Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Trump Spreads False Pennsylvania Election Fraud Claims; Iowa Shocker: Poll Puts Harris Ahead Of Trump; Virginia's 7th Congressional District Locked In Tight Race. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired November 04, 2024 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:32:05]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Five-thirty-one a.m. on the East Coast. It is 2:31 in Phoenix, Arizona. A live look there. This is, of course, one of those key battleground states we're going to be watching tomorrow night. Eleven electoral votes up for grabs there.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
We have seen this page out of the Trump playbook before. The former president and his allies spreading false claims about election fraud in the critical swing -- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, laying the groundwork for a legal challenge if he loses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They want to -- they are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing. Look at what's going on -- look at what's going on in your state. Every day they're talking about extending hours and stuff. What -- whoever heard of this stuff? We should have one-day voting and paper ballots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So here's a fun fact. Pennsylvania does use paper ballots.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AL SCHMIDT, SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA: There must be some sort of misunderstanding because every voter in Pennsylvania, whether they vote by mail in advance of Election Day or vote in person on Election Day, is voting using a voter-verified paper ballot. There's a paper ballot record of every vote that's cast in Pennsylvania to tabulate the results and is used in two audits to ensure those results are accurate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Well, there you go.
Let's bring in Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg to talk more about this. Ben, good morning.
BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER (via Skype): Good morning.
HUNT: You are, of course, just the person we want to be talking to here a day out, especially since we're already hearing the former president raise all of these questions about the process.
What are you expecting over the next couple of days from him, and what are you focused on thinking about what should people be aware of as they head into election night wondering when we might know the results?
GINSBERG: Well, Kasie, two things to keep aware of.
Number one is you've heard this rhetoric before. It was precisely what Donald Trump said in 2020. His campaign filed numerous lawsuits and had numerous press conferences to talk about the fraud in Pennsylvania. But at the end of the day they found absolutely none in any of the court filings that they made. So that's important to remember.
So that rhetoric is likely to continue. As you pointed out they've already played that. As Al Schmidt noted, they do use paper ballots in Pennsylvania. It was Donald Trump's campaign that asked for the extended voting hours in the Philadelphia suburbs. So that's the sort of veracity behind that rhetoric.
[05:35:00]
In terms of election night, we're not going to know the results on election night if it's a close race. In the seven battleground states three will do a pretty good job of getting their results in. North Carolina and Georgia will probably be first. Michigan will probably be the third.
But the other four states all have various proceedings put into law, sometimes by Republicans and sometimes by Democrats, that are specific policies that will delay the vote. But the reason behind the policies is they want to get it right as opposed to wanting to get it quick.
HUNT: So, Ben, what are you seeing already in terms of advanced -- I know there's been some lawsuits from the Trump -- from the Trump campaign already. And how concerned are you -- you know, we've noted -- and you've correctly noted nothing came of these lawsuits before. But the closer the election is the higher the risk that there is something impactful. How concerned are you about that?
GINSBERG: Well, I think there's a difference between the noise that will come about and then the actual legal proceedings.
So the Trump campaign has filed a number of suits pre-election that tell you what they're going to be arguing about post-election. There will be a lot about ineligible voters on the rolls. There will be a lot about machines not counting correctly, but there are paper ballots for all of that. There may be some action about whether it's proper to certify ballots. But again, the important thing to remember is that to move a case forward you have to have evidence. And so far, despite all the rhetoric really over the last eight years, there is zero evidence of systemic fraud that would change the outcome of any election.
HUNT: A really important point.
Ben Ginsberg for us this morning. Ben, so grateful to have you. Thank you so much. We'll be watching for --
GINSBERG: Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: -- everything you've got coming in the next 24-48 hours. Thank you.
All right, let's turn now to this. It's the poll that's shaking up the race, really. It's raising a lot of eyebrows in the final hours before Election Day. The Des Moine Register's and Selzer poll, which has consistently predicted election results in Iowa for years, finding Kamala Harris has a three-point lead over Donald Trump in the usually very red state, and that is within the margin of error.
The former president trying to discredit the findings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And by the way, the polls are just as corrupt as some of the writers back there. They can make those polls sing. They can make them sing. They brag about it.
I've got a poll. I'm 10 points up in Iowa. One of my enemies just puts out a poll, I'm three down.
Joni Ernst called me -- everyone's called me. They said you're killing in Iowa. The farmers love me, and I love them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Sources tell CNN the former president is fuming over the Iowa poll, and Trump's advisers trying to reassure him by claiming the poll is not accurate. So let's check in on that. In the last five elections this poll has only been wrong once. That was back in 2004.
All right, we're joined now by CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers, and Matt Gorman, former senior adviser to the Tim Scott presidential campaign. Welcome to both of you.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, (D) FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE, AUTHOR, "WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?": Thank you.
HUNT: I don't know about you guys, but my phone lit up when this poll dropped with texts from everyone on all sides of the spectrum. Obviously, Ann is an incredibly well respected pollster. You can see her record there. I still talk to a lot of people and I -- enough that I would count myself in the camp of being shocked if Trump were to lose in Iowa. But that said, I mean, this number is significant. What are you guys hearing?
SELLERS: This poll wasn't about Iowa though. I mean, that's the most amazing thing and that's what people don't really realize. This poll is about what women are doing throughout the country. What white women are doing throughout the country. What college-educated voters are doing. And it's actually more indicative of what's going to happen in Wisconsin that really matters.
There's no Democrat -- there's nobody in Kamala Harris' orbit that thinks she's going to win Iowa. In fact, even if Ann Selzer was off by eight points and Trump wins Iowa by five, that's a bad day. That's a bad omen for the Trump campaign.
And so what we look like is -- what we're looking at is what's actually going to happen in Wisconsin based on this poll, and that bodes extremely well for Kamala Harris.
MATT GORMAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TIM SCOTT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Look, I'll say this. Ann has a lot of integrity for putting this poll out that is vastly kind of against the (INAUDIBLE). Look, it is probably wrong almost by -- and when you talk to folks in kind of both parties they tend to believe that because also look at their actions, right? If they really believed Iowa was in play or something like that, they would have said it -- at least Vance or Walz to that.
And nerd out for me for a second because I'm kind -- I'll explain why --
HUNT: Go right ahead.
GORMAN: -- Republicans I think feel like this is kind of really off.
Most pollsters when they do polls, they try and guess what the electorate is going to be and model their poll based off that. Ann doesn't do that, and it's worked really well for her --
SELLERS: Right.
GORMAN: -- in the past. She does -- she makes sure she gets a geographic representative sample, and she doesn't stop polling that area until she does.
What that actually means is in the area where polling self-selection has gone way down, right? It was at eight or six percent the last couple of presidential elections. It's around one percent right now.
HUNT: Wait, explain that.
[05:40:00]
GORMAN: So what that means is people don't like to answer polls --
SELLERS: Correct.
GORMAN: -- anymore, right?
HUNT: Got it.
GORMAN: So people just are sick of it. They're long. It also -- there's the whole landline issue. Again, another day. But it was a lot higher in 2016 and back then.
So the problem is you get an outsized representative sample of what I think Republicans informally refer to as like this progressive super voter. They are the people that -- one of the few people that just loves answering poll calls and telling everybody that they don't like Donald Trump and who they love to vote for. And so it over-indexes a lot of these polls and it can warp some of those things. And a couple of tells from Republicans that I talk to why that's the case.
Number one, notice there was no recall -- what they call the recall ballot Biden test, right? So there's no, like, hey, in 2020, who did you vote for, Biden or Trump? They anticipate if that was the case it would be about plus-five Biden right now the way the sample was made up.
Number two, the issues were totally off. If you look at the Democrats that responded back -- 51 percent, democracy; just seven percent, the economy. Now look, democracy could be obviously an issue on the Democratic side. That's a huge gap.
So look, I'll say this. Ann has a lot of integrity for putting this poll out when it's so kind of outside the norm here.
HUNT: Right.
GORMAN: Long nerd session but that's how we are.
SELLERS: But he gave us that long nerd session, but you missed one thing that's very important in Iowa. One of the things that's happened in the past four of five years -- well, not even four of five years, past four years or so is you've had the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Then you have a very controversial abortion ban in Iowa go into effect. You saw the recoil of that. You actually saw a ballot measure. You see the disapproval of Dobbs at 60 percent in Iowa.
And so when you have numbers like 56 percent versus 36 percent or 56 percent of women supporting Kamala Harris versus 36 percent of women supporting Donald Trump in Iowa, that is a real number. That's a real issue. And Iowa voters actually care about abortion. I know you said the economy and I forget the --
GORMAN: So the economy is at seven percent; democracy, 51 percent.
SELLERS: Correct, yeah. But also the top issue I would actually argue would be abortion, and you saw that play out in this poll.
HUNT: Yeah.
Matt, what do you make of the movement in this poll? Because look, I take -- it's a very smart kind of reading of what's going on. But that said, it does show some movement in the electorate in Iowa, no?
GORMAN: I am skeptical of that.
HUNT: OK.
GORMAN: But look, let's be honest. We will have all these answers in 48 hours. So we can go -- when you talk about polls, we can compare polls all we want.
HUNT: Some of them, anyway.
GORMAN: Yeah, exactly, right?
I think one of the other tells is that when you're looking at -- look at Arizona, right, where there is an abortion referendum on the ballot there, right? We're not seeing those sorts of swings up there as well where it is a -- essentially, you could vote for abortion referendum, for or against Kari Lake, and for or against Donald Trump and you're not seeing those types of wild swings. There is a variation of how that works.
So again --
HUNT: Right.
GORMAN: -- we could all -- we can compare polls all we want. Thank -- mercifully, thank the Lord we will have finally some answers hopefully soon.
HUNT: We're going to wrap up here in a second. But to each of you, what are we missing right now? What are we going to see on election night that we're not looking at?
SELLERS: Well, I mean, I've been on this air answering this very weird question about Black voters. Everybody's been beating that drum. And Donald Trump actually hasn't improved. We saw The New York Times/Siena poll. He was at nine percent with Black voters. I think the media just kind of followed this red herring down this rabbit hole and that's not going to be an issue. You see them coming home for Kamala Harris in large swaths in Georgia and North Carolina.
And I don't think this race is going to be close, and I don't think this is going to be a long night. And I don't even think Pennsylvania will matter as much as we made it out to matter.
HUNT: All right, write it down. You heard it here first. Bakari is brave enough to (INAUDIBLE).
GORMAN: No, I will agree. I think it will not drag until Saturday. I will say that.
HUNT: Yeah, that would be my expectation also but, you know, hey, again, I'm kind of out of the prediction business. Everyone -- as much as people like you all told me what I should think heading into the last few elections, everyone was wrong.
SELLERS: Yeah.
HUNT: All right, Bakari Sellers, Matt Gorman, thanks so much.
Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING he helped his brother blow the whistle on President Trump and now Eugene Vindman is running for Congress in Virginia. He's going to join us live to discuss the state of his critical House race.
Plus, Democratic Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania is here to tell us what she's seeing in the state that could decide the presidency.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:48:22]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The balance in the House -- the majority in the House will be determined by a small number of seats. It's less than 20.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Speaker Mike Johnson weighing in on just how close the race for control of the House of Representatives will be. In an effort to maintain his fragile Republican majority, Johnson has campaigned and fundraised for swing district GOP candidates in more than 20 states over the last month -- of course, calculating he'll need a boost from the party's MAGA base in order to win.
Today, Johnson will spend his final day before the election in Virginia's 7th Congressional District where Democratic candidate Eugene Vindman and Republican candidate Derrick Anderson are locked in an incredibly tight race.
In his final pitch to voters, Anderson leaning into Trump's support and attacking the Biden-Harris administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DERRICK ANDERSON, (R) CANDIDATE FOR VIRGINIA'S 7TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: I got into this race because of the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan. This is all based on the failed leadership of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris who now -- you know, Kamala Harris was one of the ones who said that she was one of the last ones in the room when it came to Afghanistan.
My opponent is focused on his past. He's focused on his revenge toward President Trump and doubling down on Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's failed policies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining us now is the Democratic candidate for Virginia's 7th Congressional District, the retired Col. -- Lt. Col. Eugene Vindman. Colonel, thank you so much for being here this morning.
EUGENE VINDMAN, RETIRED U.S. ARMY COLONEL, (D) CANDIDATE FOR VIRGINIA'S 7TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: Thank you for having me, Kasie.
HUNT: In the final days of the race what is changing the minds of late deciding voters -- people who haven't made up their minds yet?
VINDMAN: Well, it's all about optimism versus pessimism. My opponent was just talking about looking at the past, and that's what we're talking about -- the former president with the MAGA party. We have a much more optimistic and joyful message. I'm an optimist by nature. That's what I talk about.
[05:50:08]
My family came here when I was an immigrant fleeing from the Soviet Union. We have been able to build a future for ourselves -- my wife and my two wonderful children that I'm raising in northern Virginia. And that's the future that I want to preserve for my children and for all Americans.
HUNT: Donald Trump, over the weekend, was at a campaign event raising the possibility -- saying that the "shouldn't have left" was the quote, talking about what happened in 2020.
What's your reaction to Trump's comments?
VINDMAN: Look, this country has a long history of a peaceful transfer of power. There will be another one coming up in January after this election. And that's what we have to continue to protect and preserve.
The 7th Congressional District is actually the home of a number of founding fathers. The Constitution was written in Montpelier (sic) by James Madison, a place that I had a chance to visit. And this is a historic, beautiful region from the Potomac to the Piedmont and down the 95 corridor -- the home of democracy in many ways -- in many regards.
And so, we're going to have a peaceful transfer of power after the election tomorrow. The election tomorrow will decide whether we go down a dark path -- a path where this country has seen its best days or a bright future where we have joy, and hope, and optimism for what we can achieve together.
HUNT: Your district is very much a bellwether. It tells us a lot. It's, yes, one corner of the country but it tells us a lot about how trends are moving and how voters are moving.
You and your family obviously have had a difficult personal history with Donald Trump and yet, there are still about half of Americans right now who are saying that they support him. As you have been out on the trail, how do you understand that? And what do you say to voters considering your own history about him?
VINDMAN: Yeah. Look, when I campaigned, I've campaigned in every corner of the 11th District. So last week, I did my closing arguments tour -- 11 counties. We covered all 11 in 48 hours. I visited the tiny district that has 35 voters in it at the very corner -- southwest corner -- and I visited every part of the district from the Culpeper Rodeo to NASCAR events, from mosques to churches. I talked to all voters.
I want to represent every voter in the district. And it's about listening to voters and hearing them out. There are legitimate grievances. There are grievances associated with the economy that's not serving everybody -- inflation, housing prices. We need safe, high-quality public schools. We need better quality infrastructure to serve this massive district.
And that's what makes this such a bellwether and such a competitive district. We have a suburban, ex-urban core outside of Washington, D.C., and then we have vast rural swaths. And we have to make our case to everybody.
HUNT: Do you think that Kamala Harris has distanced herself from President Biden in a way that is helpful for you?
VINDMAN: Well look, I am running an intensely local race. I run on issues related to housing, related to grocery prices, related to inflation. We have work to do. There's been an improvement in those -- in those metrics. Gas prices are down. Inflation is coming down, obviously, and so are the costs of housing in the sense that there's been a rate drop. But there's more work to do.
And so I'm running on making sure that we have safe, high-quality public schools. We have adequate infrastructure to serve the region. And that whether it's 5G of structure in --
HUNT: Yeah.
VINDMAN: -- in the Piedmont and the Potomac or it's improved to 95, that's what I'm focused on -- the local issues.
HUNT: All right, Col. Eugene Vindman. So grateful to have you today. And good luck to you and, in a nonpartisan way, to your opponent as well as you enter the final days of your race. Thank you.
VINDMAN: Thank you, Kasie.
HUNT: All right. In our next half hour on CNN THIS MORNING it is the epicenter of this election, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Harris campaign taking star power to the Philadelphia Eagles game.
Plus, with just one day left, Donald Trump still looking back in 2020 now claiming he shouldn't have left the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My world's favorite chart done by the border patrol. It said we had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left. I shouldn't have left.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:58:48]
HUNT: It's Monday, November 4. Right now on this special edition of CNN THIS MORNING --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don't mind that so much because --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He wouldn't mind. Donald Trump ramps up dark rhetoric in the final days of the election, once again going after the media.
And this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Pennsylvania will be key, no doubt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All eyes on Pennsylvania. Both candidates to deliver their final messages in the crucial commonwealth.
And this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They tell me I'm down in Iowa. I don't think so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Iowa in play. We'd be surprised but a shocking new poll shows Kamala Harris leading in the Hawkeye State, somewhere Democrats have not won since 2012.
And this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYA RUDOLPH, CAST MEMBER PORTRAYING KAMALA HARRIS, NBC "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": The American people want to stop the chaos --
HARRIS: And end the dramala.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Live from New York it's Kamala Harris. The vice president following in the footsteps of past candidates making a surprise cameo on "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE."
