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GA Election Board Requires Some Ballots Be Hand-Counted; Harris Says She's A Gun Owner Who Supports Stronger Gun Laws; Trump Tells Jewish Voters They're Partly To Blame If He Loses; Republicans Fear Robinson Scandal Could Cost Trump The State. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 20, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:57]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, welcome back. Now to some disturbing election security news this week, suspicious packages were sent to election offices in more than 20 states, triggering evacuations and understandably rattling staff. This is according to CNN and Associated Press reporting.

The FBI is investigating the threats that arrived as election officials across the country prepare to send the first ballots to overseas and military voters this weekend. And right now, the Georgia State Election Board is meeting to discuss a series of controversial proposals that could have a big impact on how the state counts votes and when election results are revealed.

And CNN's Sara Murray is here to break all of this down for us. Sara, lovely to see you. My understanding is one of these measures that they are looking at just actually went through. Can you explain?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So they are considering a dozen rules that could go into effect around November and election officials in the state are basically begging them to stop making changes when we're just weeks out of early voting. So here's just a couple of them, and I'll explain the one that passed as we get to it.

But one of them is this provision that would require marking absentee ballots to distinguish them between provisional and emergency ballots, which seems like not a big deal, except that all of the ballots in Georgia have already been printed, and they're about to go out.

Another one of these rules requires a hand count of the number of ballots on election day at these polling places to make sure the number of ballots cast matches with the tally from the machines. And this is the rule that just passed and was a big concern for election officials.

And another rule that, at least for now, sounds like it is tabled is a daily, again, hand count of the number of ballots on each day of early voting to make sure that you can match that day the number of votes cast with the number recorded by the machines. And election officials are saying you guys do not understand that you need to train people on this. You need to make provisions to move these things forward. You're essentially injecting chaos into this process.

HUNT: Yes. And, Sara, can you give us a sense of what this is going to look like on election day if all of this goes through?

MURRAY: Yes, I mean, we'll see if it goes through. I would be surprised if we're not seeing some lawsuits around it. But I think the biggest concern has been around this kind of hand counting rule that we saw just go through for election day because Georgia has taken some steps to try to speed up its reporting of results on election night.

[12:35:08]

And I was just talking yesterday to the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about what a change like this could mean. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: You start breaking up the ballot boxes after you close the precinct. You won't be getting those election day votes until maybe 1:00, 2:00 or 4:00 in the morning. And we just don't believe that's healthy for, you know, the republic and we don't think it's healthy for people of Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: There's a lot of frustration. I mean, they made changes to try to make it clearer to people earlier in the state of Georgia who is ahead, who is winning the election. And now they're looking at what the state election board is doing and saying you're injecting chaos into this. You're creating an atmosphere for conspiracy for misinformation.

Secretary of State's office, the attorney general, both Republicans have warned the state election board. You're doing things that we think are potentially illegal and the board is just plowing ahead.

HUNT: So why are they doing that. I mean, is it the Republican board. Like, how are the politics of this --

MURRAY: So it's a five-member board and now there's this three member Republican majority that has just kind of been barreling ahead with these changes. These are people that, in some cases, are very openly backing Trump. Donald Trump has openly backed them and sort of cheered along these changes.

And again, a lot of these changes that we've seen put forward are things that are being put forward by far-right activists in the states, by election deniers and the Republicans, you know, again, with this three member majority, have really embraced it and run with it.

HUNT: Wow. Really important to continue keeping an eye on it. Thank you so much for reporting, Sara. I appreciate it.

All right, coming up, more on CNN's exclusive reporting on Mark Robinson. Will the fallout give Harris the edge over Trump? David Axelrod and Mike Murphy, the self-proclaimed political hacks, both join us after the break.

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[12:41:17]

KAMALA HARRIS (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot. I'm sorry.

OPRAH WINFREY, TV HOST & PRODUCER: Yes, yes. I hear that. I hear that.

HARRIS: Probably should not have said that.

WINFREY: But I --

HARRIS: My staff will deal with that later.

WINFREY: Yes.

HARRIS: I'm in favor of the Second Amendment. And I'm in favor of assault weapons bans. Universal background checks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Kamala Harris last night reminding us that she is a proud gun owner. The Vice President, a vocal proponent of gun safety measures, also mentioned it on the debate stage last week. Metaphorically, shooting down Donald Trump's claim that she, quote, "wants to confiscate your guns."

So, what's the strategy? Let's ask two veteran campaign strategists, hacks, you could call them, the co-hosts of the Hacks on Tap podcast, CNN Senior Political Commentator, and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, David Axelrod, and Mike Murphy, an alumnus of John McCain's campaign, among many others.

Gentlemen, it's thrilling to have you guys back on TV together. Thank you both so much for being here. Axe, let me start with you since you're the Democrat among us and you'll can help us understand why Harris was quick to kind of say, oh, like I maybe shouldn't have said that. I'm really interested that she said that the way that she did.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

HUNT: Why do you think it happened?

AXELROD: Well, I'm not sure she actually meant that she shouldn't have said that. I think she probably said it for a purpose, which is to speak to a broader audience including in the state of Michigan. And basically, what she's saying is what most Americans feel, which is they're not opposed to gun ownership.

People ought to be able to defend their homes and -- but there ought to be some common sense gun laws. And I think, yes, it was an interesting play. I don't think she says many things that she thinks she shouldn't have said. Sometimes I think she should say more things that she thinks she shouldn't have said. But in this case, I think it was purposeful. I mean, I'm interested in what Murphy thinks.

HUNT: Yes, Murphy, that's to you.

MIKE MURPHY, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes, I think she did fine on this. It was authentic. It was human. She's doing the smart move. I mean, she has the same affliction that everybody does this cycle, which is Pennsylvania it is (ph).

And once you get outside of the Philly suburbs, there's a lot of Second Amendment voters there. So she's -- she'd rather be one of them than the victim of a Trump distortion. She's just in the polls reflect this, a strong majority of gun owners like the idea of background checks.

The assault weapon ban is a little more problematical, but she's trying to be mainstream on gun policy, which is smart politics for her. So I thought it was a big nothing burger and I thought she handled it just fine.

HUNT: Yes, really interesting.

Let's talk for a second about what Donald Trump had to say yesterday. He was holding an event aimed at combating antisemitism, but he was talking about Jewish voters in a way that would blame them for his loss if he says they didn't come and vote for him.

Let's watch what he said.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: In my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I'm at 40 percent. If I'm at 40, think of it, that means 60 percent of voting for Kamala.

I wasn't treated properly by the voters who happen to be Jewish. I don't know, do they know what the hell is happening?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Mike Murphy, what is going on with this?

MURPHY: Well, it's a great projection of Donald Trump to him. Everything in life is transaction. So he basically got a vote for me because otherwise your world will come to an end. And, you know, a lot of it's fictionalized. So he thinks by having the harshest rhetoric, votes are owed to him.

[12:45:06]

And I think he sees the Jewish community through a very one dimensional lens. There are Jewish Republicans, very active. There are a lot of Jewish Democrats, traditionally more Jewish Americans have voted Democrat. So a lot of issues drive that, not just your rhetoric on Israel, but he takes a very simplistic, you know, horse trading attitude to this stuff. And I think it might even be off putting to some people.

HUNT: David?

AXELROD: To say the least, I mean, let me speak as a member of that particular tribe. I think that was deeply, deeply offensive to a lot of Jews. First of all, the kind of like, vote for me or else thing, and the sense of entitlement that, I did these things for you, and he's specifically speaking about things that he did relative to Israel.

I did these things for you, therefore you owe me your vote. That whole -- and the whole sense of victimhood that was said there. But the biggest thing that was offensive was this notion that you, you Jews will be responsible if I don't win. You know who's going to be responsible if he doesn't win? Him, because he says stuff like that.

HUNT: Yes. And this was what Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti- Defamation League said today, "Preemptively blaming American Jews for your potential election loss does zero to help American Jews. It increases their sense of alienation in a moment of vulnerability. This speech likely will spark more hostility and further inflame an already bad situation."

And, of course, David, the other story that we have going is what's going on in North Carolina --

AXELROD: Yes.

HUNT: -- with Mark Robinson and some of the things that he wrote.

AXELROD: Yes.

HUNT: And this is someone that --

AXELROD: Not a friend of the Jewish people.

HUNT: He called himself a black Nazi.

AXELROD: Yes.

HUNT: And this is someone we were talking in the earlier segment. The Trump campaign is kind of now distancing themselves, it seems, but this is a person who's had a longstanding personal relationship with Donald Trump.

AXELROD: Yes, they've got a problem. It's called video. And there's plenty of it, of Trump. You know, he said he's better than Martin Luther King. I mean, they're going to have a hard time backpedaling from this, and it's very clear that the Harris campaign is not going to make it easy for them to backpedal because they've got the video.

HUNT: Mike Murphy?

MURPHY: Yes, this is trouble for Trump. And it's not just North Carolina trouble where this has already imploded and was never going to get elected governor. Now Trump has to spend a week talking about Nazi porn freaks that he's given a character reference to. That's a problem in Pennsylvania, Michigan, everywhere.

So, the Trump guys are caught between Trump's psychosis, which is never apologize, never retreat, I'm the tough guy, and they've got this big Nazi anchor around their neck right now. So that's why you see leaks coming out today that Trump's staff hopes he does the right thing, but this will not decide the election, but it's another problem for Donald Trump.

But what we have to remember, this close to early voting starting, election day is very close. Every day that gets burned on stuff like this for Trump is not a day he's out screaming about the border or inflation or something that's actually relevant to the voters who will decide this election.

So this is a problem, and the sooner they chop this guy, the better, though. I bet they won't do it because Trump has this thing about never backing up or, frankly, doing the smart thing to get out of a problem like this of his own creation.

HUNT: All right, David and Mike, stick around. We got a couple more minutes with our hacks on tap after the break.

MURPHY: Sure.

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[12:53:01]

HUNT: All right, welcome back. We are still here with our hacks on tap, David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. You can tell I'm still excited that you guys are here and together --

AXELROD: Yes.

HUNT: -- on TV for the first time in quite some time. But let's talk a little bit about this final stretch here. And, you know, Axe and I were, you know, we're talking a little bit too about how this might play out. Any sort of one small thing or the other could tip this any which way, which the way that it's tilting right before election day could make a huge difference.

Brian Fallon spoke with Politico's Playbook podcast. He's of course a top comms adviser to Kamala Harris, worked with Hillary Clinton. Here's what he said about her strategy going forward, especially around interviews. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN FALLON, COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER, HARRIS: People should not read too much into what some have described as a shortage or a lack of interviews in the first, like, six weeks of the campaign. We had a lot to do in the first seven weeks and now, in the remaining weeks of the campaign, being out there and being everywhere as much as possible is a strategic imperative.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Axe, what do you make of that and what do you think Harris should be doing here in the final stretch?

AXELROD: Absolutely. I think she should be doing more. You know, this is a -- this is the most exhaustive oral exam for any job on the planet versus for the most important job on the planet. And part of it is unscripted interactions, taking questions.

People want to see how you react to these and it's part of the way they judge you. She's done very, very well so far. But a little bit more of that I think is really important. And I would flood the zone and particularly in these battleground states. Go on those local TV and radio stations, make yourself a ubiquitous presence. It is easy to do. You can beam in and you will actually gain something from doing it.

HUNT: Mike, you agree?

MURPHY: Yes, running the classic Ming vase strategy here. Slowly. Does it make a mistake? So what you want to do is you want to go where the voters are. You flood the local zone. I agree with Axe on this.

[12:55:04]

And also alternative media, podcasts, local TV, Uncle Floyd's cooking show in Detroit --

AXELROD: Yes.

MURPHY: -- whatever it might be.

AXELROD: Yes.

MURPHY: But what you have to watch out for, and this is where they're slightly thin ice is you don't want the national media narrative of lightweight, afraid of a real question to grow. So you got to do just enough to let the steam out. So if I were them, I would put the Ming vase on the shelf.

They haven't won this thing yet. They are really in a race, flood the local zone, but do a few elite print interviews. It doesn't always have to be under the hot Klieg lights looking for a video clip that can kill you. Work your way through some of those folks to let that steam out of that narrative a little before it builds.

HUNT: She could always do hacks on tap.

AXELROD: Yes, I think that would probably clinch the thing.

MURPHY: You know, we take her.

AXELROD: We keep telling her, you want to win this thing.

MURPHY: I think Trump lost our invitation, too. We don't know what happened.

HUNT: Must have gotten lost in the mail. Gentlemen, what a treat to have both of you. Thank you so much for being with us on this Friday.

AXELROD: Thanks for having us.

HUNT: Thanks to all of you for joining Inside Politics. And be sure to tune in on Sunday morning for State of the Union. Jake Tapper's guests will include Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.

But don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now after a quick break.

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