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CNN This Morning
Race Coming Down To Critical "Blue Wall" States; Inside The Story Of Trump's Financial Gains And Falls; Dolphins Place Tua Tagovailoa On Injured Reserve. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired September 18, 2024 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:31:12]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:30 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at New York City on this Wednesday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
"The rhetoric is causing me to be shot at." That was the message from Donald Trump a day after that second apparent assassination attempt against him. He blamed the left's political rhetoric for rising tension. Democrats place the same blame on Republicans.
Donald Trump was back on the trail for his first event since the incident yesterday. It was a town hall in Michigan. During his remarks there was a moment where he struck a softer tone when he spoke about recent phone calls with Vice President Harris and President Biden.
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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A little while ago I got a nice -- a very nice call from Kamala.
RALLYGOERS: (Booing).
TRUMP: No, it was very nice.
President Biden -- I want to be nice. You know, he was so nice to me. But, in one way, I sort of wish I -- the call wasn't made because I do feel he's so nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Vice President Harris was also back on the campaign trail yesterday in the must-win state of Pennsylvania. In a conversation with the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris spoke about her message to Trump in that phone call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I checked on him to see if he was OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. HARRIS: And I told him what I have said publicly that there's no place for political violence in our country. I am in this election and in this race for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining me now to discuss the state of the race is the singular Ron Brownstein. He is a CNN senior political analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic. Ron --
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Good morning.
HUNT: -- good morning. Thank you for being here.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, (INAUDIBLE).
HUNT: Let's talk for a second about this conversation that they are having on the campaign trail about political violence and the fact that Harris and Biden both called Donald Trump. He actually seemed to have a relatively warm reaction to that. It's -- we see Trump do that when he's gotten --
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
HUNT: -- you know, has had a personal interaction along those lines.
But that said, that seems to be the exception in terms of how this is being discussed. We went from basically straight to partisan attacks --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- after this happened.
BROWNSTEIN: Well look, I mean, I think, as is often the case, people who would do something this extreme and egregious -- their views about politics don't really map our contemporary political divides. I mean, they're not -- you know, they -- this person seems to be bouncing all over the -- kind of the political landscape. The previous case -- you know, the very young person was even more kind of -- kind of scattered.
A couple of things can be true. Political violence is simply unacceptable in a democracy. But the fact that Donald Trump has now been targeted does not absolve him of his role in promoting -- I mean he calls his opponents communist, and fascist, and vermin. He says immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. He repeats --
There's a terrific story in The Wall Street Journal going through the details in which they knew what they were saying about Springfield was wrong -- was simply not true and were aware from the beginning. And yet, continue to kind of propagate those stories.
The way I -- the way I look at it Donald Trump deserves to be able to run for president without taking a shot at him -- someone taking a shot at him. And a Haitian migrant, who is here legally under a program signed into law by George H.W. Bush, in Springfield deserves to go through their day without somebody threatening them because of an unfounded allegation from Trump and Vance. Both of those things can be true.
[05:35:00]
HUNT: Yeah. And again, I just keep coming back to the speed with which this information travels.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: Especially, sometimes false information results in -- it may be online where people are talking but it results in offline --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, real world.
HUNT: -- consequences.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: Real world consequences.
Ron, let's talk about your new piece because as you have said many times --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- on this program, you did originally coin --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- the "blue wall" --
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
HUNT: -- as a phrase.
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
HUNT: You have noted that your initial blue wall has now been collapsed.
BROWNSTEIN: It's been inverted. It's the states that fell out of the blue wall are now what people think of as the blue wall.
HUNT: And they are Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: Now you note in this new piece, "The trio of states has become the most consistent tipping point --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. HUNT: -- in American politics." They have "voted for the same presidential candidate in 17 of the 26 elections since 1920. The candidate who swept these states won 15 of those 17 --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- campaigns. In the nine elections since 1920 when they split their vote, the candidate who carried two of these three states won seven times."
Now, of course, when I talk to my sources, they will say they think that Michigan and Wisconsin are relatively firmly in Harris' camp --
BROWNSTEIN: Kind of sort of -- kind of sort of leaning her way now.
HUNT: -- but that Pennsylvania is a pure --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- toss-up.
Do you think that these states may split this time? And what else are you reporting here?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, first, let's talk a little bit about the history. There is that perception that Wisconsin and Michigan have moved to a point where they are at least kind of sort of leaning toward Harris, and that Pennsylvania is tougher.
That would depart from our recent history. Since 1980, these states have voted the same way in every presidential election except one, 1988, when Bush -- George H.W. Bush won Michigan and Pennsylvania but lost Wisconsin.
Since 1994 -- the last 30 years -- they've even voted the same way for governor in every election except one.
HUNT: Oh, that's interesting.
BROWNSTEIN: They tend to move together.
The Michigan-Pennsylvania convergence, though, is even deeper than that. Michigan and Pennsylvania have split in the presidential election exactly once in the last 80 years, right? In 1976, Michigan voted for its native son Gerald Ford. Pennsylvania voted for Jimmy Carter.
HUNT: So even then there's like an asterisk coming.
BROWNSTEIN: An asterisk.
You have to go back to Wendell Wilkie and FDR, in 1940, for the last time Michigan and Pennsylvania voted for different presidential candidates before that. Kasie, before that, they split once in the 80 years before that, between 1860 and 1940. They've split three times since the Civil War. And, you know, there's a reason for that. I mean, they're very similar demographically. You know, they're both about -- 80 percent of the voters are white. African Americans are the largest minority population, although Latinos are growing. Similar religious profiles. Similar union presence. They have tended to move together.
Pennsylvania does look harder but there's a long history that says they tend to bend.
HUNT: Yeah. So why -- so why is that in your -- in your view?
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: And actually, this is a conversation I have had with a number of sources kind of trying to sort through it. I have family roots in Michigan and I mostly --
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
HUNT: -- grew up in Pennsylvania.
BROWNSTEIN: Ah.
HUNT: So I have, obviously, a --
BROWNSTEIN: You're like a one-person focus group.
HUNT: An anecdata, right --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- sense of some of the differences here.
But when you look at why it is that Pennsylvania may end up voting for Trump where Michigan votes for Harris, why do you think that would be?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think -- you know, what we saw in 2020 was that Biden -- Trump ran better among blue-collar whites in Pennsylvania than he did in the other two, Michigan and Wisconsin. He also ran better in kind of mid-sized cities in Pennsylvania than he did in the other two.
Hard to answer fully why but I think if there's one reason it's that the deindustrialization has been even greater in western Pennsylvania than in most of Michigan. I mean, the -- there is still a functioning auto industry --
HUNT: Yeah.
BROWNSTEIN: -- in Michigan that is now transitioning to the EV kind of production much more than there is a steel or a coal industry in Pennsylvania.
HUNT: That's an interesting way to think about it.
BROWNSTEIN: The loss may -- HUNT: Yeah.
BROWNSTEIN: The loss may be even greater.
But the dynamic is pretty similar in that if you look at what's happening in the white-collar suburbs in each of these states -- you know, Dane County, Michigan -- Dane County, Wisconsin, which is -- which is Madison. Democrats have gone from 70 percent of the vote for Hillary to roughly 80 percent of the vote for Evers, the governor candidate in 2022. Oakland County, Michigan moving up to around 60 percent of the vote for Democrats. The four suburban counties outside of Philadelphia --
HUNT: Um-hum.
BROWNSTEIN: -- Biden won them by 300,000 votes, right?
The way that -- the math for Democrats in Pennsylvania is 2016 levels of turnout in Philadelphia and 2020 margins in the suburbs of Philadelphia. That's probably how she wins the state, if she wins the state. And, of course, the winner -- someone is going to win Pennsylvania by 50,000 votes and probably be our next president.
HUNT: Why do you think Harris was campaigning in Johnstown, Pennsylvania?
BROWNSTEIN: Because cutting the -- you know, cutting the margins in these -- in these red-trending mid-sized cities. As I said, if you look at the -- the Center for World Studies does a really nice geographic kind of categorization. And mid-sized metros -- not the big places -- kind of the mid-sized places are tougher for Democrats in Pennsylvania than they are in Michigan or Wisconsin -- significantly tougher.
[05:40:13]
So shaving a few points off the margin there, if you can meet what Biden did -- as I said, if you look at 2020, he won the four suburban counties outside of Philadelphia by 300,000 votes -- then you can -- if you can get back to the Hillary level of margin in Philadelphia -- maybe 460, 475 -- something like that -- add to it Pittsburgh, Allegheny County -- are there enough other people to make up for it, right?
HUNT: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: And you're in Johnstown to try to make it harder. Just a little bit off the edge in those -- in those places.
But it does seems as though, as I say, someone is going to win Pennsylvania by a fairly narrow margin and in all likelihood be the president.
HUNT: Yeah. And some of the strategy that you're talking about there -- Fetterman employed it to great effectiveness when he was running his Senate campaign, kind of cutting those margins in those small metros.
And I wonder, too, a lot of those small metros in Pennsylvania, they sprouted up around --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- steel and coal in other places.
BROWNSTEIN: Right, exactly. And the loss is even greater.
HUNT: Yeah, for sure.
BROWNSTEIN: But, by the way, if, in fact, Harris now does have an advantage in Michigan, Wisconsin, and may be on track for that typical Democratic very narrow win in Nevada, that does mean that Trump has to win all three -- Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina.
If she, in fact -- if those first three are true -- Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada leaning toward her -- any one of the other three --
HUNT: Yeah.
BROWNSTEIN: -- Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina -- gets her over the top.
HUNT: Yeah, that's a good point. All right.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: Ron Brownstein, this was fun. Come back soon.
BROWNSTEIN: All right, I will.
HUNT: Thank you.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, he spent years studying Donald Trump's finances and businesses. Now he's co-authored a new book about the former president called "Lucky Loser." The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Russ Buettner joins us next.
Plus, the star Miami Dolphins quarterback out of action after his third career concussion. When will he return to the game? Our Bleacher Report's ahead.
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[05:46:28]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have to tell you, and I think one of you is going to be very, very happy -- Lee, you're fired. Sean, you're hired. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: "THE APPRENTICE" -- it was the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name. It boosted his net worth and popularized his public image as a self-made billionaire. In many ways, it's also what helped propel him on the path to the presidency. There he was on that golden escalator.
To this day, "THE APPRENTICE" remains a core part of the former president's public persona.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Wasn't "THE APPRENTICE" a great show, though? You think if I didn't do "THE APPRENTICE" -- because that's a big question because a lot of people in Hollywood are blaming themselves for this. They're saying if we didn't do "THE APPRENTICE" he wouldn't be. But, you know, they all vote for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, joining me now, New York Times reporter Ross Buettner (sic). He is the author of a new book digging into exactly how Trump got rich over his decadeslong business career. It's called "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success." Ross (sic) -- Russ, good morning to you. Thank you so much for being here. Congratulations on the book.
So you write in this book that, "We calculated by the end of 1992, Fred Trump had provided" -- this was Donald Trump's father -- "his favorite son more than $34 million. But Donald Trump's biggest paydays from this father's fortune were still to come. By late 1992, the remnants of the empire that Donald had built, the pieces he fought to keep from lenders and investors, were still teetering."
You also talk about luck. Can you explain how Donald Trump got his money, how he -- what he did with it once he had it, and how that all ties in to what we see today?
RUSS BUETTNER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, CO-AUTHOR, "LUCKY LOSER: HOW DONALD TRUMP SQUANDERED HIS FATHER'S FORTUNE AND CREATED THE ILLUSION OF SUCCESS" (via Webex by Cisco): Sure. When we talk about luck, we're talking about three sort of big tranches.
One is what you just described -- the money he received from his father. That total over the course of his lifetime about -- more than $400 million in today's money.
And then he received this huge second traunch when this producer, Mark Burnett, the creator of "THE APPRENTICE," walked into his office and gave him a deal to be on a show, but also half of all the product integration money from the show. And that led to a real wellspring of cash. And that also led to a wave of licensing deals where Donald Trump was able to just let people use his name. That was more than another $400 million.
All adjusted for inflation, that's easily over a billion dollars.
And then there was investment he was pushed into against his will that's yielded hundreds of millions of dollars more. So that's well over a billion dollars for things that are extra outside of his business acumen.
He used that through the course of his life to create businesses, many of which lost money or failed, especially in the latter half of his life. That's what we're talking about when we talk about the luck and loss cycles.
HUNT: Very interesting.
When you were kind of reporting out this book how would you answer, based on what you've learned, that question that Donald Trump posed there that we saw at the rally where he says well, if not for "THE APPRENTICE" I might not be here today? I mean, would he?
[05:50:00]
BUETTNER: It's an excellent question. We'll never know because that's what happened in the real world.
We do know the kind of state of his affairs when Mark Burnett, his producer, walked in to his office and offered him this gig. His businesses were -- his casinos were teetering on bankruptcy again. He was going to have to come up with $50 million to do that. He was pushing his family to sell the remainder of his father's assets -- a sale that would value the remnants of that estate at well -- about a billion dollars in today's money. So he clearly needed money.
And this -- when Mark Burnett walked in, Gallup had done a survey of him not long before -- a survey of his favorability rating, and less than half of Americans viewed Donald Trump favorably. Almost everyone knew him, they just didn't think highly of him.
The show created this three-minute amazing video that made Donald Trump look like the king of New York, the kind of business. They created a new studio that looked like a board room. It wasn't his actual office. And every week they were sort of reinforcing this notion that he was a really amazing businessman.
And then after they did a survey -- Gallup did another survey about 18 months later, and for the first time, more than half of Americans viewed Donald Trump favorably. And that was the highest rating he would ever have, in fact, in that Gallup survey. And clearly, they had reinvented his image. They had reinvented his finances and that really does seem to have led straight on to him having the credibility to run for president.
HUNT: And, of course, we see him lean on that today as he argues that he would be a better steward of the economy than his Democratic opponent.
Ross Buettner (sic), thanks very much for your time this morning. I'm looking forward to really diving into the book. Thank you very much. And, of course, you can get your copy of "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success." It's out this week.
All right, time now for sports. The Dolphins' quarterback will miss at least four games as he's headed to the team's injured reserved list.
Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, good morning.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah, good morning, Kasie.
So after Tua Tagovailoa suffered yet another concussion we all wondered when or if we would see him on the field again. And as of now, we know the earliest we could see Tua back under center for the Dolphins would be October 27. The team putting Tua on injured reserve. That means he's out at least four games.
Tua suffered his third diagnosed concussion last Thursday against the Bills. Third-year quarterback Skylar Thompson is going to start for the Dolphins on Sunday against the Seahawks.
All right. Elsewhere, A'ja Wilson setting another record last night. The Aces star grabbed seven boards, passing Angel Reese for the WNBA single season rebounding record. Last week, Wilson also became the first player ever to score 1,000 points in a season.
The Aces beat the Storm last night 85-72.
The Liberty, meanwhile, clinching the top seed for the playoffs with an 87-71 win over the Mystics. New York is 32-7 on the season. Now, who they play in the playoffs, that's still unknown as Atlanta, Washington, and Chicago are all still battling for the eighth and final spot. The regular season concludes on Thursday with all 12 teams in action.
All right, to baseball where Shohei Ohtani keeps inching closer to the first-ever 50-50 season. The Dodgers' star slugging his 48th home run of the season last night against the Marlins. Ohtani now has 48 home runs and 48 steals. He's got 11 games left to get the 50-50.
The Dodgers actually lost that game to the Marlins 11-9.
Juan Soto, meanwhile, also going yard (PH) last night for his 40th home run of the season. It was also the 200th of his career. He's the seventh youngest to reach the mark. And so, Soto and Aaron Judge are the first Yankees teammates to hit 40 home runs in a season since Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris back in 1961.
The Yankees beat the Mariners 11-2.
And finally, the Astros playing in San Diego. Jose Altuve hits this one and he doesn't run because he hit it off his foot, which is a foul ball. Well, the ump said it didn't hit his foot. Manager Joe Espada immediately runs out to argue.
Altuve -- they remove his cleat and sock to show his foot is red from getting hit. He got ejected for doing that, as did his Espada.
Grae Kessinger -- he replaced Altuve at second. And in the 10th inning, the Padres had the bases loaded, but Kessinger made the sliding stop to get the out. He's all pumped up. He hadn't played since mid-July.
The Astros won that one 4-3.
But Kasie, this is actually the second time this season Jose Altuve has hit a ball off his foot and didn't run. And he got called out and he got ejected for it. So it's weird. It hadn't happened in his entire career and twice this season.
HUNT: How strange. Yeah -- no -- that's -- whatever. It's --
SCHOLES: This time he was like I'm taking my cleat off and showing you my foot.
HUNT: I mean, I honestly don't blame the guy -- I don't.
So, Andy, thank you.
SCHOLES: All right.
HUNT: I really appreciate it.
[05:55:00]
Coming up in our next hour on CNN THIS MORNING, Sean "Diddy" Combs waking up in federal custody. The disturbing new details that were laid out in an indictment about the so-called "freak offs" he's accused of forcing on his victims.
Plus, the blame game continues. Why Donald Trump's running mate says calls to tamp down rhetoric are leading to violence.
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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think that was is so consistent about the attacks on Donald Trump, not just over the last campaign but the last 10 years, is there is an explicit effort to try to shut him up -- to silence him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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HUNT: It's Wednesday, September 18. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): The clearest line from incitement to action is coming from the rhetoric of J.D. Vance and Donald Trump.
VANCE: They haven't learned a damn thing and they're going to get somebody killed.
