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Brownstein: Working Class White Women Critical For Trump Bid; Today: Trump Campaigns In Georgia As Early Voting Begins; Yankees, Mets Inch Closer To Subway Series Showdown. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired October 15, 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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[05:31:00]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Five-thirty a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Atlanta, Georgia where today early voting begins. It is, of course, a key battleground state here in the 2024 presidential race.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
The Harris campaign deploying former President Bill Clinton to campaign on the ground in the Peach State. Prior to Biden's 2020 victory, the last time that the state had flipped blue was back in 1992 when Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush.
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BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've been hanging around here the last two or three days, you know, and traveling out and going around. I went to the fair and everybody was in such a good humor. I even had one guy with a MAGA cap ask to take a picture, and it made me feel good. I thought maybe there's hope for this country yet.
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HUNT: In a new piece by CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein, he writes this. "In exit polls dating to 1980, the only Democratic presidential nominee who carried even a plurality of white women without a college degree on a national basis was Bill Clinton in 1996."
And this voting bloc could be more important than ever in this election.
Brownstein writes this. "Because these women are especially plentiful in the three former 'blue wall' states that still constitute Harris' most likely path to an Electoral College victory: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. To win those states Harris doesn't have to win most of those women -- Democrats almost never do -- but she does need to remain competitive with them." Of course, we have seen Harris has an edge among likely female voters. Recent polling shows Harris leads Trump by nine points among women. The Trump campaign is aware of it and trying to fix it.
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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm aware of the gender gap. I see the polling that everybody else does. I also think there's some evidence that we've made some progress in the last few weeks.
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HUNT: All right, joining us now is Ron Brownstein. Ron, so grateful to have you on the program.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, thank you.
HUNT: So you're talking about this particular slice of the -- of women -- white women without a college degree and saying that these women are critical to the blue wall states. Explain a little bit more.
And I did think it was interesting to hear Bill Clinton say that as well, right? He's -- someone --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- in a MAGA hat said that -- you know, that he wanted to take his picture with Bill Clinton. He was, of course, in many ways, I guess a different kind of Democrat. But it kind of shows you how times have changed since the '90s.
BROWNSTEIN: Indeed, indeed.
Well look, these women are usually the most Republican-leaning slice of the -- of the female electorate. As you noted, on a national basis Bill Clinton is the only Democrat since -- in exit polls since 1980 to carry even a plurality of them.
They have moved in the opposite direction of college-educated women, really, in the 21st century as the college-educate white women have become more Democratic. These women have become more Republican.
But Democrats historically, Kasie, have run just a few points better among them in the industrial state battlegrounds, particularly Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the three states that Trump knocked out of the blue wall in 2016. And they are a critical voting bloc in those -- in those states.
If you -- I have new projections in the story analyzing census data that if you look at the eligible voters in those states they are really -- they are a bigger group than college-educated men, college- educated women, people of color. Really, they are the largest group other than the non-college white men. And those non-college white men, as you know, are the foundation of the Trump coalition. So clearly, Harris is on track to do better among the college-educated white women in these states. Most indications are that post-Dobbs, in 2022, she could do even better than Biden did in 2020. She's trying to get back to where he was among the Black women in these states, and that leaves I think the non-college white women as the critical wildcard that's left in these razor-tight former blue wall states.
[05:35:14]
HUNT: Yeah. It's a fascinating way to think about it.
Ron, I know you're also interested as well in Harris' strategy more broadly in trying to appeal to men in addition to women.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: And she did this interview with Charlamagne tha God. What stood out to you about that?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, you -- and I don't think Charlamagne tha God has happened yet. That was -- isn't that today?
But with Roland Martin --
HUNT: Oh.
BROWNSTEIN: -- I think what she did yesterday, right?
HUNT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BROWNSTEIN: Look, yeah. So whether we're talking about women or men I think the key kind of trade off for Harris has been between reassurance and risk. They have focused a lot of their media and messaging on reassuring voters that she is ready to be president and, in particular, that she's tough enough to keep them safe on crime and the border.
The price of that is that in the last few weeks their message about Trump -- the potential risks of a second Trump term -- has really been sublimated. And when you look at that big flurry of podcasts and network and cable media interviews that she did -- the Univision town hall, "THE VIEW," Howard Stern -- there wasn't really a clear message about Trump. It was more about I have lived your life. I understand your life. I know I'd make your life better.
I think we see her recalibrating that I think very urgently last night really striking the way she played the clips of Trump talking about the enemy within and threatening to use the military against people he deems as his opponents inside the U.S. on the Roland Martin interview yesterday and I'm sure on Charlamagne tha God today talking more explicitly again about the history of actions by Trump that can be viewed as racist with the Central Park Five, his comments about Obama.
You know, Trump's retrospective job approval has been steadily rising. It reached a high point in that NBC poll on Sunday that was higher than at any point during his actual presidency. And I think the message of that is that voters are primarily looking at Trump through the lens of what they don't like about Biden, particularly inflation and the border.
And Democrats -- I think there are a wide variety of Democrats who fear that the Harris campaign has let the other elements of what electing Trump would mean kind of recede too much, and I think you're going to see her beginning to emphasize that on many fronts between now and the finish. Whether Americans really want to go back, as she puts it, to all of the other elements that come with electing Trump other than the thought that eggs might be cheaper at the grocery store.
HUNT: Ron, what do you think has prompted this shift in strategy for them? Because, I mean, I think when she took over at the top of the ticket, they wanted to make a break from the way Biden had been --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- painting this as kind of --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: -- a dark potential future, and instead embraced this kind of joy and the way she was presenting herself.
Is it just the polling? I mean, what do you think is driving it?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, first of all, I mean, I think that most political professionals say it was rational and appropriate for them to focus primarily on introducing her -- establishing her credentials, laying out more of her vision to the -- to the public.
The problem is that may be only able to take you so far given that most Americans -- particularly, most Americans across racial lines without a college degree, like the women that we are talking about -- we were talking about a moment ago -- think that the economy worked better for them under Trump than under Biden. Biden's had a lot of economic accomplishments but as we've talked about, inflation has clouded those for -- eclipsed those for most -- for most people.
So if you're simply going to be in a conventional who is -- who is better for my bottom line, that is very hard for Harris to win that election.
But when voters were actually living through the Trump economy that many now say is better than the Biden economy, his approval rating never reached 50 percent. The only president ever in Gallup polling never to reach 50 percent. And the reason for that is, as we were saying, there was a lot else that went along with the Trump presidency. The division, the chaos, the constant conflict.
And so as you see the Trump retrospective job approval rise, I think that's the canary in the coal mine. That all of those elements of the Trump presidency that prevented people from endorsing and supporting him in the first place are fading in memory. And I think certainly, there are many Democrats who think that you simply have to remind more voters about what is fully entailed in this.
Look at those non-college white women we were talking about. They tend to think Trump is better on security. They tend to think Trump is better on the economy. But they are deeply worried about the division and the vehemence. The way he is talking about immigrants. That is the push and pull on those voters and I think on many other voters.
[05:40:12]
And that is something that Harris I think is -- clearly signaled last night that she is going to try to activate more between now and the finish line, a little bit like Bob Dole in 1996, Wake Up America.
HUNT: Really interesting.
Ron Brownstein for us this morning. Ron, so grateful to have you. Come back soon. Three weeks to go.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.
HUNT: All right.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
HUNT: Coming up here after the break, with polls showing, of course, the election is basically tied and coming down to this handful of battleground states -- one of them, Georgia. The state's former Republican lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan is going to join us live in our battleground beat.
Plus, could we get a subway World Series. That's coming up on the Bleacher Report.
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[05:45:05]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want -- I want to be out here and be able to share my voice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So many people have sacrificed before us, so it's almost a spit in their face if we don't take the time to show our kids that they have this right.
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HUNT: That was early voting four years ago in Georgia when the state saw a record 130,000 people turn out to vote in person. This year, candidates are hoping to see the same level of enthusiasm.
Today, Trump is going to participate in a Fox News town hall in Cumming, Georgia before he delivers remarks in Atlanta. Democrats sent Bill Clinton to rural Georgia over the past two days in an effort to drive up their margins in areas well beyond the crucial Atlanta suburbs.
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CLINTON: If you look at all these recent Georgia elections, they've all been close because we fought hard. And there have been some new innovative efforts in that regard trying to rig the rules away from it. But you did well. We won in 2020. We did it because -- not just because we did well in Atlanta but because where there was an opportunity anywhere outside Atlanta we punched above our weight.
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HUNT: All right, joining us now, former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan. He is, of course, backing Kamala Harris for president this November. Geoff, always grateful to have you on the program. Thank you so much for being here.
I'm interested to know where you think things stand in Georgia as early voting opens there in terms of -- you know, you have launched an effort to try to convince many of your fellow Georgians that Donald Trump would be an unacceptable person to send back to the Oval Office.
What are you hearing from your friends, from your neighbors, especially as we see these national polls tighten in a way that suggests that Trump is in a position, potentially, to win this election, or at least is as likely to as Harris is?
GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, (R) FORMER GEORGIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, no doubt this is going to be a close election. I think obviously we've all predicted that and I'm certain to see that come out.
Voter intensity in the urban areas is going to be strong and in the rural areas. I think this is going to come down to the suburbs and what type of intensity do they show up and vote.
Where I'm sitting here today is about two miles as the crow flies from where Donald Trump's going to be later today for his town hall. There's a lot of attention being paid.
And look, I think -- what I hear is this whisper caucus of Republicans -- lifelong Republicans like myself that are just sick and tired of making excuses for Donald Trump. If they decide to just simply make a point and not vote for Donald Trump at the top of the ballot, then there's a high likelihood that Donald Trump probably wins. If they end up showing up and voting for Harris against the grain, I think there's a strong chance that she wins. And for me, that heartburn feels like it's loud enough now that I think Harris ends up winning this race.
HUNT: Geoff, can I ask you just your evaluation of how Harris is doing on the trail? We have seen her kind of shift tactics here -- strategy in recent days where she is now taking on Trump more aggressively and more directly.
I mean, she went so far yesterday as to put his remarks about the enemy within and the way he talked about the National Guard and the military on a screen at her own rally to point out to the people there in Pennsylvania what he was saying. This is different from kind of the joy and the way she was presenting herself at campaign events before.
You're also seeing it in their paid advertising. The ads against Trump are getting tougher. They're less -- it's less about her biography and more about criticizing him.
What's your evaluation? What do you think of these messages that she's trying out? What's breaking through in your view?
DUNCAN: Well, certainly, she's made it easier for folks like me to get behind her. I mean, she's done all the fundraising. She performed well in the debate. She consolidated support in her own party almost overnight. So a lot of those checkmarks made it easy for somebody like me to swim upstream as a Republican and support a Democrat.
I do think she has to take it to Donald Trump. I think she has to remind people that this guy is willing to lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power. That's exactly what he did in 2020. He's reckless, he's dangerous.
And I continue to remind my friends that are sitting there going gosh, it's just so hard to think about voting for a Democrat for the first time -- I remind them that we may disagree on policies with Kamala Harris and certainly, I disagree on a number of those policies, but we will never disagree on the policy of democracy. We will never go to bed at night worried about where she stands on democracy if she's the president for four years.
And Donald Trump -- I can't say that. I do think it's important for her to remind people of how reckless this guy is.
[05:50:00]
And look, you have to look no further than his further cabinet members -- his generals that surrounded him. These are folks that were behind the curtain with him that watched him make those reckless decisions and they're not willing to put their stamp behind him. That says a lot.
HUNT: Geoff, briefly before I let you go, I want to ask you about these comments that Bill Clinton made on the trail yesterday where he referenced the death of Laken Riley, that nursing student who was allegedly -- who was killed and her alleged killer an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela. Let's watch what Clinton said.
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CLINTON: You had a case in Georgia not very long ago, didn't you? They made an ad about it. A young woman who had been killed by an immigrant. Yeah -- well, if they'd all been properly vetted that probably wouldn't have happened. But if they're all properly vetted that doesn't happen. And America is not having enough babies to keep our population up, so we need immigrants that have been vetted to do work.
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HUNT: So, of course, the Trump campaign seized on this immediately because he said if this person had been vetted this wouldn't have happened.
What's your view of what Clinton said here?
DUNCAN: Yeah, there was a lot going on there. I'm not certain I understood what point he was trying to make.
But I will tell you this. Immigration is an American problem, right? We can -- we can politicize this all we want and blame Democrats and blame Republicans but at the end of the day if we want to fix the problem, we all need to get in the same room and fix the problem.
We've got to talk about how we make the border more secure, how we set up rules and regulations that stops bad people from coming in, and then we need to have a broader discussion about immigration in general. Sixteen million undocumented folks -- some are embedded deeply into our economy and our communities, and some are just outright threats.
We need to be willing to have -- be adults and sit in the room and have that conversation. I hope Kamala Harris is able to do that as president.
HUNT: All right, Geoff Duncan for us this morning. Sir, always grateful to have you on the show. I hope to see you again soon.
DUNCAN: Have a great day, Kasie.
HUNT: Thanks.
All right, time now for sports. The Yankees and the Mets both move one step closer to a possible subway series after wins yesterday.
Coy Wire has this morning's Bleacher Report. Coy, good morning.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Kasie, it's starting to feel like 2000 all over again. That was the only time we had a Yankees-Mets series. And each of them getting impressive wins last night. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce on hand in the Bronx. Ohio boy Travis, a big Guardians fan but he didn't like what he saw last night.
Third inning, Juan Soto, bada-bing, bada-boom. A towering blast off Alex Cobb to put the Yanks ahead. And then his slugger from another mother, Giancarlo Stanton, putting the game away with a huge smash to left -- his 13th postseason home run.
The Yankees open the ALCS in style with a 5-2 win.
Game two is tonight right here on TBS, TruTV, and Max at 7:30 Eastern. Gerrit Cole goes to the hill trying to give the Yanks a 2-0 lead.
Meantime, Mets and Dodgers, game two. L.A. came in with a postseason record-tying 33 scoreless inning streak. That lasted all of seven pitches -- send it. Mets' leadoff hitter Francisco Lindor smacking Ryan Brasier's pitch deep to right and gone. His first postseason homer.
Next inning, Dodgers' manager Dave Roberts intentionally walks Lindor and loads the bases for Mark Vientos, and Mark took that personally -- see ya -- grand slam home run. Twenty-four years old -- youngest player to hit a grand salami in league championship series history.
The Mets roll to a 7-3 win tying the series at one.
Here is Mark Vientos on that decision to walk Lindor.
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MARK VIENTOS, THIRD BASEMAN, NEW YORK METS: To be honest with you I took it personally. I was like, OK. I mean, you want me up to the plate? I'm going to try to drive in a run. Honestly, I was trying to simplify the game. I wasn't trying to do too much. But I did take it personal that they walked me -- I mean, walked Lindor for the bases loaded for me.
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WIRE: "MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL." Jets in their first game with Jeff Ulbrich as their interim head coach and he watches Aaron Rodgers pull off one of his patented Hail Marys. He evened one at the end of the first half and somehow Allen Lazard comes up with it -- a huge play -- to cut the lead to three at the half.
Then at the end of the game Rodgers had a chance for one of his patented come from behind drives but Taron Johnson picks him off. A ridiculous interception. Mike Williams and Rodgers not on the same page and Taron Johnson makes them pay.
The Bills defense rising up. Under two minutes left third and fourth, Josh Allen got him. He takes off for a game-sealing first down. Allen is hyped. Seventy-six percent completion on the night, three total touchdowns.
The Bills win 23-20. They're 4-2. The Jets are 2-4.
And Rodgers was venting after taking another L.
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AARON RODGERS, QUARTERBACK, NEW YORK JETS: This was a golden opportunity. Some games you win in the NFL and some games you give away. This was a giveaway. I mean, we were terrible in the red zone and missed two field goals. Didn't convert on a two-minute drive.
[05:55:00]
We had plenty of chances. We had the momentum. We had good drives and moved the ball up and down the field. So it's disappointing.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WIRE: If the Jets had won that -- they won that game, Kasie, they would have been leading their division, so that was a tough loss against those Buffalo Bills, the only true New York team. It was a big night for New York sports fans. You had a trio of tri-state hockey teams all winning, the Yankees, Mets. The Jets fell a little short.
HUNT: Yeah. Well, that's -- isn't that kind of par for the course, Coy, in New York?
WIRE: Ohh.
HUNT: I say that. My husband's a Jets fan. I feel bad for him.
WIRE: As a former Buffalo Bill, I love to hear it.
HUNT: Exactly.
All right, Coy, thank you.
WIRE: You got it.
HUNT: I really appreciate it.
All right. Coming up in our next hour on CNN THIS MORNING, Black men a critical voting bloc both candidates are trying to sway. Florida Congressman Byron Donalds is going to join us live to talk about what he thinks a second Trump term would mean for Black families.
Plus, Kamala Harris calling out Trump for refusing to debate and for not releasing his medical records.
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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And one has to ask what is Donald Trump trying to hide? What is his staff and his team trying to keep from you?
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