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Dead Heat Race for the White House; Hezbollah Targets Israeli Base with Drone Attacks; IDF Breached U.N. Peacekeeper's Base in Lebanon; U.S. to Send Anti-Missile and Troops to Israel; Al-Aqsa Hospital Hit by Israel Airstrike; U.N. to Start Second Round of Polio Vaccines in Gaza. Taiwan Condemns China War Games As "Unreasonable Provocation"; Biden Tours Storm Damage For Second Time In Two Weeks; Harris, Trump Storm Swing States With 3 Weeks To Go; Powerful Cold Front To Impact Eastern And Central U.S. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired October 14, 2024 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States, around the world and streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead, a deadlocked race in key battleground states with just three weeks to go before election day in the U.S. Will anything move the needle?
A deadly Hezbollah drone strike targets an Israeli army base in one of the bloodiest attacks on Israel since last October.
And the race to prevent a polio resurgence in the war-stricken Gaza Strip as the U.N. begins a second round of its vaccination campaign.
Good to have you with us. Well, the race for the White House enters its final weeks and the stakes could not be higher with no clear front runner. CNN's latest poll of polls shows an average of 50 percent of likely voters' support Vice President Kamala Harris, while 47 percent back former President Donald Trump.
Key states in the Democrats' so-called blue wall are still up for grabs as well. And you can see it's even closer in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin than in the nation at-large. The candidates are set to make crucial stops in those battleground states this week. What is clear is the role Hispanic voters could play.
The latest New York Times- Sienna College poll, shows Vice President Harris leading Trump with 54 percent of the Hispanic vote. But that's an erosion in support for the Democrats compared to the last three elections.
Well, as the election draws closer, Donald Trump is doubling down on his false narrative that the Biden-Harris administration has opened the floodgates to a wave of violent immigrants who threaten to destroy the United States. Alayna Treene has more.
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, former president Donald Trump addressing a crowd in Prescott, Arizona, on Sunday, really leaned into that anti-immigration dark rhetoric that we've heard him escalate in recent days. He talked about Operation Aurora, something that he announced on Friday when he was in Aurora, Colorado, but essentially said that he would support the death penalty for any immigrant in this country, whether they're here illegally or not, who kills a U.S. citizen or a law enforcement officer.
He also leaned in to his attacks of Kamala Harris specifically when it comes to her handling of the border. I want you to go listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For four straight years she's imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons all over the world. Not South America, all over the world they come. From prisons and jails, insane asylums, mental institutions. From Venezuela, from the Congo, all over. And she's resettled them into your communities to prey upon innocent American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TREENE: Now, when I talk to Donald Trump's senior advisors, they tell me that this is an issue that they are not running away from, even as many people, many Republican allies and those who want Donald Trump to win in November say that the economy needs to be the top issue. Trump has continued to argue and he believes personally that immigration and the border is the top issue. And it was very clear during his remarks on Sunday that that is what he feels will help him be successful come November 5th.
Now a bit of news from Sunday. Donald Trump called a bunch of Border Patrol agents onto the stage in the middle of his rally where they touted their endorsement of the former president, their first official endorsement of him this cycle, although I will note that they have supported him in the past.
Donald Trump, for his part, also announced a new plan that he would call to add 10,000 more border patrol agents if he were elected in November, and also that he would call on Congress to give those agents a 10 percent raise, as well as a $10,000 signing and retention bonus again, if he is elected. Really trying to lean into their support, court these border patrol agents, and really embrace what he argues is a necessary action and advancement for these officials on the southern border.
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Alayna Treene, CNN, Prescott, Arizona.
CHURCH: In North Carolina on Sunday, Kamala Harris took aim at Trump, criticizing him for not releasing his medical reports, refusing to do a second debate and opting out of the customary candidate interview with the CBS News program, "60 Minutes." Eva McKend has our report. EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Vice President
Harris using her remarks at a rally in Greenville to argue that the former president is not being transparent enough with voters when it comes to sitting for that "60 minutes" interview, a long honored tradition when it comes to going up against her for another debate or even on releasing his medical records. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And here's the thing, here's the thing. It makes you wonder; it makes you wonder why does his staff want him to hide away? One must question, one must question, are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKEND: And a clear goal of the vice president in her two-day swing here in North Carolina was to try to recreate President Biden's winning multiracial coalition that he relied in part on in 2020 with intentional outreach to black voters. She met with black farmers. She met with community leaders and faith leaders in Raleigh. And she also spoke at a black church.
But what we're also hearing from North Carolina Democrats is a big push for voters to get out and vote early. Early voting begins in this state in just a few weeks. Eva McKend, CNN, Greenville, North Carolina.
CHURCH: Larry Sabato is the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and editor of "A Return to Normalcy: The 2020 Election That Almost Broke America." And he joins me now from Charlottesville. Appreciate you being with us.
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: Thank you so much, Rosemary.
CHURCH: So just 22 days to Election Day in America, and both candidates are campaigning hard in critical battleground states. But CNN's poll of polls shows Donald Trump and Kamala Harris deadlocked in three of those states, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And even though Harris is slightly ahead in that poll nationally at 50 percent compared to Trump's 47 percent, it is within the margin of error, and that is creating panic within the Democratic Party. How bad is that panic, do you think?
SABATO: I've been through a lot of panics in the Democratic Party. They have them regularly, usually with each major election. So they know how to react, and those of us who observe them know how to react. This is an intense panic. There's no question about it. They had fooled themselves into believing that Kamala Harris's euphoric rise, and it was euphoric because Democrats were happy that President Bush had stepped up -- President Bush -- President Biden had stepped aside, and they were thrilled to have a candidate who wasn't as damaged as Biden had been. But the problem is those things never last forever, and she had a
great convention and then she won the debate with Trump, but nothing really moved the needle very much. It did move a little in her favor, and she was generally leading in the polls by three or four percent nationally. Well, inevitably, that fades with time, and 22 days is a long time.
We could see this become a roller coaster and both candidates could go up and down again. But somehow Republicans seem better at dealing with those ups and downs than Democrats do.
CHURCH: The latest New York Times and Siena College poll shows support for Trump growing among Hispanic voters, although Kamala Harris has more support at 56 percent compared to Trump's 37 percent. But given what Trump has been saying about immigrants, I mean some appalling things, how is it even possible that Hispanic support for him is growing? And what's behind Trump making inroads as well with black men?
SABATO: Yes. And notice it's -- the link here is men. Trump is doing better with Latino men. He's doing better with white men. He's doing better with black men. And there's a tremendous gender gap. And Kamala Harris has done very well in just about every category of women.
Now, women outvote men and they're a larger portion of the population. But the edge for Trump among men has been growing to the point where it can easily outweigh Kamala Harris's advantage among women. Plus, the Electoral College and the fact that we're down to just seven states mattering.
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And in those states, the essential campaign is tied. You can't really find a big edge for either candidate in any of those states. That's consistent.
CHURCH: How big a motivator for voters will the issue of reproductive rights and abortion likely be, do you think?
SABATO: It's still at the top of the list for Democrats. And it's the best chance that Harris has of outperforming the polls, just as abortion permitted Democrats to outperform the polls in '22, in the midterm elections. So we have a recent precedent. There's every reason to believe that the feelings are just as strong, maybe even stronger in many states, about reproductive rights and reproductive care.
So, that may be Harris's best shot, other than a change in strategy, which basically is this. She needs to go after Trump and so do all of her surrogates. They have not done so to the extent that they should, and the material there is endless. There are nine years of Trump's outrages and crazy sayings, and we all know he's deteriorated a bit. So they're getting even worse. You have to use that. You can't just assume people have seen it.
CHURCH: Trump is already claiming there will be problems on Election Day, saying it will be due to the enemy from within, his words, trying to undermine the election results and saying the military should be involved. What does this signal to you?
SABATO: Well, if there's anybody out there who isn't scared, isn't worried, then they really ought to be. They ought to think about this because this is the sign of an authoritarian in gestation. Some would say he's been an authoritarian all along, but this second term, he's been very clear, is going to be about revenge and retribution. Well, if you have the military on your side because you make the appointments to the joint chiefs and other senior military positions, so they're kind of likely to be on your side.
This is what can result a militaristic term. And you have as well those detention camps for immigrants. And now he's talking about the death penalty for some. And he's talked about putting the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, in the electric chair. You know, you ought to focus on this. This is kind of important.
And what I have learned, unfortunately, as an educator, is that increasingly people don't read. And what they read is very tarnished because it's in social media. It's inaccurate, you can't believe most of what you see there, but people love congregating with people who agree with them and who reinforce the views, however inaccurate, that they already have.
CHURCH: Yeah, people are not sourcing their information. They need to go back to that, to stick with the old ways. Larry Sabato, many thanks for joining us. Appreciate your analysis, as always.
SABATO: Thank you, Rosemary.
CHURCH: Turning to the Middle East now where Israel is grappling with one of the bloodiest attacks on its soil since the war broke out last year. Israeli officials say Hezbollah launched a drone attack on Sunday, killing at least four soldiers and wounding more than 60 people. The drones targeted an army base in Israel about 40 miles from the Lebanese border. Hezbollah called it retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Thursday, which continued into the weekend.
Lebanese health officials say Israeli strikes on Saturday killed 51 people and wounded more than 170 others. Attacks were reported across Lebanon from the north to the south. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more on that deadly drone attack in Israel.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hezbollah has announced its responsibility for the drone attack in central Israel Sunday evening, saying in a statement that a swarm of drones struck the training base of the Israeli army's Golani brigade. The attack, the statement said, was in revenge for a pair of Israeli airstrikes on a residential area in central Beirut Thursday, strikes that killed 22 people and wounded 117, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, reported that before dawn, two Israeli tanks destroyed the main gate of one of its bases in the central section of the border region, then entered the base and only withdrew after a protest was lodged with the Israeli military. UNIFIL also reported that two hours later, Israeli forces fired smoke projectiles toward the same base requiring 15 peacekeepers to receive medical treatment.
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UNIFIL, which operates under a United Nations Security Council mandate, described the Israeli actions as a flagrant violation of international law. Five UNIFIL troops have been injured by Israeli fire in recent days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement Sunday regretting any harm to the peacekeepers, accused Hezbollah fighters of hiding behind the peacekeepers and urged UNIFIL to withdraw from the combat zone in south Lebanon. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said UNIFIL forces remain in place. I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Beirut.
CHURCH: The U.S. announced Sunday it will send an advanced anti- missile system to Israel to help bolster the country's air defenses, along with about 100 U.S. troops to operate it. It comes as the aerospace commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps says his country is ready to respond to any action or quote "misstep by Israel." CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger explains the significance of the Pentagon's announcement.
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DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think President Biden was looking for a way to help the Israelis make the case that another Iranian missile attack on Israel would fail as the previous two have failed to do much damage. And by putting this additional Patriot system together, he's got the moment to go do that.
But I think what else we're learning here is that the president's tolerance for having American troops in the way here, even in defensive positions in Israel, is increasing a little bit, that he thinks it's a relatively small risk to have 100 Americans there. Obviously, there are thousands of Americans on board the ships and in nearby bases to try to help defend Israel as well.
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CHURCH: This is not the first time the U.S. has sent the anti-missile system to the Middle East, but it is rare for American troops to deploy inside Israel.
An Israeli airstrike on a hospital in central Gaza killed four people and wounded dozens of others just a short time ago. This was the scene inside the Al-Aqsa hospital courtyard. Several tents were in flames with people trying unsuccessfully to put out the fires. The Israeli military says it conducted a precise strike on a Hamas command center inside the compound, and a warning what follows is disturbing video of the aftermath of another strike.
On Sunday more than 40 people, at least 13 of them children, were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza. According to hospital officials, at least 22 of the dead were killed when the Al-Mufti school located in the Nazareth refugee camp was hit. Gaza's civil defense says more than 5,000 displaced people are sheltering there.
Coming up, phase two of a critical public health campaign gets underway in Gaza as the U.N. tries to keep polio from spreading.
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CHURCH: The United Nations is set to begin the second phase of its emergency polio vaccination campaign in Gaza today. The World Health Organization hopes to give more than half a million children a second dose of the vaccine. The WHO says the first round of vaccinations was successful with 95 percent of eligible children inoculated in September. UNICEF says it's critical that all parties in the Israel- Hamas war respect the area-specific humanitarian pauses so aid workers can reach as many children as possible.
Dr. Hamed Jafari is the World Health Organization's Director of Polio Eradication in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and he joins me now from Doha in Qatar. Thank you Dr. Jafari for talking with us.
HAMID JAFARI, WHO, DIRECTOR OF POLIO ERADICATION, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION: Happy to be with you. Thank you.
CHURCH: So what are your main concerns as this second phase of the polio vaccination campaign gets underway in Gaza and how confident are you that all sides will observe humanitarian pauses so that this can be done as safely as possible?
JAFARI: So I think the first campaign round gave us, and particularly the health worker and families confidence that children can be vaccinated safely when all parties respected and adhered to the humanitarian pauses, and that's the most important element. The other important element of course is the enthusiasm with which these communities in Gaza seek a vaccination. These are highly health literate communities.
So we learned a lot about planning and logistics and a lot of improvements have been made to even further improve the quality and coverage of vaccination. But the most important element for success remains safety of families and safety of health workers. So the adherence to the humanitarian pauses and access to all children, no matter which part of Gaza they're in, is going to be absolutely critical.
CHURCH: And I did want to talk to you about how successful the first round of vaccinations were, what were the challenges faced perhaps, and also too, have you used some of those experiences to refine this second round so that it runs more smoothly and more efficiently and safely of course.
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JAFARI: Absolutely. The first round, you know, Gaza had not implemented a mass vaccination campaign for, you know, multiple decades. So this in some ways was new for Gaza. So the health workers had to be trained and obviously the logistics, the transportation and movement in a war-torn area was extremely difficult. The logistical planning and the movement of supplies, fuel, cash, everything had to be planned down to the T.
So what a number of different things are being done, better logistic pre-positioning of vaccines and gold chain equipment, finger markers, further training and redistribution of teams, how many in fixed sites, how many mobile teams, but more importantly, decentralized decision making so that each governorate will have its own emergency operations center so they can make decisions locally.
And this time, as you may have heard, that vitamin A is going to be administered to all children from two years up to 10 years of age in this round. So that has required additional human resources and their training to administer vitamin A.
CHURCH: And doctor, how difficult will it be to eradicate polio in Gaza and how many children would you estimate are suffering from the effects of this debilitating disease at this time?
JAFARI: So far, one case of polio in a 10-month-old child has been confirmed, but we know that the virus, the last time we tested samples again that were collected in early September are still positive. That's when just the vaccination campaign was getting started. That's the timing of the last samples that are positive.
We know that we have to administer at least two doses of this vaccine to more than 90 percent of the children to have a high probability of stopping this outbreak and preventing its international spread. So we have to reach a very, very high level of coverage in all of these children.
CHURCH: Dr. Hamid Jafari, thank you so much for joining us in Doha. We appreciate talking with you.
JAFARI: Thank you very much.
CHURCH: Still to come, China launches military drills all around Taiwan as a show of force. Why Beijing says they're vital to protecting national unity. That's when we return. Stay with us.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone.
Beijing is sending a warning to Taiwan with the launch of a new round of war games on Monday. It comes on the heels of a speech from Taiwan's president last week asserting China has no right to represent the island. Taiwan has condemned the new exercises, calling them an unreasonable provocation.
CNN senior international correspondent Will Ripley joins me now from Taipei.
Good to see you, Will.
So what more can you tell us about this story? WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Rosemary.
We know that these drills which are called Joint Sword 2024B. The drills back in May around the time of Taiwan's inauguration were 2024A. So, A, now B, who knows, maybe there'll be a C. They involve the army, the navy, the air force, the rocket force in China. They've even deployed their aircraft carrier to the east of Taiwan to participate, the Liaoning. You can see on the map, the six red blocks, those are supposed to be potential blockade locations what China is saying is that they're practicing what could be a precursor to an invasion of Taiwan, which is to try to choke off the islands supplies to prevent anything on a ship or a plane from reaching this island, which of course we are an island that relies very heavily on imports, a blockade could make life very uncomfortable, very, very quickly.
China's coast guard also conducting patrols near the outlying Matsu islands. China says that this is in response to a speech as you mentioned, Rosemary, last week by Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te, where he essentially rejected Beijing's long-standing territorial claims over this self-governing democracy, the communist party Beijing has never controlled Taiwan, even though they've always claimed as their own and they basically insist that the rest of the world acknowledged their claim over Taiwan.
The United States which tries to be kind of strategically ambiguous in all of this, they sell Taiwan defensive weapons. They won't say whether or not they would come to Taiwan's defense if China were to unilaterally try to attack Taiwan, but they are warning that this sort of drill could really escalate tensions in this region.
And, you know, these drills are certainly not spontaneous. Rosemary, this is something you got to require a lot of planning and cost. That it is the drills earlier this year, the ones in May that I mentioned a moment ago, they cost millions of dollars. The navy had to pay 13 million, Chinese air force paid it almost $48 for dozens of warships, sailings, and flights and if you look at the total combined costs of all of China's military drills during the last year, 2023, from January to December, you're looking at almost 71,000 naval warship sailings costing the navy in China around $13 billion. The air force spent almost three-and-a-half billion dollars to fly 9,200 flights.
So that is a pretty significant expenditure -- yes, there's a lot of propaganda value that goes into this, but clearly they're also out there rehearsing real life maneuvers and scenarios that could someday go from being drills to the real thing, Rosemary, that's certainly the message that Beijing wants to project, wants to intimidate. They would say here in Taiwan, but they're deploying their own fighters and ships in response and even their own propaganda videos in response, asking the world, Rosemary, happening on the Taiwan Strait, because even though China has done this, a lot many times since Nancy Pelosi's visit back in 2022, here in Taipei, they say this sort of behavior shouldn't be normalized. This bullying shouldn't be normalized because what Chinas doing is actually very serious, even if they do it quite a lot these days.
CHURCH: Will Ripley bringing us that live report from Taipei, many things..
And we'll be right back.
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CHURCH: For the second time in just two weeks, U.S. President Joe Biden returned to Florida to survey the damage from a major storm, this time Hurricane Milton.
During his visit on Sunday, President Biden announced more than $600 million in projects to help states like Florida bolster their power grids, fuel and power shortages continue to hamper recovery efforts across western and central Florida. Nearly half a million customers are still without power, and almost 30 percent of the state's gas stations were without fuel as of early Sunday.
CNN's Brian Todd has more from St. Pete Beach in Florida.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Biden got an aerial and ground tour of the hardest hit areas of St. Pete Beach and the areas near here today.
And this was kind of a bipartisan tour by nature. Several prominent Republican officials touring the area with the president and speaking after the president and including St. Pete Beach Mayor Adrian Petrila, Kathleen Peters, the Republican chair of Pinellas County, both of whom Republicans. Also accompanying the president was Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a staunch Republican, and Republican senator, Rick Scott.
So the president really trying to strike that by partisan tone as a response to the hurricane because it kind of playing off the idea that some people here were playing politics. Kamala Harris and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis both accusing each other of playing politics with the response. But the president himself kind of trying to stay away from that fray, striking that by partisan tone while he was here saying both Democrats and Republicans are coming together to gather themselves in to help this area respond to the hurricane.
The president also kind of striking a personal tone, talking about how his own homes were damaged in major storms, and talking about the damage that was suffered here.
JOE BIDNE, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thankfully, this storm's impact was not as cataclysmic as predicted, but on top of two before it just keeps seem like getting worse. And you know, but for some individuals, it was cataclysmic. All those folks who not only lost their homes and more importantly, those folks who lost their lives, lost family members, lost all her personal belongings, entire neighborhoods were flooded.
[02:40:06] And millions -- millions are without power.
TODD: We should also note that President Biden was scheduled to be overseas at this very moment. The White House had scheduled a trip for the president to go to Germany and to Angola, which would have been the president's first and only trip to the continent of Africa while he was president.
That trip had to be postponed. It was postponed on the eve of the day that Hurricane Milton hit this area. But President Biden says, he is still determined to make a trip to Africa before he leaves office.
Brian Todd, CNN, St. Pete Beach, Florida.
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CHURCH: Thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid Sunday to demand more affordable housing. Many signs were at housing is a right, not a business. Tourism is a key driver of the Spanish economy, but residents blame the housing crisis on landlords who turned properties into expensive short-term vacation rentals.
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BIANCA PRIETO, NURSE IN SPAIN (through translator): We Spaniards cannot live in our cities. You're being driven out of the cities, not just out of the center. Cities don't belong to us, so we have to regulate it. The government has to regulate prices, to regulate housing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Smaller demonstrations also happen in Barcelona on Sunday, the Spanish government has said it will start cracking down on short- term and vacation rentals.
I want to thank you for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. For our international viewers, "WORLD SPORT" is coming up next.
And for those of you here in the United States and Canada, I'll be back with more CNN NEWSROOM after a short break. Do stay with us.
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CHURCH: Welcome back.
To our viewers here in North America, I'm Rosemary Church.
Well, with just over three weeks to go until Election Day, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are storming the swing states. On Sunday, Harris held a campaign event in North Carolina while Trump traveled to Arizona. Former President Barack Obama will also visit Arizona later this week to stump for Harris. Now, CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports Arizona is not only a battleground, it's also at the epicenter of two major campaign issues, abortion and immigration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONNA ROSS, ARIZONA VOTER SUPPORTING HARRIS: It was a right that we've had for 50 years. It's crazy to think that you can take it back right away. Who does that?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donna Ross is voting to protect abortion rights.
Candy Purdue is, too.
CANDY PURDUE, ARIZONA VOTER SUPPORTING TRUMP: Everybody on that issue I believe has the right to decide what they want and what they can live with.
ZELENY: Beyond that, their views diverge sharply here in battleground Arizona, where Ross is supporting Kamala Harris.
ROSS: I'm very excited. She is so dynamic.
ZELENY: And Purdue is backing Donald Trump.
PURDUE: You darn right I am.
ZELENY: The scrambled politics of abortion are at the center of the first presidential race since the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. The fight has been an anthem of Harris's candidacy.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, Arizona, we need to fight this battle on every front. And in this election, you have the chance on the state level to vote yes on Proposition 139.
ZELENY: Yet, it's far from certain whether Proposition 139, a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, will give her a definite edge.
Abortion and immigration are colliding in Arizona, like few other battlegrounds, with both issues literally on the ballot. Proposition 314 would make immigration violations a state crime, virtually no money has been spent on ads compared to abortion, which dominates the airwaves.
AD NARRATOR: You can end Arizona's abortion ban by voting yes on Prop 139.
LAURA DENT, ARIZONA VOTER: It's something that resonates with independents, with Democrats, with Republicans.
ZELENY: Laura Dent helped gather more than 800,000 signatures from Arizona voters to put abortion rights on the ballot.
As volunteers go door to door, three weeks before the election, Mayra Rodriguez has deployed an RV to spread the word against the measure.
MAYRA RODRIGUEZ, PRO-LIFE ADVOCATE: Obviously, we don't come with the money the other side does.
ZELENY: A former clinic manager for Planned Parenthood, Rodriguez now warns women against abortion. She's voting for Trump, but with little enthusiasm.
RODRIGUEZ: I always tell people that Jesus is on the valor. He will -- they will all we have to choose always the lesser of two evils.
ZELENY: And the lesser of two evils is?
RODRIGUEZ: Right. To me, it's Trump.
ZELENY: Four years ago, Trump lost Arizona by 10,457 votes, out of more than 3.3 million cast, one of his narrowest defeats.
David Tapia sat on the sidelines in that election, but has no plans of doing so again. He's 42, born and raised in Arizona and used his classic cars to entice others to register, to vote.
Trump drove you to be more politically aware.
DAVID TAPIA, ARIZONA VOTER SUPPORTING HARRIS: A hundred percent, Trump's a popular guy. So whether you like it or not, you're going to open your phone and you're going to see politics.
ZELENY: The more he saw the former president over the past four years, he said, the less he liked. He plans to vote for Harris.
TAPIA: Looking at both sides, I mean, I'll be honest. I'm not a supporter of Trump. I'm just not.
ZELENY: He's been studying state races, too, including the abortion measure he plans to support.
TAPIA: My man, no one's ever told me what to do and I believe that women have the right to make the decisions on their own bodies.
ZELENY: Whether Tapia's views are widely held or the exception will help determine the outcome in Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZELENY (on camera): And Arizona's 11 electoral votes really are at the center of this race. Vice President Harris holding a rally there on Thursday night, spending Friday hey, there as well, former president Donald Trump holding a rally there on Sunday. They've been blanketing the state. There is no question now that both sides see this state as part of their strategies.
Immigration, abortion are driving this race. There's no doubt about that every day is election day between now and November 5th.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Washington. [02:50:00]
CHURCH: Federal officials say Donald Trump was not in any danger at a campaign rally in California on Saturday. A man was arrested for violating state gun laws. But as Camila Bernal reports, Secret service officers had this suspect in custody before the rally started.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two federal officials, telling CNN that there is no evidence at this time to indicate that the man who was arrested on Saturday was attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
Now, authorities confirming that they arrested Vem Miller, a 49-year- old man from Las Vegas, near former President Trump's rally in Coachella. He was arrested for illegally possessing a shotgun and a loaded handgun. And these are state charges.
We also know that he had multiple boxes of ammunition for both guns and the Riverside County sheriff today confirming he also had multiple passports and drivers licenses with different names. He was driving an unregistered sir car with a fake license plate and he told authorities that he was a journalist and that he had a VIP's pass for the rally, which has already said they were not able to verify.
Now the sheriff's department says that Miller was allowed through an outside perimeter, but was then stopped at an inside perimeter which was more thorough and that's where the deputies found the fake license plate, the guns, the multiple IDs. This was still a distance away from the events entrance where the U.S. Secret Service does their tracks, and it was before the former president arrived.
Here is what the sheriff said.
SHERIFF CHAD BIANCO, RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: Obviously, this was before the former president arrived. The person was taken into custody. He was eventually booked into jail on those charges and eventually he was he was released.
BERNAL: Now, miller was released on a $5,000 bail and the Riverside County Sheriff's Office says its actively engaged with the FBI and Secret Service, and a United States Attorneys Office statements said that the U.S. attorney's office, the U.S. Secret Service and FBI are aware of the arrest and went on to say that the incident did not impact protective operations and former President Trump was not in any danger.
The statement did say that this is an ongoing investigation.
Camila Bernal, CNN, Los Angeles.
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CHURCH: A 24-year-old man, has been killed and another nine people were injured in an exchange of gunfire near Tennessee State University in Nashville. It came as crowds mingled in the hours after a homecoming celebration on Saturday, investigators believe at least one of the people injured took part in the shooting, which apparently broke out between two groups that were arguing. Police say three children were among those injured, a 12-year-old and two 14-year-old girls.
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DON AARON, MEDIA RELATIONS DIRECTOR, NASHVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT: There's no indication of any gang relation. It was two groups of people who were beefing and they opened fire on each other with a crowd around.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Most of the injured victims, including the three children, are expected to recover.
After months of searing heat and record high temperatures, much of the U.S. is in store for an early blast of cold weather this week, stretching from the Northeast to the Southern Plains.
Our meteorologist Allison Chinchar has the forecast.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Now, much of the eastern half of the U.S. is going to get quite a shock of change of seasons as we go through the next few days and it's all thanks to this cold front now that it's going to pass through many of these areas. Temperatures are going to be dropping pretty significantly.
Take Washington, D.C., for example, those high temperatures on Sundays in the low 80s. By the time we get to Tuesday, they may not even make it to a high temperature of 60 degrees and they're not alone.
Look at Dallas going from a high in the mid-90s on Sunday, dropping all the way back to the upper 60s by the time we get to Wednesday. Keep in mind, the average is 80, so going from above average to below average, and just simply two to three days.
Atlanta also going to see a similar drop, but you're really going to notice it in those morning low temperatures, take a look at this, Wednesday night into Thursday morning, that low temperature in the city of Atlanta going to get all the way down and do the upper 30s. So, again, very chilly for some of these locations.
The good news is notice that little bit of a rebound that we get once we get back into next weekend. So this little bit of a brief preview of those fall like temperatures is really going to be short-lived, as those above average temperatures will really start to push back into areas of the Midwest and then continue to spread east as we head to the rest of the week.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: SpaceX adds another feather to its cap with these successful launch and landing of the most powerful rocket system ever built. Starship's latest test was in line with SpaceX's mission to recover and reuse their equipment with the goal of making space travel cheaper.
[02:55:08]
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ANNOUNCER: Four, three, two, one.
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CHURCH: Starship had no crew and was remotely piloted. During the test, SpaceX attempted an ambitious move, trying to catch the super heavy rocket booster in midair on re-entry with a pair of massive metal pincers they call chopsticks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can see those chopsticks.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is absolutely insane. On first ever attempt, we have successfully plot the super heavy booster back at the launch counter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Remarkable. Now, if tests continued to go according to plan, SpaceX hopes Starship will one day put the first humans on Mars.
Countries have argued over the origins and final burial place of 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus for centuries. Now, a new scientific study is debunking the traditional theory that Columbus was from Genoa in northwestern Italy. Spanish scientists analyze the DNA of remains buried in Seville Cathedral, long theorized to be those of Columbus. They compared the samples to those of his known family, and they found that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe and that his remains are indeed at the cathedral.
Columbus died in 1506 in Spain where 300,000 Jews once lived.
I want to thank you so much for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. I'll be back with more CNN NEWSROOM in just a moment. Do stay with us.
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