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Harris Speaks on Reproduction Rights in Houston; Trump to do Podcast with Rogan; Trump and Harris Hit Trail. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 25, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Offers to engage in sex events. Jefferies stepped down as CEO in 2014, having run the company since 1992.

The owners of the massive cargo ship responsible for that deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore have agreed to pay $100 million in a civil settlement with the Justice Department. The DOJ alleged the company's cost cutting measures and negligence led to the disaster that killed six construction workers.

Someone in Georgia is $478 million richer this morning. The winning Powerball ticket was sold at a convenience store in the city of Buford, 40 miles north of Atlanta. It's the first time someone in Georgia has won the Powerball since 2016.

All right, a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Houston, we have a presidential candidate. Kamala Harris headed to Texas, not exactly a swing state, but Beyonce.

All right, new allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump as he prepares for a sit-down on the biggest podcast in the country.

And leaked audio reveals that some Russian soldiers are not happy about their new North Korean counterparts.

I'm John Berman, with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It keeps getting longer and longer, that pause, John Berman.

This morning, it is the final countdown in this election season. And we now have the final "New York Times"/Siena College national poll before the election. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump deadlocked, literally. Can't get tighter than that, friends. The new numbers, only further reinforcing how important the seven battleground states will be to the future direction of the country. And so, today, both Harris and Trump are headed to Texas. Not a battleground state.

Trump will be focusing - Trump will be in Austin, Texas, focusing on immigration and border security and sitting down with podcaster Joe Rogan. Harris will be in Houston, where she's going to focus on reproductive rights with Beyonce at her side. It comes after a bunch of stars turned out last night for a rally with former President Barack Obama for Kamala Harris.

CNN's Eva McKend starting us off this hour.

Eva, what is - what are you hearing from the Harris campaign on the strategy heading to Texas today?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, Texas, a battleground it is not, but they're traveling there because they described it as the epicenter of abortion bans. The event will feature a Texas couple who led a lawsuit against the state's abortion bans after suffering life-threatening pregnancy complications.

Shanette Williams, she is the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman who died in 2022 from a treatable infection due to delays in receiving reproductive care from Georgia's restrictive abortion law, she will also be in attendance. And that's what we have been seeing from the Harris campaign. They are elevating women to tell their own stories, to illustrate some of the tragedies abortion restrictions have led to.

And this all comes as Vice President Harris is aiming to show contrast with former President Donald Trump.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's either Donald Trump in there, stewing - stewing over his enemies list, or me, working for you, checking off my to-do list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So, be prepared to hear a lot of that in the closing week, the enemy's list versus her to-do list.

Now, as for today, in Texas, the vice president going to be joined by Beyonce for the first time on the campaign trail. A Texas native, of course. As well as country music star Willie Nelson.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Eva McKend, great to see you. Thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Donald Trump will be in Texas too today, and he is using the fear factor in his final pitch to voters. He will be in Austin where he is expected to once again rail against illegal immigration. He will also make his first appearance on Joe Rogan's incredibly popular podcast, looking for an audience there.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is joining us now.

Tell us more about what the Trump campaign hopes to accomplish with this sit-down with Rogan, which is - which is a huge, huge audience.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, this is really a big deal for the Trump campaign. They've been trying to get this Joe Rogan sit-down for a number of months. And for them it's really the crowning jewel on what has been an overall strategy this election cycle.

One of the things that they've really tried to do is reach these low propensity voters, particularly men. And low-propensity means people who don't generally vote. They believe that those voters lean right. And if they can get them to the polls in November, they will vote for Donald Trump.

So, they've done a series of these podcasts, done a series of YouTube streaming channels of various non-legacy media to try and reach this group of people across the country.

[09:05:09]

Now, Joe Rogan is an exception in the sense that he has more than 14 million followers on Spotify. He is considered one of the most popular podcasts on that - that exists right now in the U.S.

And part of the way that they want Donald Trump to reach these people in the middle of the country is by not talking about politics. These - these non-voters, they're not general voters, are people who don't generally engage with politics in the typical sense, but they do engage with potentially Joe Rogan or some of these other YouTube streamers or some of these other podcasts. So, that's why you've seen such an emphasis on Donald Trump trying to drive out these voters, trying to do this non-traditional media, particularly now as we get closer.

And I will tell you one thing, one of the excitement factors around the RFK Jr. endorsement, other than the fact that it would come with potentially all of these independent voters, or at least some of these independent voters which could decide the election given we believe the margin is going to - the election's going to be determined in the margins, was the fact that RFK Jr. had a relationship with Joe Rogan and they were hoping this would help with this sit-down interview.

SIDNER: Wow. All right, that's an interesting little tidbit there.

Kristen Holmes, appreciate you this morning.

John.

BERMAN: All right, here now, CNN's senior political commentator, former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, and CNN's senior political commentator and former Trump campaign adviser, David Urban.

When I'm lucky enough to have the Davids with me, both of them, I'm just going to try to get out of the way here. Let me just throw this out there as a starting point here. In "The New York Times"/Siena College poll, which shows the race tied,

it focused on the not fully decided voters, which is a little different than undecided, but not fully decided. They say 15 percent are not fully decided. And I think we have that. We can throw it up on the screen so people can see the actual number. And among that group, right now, Kamala Harris is leading 42 percent to 32 percent. It was essentially tied a couple weeks ago. So, that not fully decided group, David, you've got like ten days left.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BERMAN: What can you give them?

AXELROD: Well, look, I think - I actually think the other night, when she was on the town hall, and obviously she's amplifying it now, she said something that is meaningful to these voters. They are very much concerned about what's going on in their lives, particularly in the economy. And when she said he's going to come to the office with an enemies list, I'm going to come with a to-do list and your concerns are going to be on that list of issues to work on, I think that is a contrast that she needs to really, really hit hard in the final days of the campaign because it, yes, Trump, his fundamentally anti- democratic in certain ways. And I mean with - about democracy. And, you know, he's sort of signaled what he's going to do. He's going to get rid of the special counsel. He's going to pardon the January 6th mob and so on. What does this have to do with people's lives? What is - what is - what does his vengeance have to do with their day-to-day lives? And I think that contrast is really powerful. And I would lean into it every single day.

BERMAN: Other David.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I like the analogy. I like the to-do list analogy. You know what - you know what's been number one on Kamala Harris' to-do list, secure the border for the past four years. So, the number one item on her to-do list, secure the border, failed. F. Gets that F grade. So, let's make that contrast. She's been in office for over 1,400 days. There's lots of things on the to-do list that she still has to do. So, why - why should we give her another chance? Why is she - she hasn't been able - Anderson asked the great question, you know, what have you been doing for the past four years, and why haven't you started yesterday? You know, when she's talking about securing the border, she said, well, we're going to do all these things. We're going to introduce this legislation. We're going to do this. And Anderson said, well, why didn't you do these things? Why didn't you do the EO? You could have done all these things. And she didn't have an answer.

She did have an answer, Axe, as you said it, it was a word salad answer to that. And look, I do agree with Axe, the people who speak with - excuse me, the candidate speaks to people's concerns, their economic concerns that makes them feel like they're being heard is going to be rewarded with those swing voters here in the end days.

AXELROD: Yes, let me - let me say a couple of things. I did say one answer of hers was a word salad. But boy, if this is a competition of who is speaking in word salads, I invite everybody to go and watch a Trump rally. I mean, that - that isn't the basis on which -

URBAN: It's a - it's a weave.

AXELROD: Wait a second. Wait, wait.

URBAN: It's a weave, not a word salad. It's a weave.

AXELROD: Yes.

BERMAN: It's more like sweet greens, David Urban, you know, or chopped, to be completely fair.

AXELROD: But also, you know, on issues like the border, I mean she did say what she has been doing, what she would do. She's the vice president, of course, not the president. But she's got a valid point. There was a very, very substantive bill on the floor and Trump killed it so - because he wanted the issue. So that's a - you know, I get the talking point. You guys want to look backwards. But she'd be smart to push forward and talk about the things she's going to do that are going to be positive in people's lives when she is president of the United States.

[09:10:08]

Dave, we don't talk about the Pence years, OK. Vice presidents don't make decisions.

URBAN: No.

AXELROD: Presidents make decisions. And the question is, what would she do as president?

URBAN: Yes, but -

AXELROD: And that's what she needs to focus on.

URBAN: Yes, but, Axe, you can't have it both ways. You can have, you know, Joe Biden in there saying she was a partner with me. We did all these things together. You can't claim that she was the last person in the room helping make decisions and then, no, no, she had no input whatsoever what was going on. She wasn't there. It has to be either or. You've got to pick.

AXELROD: I've been in the - I've been - I've been around those rooms and I saw - Joe Biden was the last person in the room often with Barack Obama, but Barack Obama made the decision. And he'd say, thank you very much for your advice. I'll go in the direction I want to go. Only the president makes decisions, Dave.

And I think the way Donald Trump's behaving in the final stanzas of this campaign should give people some concern about how he's going to make decisions.

BERMAN: So, let me - let me hit that point right there because ABC News and Ipsos have a different poll out today, which has a - kind of a startling top line number. Gary Langer, the pollsters there, noted that 49 percent, about half of those polled, see Donald Trump as a fascist, which is sort of a stunningly high number.

So, David Axelrod, when you see this, does this maybe explained - and this, by the way, this poll was taken before the John Kelly comments came out with, you know, you hear him on tape saying that Donald Trump said he, you know, he saw some good things - that Hitler did some good things. Does this explain why the Harris is - the Harris campaign is maybe trying to go down this path in the waning days?

AXELROD: Look, I think that there are Republicans who may disagree with her on some issues who have real concerns about whether Donald Trump believes in the fundamental tenants of democracy, the so-called Nikki Haley Republicans. And I think they believe that there are enough of those to tip the balance in some of these states, like Pennsylvania, where the suburban areas are going to play so big.

I think that there's value in that. But I really do think you have to tie what Trump's obsessions are with the concerns of everyday people and ask yourself, is he going to wake up every morning and thinking about my problems or his own? I really think that's fundamentally the distinction they want to make at the end.

So, it's - it's important to raise these issues. And I care about them deeply. But I've said many times here and elsewhere, if you're talking about democracy over the dinner table, it's probably because you don't have to worry about the cost of the food on your dinner table.

BERMAN: David Urban.

URBAN: Yes, look, I agree with Axe 100 percent. Look at that, cats and dogs sleeping together. Shock the world.

I think that labeling and name -

AXELROD: But - but (INAUDIBLE).

URBAN: Exactly. There you go.

Not - not - the labels have little - will have little impact at the end of the day when kitchen table issues are, you know, top of the list in every list. The economy, inflation, immigration, those are things that are affecting people's lives every day. That's what's going to move people in these last few days. The candidate who speaks best to that, who people feel that understands their concerns, their issues, their wants, their fears, those are the people - that's - that's where the people are going to flock to that candidate in these - in these closing days.

So, to Axe's point, labeling is, you know, somewhat useful. Negative campaigning we see does move numbers. But someone who has an answer for those economic issues is going to be the key.

AXELROD: I will say that's - that is the platform on which most fascist get elected. So, that - you know, that's famous fascist (INAUDIBLE), I'm going to make the economy work better. And then all the other things come along with it that they don't talk about when they're running. BERMAN: Well, on that cheery note, David Axelrod and David -

URBAN: Well, if we're going to look at labels, I'll read you -

BERMAN: David Urban.

URBAN: I was just gong to say, listen, if we're going to look at labels, I'll read - I'll read you the definition of a socialist. And then we can - we can just call Kamala Harris as socialist from here to the end of the campaign.

BERMAN: All right.

URBAN: Because she fits squarely within the definition of a socialist. So -

BERMAN: We'll do - we'll do political theory one-on-one next time around.

David Urban, David Axelrod, thanks to both of you.

Sara.

URBAN: Thanks, guys.

SIDNER: Thank you, John.

Donald Trump now claims he's always tried to stop the "lock her up: chants about Hillary Clinton. It is hard to forget his role in that, but our Daniel Dale is going to do a fact check.

Is the FBI closing in on who leaked documents outlining Israel's plans for a potential attack on Iran?

And the Menendez brothers could be close to walking free after their murder conviction without the possibility of parole.

Those stories ahead

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:19:03]

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump jumped at the chance to call out President Joe Biden after President Biden said that voters need to lock Trump up politically. In an interview yesterday with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Donald Trump said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I could have gone after Hillary. I could have gotten Hillary Clinton very easily. And when they said lock her up - whenever they said lock her - you know, they'd start, 30,000 people, "lock her up," "lock her up," what did I do? I always say, take it easy. Just relax. We're winning. Take it easy. Take it easy. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Daniel Dale is here with a fact check.

What are the facts, Daniel?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, I went back and looked at the tape and I found what I thought I'd find because I was alive like you were in 2016. When people chanted "lock her up," Donald Trump did not say, take it easy, take it easy, we're winning. And on many occasions, he paused his speeches for extended periods to let the chance continue. On other occasions, he said "lock her up" himself.

[09:20:02]

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd lock her up is right. No.

CROWD (chanting): Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!

TRUMP: I'll tell you what, for what she's done, they should lock her up. She's disgraceful. It's disgraceful.

You should lock her up, I'll tell you.

You lock them up. You shouldn't lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.

CROWD (changing): Lock him up! Lock him up!

TRUMP: Lock them up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: Now, he also called to imprison Hillary Clinton using other language. In fact, I think his crowds were chanting "lock her up" because he kept calling for her to be sent to jail or prison.

Listen to some more clips.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think she should be in jail for what she did with her emails, OK. She should be in jail.

Hillary Clinton is a thief. And Hillary Clinton should be in jail for what she did to our national security.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country. TRUMP: Because you'd be in jail.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Secretary Clinton -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: So, Trump has repeatedly attempted to rewrite history during this campaign. And I think this is a particularly egregious example.

BOLDUAN: Let's do one more. I want to play it for everyone, something that former President Barack Obama said while campaigning with Kamala Harris in Georgia yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Some folks would be like, well, Donald Trump sent me a check during the pandemic. No, no, no, y'all - y'all know, because I've heard this. I know y'all - some of you heard that. Hey, let me - let me - let me make sure you all understand this. Joe Biden sent you a check during the pandemic, just like I gave people relief during the Great Recession. The thing is, we didn't put our name on it, because it wasn't about feeding our egos, it wasn't about advancing our politics, it was about helping people. That's the difference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What's the - what are the facts around the pandemic relief checks, Daniel?

DALE: Well, I'd say this claim about credit taking is at least a little bit misleading. It is true that Joe Biden did not put his name on Covid relief checks like Donald Trump did. However, what former President Obama did not mention was that Biden, like Trump, had letters mailed to the people who received those checks with his signature on it, taking personal credit, saying this was a political promise fulfilled. I have one of the letters in front of me. He said, a key part of the American Rescue Plan is direct payments of $1,400 per person for most American households. It continued, this fulfills a promise I made to you, and well help get millions of Americans through this crisis. It went on to that effect. And it was signed, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., with his signature.

So again, there's a narrow point. Again, Biden's name, were not on - was not on the physical checks. But did he just decline to take any credit and just let this be about service to the American people? No.

BOLDUAN: Everyone's sending checks and everyone's taking credit for it. That's my takeaway today.

DALE: That's it.

BOLDUAN: Daniel, it's great to see you. Thank you very much.

John.

BERMAN: You can all send me checks.

All right, for the first time in this campaign -

BOLDUAN: Exactly, send them to me.

BERMAN: You can all take credit for it. Just send it.

All right, for the first time in the campaign, one mega superstar is set to take the stage at a Harris campaign rally. Who could it be? One hint, it rhymes with Shleyonce.

And this morning, the country divided like never before.. Does it root for the Yankees or the Dodgers or the right answer, the Red Sox.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:25]

BERMAN: Both presidential candidates headed to Texas today. I don't want to talk about Texas. Why not? Because Texas not really in play.

So, what I'm going to talk about is the state where Donald Trump was yesterday. That is Arizona. This is a state that Joe Biden barely won four years ago by 10,000 votes. Something really no Democrat has done in a generation.

Arizona has been pretty solidly Republican. Donald Trump won it four years ago by four points. Before that, Republicans won it by a lot. You can see Mitt Romney won it big. Of course, John McCain, it was his home state, he won it pretty big.

So, what changed for Joe Biden in Arizona from previous elections? Well, it all comes down to basically one place, that's here. It's Maricopa county. That's where Donald Trump was yesterday. That's where every presidential candidate goes in Arizona. It's the most populous county in Arizona. About 60 percent of the population. It's the fastest-growing county in the country by some measurements, not just Phoenix, but Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, all those suburbs, you've heard of them, you know them.

And Joe Biden was able to eke out a victory in Maricopa County by about 45,000 votes. Barely, you know, 2 percent there. It doesn't seem like a lot. But if you go back four years - four years before that, Donald Trump won by about 40,000 votes.

And if you just talk about the overall margin in Arizona, you're talking about an 80,000 vote swing that more than accounts for the range of victory that Joe Biden had. He won the state by 10,000 votes. He increased the Democratic vote in Maricopa County by 80,000 votes.

[09:30:00]

That explains how he won.

As I'm slurring here, I do want to show you one visual thing here that's kind of cool. I'm going to circle Maricopa County there.