Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump and Harris Hitting Battlegrounds Hard; Campaigning in Battleground States; Balance of Power in Congress; Beto O'Rourke is Interviewed about Congressional Races. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 30, 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]

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Here in Washington who focus on national security on edge just days before the election. This doesn't appear to be focused on influencing the election, but it is a very sensitive investigation for the FBI to be carrying out as we enter, you know, close to Election Day, John.

And one person familiar with the investigation told me that they were very concerned. They liken this to, we might as well let Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, install communication on our networks so they can spy on us because it's that serious, John. We're talking about a number of senior U.S. government officials and folks in the Democratic and Republican Party who have been targeted now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, all just before the election. You can understand why people are on edge.

Sean Lyngaas, thank you very much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Six days till the country starts counting votes. Kamala Harris is warning her rival is obsessed with revenge in her big speech. And Donald Trump responds, accusing her of being full of lies.

Donald Trump sure looks like he, right know, is already trying to lay the groundwork to contest the results in Pennsylvania, already stoking voter fraud fears without evidence.

And just in, new data. American's economy is at a historic point ahead of the presidential election.

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

BERMAN: This morning the candidates are everywhere. Just moments ago we heard from Governor Tim Walz on where he sees the race this morning. He says he believes his ticket is winning, and added this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: My biggest concern is that Donald Trump has brought pessimism to folks. I think you're going to see Donald Trump continued to spiral downward in this really difficult and hateful rhetoric. We saw our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico have to endure this. We've seen it in Ohio with folks. That's what's going to end.

So, I think for me it's for us to get out there to show them an optimistic, better way, an American way forward. And so that's a - let's just get this done for six days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, let's get to CNN's Kevin Liptak.

Kevin, Governor Walz kind of trying to take the message from Kamala Harris last night, that big speech on The Ellipse and move it forward to these final few days.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And I think that's what you'll see that candidate herself doing today as well as she hits the battleground states. She was really trying to hit a couple of boxes in that speech last night. Sure, it was a fiery broadside against Donald Trump. She called him consumed with grievance. She called him a petty tyrant. But it was also something of an introductory speech, trying to lay out her vision of the presidency for the American people.

You know, for so long there's been this debate in the Democratic Party, should you focus on democracy and the threat to democracy? Should you focus on the economy, sort of meet voters at the kitchen table? This speech, I think, tried to bridge that gap. It is a distillation of the Harris campaign's theory of the case in this closing stretch that voters do care about both of those issues. And in fact, they're both intertwined. And so you saw her do that in the speech last night.

Every aspect of it was really designed to drive that message forward, including the visuals. You saw her speaking there right in front of the south portico of the White House. That's exactly where Donald Trump spoke on January 6th. Those clips have been seeing so many times over the last four years. But it was also evoking this crucible of American executive power. Only 500 yards from the Oval Office.

And to that end, she did tick through a number of policy areas she intends to focus on when she's president, including expanding Medicare to include at-home care, tax credit for homebuyers. She talked about immigration and a path to citizenship. She talked about the necessity of restoring the protections included in Roe versus Wade. And it really kind of all boiled down to this argument in her mind that Donald Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office ticking off his enemies list while she would be ticking off her to-do list.

Listen to a little bit more of how she framed that argument last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.

Unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at the table.

I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now, in a lot of ways, this was an introductory speech for the vice president, which is so extraordinary. In the final week of the campaign, it gives you a sense of just how abbreviated her own campaign for president has been. She talked about her motivations, what inspires her, and that will be the argument that she now is taking out to the battleground states today.

[09:05:04]

She'll be in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, all trying to convince what the campaign calls these conflicted voters. Those who aren't necessarily sure about Donald Trump might be turned off by his rhetoric but aren't necessarily sold on Kamala Harris, to try and convince them to come into her camp in this razor thin election, John.

BERMAN: Yes, three stops in one day. A sense of what we will see for the next several days.

Kevin Liptak, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, today Donald Trump also on the trail heading to battlegrounds North Carolina and Wisconsin, as he says he's running a, quote, "campaign of positive solutions," and still trying to fend off the backlash over a comedian's racist comments about Puerto Rico.

CNN's Steve Contorno is on the trail in North Carolina.

What can we expect from Donald Trump today?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sara, Donald Trump as two stops today with two very different goals in North Carolina, where he will be speaking right behind me in just a few hours. He is trying to defend a state he narrowly won just four years ago.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, he is trying to win a state that he narrowly lost. And it's interesting if you look at the advertising spending in these two different battlegrounds, you can see the different approaches. In North Carolina, Democrats are outspending Donald Trump by nearly $20 million trying to flip this state. But look at the spending in Wisconsin. It's nearly even. Both sides spending about $45 million trying to win that key battlegrounds. So, it's really interesting to see the two different approaches as we head into this home stretch here.

North Carolina is a state that Donald Trump never expected to have to spend so much time in, and yet because of the way that kamala Harris' campaigning has made a strong push for this state, much stronger than Joe Biden had been shape - looking like he was going to be able to compete for, it's been forcing Donald Trump to spend a lot of money and time and appearances here. And we are seeing him in just a few hours continuing that push.

SIDNER: Steve, we're seeing some tweets or, whatever, Truth Socials by Trump sowing doubt about the election already, this time pointing to Pennsylvania. What's his claiming?

CONTORNO: Yes, today claiming that there's widespread voter fraud already happening, in Pennsylvania yesterday speaking directly to some concerns about what's transpiring in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, saying, they already started cheating in Lancaster.

Now, let me explain exactly what's happening there because the details here are very important. On Friday, authorities in that county flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. The detectives there found that some of the applications had inaccurate addresses, they had miss identifying info, they had duplicated handwriting and signatures that did not match. So, these applications, again, not ballots, these are voter registration applications. They were flagged and they went through the district attorney's vetting process where they did indeed find - have some concerns about some of those ballots.

Now, the people involved in this process of checking this, the authorities, they said that this was all caught during their normal review process that every county in Pennsylvania goes through. And they said it is a sign that, quote, "our systems work." Donald Trump saying it's a sign that there's going to be fraud. Obviously trying to sow doubt about the outcome in a very, very tight battleground.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Steve Contorno, there live for us.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is the former vice chair of the DNC, Michael Blake, and Republican Strategist and former Communications Director for the RNC Doug Heye. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here.

So, both candidates -- let's start here today. Both candidates have a surrogate issue today. For Kamala Harris, it might be Joe Biden. For Donald Trump, it might be Nikki Haley.

Let's start with Nikki Haley. She is supporting Donald Trump. She has not been out there on the campaign trail. She really hasn't been doing many interviews, and that's why when she does, it's noteworthy. She's on Fox News yesterday, and let me play what she said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Last time I talked to him was back in June.

They're very aware that we're on standby. They know that we would be there to help. I've helped with some fundraising letters and text messages and those types of things. So, we've done that. But, look, we're on the same team. It is their campaign's decision on what he needs in these last final days. It does not bother me at all.

They also need to look at how they're talking about women. I mean, this bromance and this masculinity stuff, I mean it borders on edgy to the point that it's going to make women uncomfortable. You know, you've got affiliated PACs that are doing commercials about calling Kamala the C word, or you had speakers at Madison Square Garden, you know, referring to her and her pimps. That is not the way to win women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:10:03]

BOLDUAN: That is not the way to win women, Doug.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: She's 100 percent right. The last time I saw Nikki Haley was actually outside of the newsroom at Fox News, where she was doing an interview with Bret Baier. She's been a regular presence on the airwaves, but not on the campaign trail.

I think that's a big mistake for the Trump campaign. And I say that because I was at Nikki Haley's like third to last rally when she was running. It was in Raleigh, North Carolina. They moved the venue to a larger venue twice, because that's how many people were interested in her campaign.

BOLDUAN: That's why it doesn't make sense to me. Both campaigns are fighting for Nikki Haley voters. Why wouldn't you want her on the trail with you? Would either of you want to offer me up a reason?

HEYE: I think with Donald Trump, personal grudges always lean in heavy with what he wants to do and how he operates. Clearly, that's a part of this now, but it does not make good political sense.

MICHAEL BLAKE, FOUNDER AND CEO, KAIROS DEMOCRACY PROJECT: Yes. I mean, like Donald Trump can't handle competent women of color. It's really that straightforward. You have a woman in Nikki Haley who has served at government in every possible level, who is literally saying that she wants to help him get elected. And his incompetence and his absolute insecurity of who he is can't allow that.

He is losing to a black woman in Kamala Harris. He is struggling about the fact that Nikki Haley is actually a better candidate than him. He has his surrogates calling Puerto Ricans garbage, like this is who this man is, and so we can't ignore that at all.

HEYE: And, Kate, if you choose, we're going to have the comedian that nobody's ever heard of make terrible jokes making terrible jokes --

BOLDUAN: Yes, open for me versus the --

HEYE: -- over a popular governor who can appeal to a bit an audience that you need, that's a campaign choice. That's a choice that they're making proactively.

BLAKE: The campaign has made a decision that they would rather motivate racist than actually engage with realist.

BOLDUAN: Let me ask you about Kamala Harris' surrogate issue today. Republicans are jumping on the remark coming from President Biden saying that -- Republicans saying that he is calling Trump supporters garbage. He says he's talking about the comedian that we're talking about here who made the racist Puerto Rico joke. Tim Walz, this seems to be really the first public response from the campaign out just this morning, Governor Tim Walz on this morning. Let me play what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The president's clarified his remark. But let's be very clear, the vice president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone as a part of this. Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric is what needs to end. He called this a garbage country and continues on from the enemy within, which you heard Vice President Harris say and what I say is there's a place for all of us here. And I think that's the one, she's running for president, she's making the message. And she delivered that speech on The Ellipse that that showed what we can be as a country.

BOLDUAN: That's a response from most. Is Biden getting in Kamala Harris' way today?

BLAKE: No, not at all. And if the biggest surrogate issues that the president of the United States is campaigning for you, I think we're going to be okay. The reference around garbage is clearly around the racist foolishness that came from the other side, and which you have a candidate in Donald Trump who is still not rejected what was said that day. Not only was it referencing Puerto Ricans being garbage, it talked about Latinos being baby makers and black people carving watermelons. And so the holistic conversation is that and it's distracting us that they don't have a policy.

And I want to also tie it together around the dynamic of Sunday night as well. This rhetoric was not just coincidental. The joke was in the teleprompter. They all knew what was about to go down. They can't win. They are losing. They understand that. And so it's a base strategy to distract us from actual lack of policy.

BOLDUAN: Tim Walz -- you say, they're winning. They're going to win. Tim Walz keeps talking about underdog energy, though. I mean, I guess it's underdog energy run like an underdog or else you're going to lose.

Let me ask you one thing about if Donald Trump wins. We heard from RFK Jr. now that he's told supporters, and I want to get this right, that Donald Trump's going to give him control of several health agencies, public health agencies, including HHS, USDA, to remind everyone of the alphabet soup of what is under those critical agencies we know of like the CDC, the FDA, and NIH.

RFK has been one of the leading proponents pushing anti-vax conspiracies over the years. Is RFK helping Donald Trump by promoting this, even if this has been discussed?

HEYE: No. And when these people like this, when they are the topic of conversation, they're distracting from what the campaign wants to talk about.

I would say one of the good things about Donald Trump is that he doesn't always follow through on the promises that he makes if he made this one. And as a Catholic, I think of what we say quite often during mass, Lord have mercy, because if this were to happen, there would be a terrible direction for the country in healthcare.

BLAKE: RFK Jr. is a disaster. This is the same man who tried to frame black and brown people for a murder they didn't commit. People forget that truth about him. He has no business being around healthcare. It's part of the reason why his entire family has endorsed our campaign. And shout out to families. You know, today's my brother's birthday, so I'm going to be a good son and a good brother in that way.

BOLDUAN: Happy birthday, brother.

BLAKE: But RFK Jr., Nikki Haley, all of them are distractions from the reality. Donald Trump, six days out, does not have a policy argument on why he should be elected.

BOLDUAN: Six days to go. Can you last until then? We will see.

[09:15:01]

HEYE: Nothing but coffee.

BOLDUAN: And something else. Good to see you guys. Thank you so much.

All right, we also have breaking news this morning. New economic numbers have some experts saying that the United States economy may have officially pulled off the soft landing. And, we're going to break down the fight over the balance of power in Congress. The key congressional races that could decide the leadership on Capitol Hill

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: The elections going to be here. Six days. That's it. So much focus, of course, on the race for president.

[09:20:02]

But there are several key congressional races to watch that could have a really big effect on the balance of power.

And speaking of the powerful, CNN's Harry Enten here with me now. Big senior data reporter. He's got somewhat of an arm there.

Harry, what -

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: My girlfriend likes it.

SIDNER: What are we looking at here with the Senate? One of the big ones.

ENTEN: All right, so the math for the Senate is really simple, right. If Donald Trump wins the presidency, the GOP just need one seat for Senate control. If Kamala Harris needs it, then, of course, Tim Walz would break the tie in the Senate. So, Republicans would need a gain of two.

Let's sort of look at the map right now. What you see is a lot of blue seats going in purple, independents that also caucus with the Democrats. In fact, of the 34 seats that are up, 23 belonging to the Democrats or the independent who caucuses with them, just 11 belongs to the Republicans. So, Republicans have a wide open playing field.

And at this particular point, we think that, in fact, they are going to get up to that 51 seats. Why is that? Well, let's go first to the wonderful state - take me home - West Virginia. Of course, Joe Manchin, the independent who's caucusing with the Democrats is retiring. At this particular point, Jim Justice, who's the popular Republican governor, is heavily favored to pick up that particular seat.

Let's go out west to Maury Povich's home state of Montana. All right, this, of course, Jon Tester, the popular - or used to be popular Democratic incumbent. Not so popular anymore. Facing a very tough challenge from Tim Sheehy. We expect that, in fact, that will also be a Republican pickup at this particular point, tilting Republican.

But it's not just these seats that are easy, right? Go into Ohio, right, a state that Donald Trump's easily expected to win. Sherrod Brown in a very tight race there. So, another Republican pickup opportunity.

The bottom line is, across this map Pennsylvania, again, we have a tilting Democratic. Inside Elections has it tilting Democratic. But that's another Republican pickup opportunity. You just go across this map and there are so many Republican pickup opportunities, it's tough to think that Democrats could take control.

One little last nugget on the Senate side that I will note. This is a very interesting race. Dan Osborne, who says he wouldn't caucus with either party. There was a "New York Times" poll that had Dan Osborne only down by two points against Deb Fischer. If, in fact, Osborne was able to win in that state, well, all of a sudden Republicans would be at 50 seats, not 51. So, it's not a sure thing on the Senate side yet. But the bottom line is at this particular hour I would definitely think given all of the potential Republican pickup opportunities that they have a much better shot of gaining control of this part of Congress than Democrats do at holding it.

SIDNER: So, we must ask about the House. What does it look like there?

ENTEN: Yes. All right, so we just spoke about the Senate. Let's talk about the House. Let's widen this. we're going to make it nice and large.

For Democrats to win House control, they need a net gain of four seats, all right. Can they get it? Well, let's play with our little gadget here and we're going to go over to the House battle for control. And at this particular point, the answer is, we don't know. We don't know. You know, if you look at the inside elections ratings, Republicans get up to 212, Democrats at 208. I think there are a couple of key races that I want to look at. Actually, there's so little opportunity to talk about competitive races in New York, so I'm going to take that opportunity in my own home state.

There are a few interesting races I'm interested in. Here's one in - let's see if we can pick up -

SIDNER: There it is.

ENTEN: There we go. John Mannion, a leaning Democratic pickup opportunity. Then we'll go down state. This is another Democratic pickup opportunity. If Democrats can win in seats like this, especially that last one right here, Josh Riley, if he can pick it up, that would be a good sign for Democrats moving forward. But again, the House, way too close to call. The Senate, leaning Republican.

SIDNER: All right, Harry Enten, thank you so much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SIDNER: All of those numbers and all of those faces and all of those races.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now is Beto O'Rourke, former Democratic congressman from Texas, former presidential candidate, also a Senate candidate in Texas.

Let me just start there since Harry was just talking about the race for the Senate. Colin Allred, Democrat in Texas, running against Ted Cruz, trying to beat him. You got close in 2018 in a pretty Democratic year. Why would it be possible for Colin Allred to do what you could not?

BETO O'ROURKE (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, John, I think this is an even better year. We were in a midterm cycle. This is a presidential cycle. Greater turnout. And traditionally Democrats turn out at a higher margin in a presidential cycle than they do in a midterm.

And then you add to that, since I last ran against Ted Cruz, this guy has been responsible in part for the insurrection attempt on the 6th of January, 2021. And then as you probably know, when our state faced the worst winter freeze, cost the lives of more than 700 of our fellow Texans, Ted Cruz went down to the Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, Mexico. That is who Colin Allred, one of the most bipartisan members of the United States House of Representatives, that's who he's running against right now. And he's running an incredible campaign, outraising what we put together in 2018, which at the time was the record for most raised in a Senate race.

[09:25:05]

And his discipline, his focus, the case that he's making against Cruz and for Texas is wonderful.

And as you know, he's polling within the margin of error. He can do this. He will be the first Democrat since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 to pick up a Senate seat for Democrats. One that we badly need to retain control of that chamber, at least get to a 50-50 split.

BERMAN: So, this morning, the Harris campaign, the White House, a lot of Democrats doing a lot of work to try to explain the comments made by President Biden overnight where he referred to supporters, depending on where you put the apostrophe there, of Donald Trump as garbage. It had to do with the racist joke that was told about Puerto Rico at that Trump rally.

My question to you, is President Biden, how much of a burden is he on the Harris campaign?

O'ROURKE: I think he's an incredible asset. I mean he's arguably one of the most effective presidents that we've had, at least in the 52 years that I've been on this planet. What he's been able to accomplish on a bipartisan basis to invest in America, to reduce inflation, to create economic opportunity is wonderful. And that's part of the record that Kamala Harris can claim.

But she's also turning the page on the presidents who preceded her and making a case, as she did last night, for doing an even better job in bringing costs down and offering opportunity to first-time homebuyers, to folks who are raising families, to people who are trying to start a business, and making sure that we stop this attempt to turn our country into an authoritarian or fascist state, which is the future of Donald Trump.

John, I figured you might ask me this question. And one contrast I'd just like to point out. You know, within minutes of President Biden's statement last night, he clarified what he meant and added that apostrophe and said, look, I was just talking about the comedian who was dumping on the people of Puerto Rico.

When Donald Trump was offered the opportunity to clarify his enemies within comment, where he talked about essentially turning the United States military against Democrats, an opposing political party. Instead of clarifying or apologizing, he doubled down and was very clear that he means to use force and violence against people with whom he has a political disagreement. That's the contrast, and that's the choice before us right now.

BERMAN: Robert Kennedy Jr., who is supporting Donald Trump for president, was speaking and claims he's been promised quite a portfolio in a Trump administration.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Trump has promised me is - is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others. And then also the USDA, which is - which, you know, is key to making America healthy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's a lot. He's talking about USDA, the Department of Agriculture, HHS. How do you feel about Robert Kennedy controlling all those things?

O'ROURKE: It's pretty scary given the fact that he refuses to operate within the realm of facts or the truth, that he has gaslit and lied to the American public about a host of different issues. He's just somebody who plainly cannot be trusted.

But as scary as that is, it pales in comparison to everything that Trump has promised to do himself. Whether it's turning the military against his political enemies, whether it's the Project 2025 plan that includes a national abortion ban, whether it's the violence and the polarization that he is certainly going to stoke. Whether or not he wins this election certainly as president, he will have absolute, untrammeled power to fundamentally change this country, to upend the Constitution, and to destroy this democracy.

So, again, I think the choice is really clear. I think Vice President Harris laid that out beautifully and powerfully last night. We can turn the page. We can refuse to go back. And we can pursue an ambitious, aspirational future for America.

BERMAN: All right, Beto O'Rourke, former congressman from Texas, we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks so much for being with us.

O'ROURKE: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump is trying real hard already to stoke voter fraud fears without evidence, while he tries to lay the groundwork to try to contest the outcome in Pennsylvania. What you need to know about the measures that are in place to make sure your vote does count.

And mysterious public art installations are popping up around Washington, D.C. Message, pretty clear. Artist, unknown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)