We'll explain in just a moment.

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KEILAR: Right now, President Biden is doing his second day of aerial surveys to see the full scope of Hurricane Helene's historic destruction. He'll be heading to Georgia soon. He's been visiting the Big Bend region of Florida, where he met with local responders. You can see there.

And yesterday, the President was in North Carolina, the state that is reporting nearly half of the 200 deaths that are now known from Helene. Many people are still missing. Roughly a million across the southeast still have no power. New satellite images show just how much Helene changed the look of the hardest hit areas. The landscape, so different now. These photos are of Spruce Pine and Old Fort in North Carolina.

And then in the city of Asheville, we're hearing about more close calls of people narrowly escaping with their lives. This is video showing the side of the Asheville Tea Company building, narrowly missing an apartment complex as residents inside watched.

Joining us now is Cayla Clark who is a comedian based in Asheville. And Kayla, you were actually able to get out of Charlotte. You just got back to Asheville a few hours ago. Tell us what you're seeing and why you went back.

CAYLA CLARK, COMDIAN BASED ON ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA: So my partner and I were in Asheville for the first, I think, four days after the incident. We came to Charlotte a couple days ago to gather supplies, and rent a truck, and bring the truck back full of the supplies. We did that yesterday. And my partner is back there today. I stayed in Charlotte to kind of work out some logistics stuff.

But going back yesterday, I mean, there were a lot of donation centers and a lot of people are doing what they can to help. But just the devastation to the city is kind of starting to sink in for all of us, I think.

KEILAR: And tell us about that. Talk to us about what life is like in Asheville, where it's really become people kind of stuck, right? They're stuck because of a cash economy and because a lot of their ways out have been destroyed.

CLARK: Right. Exactly. Yeah. We lost power, water, and cell service on Friday morning. And we were there until Wednesday without any of that. I think not having cell service is something that nobody's ever experienced before. We've been without power in severe storms and without water temporarily, but not being able to contact anybody on the outside world and not knowing what's going on was really horrifying. We had no idea of the extent of the damage because we had no way to look things up or to travel anywhere to see what was going on.

So we were able, after a while, to -- we just collected change in our house because we don't carry a lot of cash on us typically. And we rolled quarters. And we were able to get half a tank of gas after waiting in line for gas for about two hours. And then we came up here and, yeah, pretty immediately started collecting supplies to bring back.

KEILAR: And what kind of supplies do people need? What are they telling you?

CLARK: We came initially to get cash because that was the issue that we ran into.

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We were stuck and couldn't leave unless we had cash because all of the power is out, all of the ATM's are down. None of the stores that are open that do have supplies are accepting card payment. So we figured we would come back, grab as much cash as possible, and then head back.

We did run issues with distribution. We kind of figured, all right, if we have a bunch of cash, how are we going to get this fairly distributed to people? How are we going to know who's going to need what? So we've kind of shifted our efforts to just bringing things like batteries, baby formula, baby diapers, infant clothes, feminine hygiene products, of course, clean water. There's no clean water anywhere in the city and out surrounding cities, too.

Asheville has been fortunate in that we've received a lot of help and a lot of media attention. But there are so many small rural communities that have been more gravely affected and completely wiped out, including Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Marshall. I know there are a lot of people there who have rapidly run out of food and water. So we're just trying to figure out the best way to get the supplies that we have here evenly distributed and to the people that need them the most.

KEILAR: And the cell service issue, just talk to us a little bit about what people are saying about what that does to them when they are in these perilous situations, they're unable to connect with people. Have they been able to connect since it's been down?

CLARK: There are some spots around town now with WiFi and with service. I think there are temporary cell towers that were brought in that people can access. For the first, you know, four days, I mean, it does take an immense psychological toll. I've been talking about that with a lot of people not having any way to communicate with loved ones. And then, of course, loved ones in different. My family is in California, so they had no way to contact me.

I mean, people are still missing by the thousands. And their loved ones haven't been able to contact them. So, yeah, just not knowing, being stuck in the dark, literally and, you know, figuratively, not having any idea what's going on, not knowing if our friends, our neighbors are alive or okay. It has been an extremely traumatic experience. And I think the severity of it, we're just starting to kind of come to terms with everything and how much of the city was actually wiped out. I'd say half of the businesses are gone. So a lot of people in Asheville lost their livelihoods. Many of us are left without jobs. Fortunately, I work remotely. But, you know, everybody who has jobs in the areas that were affected lost them. And the disillusionment is starting to set in.

And, you know, we're trying to focus on how we can help now and also kind of what we're going to do for ourselves. So there's this interesting divide between wanting to show up for our communities in every way that we can, but also needing to take care of ourselves. I think a lot of us are struggling with that currently.

KEILAR: Well, Cayla, thank you for helping folks around you and illuminating the problem. We're also obviously getting a sense of it and a lot of it is from people like you telling us about it. So thank you so much and good luck.

CLARK: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

KEILAR: Cayla Clark, we appreciate your time today. So many communities, as you hear there, need help right now as they're recovering from the storm. So for ways that you can help, go to cnn.com/impact.

And as we learn more about Hurricane Helene's impact, we're learning how it could hit the supply chain for hospitals, too, affecting people far beyond these affected areas.

Still ahead, what's being done about a possible shortage of IV fluid?

Plus, new airstrikes in Beirut. Israel's military says it targeted Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters.

Will be joined by Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations as the country weighs its response to this week's attack by Iran.

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