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Obama Holds Rally for Harris in Battleground Pennsylvania; Democrats Look to Maintain Senate Majority; Harris on her policies: "Clearly, I'm Not Joe Biden"; Obama Appeals to Male Voters for Harris in Pennsylvania. Aired 6:30-7 am ET

Aired October 11, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:32:35]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Donald Trump does not care that a mob might attack his own vice president. Do you think he cares about you? Pennsylvania, we do not need four more years of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: It was no coincidence that former President Obama's first rally for Kamala Harris yesterday took part in Pennsylvania. Both candidates are vying for the Commonwealth's potentially decisive 19 electoral votes. Polling indicates the race remains extremely close, as it was in the past two elections.

Now in 2016, Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by just 44,000 votes. Then in 2020, Joe Biden came out on top by some 80,000 votes. Here's a little bit of what we heard from Pennsylvania voters around this time in 2016 and 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLEEN GREEN, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I just don't care for Hillary. I think she's a liar. I think she's a fraud. I think she covers up a lot of things.

SUSAN SLUG, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I have a big problem with his rhetoric. If he shut his mouth and said nothing through the campaign, maybe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're not phased and you're headed in for -- for Trump.

JULIE BRADY, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Absolutely. I support him 100%.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I regret the decision that I made to vote for Donald Trump in 2016, and I do feel ashamed for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Joining me now to discuss this is Democratic Congressman Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania. Congressman, thank you so much for waking up this morning and joining me bright and early. Really appreciate your time.

REP. CHRIS DELUZIO, (D-PA): Yeah, man. Glad to be here.

RAJU: I want to ask you about what's happening on the ground here in your state and just about the gender gap that we are seeing here. There's a Quinnipiac poll out that has Harris doing better than Trump among women voters, up by 55 to 40, but she's still struggling with male voters. She's down 11 points to Trump in your state among male voters. What is your level of concern about that?

DELUZIO: Well, look, I think we have a lot of game left to play between now and Election Day, and we'll see where folks ultimately sort out. But I think a couple of things, of course, are happening. Women in particular are very fired up about protecting their reproductive freedom. We've got Republicans up and down the ballot who include Donald Trump who have attacked that freedom.

We've got an economic message to take, I think, to voters who may not know the vice president as well as President Biden and others about rebuilding manufacturing, about protecting our jobs, about bringing down costs. On all those issues, I think we've got the winning message.

[06:35:01]

We've got to get out to voters and make sure they hear it and see the contrast with the trickle-down economics of the Republicans that has never worked for us.

RAJU: But why is she struggling? But why is she struggling with male voters?

DELUZIO: Look, I can't answer for every voter in the Commonwealth of the country. I think we've seen gender splits for some time now for several election cycles. And I represent a region that's got an economy that's, you know, health care, manufacturing, everything in between. And folks, men and women are in those industries that are affected by the disastrous trickle-down economics that we've seen from the right, that Donald Trump has championed, handing out tax cuts to the very corporations price-gouging us.

So we've got to be strong in our economic message and reminding folks we are the ones standing up for reproductive freedom and for our democracy against the threats that guys like Donald Trump pose.

RAJU: So speaking of the economic message, yesterday Donald Trump was in Detroit. He pitched an idea involving car loans and deducting the interest from those car loans. I want you to listen to his pitch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Today I am also announcing that as part of our tax cuts, we will make interest on car loans fully deductible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: That sounds like something consumers might support, no?

DELUZIO: Well, I think he's big enough as he goes along. And I'm a guy who's going to support whatever can bring down costs for folks. Remember, we passed in the House a little piece of the tax cut extension that included not just a child tax credit, but also a business tax credit. That's guiding Republicans in the Senate. If he's serious about any sort of bringing down costs, he should talk to his colleagues in the Senate.

And look, the other part of this is when he was president, he allowed antitrust enforcement to continue to be effectively absent. One of the main causes of these rising costs is price-gouging by big corporations. And we're finally seeing the DOJ, the Justice Department, take action there.

RAJU: But Congressman, would you support what Donald Trump is proposing there?

DELUZIO: Look, just see what the details are. But if something is going to bring down costs for folks, that's always going to be something that can earn my support.

RAJU: I want to ask you about what's happening in the race for the House. This is, of course, incredibly competitive. The House Republicans have a narrow majority. There are very few battleground districts. You're in what's considered a frontline district in Pennsylvania. What is your level of concern right now, 25 days out, that Republicans may hang on to the House?

DELUZIO: I think we're going to take the House. You know, I have colleagues in tough districts all over the country, including several in Pennsylvania. I'd rather be us than the other guys. I mean, they're running away from their anti-abortion records. My opponent is one of these exact guys who just try to squirm out of trying to ban abortion in Pennsylvania and put doctors in prison.

And on economics, these guys have no plan other than more tax cuts for billionaires and huge corporations. Guys like me want to fight against price gouging. We want to hold big corporations accountable. As President Obama has once said, right, Republicans could have an asteroid coming for the Earth and their plan would be tax cuts for the ultra-rich. It's never worked. It's never worked for places like Western Pennsylvania.

RAJU: All right. Congressman Chris Deluzio from Pennsylvania, thank you. It's going to be a very close race for the House. We will see what happens in 25 days.

DELUZIO: Thanks Manu. RAJU: All right, in the November election, beyond the White House, the balance of power is up for grabs in the House and also in the United States Senate. Democrats currently have an extremely slim majority in that chamber, 51 to 49. That includes, of course, four independent senators who caucus with Democrats.

Republicans are all but certain to pick up at least one seat. That's in West Virginia because of the retiring Senator of West Virginia, Joe Manchin from West Virginia, who said he would not seek re-election. And new polling shows just how difficult it could be for Democrats to hold on to their seats in at least two competitive states. That's in Ohio and Montana, both places where Republicans have done well and where Donald Trump won twice.

Now, in Ohio, a new poll shows Democratic incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown is virtually tied with Republican challenger Bernie Moreno. And in Montana, polling shows an even bigger problem for Democrats. Democratic Senator Jon Tester is trailing Republican Tim Sheehy by eight points.

Now, I was just in Montana, where I asked Senator Tester how the presidential race is impacting his Democratic campaign in that red state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Harris is obviously making this harder for you. You're not endorsing her, so?

SEN. JON TESTER (D-MT): Well, that's because I don't want this race to be nationalized any more than they want it to be nationalized. I want to talk about Montana. That's what this race is about.

RAJU: Would you vote for her?

TESTER: That's between me and the ballot box.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And this is such a difficult map for Democrats. I mean, they have an absolutely perfect night. Simply to have a 50-50 Senate. And if Kamala Harris wins, she could almost certainly, very likely, face a Republican Senate.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is definitely a tough map for Democrats. There's no question about it. And, you know, I think in places like Ohio and Montana, you know, look, you have people like Tester and Sherrod Brown who are well-known and well-liked by their constituents. I think their best shot is to run as independent a campaign as they possibly can. That doesn't mean attacking Kamala Harris every day, but it means talking with clarity about the ways in which you differ and making sure that your voters understand that their interests are always going to come first for you.

[06:40:14] I think Brown is doing a really -- you know, he's somebody who has always been really effective in the way that he talks particularly to blue-collar voters, the way he talks about manufacturing, union jobs, and has been successfully re-elected in Ohio many times. So I don't think this is a, you know, a done deal. But look, there's no question it's a tough map for Democrats.

RAJU: It's so hard to separate yourself from the top of the ticket when you're someone like Jon Tester. He's got to run like 20 points ahead of Kamala Harris.

DOUG HEYE, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Yeah, all politics are national now. Sorry, Senator Tester and every senator. But, you know, we often say that politics is like football. It's a game of inches. It's also a game of time of possession. And every race that we're looking at, Republicans feel that they're in a good place because they have the ball and they're on offense. It's hard to identify anywhere that they're on defense.

You could sort of argue Texas, but that's not real most likely. So they're on offense. They have the ball. It's why they feel comfortable. I sat down with the comms director at the NRCC a couple weeks ago, and it wasn't we're going to run the table. It's here's where we are, and we feel confident. That's a great place to be 25 days out from the election.

RAJU: What's remarkable is that what's going to happen here is that there's probably going to be a narrow majority, one side or the other, Republicans favor to take it. The House will be a narrow Republican majority or a narrow Democratic majority. Very unlikely one side's going to have a blowout. And the president's going to have to face potentially a divided Congress in the next two years, a recipe for gridlock.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And not just a divided Congress, but a polarized Congress, particularly in the House. A lot of the folks are coming in or not coming in as centrists. They're coming in as sort of the more fire-breathing type of member that we've seen in the last years.

You know, even assuming a Republican flip in the Senate, what I continue to be struck by is even how close some of these obvious races are. Texas, which I totally agree, Doug, that it's not -- Ted Cruz is going to win that race. You know, I think we can agree on that. But he's still only up by five points now. How is that humanly possible?

Now, some of that is an unpopular candidate, but all of these races are remarkably close. To Manu's point, it's on a race level, but also on a body-wide level of the House. And so good luck to the next president in the United States.

HEYE: And Manu, one thing to remember that's really important is these members who win and senators who win, they get sworn in before January 20th. That means certifying the vote, something we've all paid attention to in past elections. Very critical in this race. RAJU: Yeah, I mean, January 3rd is the day that Congress gets sworn in. That means they're going to have to elect a speaker. And then who's the new speaker?

HEYE: They might elect a speaker.

RAJU: We saw what happened last time.

BEDINGFIELD: Yeah, we'll see.

RAJU: If January 6th comes on, that's a whole other recipe. And again, another recipe for, can they actually legislate in like this environment? We shall see. It hasn't worked so well in the last couple of years.

All right, after the break on CNN This Morning, walking a fine line, Kamala Harris' battle with staying loyal to the president while differentiating herself.

Plus, closing the gender gap, former President Obama's appeal to Black men who plan to vote for Trump.

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[06:47:28]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUNNY HOSTIN, ABC CO-HOST: If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) U.S. VICE PRESIDENT & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right, two and a half months into her candidacy, and four weeks into Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris has faced renewed pressure to differentiate herself from President Biden while also remaining loyal to the man with whom she has served for the last four years. Despite proposing some policies that are different from Biden's, Harris has mainly pointed to her age as proof that she will not be Biden 2.0.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right, joining me now, CNN Political Commentator Michael Smerconish. He's also the host, of course, of CNN Smerconish. Michael, good morning. It's so great to see you live from Philadelphia this morning.

So, you know, poll after poll, Michael, as you know, says that voters do want change. They want change. That answer from "The View" this week really undercuts that message. How much do you think that hurt her in this campaign?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, SMERCONISH: Manu, I appreciate always being with you. When I saw that video clip for the first time, what immediately ran through my mind is Joe Biden would have had a different answer, right? I mean, I'm sure if you said to President Biden, what would you have done differently, he would have said, well, of course, I have lots of regrets.

So what would be wrong, by extension, with his vice president saying, I'm proud of our record, I'm proud of the NATO alliance, I'm proud of the CHIPS Act, I'm proud of restoring jobs, I'm proud of having less chaos in the White House? But in retrospect, jeez, I wish we'd been quicker to act on the border. Of course, losing 13 on the way out of Afghanistan is a huge regret. I think acknowledging one's shortcomings would be well received by the American public. But she struggles with this.

Now, on the other hand, I have to say, to your point, you look at that Times/Siena College survey, and for the first time, she is seen as more of a change agent than he, meaning Trump. So maybe it's winning for her. I don't know. I just thought that it was a poor response, and then repeated with Colbert. It's not as if it was gotcha, and she didn't see it coming.

RAJU: Yeah, I was surprised that she didn't have a better answer for this. What do you think he -- what do you think that she is struggling right now to really close the deal?

[06:50:01]

Look, she, of course, had that surge in the immediate aftermath of becoming the candidate, but race, poll after poll, swing state after swing state, she's within the margin of error. Maybe she's a little bit ahead. Maybe Trump was a little bit ahead. What do you think are biggest challenges right now in the last 25 days?

SMERCONISH: She's just not been able to close the deal, and meanwhile, he gets darker and darker. There's just, like, no effort at all on his part for persuasion. It's all about motivation, and I can only think that the mindset on Trump's side of the aisle is, we're tapped out at 45% or 46% of the vote. All we want to do is make sure that ours show up.

There's some reticence. There's some reluctance on the part of certain voters who don't like Trump but are not willing to go with Vice President Kamala Harris, and I think, and you've been covering this this morning, I think this is a large part of the President Obama pitch, especially to men, especially to men of color, because that's the group that seems to be hesitant for whatever reason.

RAJU: And look, Trump is winning with those male voters, but he is underwater significantly with women voters, struggling with suburban women voters. Can't he win the presidency, say, losing Pennsylvania women by 15 points, according to the Quinnipiac poll? Is that enough for him still to make up the margin, the difference with men and become president again?

SMERCONISH: Manu, you could fact check me on this. I don't think since he entered the stage in 2015, I don't think he's ever been above water with a majority of Americans. I mean, he's been able very carefully to assemble these elements that get him just enough.

Of course, in 2016, there was an active, robust third-party factor that there isn't in this cycle. That might be the difference. Can he win Pennsylvania being so far underwater with women in the Commonwealth? I don't think so. I don't think so, but it's a game of inches. You see all the data. You've got the Quinnipiac, the Q study, same as I do. It's a toss-up in PA right now. I have no idea what happens.

RAJU: Yeah. Ooh, toss-up across the board in the seven key swing states. Michael Smerconish, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

SMERCONISH: Thanks, Manu.

RAJU: Really appreciate it. Absolutely.

SMERCONISH: You too.

RAJU: And for our viewers, remember to tune in to "Smerconish" tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

All right, 51 minutes past the hour, so here's your morning roundup. Today, Boeing expected to plead guilty to a federal fraud charge over its role in two fatal 737 MAX plane crashes in 2018 and 2019. The company will pay up to $487 million in fines, a fraction of the nearly $25 billion sought by the crash victim's families.

And nearly 1,000 people have been rescued from floodwaters following Hurricane Milton in Florida. 200 of those rescues happening in Hillsborough County alone, where a 14-year-old boy was found stranded alone in deep water.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was waving us down, flagging us down. Most people were saying hello. He was frantically wailing his arms. We went over, and it literally was like a scene out of a Cast Away movie, how he's hanging on for dear life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: A trip to a gold mine turns deadly for some tourists in Colorado. One person died, and 23 people were rescued after an elevator malfunctioned, trapping them in the mine. They were trapped 1,000 feet underground for up to six hours. Now, Donald Trump's legal team has one week to appeal the release of sealed evidence in his January 6th criminal case. Judge Tanya Chutkan has approved redactions to the exhibits the prosecutors filed in support of a recent 165-page brief in the case. But Trump is opposing the release, claiming it interferes with the election.

Now, turning to this, former President Obama -- well, I want to ask, before we turn to that, I want to ask you about this, Elliot. Trump wants to delay the release. Will he be successful?

WILLIAMS: Um, no. And here's -- look, big picture. Pretend this is not about Donald Trump at all. There is a presumption that anything that is filed in a court is going to be made public. Anytime something is sealed, like documents like this are, eventually the court seeks to get them out.

Now, here, even if Trump were to win, a lot of stuff would be -- number one would be redacted. Names, important information, identifying information, number one. And number two, even if it did come out, much of the evidence is already out there on the record, and people's views about Donald Trump are pretty fully baked in.

So, not a big deal in the grand scheme of this long-running litigation. He's got a right to appeal it, but even if it gets out there, not so much.

RAJU: Yeah, we'll see. I'm sure the Democrats will make hay of it. Will it make a difference to voters? But you're right, baked in. That's the question. It's how much of this is baked in. Maybe a lot of it. We'll see what's new.

All right, now turning to this, former President Obama hitting the trail for Kamala Harris. Obama kicking off the final sprint to Election Day in Pennsylvania, where he spoke directly to a specific group of voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I'm sorry, gentlemen. I've noticed this especially with some men who seem to think Trump's behavior, the bullying and the putting people down, is a sign of strength. And I am -- I am here to tell you, that is not what real strength is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:55:15]

RAJU: Men, a group that Harris has struggled with at a recent poll of registered voters showed Donald Trump leading Harris 51% to 43% among men. But on the flip side, Harris appears to be winning among women registered voters. That same poll shows her up 52% to Trump's 43%. And Trump recently has tried to directly appeal to those women voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Women are poorer than they were four years ago, are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago, are more stressed and depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago. I will fix all of that, women. I will fix all of that. Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right, Kate. Trump is back. Obama's out. Trump is making his pitch. How do you see this playing out?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, look, that's Trump's effort to reach out to women. I mean, first of all, he's got some huge problems here. One, he put three justices on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe. That has been a massive hurdle for him, I would argue, as it should be, but has been a massive hurdle for him with women, particularly suburban women. His behavior over the course of this campaign has really done nothing to assuage concerns that women have about the fact that he's, you know, brutish, that he's a bully. I mean, we've really seen that. You know, he's tripled down on that kind of behavior.

That doesn't really go a long way toward assuaging, again, particularly suburban women who, you know, might have some policy agreements with him but see his conduct as unacceptable.

You know, Obama out for Kamala Harris, first of all, there's really no greater order in the Democratic Party than Barack Obama. When you see him out in force on the campaign trail, you remember just how effective and powerful he can be. And

You know, and I think he sort of called out some of the hesitation that some men have in a really direct way that I think is productive. And he can do that in a way that others can't. He can do that in a way that's hard for Kamala Harris to do. And so that's helpful.

RAJU: But is that enough to close the gap, Obama on the trail trying to appeal to male voters?

BEDINGFIELD: I think every little bit helps.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BEDINGFIELD: Every little bit helps.

WILLIAMS: Well, and it's also, he's not just the greatest order in the Democratic Party. He's an individual who a generation of black families literally had a picture of in their homes.

Now, if it's a question of closing the gap and winning or simply chipping away at that segment of the black male population that finds Donald Trump appealing, and it's there and it's non-zero, and it's frightening to the Harris campaign, certainly it has an impact. Now, a lot of these guys were toddlers when Obama was president.

HEYE: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: And so -- HEYE: There was also footage of Obama speaking to a smaller group. And

the messaging that he was doing was lecturing them. And that doesn't seem to me to be really motivational to get your voters out or to change their minds. That might turn some of those voters off. People don't like being lectured. And look, you know --

RAJU: Which is a crisis.

HEYE: We're seeing all the Democratic all-stars, we're seeing -- that's how I viewed it.

BEDINGFIELD: I think he was calling it out directly.

HEYE: I get that. But look, we see all the Democratic all-stars coming out for Harris right now. And it sort of reminds me of 2016, except in 2016, that was sort of the coronation of this is Hillary's time, we're going to do it. This is if we're in a vibes election. This is coming to rest of the ship.

WILLIAMS: Let me ask you a quick question. Name a better surrogate, either party --

HEYE: Oh, sure.

WILLIAMS: -- for who they -- their target audience is, whether it's a question of turning off sort of the other side, either party, whether it's Mitt Romney or, I don't know.

HEYE: Sure, but in communications, the messenger and the message matter. And some of this messaging from a great messenger I think is a bit off, yeah.

BEDINGFIELD: See, I don't think it's lecturing, though. I think it's calling -- it's calling Trump out directly in a way that, you know, is saying, we're not going to dance around this, we're not going to be afraid. No, but I think there is taking it to voters directly in a way that works for him.

I mean, it's -- you say messenger and message, he is such an effective messenger that he can do it. And I think having Democrats not sort of stand back and say, well, we have to kind of fear the Trump, you know, the great power of the almighty Trump, and just say, no, what he's doing is not, you know, not strength, and calling it out directly I do think is effective. And I don't see that as lecturing so much as piercing that veil directly, and I think that's important to do.

RAJU: Very quickly, your final word.

HEYE: Yeah, going after Trump one thing and piercing his veil, yes, but going to the voters and saying, you're doing this wrong, that's what I think can come off as lecturing, and that's the off messaging.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

RAJU: All right, we'll see how voter, again, just 25 days, can you believe it? A blink of an eye, it will be here, it's already here. All right, and don't forget to join me on Inside Politics Sunday, this Sunday at 8 a.m. Eastern and 11 a.m. Eastern.

[07:00:06]

We'll take a deep dive into the politics of abortion and reproductive rights, and of course, we'll look at the state of the race with just over three weeks until election day.

Thank you to our panel for joining me this morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm Manu Raju, CNN News Central starts right now.