Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

New CNN Polls: Harris & Trump Tied In PA, Harris Leading In MI & WI; New CNN Polls: No Change In "Blue Wall" States Since August; Nikki Haley Says She Hasn't Spoken To Trump Since June; Arnold Schwarzenegger Endorses Kamala Harris; Trump Has Long History Of Insulting Anyone Who Opposes Him; Harris On Trump; "It Doesn't Have To Be This Way"; Harris: "I Will Always Listen To You, Even If You Don't Vote For Me". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 30, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, quench time. With less than a week to go until election day, we have brand new CNN polls, showing Kamala Harris with a slight edge in two of the must win Rust Belt states. CNN David Chalian is at the Magic Wall to break down the impact for both campaigns.

Plus, he is known for pushing dangerous conspiracy about vaccines, COVID 19, anti-depressants. Now Donald Trump is promising to put Robert Kennedy Jr. in charge of public health. What would that mean for you? We have brand new CNN reporting on that.

And rivals turned partners. I'll talk to a House Democrat battling an aggressive neurological disorder and the Republicans she once unseated about why they're now working together to try to elect Kamala Harris.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

With just six days left to win votes, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are all over the battleground map. Both candidates have events in North Carolina and Wisconsin today, while Vice President Harris has an extra stop planned in pivotal Pennsylvania. Winning the blue wall state is still Harris' best path to 270.

On that note, we are unveiling a new CNN poll from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. David Chalian is where else at the Magic Wall to break it all down. David?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Three polls for you today, Dana. Yes. These are our final set of battleground state polls, and today, we're focusing on those blue wall states. Take a look at the overall numbers, among likely voters in Pennsylvania, dead heat tie. 48 percent to 48 percent in the biggest electoral college vote prize of the battleground map.

In Michigan, slight edge for Kamala Harris, 48 percent to 43 percent. In Wisconsin, we also see a slight edge for Harris, 51 percent to 45 percent. I will note in these two states, the Supreme Court ruled that it's going to stay this way. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remains on the ballot, and his presence there may be putting some downward pressure on Trump's numbers there.

Let's look at the gender gap across all three states. You see here, I'll start down here in Wisconsin. Trump is up 12 with men. Harris up 21 points with women in our poll. That's certainly helping her there. The gender gap is helping her in Michigan, men are tied between the two candidates in Michigan in our poll, whereas Harris has an eight- point advantage with female voters in Michigan.

But then take a look here. There isn't really much of a wide gender gap. Trump has got a four-point edge with men in Pennsylvania. Harris has a three-point edge with women. That certainly helps explain why the race is tied there.

African American voters. Now I just want to say, here we're comparing likely voters in a poll which is different than actual voters that show up in the 2020 exit poll about how the electorate sort of shaped itself and how they voted in Pennsylvania. But as a comparative point in our poll among likely voters in Michigan, Harris has a 71-point advantage among African American voters over Donald Trump.

Joe Biden in Michigan four years ago, according to the exit polls, won the African American vote in Michigan by 85 percentage points. So, a little bit under performance there in this poll, but much more dramatically in Pennsylvania. Harris's lead with African Americans, among likely African American voters in Pennsylvania, in our poll, is 55 percentage points over Trump.

Biden in 2020 in the exit polls, won African American voters in Pennsylvania by 85 percentage points. That is a potential warning sign in places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh for the Harris campaign to take a look at.

And then, interestingly, this is Donald Trump's base, Dana. As you know, white non college educated voters, and it is still his base, but he's not performing as strong as he did four years ago. If you compare now in Pennsylvania, as a 27-point advantage with white non college voters in our poll among likely voters, but back in the exit polls, four years ago, he actually won them in Pennsylvania by 32 points.

You see it in Michigan, 17. Back then it was 21 points. In Wisconsin, in the poll, he has an 11-point edge among white non college likely voters, but in the 2020, exit polls, he won them by 16 percentage points. So, a little bit underperforming with his own base, Dana.

BASH: So interesting. And what about what voters are saying regarding Harris and Trump and which candidate they think gets them?

CHALIAN: Yeah. I think it's such a good question. I know there are a lot of numbers here, because we tested a whole bunch of candidate qualities. But clearly Harris' best mark across all three of these battleground states is that voters see her far more as honest and trustworthy than they do Donald Trump.

But I would look at these next two categories. Cares about people like you, puts country ahead of self. I think these two categories were the point of her closing argument speech last night on the Ellipse, and those categories are working for her. Obviously, she'd like to see them be even bigger advantages across these three states.

[12:05:00]

Shares your vision for the country. In Michigan, she's got a one-point advantage. In Wisconsin, a four-point advantage. Trump actually has the advantage on that category in Pennsylvania. And this is Trump's big advantage right now as a characteristic, bring change the country needs.

He has an edge against Harris among likely voters in all three of these states. Obviously much closer in Michigan and Wisconsin. It's a pretty significant seven-point advantage in Pennsylvania. Harris clearly wants to do some work on this score as well.

Who's left in the electorate? Well, not very many people, most people you see here in the mid-90s -- low 90s. Mind made up. You see how -- what a small percentage are still movable voters. And what about those that already voted?

Now we ask people. So, among likely voters in our polls in all three states that tell us they've already voted. Harris is actually winning the people who tell us they've already voted in all three states. I would just say, it's about a quarter in Pennsylvania and a third in Michigan and Wisconsin, not as big a share as we saw in our poll yesterday in Arizona and Nevada, where they have a bigger tradition and a longer tradition of participating prior to election day, Dana.

BASH: A lot to digest there. Thank you so much, David. We'll see you in approximately five seconds, digging into all of this. In addition to David, is Bloomberg and CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, POLITICO's Meridith McGraw. David is coming to the table. He will be here momentarily. Nia, what's your takeaway from these?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, listen, the only poll that matters is the one --

BASH: Well, I've heard that somewhere.

HENDERSON: Yeah. I just coined it just now. Listen, we'll see what happens. You can tell the work that Kamala Harris needed to do last night, arguing that she's the candidate for change, arguing that she would restore sort of normalcy and decorum and unity in the White House.

And you saw her make that implicit comparison. There she was at the Ellipse where Donald Trump, of course, invoked his mob to attack the Capitol. And Harris essentially saying, she's going to restore American traditions around inclusivity and around democracy strong speech. With an eye towards particularly undecided voters in those swing states, which are a sliver about 5 percent at this point. I don't know where David is.

BASH: Yeah. He's coming. He's coming.

HENDERSON: Good. BASH: He got a little -- he got a little -- well, he'll be here in one second. Yes, it is a sliver of the undecided voters. Let's look at the choice for president now versus August in these three states. Wisconsin, as we just saw, Harris plus six. August, Harris plus six. Michigan, Harris plus five. August, Harris plus five.

Are you sensing a theme here? Pennsylvania tied, now in August tied. And it's not as if nothing has happened in the world. It's not as if nothing has happened on the campaign trail. We don't time to read all of this. This is just in less than two months, some of the things that have happened that have had at least a little bit of an impact on this race, but it hasn't moved the numbers.

MERIDITH MCGRAW, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think that's one of the most remarkable things about the polling that we've seen come across our eyes lately. Is that over the past few months, as you pointed out, we've seen all these really remarkable moments play out, whether it was assassination attempts or, you know, really scary moments on the world stage.

And yet, the polling remains consistent, pretty much across the board. And when I talk to both campaigns, the phrase that they keep using on both sides is that they're, quote, cautiously optimistic, and they both point to, you know, their own data points, whether it's early voting or it's enthusiasm among their own slices of the electorate that they're leaning on, that they feel confident about. But it really is so remarkable that we're not seeing any major shifts here so close to the election.

CHALIAN: And it's also unusual. I mean, you do -- the stability has been a unique feature in this race across the board. Both campaigns note that as well. And so, while the news developments may have been dramatic, the actual structure of the race have not had dramatic terms.

BASH: Which is -- which is unusual, which is the point I know that you're making is because how many times we have been covering a campaign and we've said, well, the one they can control their message, the one thing they can't control is what happens with regard to outside events. And a lot has happened that they can't control, but it hasn't changed the numbers.

CHALIAN: Yeah. No, it's been remarkably stable. I mean, the biggest change in the numbers we saw in this race was when the candidate changed.

[12:10:00]

BASH: Of course, yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Right. The parameter around this discussion is since Kamala Harris is not into this --

CHALIAN: The last 102 days. BASH: Exactly. Yeah, no, exactly. And I'm just staying with the states that these polls came from that we're revealing right now. The blue wall states. We just want to remind our viewers the sort of voting records of these blue wall states.

And they are usually, as you can see, obviously blue, which is why they're called the blue wall states. And they're usually pretty consistent in voting together, except for a couple of notable exceptions, like 1988 when Wisconsin went for Dukakis, and the other two went for Bush.

HENDERSON: Yeah, listen. And that is the great hope of Democrats, the great hope of Kamala Harris's campaign that these blue wall states will essentially revert to form, right? You saw Donald Trump win miraculously in all three of those states in 2016. Their hope is that their ground game is kind of the DNA of these states basically guarantee that they will win.

Listen, it's going to take a lot of work. You see, Pennsylvania is a dead heat. It has been that way. There are sort of different demographics in these states, but a lot of similar different demographics, a big black populations in, you know, in the cities and then suburban areas where they're obviously going out there. Taking folks like Liz Cheney to talk to some of those white suburban voters and Republican voters as well. So, listen, that seems to be her most likely path to win.

BASH: I'm glad that you -- I'm glad -- do you want to say something?

CHALIAN: I just want to say what's so interesting, and the campaign believes that. They believe these blue wall states, the Harris campaign, is their most viable path. They think they more than that. But what's so interesting about that is, it's so counterintuitive to what we understand about the traditional coalitions for these parties, because these blue wall states are whiter, older, more working class, more non college educated. Well, that doesn't --

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: And they're struggling in Georgia.

CHALIAN: Right. But because Donald Trump is gaining some ground and making some --

BASH: That's why we're even talking about --

CHALIAN: Two communities of color, and it is -- it's just a really different kind of combination of states.

BASH: Right. But because they're whiter and older and, you know, you talked about the education levels, that's why we're talking about it, because those are Donald Trump's voters, which is obviously why he won all three states. Very surprisingly to a lot of people, back in 2016.

You talked about Liz Cheney, and this is a big part of the Harris campaign push, including last night, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Having the speech that she gave on the Ellipse, alluding to January 6 because they believe and Republicans believe that Nikki Haley voters people who are Republicans, who voted in the closed Republican primary, even though she was out of the race, they're sort of turned off by January 6.

Nikki Haley herself endorsed Donald Trump. We have not seen her on the campaign trail with Donald Trump. Here's what she said on Fox.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This romance and this masculinity stuff. I mean, it borders on edgy to the point that it's going to make women uncomfortable. You know, you've got affiliated PACs that are doing commercials about calling Kamala the C word, or you had speakers at Madison Square Gardens. You know, referring to her and her pimps. That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCGRAW: So, another clip from that interview last night that I thought was so interesting was -- she was asked when the last time she spoke to Donald Trump was, and she said it was in June. Well, she spoke at the RNC convention in July.

BASH: Yeah.

MCGRAW: That's been a while. And you know, since then, Nikki Haley has been, you know, broadcasting her own critiques of the Trump campaign and how they're targeting women. As she just said, how they're talking about youth voters, and how they're not making a concerted effort to reach out to her very supporters.

And yet, the Harris campaign, this has been one of the big pieces of their closing message. And you also have to keep in mind, with all of these campaigns, there's data behind everything they're doing. And on the Harris campaign, they've seen with some of these undecided voters that they are motivated by these messages of democracy and Trump's temperament.

And so, they're keeping -- they continue to push this out. And yet we haven't seen Trump want to embrace Nikki Haley. The Trump campaign thinks that Nikki Haley is going out and saying supportive things about him, and yet the clock is ticking on the potential --

BASH: He hasn't invited her to campaign, like it's -- OK, real quick. Well, there's that -- real quick, when you're talking about the various coalitions that Harris campaign is getting beaten on by the Trump campaign for the beta man.

[12:15:00]

Well, the most alpha man person in politics, Arnold Schwarzenegger, endorsed Kamala Harris today. And he did so in a way that he hasn't done before. I mean, he's obviously a registered Republican, or at least he was as a California governor. And I'm just wondering if you think that's going to make any difference, not with the women, but with men.

HENDERSON: Well, listen, nothing has made (inaudible) already. But listen, it's helpful. I mean, you heard Kamala Harris on that hot mic moment, talking to Gretchen Whitmer, saying, you know, they've got to make some inroads and make some movement with men. So, something like this, I imagine. Well, it's kind of that helps with sort of the younger men. I don't know that they necessarily know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is.

BASH: Terminator and all that.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: I know. I have a younger -- he's not a voter, but I have a younger boy at home, and he knows exactly. Coming up. Donald Trump has spent years denigrating Americans who oppose him. Today, his campaign says Joe Biden owes Republicans an apology. Biden says, he misspoke. Team Harris says, spare them the faux outrage. We'll explain next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Is distancing herself from a comment that President Biden made that the only garbage I see. This is him saying this, is his supporters. Now, Biden quickly clarified last night that he wasn't talking about Trump's supporters themselves. He was referring to the now infamous comment from the comedian at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, calling Puerto Rico garbage.

CNN's senior White House correspondent MJ Lee joins me now. We heard Kamala Harris speak to reporters, obviously intentionally so before she got on her plane. And you have some new reporting about what's going on behind the scenes among the Harris campaign and their aides.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You know, Dana, what we are picking up on is quiet exasperation. I've spoken with multiple Democrats who described there being among those in and around the Harris campaign. This kind of private frustration and concern and even exasperation that what the president said last night, ended up undeniably becoming a distraction this close to election day.

I'm hearing that senior campaign officials have heard from supporters since last night, some suggesting, you know, would there be a way for the president to not be in the public eye in the six days that are left until election day?

One former administration official telling CNN, clearly frustrated, they said they were -- they found the entire episode infuriating, and they even said nobody wants him out there about the president.

Look, I think the bottom line is that the campaign is anxious. They very much anticipate that this election is going to be incredibly close. And they do not want any kind of unnecessary distractions and any ammunition, fair or not, that Donald Trump and his campaign might seize on. And we did see the vice president having to speak to this earlier, and we saw how she sought to distance herself from the president's remarks. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think that, first of all, he clarified his comments. But let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for. You heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career. I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And look, in this final stretch of the campaign, we are not seeing President Biden be a surrogate that is in high demand. We are not seeing him really hitting the campaign trail alongside the vice president. And as we reported, that is in part because of wariness about moments where he might misspeak potential gaps.

And also, just their general recognition that the vice president does need to and want to run her own distinct campaign that is very separate from the campaign that the president was not running. And I think we saw that reflected in her comments earlier today. Dana?

BASH: MJ, thank you so much. Appreciate that reporting. And back here. Nia, what's your takeaway from this?

HENDERSON: I mean, it's -- there's all this talk about, there being tensions between the two campaigns. The idea that Biden might want to be out there more than the campaign wants him out there. And you see a comment like this, and you say, he has not been helpful, right? It's this comment.

I think there was another comment he made maybe a week ago or so, something about lock him up, referring to Donald Trump, that he later had to clarify. So, it steps directly on the message that Kamala Harris wants to send and it's just a big gap. And here she had to clean it up, and this is what we're talking about.

BASH: And then the old important question compared to what? And that was what Stephanie Carter, I think, was referring to when she was on this morning, talking about what she described as faux outrage. Let's just remind people what Donald Trump himself, who is actually the candidate, has said about people who don't necessarily support him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're a dumping ground. We're like a -- we're like a garbage can for the world. We will root out the communists, Marxist, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.

[12:25:00] I'll tell you what any African American or Hispanic, and you know how well I'm doing there that votes for Kamala, you got to have your headaches have it. 60 percent of Jewish people are going to vote for a Kamala or a Democrat. And honestly, you ought to have your heads examined. We've been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the sinister forces women who hate it, they hate our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now this David Chalian, Joe Biden, it did appear that he missed the apostrophe. He was trying to be singular. But regardless of whether it did or not, he came out and clarified. Kamala Harris has distanced herself. Donald Trump has not once clarified anything he said there. Never mind what actually started this, which was what that comedian said on Sunday night about Puerto Rico. He has not apologized or distanced himself with his own words at all.

CHALIAN: I mean, apologizing is not in Donald Trump's vocabulary. It's just not what he does. I was even surprised. He offered up to Hannity last night on Fox that, well perhaps he shouldn't have been invited. I was like -- I didn't even know that would come out of Donald Trump's mouth. Not that it amounts to anything.

Obviously, what we know about that incident is that the language was vetted because some language was taken out, and this language was still OK with the team putting together the event that emerged on Sunday.

I would just say this. Two things can be true, right? Joe Biden could be a distraction and undermining what the Harris campaign wants to be their message of the day. And Donald Trump is in a totally different universe of insulting, racist language, you know, of all sorts of pockets of Americans. Like, both of those things can be true.

I think it is pretty clear. If you are the White House of the incumbent party and hoping your vice president and chosen successor is going to be successful six days from now, and you're having to argue about the placement of an apostrophe, you're probably not in the right place from a message perspective.

MCGRAW: Yeah. Six days from an election, doing cleanup is not what any campaign wants to spend their time doing, let alone clarifying the remarks of the sitting president. And we've already seen how the Trump campaign has blown this up, and Trump allies have -- they have ads. There's already been, I think, a few fundraising pitches that I've seen show up on my phone this morning already. But you know, having to play cleanup is just not where you want to be with --

BASH: And that's, of course, like, the most expected, a least surprising thing in the world that they would do that. I mean, that's politics. It's especially frustrating for Team Harris because of the big speech that she gave last night, and not just the fact that it was her closing message. It's what the closing message was. Let's play a bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS: Here's what I promise to you. I will always listen to you, even -- even if you don't vote for me. Here is my pledge to you. I pledge to seek common ground and commonsense solutions to make your life better. I have always had an instinct to protect. There's something about people being treated unfairly or overlooked that, frankly, just gets to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So that's the message that they want out there.

HENDERSON: Yeah. And that should have been, you know, sort of dominating headlines today. And instead, Joe Biden makes a whole different contradictory argument. You know, the thing about Kamala Harris is she has performed fairly well, right? She's had hundred days to stitch together this coalition, to raise a billion dollars, to perform well at debates in speeches, she's hit her marks, right?

So, the least you could do Joe Biden is, when you're out there talking, is to say it like you, you know, say it plain. And in this case, he was the --

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: I don't think the president (inaudible)

BASH: Yeah. That's what I was thinking --

CHALIAN: I take it. But this speech is good. It was a very successful effort. It was a very well-crafted speech. She delivered it really well. It's going to be easily sliced and diced to inject it into ads and social media in these last six days. And it is her.

It's not just the contrast with Trump, which she did at every step, but it was also her affirmative message about the economy and bringing prices down. All of that is going to be in voters' purview, far more than what Joe Biden said and cleaned up quickly.

BASH: Yeah. You don't have to -- we don't have to live like this, or something along those lines. It doesn't have to be like this.

CHALIAN: Yeah. It's not who we are.

BASH: That was, yeah. That was certainly an interesting theme. This was not on to use an overused analogy these days, this was not on their bingo card for us to be talking about this morning and team Harris. Coming up. Donald Trump says, he will let Robert Kennedy Jr. quote, go wild when it comes to public health. So, what would that mean for you and your family?

[12:30:00]