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The Source with Kaitlan Collins

Kaitlan's New Reporting Says, Trump Fumes Privately Over Iowa Poll; Trump Says He Shouldn't Have Left White House After 2020; Harris Says, Don't Fall For Trump's Tactic Because Election Is Fair. Aired 9- 10p ET

Aired November 03, 2024 - 21:00   ET

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

[21:00:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Kaitlan Collins. This is a special edition of The Source on what has been a roller coaster of a Sunday in the 2024 race. And on the eve of Election Day eve right now, Vice President Harris is blitzing in Battleground, Michigan, as Donald Trump is still speaking at his third rally of the day in Georgia, after making stops in Pennsylvania and North Carolina earlier.

The two candidates are on the road as the last polls that we are expected to see before Tuesday show an exceptionally tight race with tossups across nearly every single swing state. I have new reporting tonight on how those numbers out of Iowa that came last night delivered a gut punch to several people inside Donald Trump's orbit with many asking, could he really be running this behind Harris and the deeply red state that he won twice? We'll dig into that in a moment.

And these new numbers that we're seeing may be what's driving what we're hearing on the campaign trail, but Trump basically creating doubt about the fairness of Tuesday's election and sure sounding like he's laying the groundwork to contest it if he loses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: we had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left. I shouldn't have left, I mean, honestly, because we did so well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Trump saying he shouldn't have left the White House. He did, of course, but just barely. For people who might hear that and say, well, he's not being serious, remember, four years ago, Maggie Haberman reported that Trump was telling people, quote, I'm just not going to leave.

Here's how Vice President Harris responded to that comment from Trump today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I would ask in particular people who have not yet voted to not fall for his tactic.

In 2020, he lost. And the systems that are in place for this election in 2024 have integrity. They are good systems and the vote of the people will determine the outcome of this election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: You hear Harris there talking about the fairness of what's expected to happen on Tuesday night.

What Trump said today on the campaign trail, though, about the election was far from the only dark comment that we heard. He also called Democrats, quote, demonic and mused about violence against members of the press who are covering him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I have a piece of glass over here and I don't have a piece of glass there. And I have this piece of glass here. But all we have really over here is the fake news, right?

And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don't mind that so much because -- I don't mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: It's remarkable to hear the laughter in the background about those comments.

I should note, the Trump campaign later claimed that what he said there, what you just heard for yourself, had, quote, nothing to do with the media being harmed, but rather, I'm quoting his spokesperson now, actually looking out for their welfare.

My political sources are here tonight. David Polyansky. I want to start with you because we are 48 hours away from election night when we will start to see the polls coming in, what voters are deciding here. You've run a bunch of Republican presidential campaigns. I mean, would you want your candidate reminding everyone about how he left office and disputing the election results in 2020 still has not accepted them, and also, you know, those violent comments that he's musing about violence happening to the press, as your closing message?

DAVID POLYANSKY, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, the answer is no. I mean, this isn't how you want to close, but at the end of the day, I don't think it's going to affect the electoral outcome either. Look, both sides have been terrible and nasty in this race. I mean, we've had people calling the president and his supporters Nazis for holding rallies at Madison Square Garden, and we've seen the former president take this act today.

People just need to take a deep breath, close on a positive message, and I think the vice president today started to really do that, and I think that's what's giving her a little bit of an advantage as you make the final stretch here. And the former president needs to find his footing and go back to his positive message, because at the end of the day, if he gets 10 percent, if he has a ten-point advantage in Pennsylvania on Election Day, he's going to be the next president again.

[21:05:03]

So, he's got to focus there instead of his grievances on the trail.

COLLINS: I mean, I don't think any Democrats actually said they were Nazis. They likened it to the neo-Nazi rally that was held at Madison Square Garden in 1939.

But, S.E., what did you -- I mean, just to hear that, you listen to a bunch of -- I listen to all the Trump rallies pretty much. It felt different today, though. It was so dark to hear those messages.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I have a hunch, and I talk to people in that world, I have a hunch that Trump's internals are telling him there are no more independents and moderates to pick off. He cannot win them, so stop. And so in the last week, I think we'd all agree, he's really been running to the base and throwing everything he can at base voters to get them ginned up, to get them excited, knowing what, what do I have to lose? I'm not winning those persuadable voters anymore. I think that's what probably his polls are telling him. And so this is sort of his, you know, homage to the base in the final hours.

COLLINS: I mean, Astead, you're shaking your head. Yes.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm agreeing I think that this is reflective of a Trump strategy that has not been additive for this whole race There is a reason that he's out on the trail with Elon Musk rather than Nikki Haley, right? Like there's a reason he chose J.D. Vance rather than some other options that folks all could expand the electorate further. He hasn't wanted to do that. He's wanted to not only win but win with a specific way is showing a specific message. It's gotten him into trouble.

I think the Madison Square Garden rally is an example of that, and that kind of localized, insular Republican message hits a wider audience. That's how you create these type of incidents, and that's what Harris is seizing on.

COLLINS: Yes. And it made me think, Ashley, the poll that we came out from The New York Times today, about those late deciding voters and who they're going for. And right now, it seems like they are breaking in Harris' direction. It says 8 percent of voters who said that they had just made their choice for president and recently decided she's leading 55 to 44 percent. I mean, what has been happening in the last two weeks does matter to people who are just now deciding who they're voting for.

ASHLEY ETIENNE, FORMER OBAMA ADVISER: Absolutely. I mean, the, though that New York Times polls actually, I was on the phone with the campaign just recently is consistent with their internal polling. They're seeing now that low propensity voters, undecided voters, sporadic Democrats are breaking Kamala Harris' way, which is why Donald Trump is completely losing it. I mean, he's also seeing this in his internal polls.

You know, I would much rather be Kamala Harris at this stage of the game, obviously. She's ending on a positive note. She's breaking away from Donald Trump, which is what I've been advising. She's not talking about him. She's hyper focused on the American people, laying out her vision, policy after policy, addressing everything from, you know, price gouging to housing prices. And she's ending on, really, an optimistic note about the promise of America.

And that's what's really, I think, resonating with those particular voters that are now starting to break her way. And it's consistent in place to what we've seen in CNN polls, where she's double -- she's up against him double digits in terms of enthusiasm, in terms of who would you rather be your president, who's got the skills and the empathy that you want in that Oval Office. So, she's playing to that in the final days and it's working.

COLLINS: And so many of these polls have not changed at all very much in the last few months, but I think maybe the most surprising result we got was last night when the Des Moines Register dropped its poll that shows Harris above Trump, leading Trump in Iowa, a state, of course, that you know he has won twice. I mean, it was not that long ago Obama won Iowa as well.

But to see those numbers there, I mean, Trump world was kind of -- I don't want to overdramatize how they felt about this, but it was like a gut punch to some of them who were looking at this and saying, what?

POLYANSKY: Well, look this is a very close election I'm not going to make a prediction here tonight unless you force me, and then I'm going to go last. But the reality is Iowa is Trump country. He's not going to lose Iowa, and he's going to win it comfortably.

COLLINS: But this is one of the best, the gold standard of pollsters.

POLYANSKY: I'm not dismissing Ann Seltzer by any stretch, but I'll remind you back in 2016 when I was with Senator Cruz, hours before the Iowa caucus then, she had Trump beating him by five points and we ended up beating Donald Trump by four points.

You cannot, in this environment, whether it's The New York Times or the Des Moines Register, or unless it's a CNN poll maybe, you can't take one poll and extract the outcome of an election. You can't even do that with averages to that degree. And, by the way, there's just -- there's no way that the vice president is winning white senior women by 35 percent in a Midwest state. It's just not reality.

HERNDON: But the individual result of the poll, I think doesn't tell the full story. But I think it's helpful to compare it to is the previous one she took months ago that showed Donald Trump up by 20- plus points, right? And so what we see is a reset race. I think it's causing the panic among a lot of Republicans because they see a Harris campaign that I think is landing on the messages they want at the right time.

And so whether she wins Iowa or not, kind of is a smaller question than that she reset the race and brought it to her terms, which that poll is consistent with.

[21:10:01]

I think the abortion ban in Iowa matters a lot. I think there has been a capture of Republicans by evangelicals there that has pulled away the party from the base. And so I think that the aggregate story matters.

But can I say one point on the trust in the elections? Whether Donald Trump accepts the result or not, he has already sown that seed. When I am at Republican polling places, they are already saying that the only result they trust is a result where Donald Trump wins. People say that explicitly, that they cannot imagine a universe in which Kamala Harris received more votes. That is already the result of a candidate or institutions that have sown that trust and done so for the last four years.

So, whether he actually resets the result or not, it's already there. And it's been the effort --

COLLINS: These aren't like crazy, fringe people. These are normal people that you're talking with.

HERNDON: It's a consistent thing that happens. I think when you're in Republican spaces, because it's been the talk, there's still a belief that the last election was stolen. we hear about Dominion voting machines all the time. Like it's not just Mike Lindell, right? I think that there is a wider swath where this stuff has taken root.

And so beyond the question of whether it helps him in the election or not, I think it's a really important story about trust in institutions.

COLLINS: Yes, it's even the people who don't go to Trump rallies, or maybe that what used to be described as country club Republicans that, that are really bought into this, which is why when he says things like -- I get that he says it all the time and so it kind of falls on deaf ears sometimes, but to hear him saying the way he said it today, that he shouldn't have left the White House as he is just really -- I mean, it's, that never happened before this.

CUPP: No. And it really is a reminder at the worst possible time of the kind of chaos and stuff that really repelled the voters he needs to pull him over the finish line. And to the Iowa poll, I mean, look, if the Iowa poll is a shot, the chaser is, we will not have a long election week, okay? If that's true, and Trump is doing that well, or Kamala is doing that well in Iowa, it's not going to be as long as we think it is.

But there are these pockets of voters in the seven swing states that we just don't know what they're going to do. They're telling us, right, Kamala's got these ghost voters, these young college aged women who have not voted before. So, we don't know who they are yet, but they're saying they intend to vote for Kamala. With the youth vote, you never know if they're actually going to turn up. That's for her.

There's pockets in steel towns across Pennsylvania of Hispanic men saying they intend to vote for Trump. Will they? Will they pull the lever for Trump? Did the Puerto Rico fiasco change their minds? Because a lot of them are Puerto Rican mainland voters. We don't know.

So, even when voters are telling us what they Indicate what they plan to do, there's so many of these ghost pockets for both candidates across the battleground states, we just can't we just can't tell.

COLLINS: Yes. It's remarkable to see just how close it is in The New York Times. But even if this poll is wrong in Iowa, if she's not going to win Iowa, but even if it's within the margin of error of eight points, she says women, 65-plus, 63 percent for Harris, 28 percent for Trump, even if that's wrong by 10 percent, that's still striking for Iowa. Women overall in Iowa, Harris, 56 percent, Trump, 36 percent.

When I talk about the gut punch inside the Trump campaign, it's not the overall numbers. It's the numbers with women, because they're like, is that how women in Wisconsin feel and Michigan and these other states that we are counting on?

ETIENNE: Yes. I mean, to S.E.'s point, we don't know how we, we do know how voters are going to vote to some degree. We've seen over the last two cycles that voters have outperformed expectations and polls, especially as it relates to reproductive rights. So, now we're seeing, and according to the Harris campaign, women are, you know, going to the polls in droves because of this particular issue, and it's going to advantage her in places like Arizona and other places where they had ballots initiatives on the ballot.

But here's the other thing I wanted to just point out as we move -- as we think about the election night. The thing -- the major difference with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has been what we've seen from Donald Trump over the last two years. I worked for Speaker Pelosi and we anticipated that January 6th was going to happen two years before it happened. We believe that Donald Trump, when he said he's not going to leave. And so we should expect that. But that's, I think, what's making the difference in this particular election is his behavior that people are just over. It's what the vice president said. There's a fatigue that set in with voters around Donald Trump and around his antics.

I mean, he's been spending the last few weeks trying to convince voters that he's not a Nazi, that he's not racist, that he's not a bigot. And the reality is they don't believe it, and it's falling on death's ear. And that's what we're seeing playing out in Iowa to a degree.

COLLINS: Yes. And the difference, of course, is he'll be at Mar-a-Lago this time, not the White House, but still questions about local election boards and what that looks like.

Great discussion, everybody, thank you for that, Astead, great point about abortion as well in Iowa.

Up next, Senator Cory Booker has been out campaigning for Harris on the trail. We'll tell you what he's been hearing on the ground. That's next.

Also live from New York, Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live. I happened to be there in the audience. I'll tell you what I saw right after this.

[21:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYA RUDOLPH, ACTRESS: The American people want to stop the chaos.

HARRIS: And end the dramala.

RUDOLPH: Because what do we always say? Keep Kamala and carry on the la.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Just moments after a Saturday Night Live spoofed The Source during its cold open last night with a very fine job by Chloe Fineman, Vice President Kamala Harris also made a brief surprise appearance in Studio 8H alongside her alter ego, Maya Rudolph, who has played her on the show this season.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDOLPH: Kamala, take my Palmela.

[21:20:01]

The American people want to stop the chaos.

HARRIS: And end the dramala.

RUDOLPH: With a cool new stepmamala, kick back in our pajamalas and watch a romkamala.

HARRIS: Like Legally Blondala.

RUDOLPH: And start decorating for Christmas, falalala.

HARRIS: Because what do we always say, Keep Kamala and carry on a la.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: I happen to be watching from the audience last night. The crowd went wild as Harris entered the set. The news that Harris was in New York and expected to make a surprise appearance broke just before the show aired. You could tell as you entered the room, there was Secret Service there, that there was going to be a surprise appearance there.

I should note, as Harris was actually leaving the stage, she saw me and mouth, quote, are you ready for Tuesday? Certainly a question that all of America is facing right now and my Democratic source who is here now, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. And, Senator, it's great to have you.

You know, it was obviously a funny appearance we've seen --

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Well, first of all, let me interrupt. Congratulations on being spoofed on Saturday Night Live. It is a great flattering thing to be imitated in that way. And I love the person who imitates you.

COLLINS: It totally is. And also it's a little surreal to be in there. I didn't know, obviously when I went, but just to happen to be there watching it. It was my first time as it happened. It was also, you know, just kind of a surreal moment.

But on that note, you know, it was a funny appearance. We've seen politicians do this almost every presidential election cycle. Trump hosted SNL back in 2015. We saw Hillary Clinton on. Tonight, Republicans are complaining though that an appearance like that one this close to Tuesday amounts to an in kind contribution from NBC to her campaign. What is your response to that?

BOOKER: I imagine when I saw it, they probably invited Donald Trump, but he has trashed the show with such kind of really hateful language. I'm sure he wouldn't want to go on. But give me a break. They're grasping right now. Right now, the real issue is to get the work done. And that's what I'm seeing as I travel around to the swing states and beyond.

COLLINS: Yes. And I should note, Brian Stelter is hearing the NBC stations are going to offer him equal time. We'll see what that looks like, how that shapes out. But you have been out on the campaign trail, as you just mentioned. And when you see this new polling that's coming out tonight, as we're looking, you know, staring at these numbers, our final ones that we're getting before Tuesday night. One indication from ABC/Ipsos shows that she's doing better among younger voters -- or, excuse me, among voters of color than President Biden was when he dropped out, but she's actually underperforming where he was in 2020. Do you think that's going to make a big difference on Tuesday night? Are you worried about that?

BOOKER: I'm not. I think at this point, the polls are all with their margins of error, not something to be looking at or relying on. We have got to do the work. And what excites me is that everywhere I'm going, today, I was in black churches, I was at packed standing (INAUDIBLE) in rallies. There is just so much energy and so much excitement. I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for canvas kickoff and they could barely fit people in the room.

So, I just really believe that this is so close when you're in an election that's the margin of error, as Ben Whittler says out in Wisconsin, their Democratic Party chair, he says, if you're in the margin of error, it really is the margin of effort. So, let's turn all of our worry about the polls into work, our anxiety about what the pundits are saying into action and any fears we may have about the outcome and to fight. And that's really the focus in these last 48 hours.

COLLINS: Well, and as you know, the control of the Senate is also at stake on Tuesday. Everyone's focusing, you know, 90 percent on the presidential race, but then we'll very quickly be watching that. And when you look at the numbers also today that every Democratic Senate candidate right now is outperforming Harris in the states that could decide this election. Do you think we're going to see a significant number of people voting for a Democrat in the Senate, but Donald Trump for president?

BOOKER: I can't see that. And I talked to activists -- you know, to an activist, Marilyn (ph), who has a very Popular Republican governor. But people were telling me that they're feeling very strongly that somebody that was picked by Mitch McConnell and threatens to overturn the Senate and is just unacceptable. Because, look, if Kamala gets elected president and she doesn't have the Senate, she can't like Donald Trump or Obama, she can't -- or Joe Biden can't get her signature legislation done because it will be blocked in the Senate. Common sense, as we saw with a bipartisan immigration bill, could end up being stopped.

So, it's really important. I think people realize when it comes to control the House of Representatives and the United States Senate to vote up and down the ballot. And here's the exciting thing for me, having just been down in Texas a little while ago, you're seeing people like Colin Allred raise their game and really close that margin of error as they make Texas competitive.

[21:25:04]

Who would have thought? You're seeing people that were counted out like Jon Tester making a late surge. And what's happening on the ground there is just so excited. I talked to people that were campaigning in a Native American area of the state, and they were just thrilled to see the energy and how much they're going beyond their expectation and the amount of people turning out. So, it's exciting.

COLLINS: In Texas, people always say, you know -- critics, I should say, we'll say, you know, Democrats are like Lucy and the football there, they think they're always going to pull it off. We saw this with Beto O'Rourke and it never quite happens. Do you think Colin Allred could actually beat Ted Cruz on Tuesday night?

BOOKER: He could absolutely. And what people don't say is I hear this from my Texas friends all the time. They say, oh, my vote doesn't count. And I'm like, are you crazy? And the last Senate election there, if 10 percent more of the registered Democrats turned out, it would have flipped that election. All we need to win in Texas is to get a high turnout from people who are registered to vote. And so that's what I'm really excited about.

And I'll tell you, Colin Allred's drawing a lot of people who even are Republicans, who just are tired of extreme politics and want somebody like him, who's a very moderate guy, who's made a reputation for bringing people together on both sides. This is an election where anything can happen.

And so with, in that kind of election, every American should think to themselves, I'm more powerful in this election than I usually am, because every place, everywhere, all of these swing states, it is such a narrow election, and we've seen this. Elections come down as Bush v. Gore, less than 600 votes in Florida decided it one way or the other. Jon Tester had an election decided by just about a thousand votes. Every individual in our democracy right now, whether you're in a state that has a competitive Senate race or House race or in a swing state for the presidency, you have a lot of power. So, get out and vote.

I love what Martin Luther King said. He said the problems that we have to repent for. It's not the violent -- vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people.

COLLINS: Yes. We could be in for a few major upsets. We'll be watching that very closely.

Senator Cory Booker, thank you.

BOOKER: Thank you so much. Good to be on.

COLLINS: Up next, you're going to want to see this. RFK Jr., he's pushing back on what we just heard from Donald Trump's campaign. Transition co-chair on this show very definitively this week,

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: But you're saying he would not be in charge of HHS?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, of course not.

COLLINS: Okay, so he's not going to be like --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's not going to be a secretary. No.

COLLINS: Well, he couldn't get confirmed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:30:00]

COLLINS: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now contradicting what Donald Trump's own transition co-chair said about him on this show. Howard Lutnick telling me directly here on The Source that Kennedy was, quote, not getting a job at the Department of Health and Human Services. But Kennedy went on Fox today and said otherwise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., FORMER INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to be in the White House and he's assured me that I'm going to have that. I want to be in the position where I'm most effective, end the chronic disease epidemic. And I'm confident that if I wanted to do HHS secretary, the president would fight like hell to make that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Fight like hell, of course, because it would be very difficult for someone like RFK Jr. to get confirmed in the Senate. That's what we've heard from sources. I should note, Trump also told NBC today that a plan that Kennedy has proposed to remove fluoride from drinking water, quote, sounds okay to me. And he also did not rule out taking certain vaccines off the market.

My source tonight is Republican Congressman in the middle of a tight reelection race, New York Representative Mike Lawler. And, Congressman, thank you for being here.

You know, just looking at this situation, you know, from what Howard Lutnick said to what RFK said today, would you personally be comfortable with RFK Jr. having influence any at all over U.S. health policies?

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Well, look, RFK Jr. was at one point a constituent of my district. He's well known in, in my area. He and I probably have some strong disagreements on some of his stated positions. But, look, ultimately I think we're putting the cart before the horse here. Obviously, Tuesday is Election Day and that will determine who the next president of the United States is. And obviously if it's President Trump, he's going to put forth nominees that he wants to serve in his cabinet, and, obviously, the Senate has a role in terms of confirmation. But I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here, and I think the focus, obviously, with 48 hours to go is on turning out the vote.

COLLINS: Yes, but it's a hypothetical until it's not. I mean, he's made very clear that if Trump wins, he wants a job in the administration. And it's not just, you know, talking about taking fluoride out of drinking water. He has a history of anti-Semitic and conspiracies that are dangerous to children. And I think a real question is, you know, maybe independent voters who are going to the polls are thinking, is that someone I want to be in control of the nation's health agencies?

LAWLER: Again, I think most people right now are focused on the immediate impact of the issues on their families. And the issues in my district that matter are the affordability crisis. People are paying more today at the grocery store, the gas station, their mortgage bills. The average mortgage in my district is up a thousand dollars a month, Kaitlan.

And I think when I'm out on the campaign trail, nobody's asking me about RFK Jr. They're asking me about how they're going to pay their bills.

[21:35:01] I did a town hall this week in the Latino community. 19 percent of my district is Latino. Nearly every single person talked to me about their rent payments. They talked to me about the job market. They talked to me about the cost of groceries. That's what most people are focused on right now. And I think when you look at these challenges they want to hear from the candidates on how they're going to address it. At the end of the day, whoever wins on Tuesday is going to be in charge, their cabinet secretaries will do the work of the president, not the other way around.

COLLINS: Yes, but Trump is okay with RFK's plans, as he's made very clear.

But on that front and what voters are so worried about --

LAWLER: Yes.

COLLINS: Go ahead, finish your thought.

LAWLER: No. I was just going to say, I mean, at the end of the day, we're, we're putting the cart before the horse here. The president hasn't made any nominations yet. So, we have no idea who's going to be nominated for what.

COLLINS: Yes, and we don't, but he's making very clearly that -- he's signaling very clearly he would put him in a position.

But what your point is about what matters to voters, what they're hearing in these final days on the campaign trail, you know, some of them, a very precious amount of them have not yet decided who they're voting for or will be deciding on Tuesday. And when the Republican nominee says, you know, who never conceded his 2020 loss says today on the campaign trail, I should have never left the White House, is that helpful to you and your race? Is that helpful to Republicans?

LAWLER: Look, I've been very clear about this. Joe Biden won in 2020. What happened on January 6th was wrong and never should have happened. But, ultimately, the American people are going to make a decision in 48 hours and that decision will be rendered. And we will see who they choose to be the next president of the United States.

I've also been very clear, I will certify the election come January 6th, 2025 for whoever wins on November 5th. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and I think the American people want to make a decision, and they will. And, ultimately, I will respect that decision.

We look at what is happening today. We have an affordability crisis, a crisis at our southern border. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris allowed over 10.5 million migrants into the United States, most of them illegally, 90 percent released into the country. You look at a state like New York, and they are spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money to provide free housing, free clothing, free food, free education, free healthcare to illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, you have people who can't even afford to pay their taxes, their mortgages their grocery bills. These are the issues that when I am out in --

COLLINS: Yes.

LAWLER: No question. And these are the issues that when I'm in my district, most people are talking about. So, I know we try to focus on some of the --

COLLINS: But democracy also is an important issue to voters. It's not some side issue that doesn't matter.

LAWLER: Yes. But we have we have people like Jamie Raskin, who, in 2017, voted against certification, and now just even this past week, talking again about not certifying a Donald Trump election. This is a fundamental problem we see across the --

COLLINS: But you can't compare one congressman from Maryland to a concerted effort by Republicans in the House, in the Senate and states across this country to try to overturn the vote. And only one candidate has done that, and it wasn't Joe Biden. It wasn't Kamala Harris. It was Donald Trump.

LAWLER: Respectfully, we have seen, going back to George W. Bush, we have seen Democrats vote against certification.

COLLINS: Not on the same scale. It's a false equivalency.

LAWLER: We have seen, we have seen, after 2016, Democrats saying that Donald Trump's election was illegitimate and saying that it was Russia that put him in.

COLLINS: And Hillary Clinton conceded that election.

LAWLER: The fact is.

COLLINS: We watched it. So, it's not --

LAWLER: But she said he was an illegitimate president. But she said he was an --

COLLINS: Did she say maybe I shouldn't go to the White House and I'm going to do this?

LAWLER: The bottom line here --

COLLINS: I think that's what people are looking at here and Trump is repeating it even today.

But, Congressman, I want to ask you because you're talking about 48 hours from now. Let me -- I want to ask you this because what happens on Tuesday night obviously matters and on election night in 2020 Trump came out and prematurely declared victory. What would you -- what's your message to your constituents who might believe him even if the race hasn't been called or the ballots aren't done being counted given what you said about certifying the election? What would you say to your constituents on Tuesday night?

LAWLER: Well, listen, all of the votes have to be counted. And I've always abided by that and I've been successful twice in two to one Democratic districts defeating long-term incumbent Democrats. When the votes are counted, obviously, we will know the final results. 2020 was an anomaly because of the number of absentee ballots that were cast.

[21:40:02]

It took a while to count all the votes. I suspect on election night on Tuesday, we will have a very clear picture of who won, because even in my state of New York, they have changed the law in terms of counting ballots since 2020. So, it will be more expedited in terms of absentees, which now are opened before Election Day, as opposed to a week after Election Day. Early voting, we have already seen record turnout.

So, there is obviously a lot of votes that have already been cast before election day that will be counted. So, I think we will know pretty clearly on Tuesday night. But, obviously, if it's a tight race, if it's a very close margin in a handful of states, then we're going to have to make sure all the votes are counted. If you go back to 2016, Donald Trump won by 80,000 votes in three states. If you look at 2020, he lost by 40,000 votes in three states.

I suspect you're obviously going to have a handful of states that determine the outcome of the Electoral College. And we will obviously see on election night if there's a big enough margin for either candidate.

COLLINS: Yes. We'll be watching closely. Congressman Mike Lawler, thank you for joining and also congrats to you and your wife on the birth of your daughter, Elizabeth Rose. There she is. She's so cute. Congratulations.

LAWLER: Thank you. I appreciate it.

COLLINS: Up next, we're going to talk about what could also be happening on Tuesday night because it's important not to just watch Mar-a-Lago or what's happening at the Harris headquarters. Across the country, there is a so called Army of Election Officials who could be preparing to try to overturn the will of the people. There could be chaos in the weeks ahead. We'll tell you what reporters who've been covering this are seeing out in the country.

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[21:45:00]

COLLINS: If you thought the Stop the Steal movement was only about 2020, you may want to think again. This time, depending on what happens on Tuesday night, it might not just be Trump and his allies huddling with him in the Oval Office who are trying to disrupt the certification. The New York Times has new reporting on the Army of Election Officials ready to reject the vote and how the movement has taken over a lot of the boards that certify elections. Of course, that could have major implications in delaying the entire process regardless of whether or not it's a fairly executed election.

CNN's Senior Correspondent Donie O'Sullivan has closely followed this thread, as well as Jim Rutenberg, writer-at-large for The New York Times and New York Times Magazine, who is on the front page of both today.

And, Jim, you know, you've been reporting on these election officials who are supposed to certify the ballots, and they have real agency, though, after Tuesday night, on Tuesday night, to create pure chaos if they just choose not to.

JIM RUTENBERG, WRITER-AT-LARGE, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, in fact, legally they don't have agency, but many are taking that agency. We've seen it again and again since 2020, and you mentioned it, it's really modeled on the January 6th -- the process that led to January 6th, which was about certification. At the end of the day then-President Trump is trying to stop certification at Congress. Well, that process begins at the local level where board members are increasingly willing to get in the way.

COLLINS: I mean, and you've been talking to these officials over the last several weeks and they're basically planning for this, because, as Astead was saying earlier, in their minds, there's no way Trump can lose this election, there's no way Biden could get 80 million votes or whatever he did in 2020.

RUTENBERG: There's no way. So, they're interpreting certification as some sort of endorsement. And certification, I just want to remind viewers, it's not an endorsement. It's what has to happen to get results. It's just moving the numbers along. It's keeping score. It's moving the numbers along. The courts are where you litigate elections. The problem is, for Trump last time around, the courts rejected him again and again and again. Certification would be a way around the courts. It's not legal.

COLLINS: Yes. And, Donie, you have followed these kinds of people, I think, closely. I think there are some people who think election deniers are, you know, the fringe, the crazies. But when you talk to these people about how they see this, what is their mindset on this? Like that they are willing to do something that is illegal, but in their view, they're doing the right thing.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's patriotic. It is the patriotic thing to do, right? Look, four weeks before the 2020 election, I was in a small conference room in Arizona. It was the height of COVID, but there was a QAnon convention going on basically, right? And it was all of these folks saying Trump is going to win by a -- in a landslide. And the only way that's not going to happen is if it's stolen. And if it does get stolen, we're going to have to do something about it.

From that room alone, I think at least two of the people there went to prison for January 6th. One of whom was Jacob Chansley, now known as the QAnon shaman. That's sort of thinking four years on has -- is it's not just in these QAnon bases anymore, right? I mean, you hear Trump essentially speaking to it. And so many of the people I've spoken to say, look, the battle for us, we think we have this election in the bag. The battle for us begins at the certification process. And I want to play just one very quick clip of a MAGA extremist, somebody who has a big following in this space. Here's what he's saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's all going to depend on what they end up doing. I have a plan and strategy for every single component of it. And then January 6th is going to be pretty fun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: He's talking about January 6, 2025, which by the way, this Congress' certification or what should be certification of the result happens to fall on January 6 again this year. So, they're very openly speaking about this process and they have a step-by-step plan.

[21:50:04]

COLLINS: I mean, they even have podcasts about it. Cleta Mitchell, who maybe is not a name that people remember, but she was one of the central figures helping with Trump. His election integrity person at the RNC has been indicted in Arizona. She's pleaded not guilty.

But with Cleta Mitchell, I was fascinated by listening -- you know, I didn't even know she had a podcast until your reporting on her talking about, you know, counting the vote and what's really accurate.

RUTENBERG: Right. And everyone has to have a podcast now, I want to get one myself. But, actually, Cleta Mitchell has done and has built a national movement. So, the people in local communities all over the swing states have started their own groups that are -- and, by the way, because you have the commissioners who can elect to not certify again, not legal, but they can do it, but there's a lot of pressure on them at board meetings.

And what I've seen and what Donie, I think, has seen is that in these meetings, these very local meetings that are about sewers and water issues and street naming, those have become fora for real pressure on these commissioners that when the time comes to certify this vote, if we think it's fraudulent, we are going to put a lot of pressure on you to not do it.

COLLINS: Well, and you talked to one woman who was pressured and then regretted it immediately. And, I mean, Donie, these are people who are facing intense amounts of people showing up at their meetings and saying, you better do this. Like they know where they live. They're small communities.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes. And what's happened is a lot of great, experienced election officials who've done this for decades have quit in the past four years because of the threats, because of the conspiracy theories. And I think one thing very important to mention is Jim's obviously spoken to a lot of people, election officials who are election deniers, right, but we've seen even in Georgia recently election deniers, whether it's on the state elections board or people changing election rules in Georgia, the same people who are trying to add these additional steps into the process of counting, which will delay it are the same people saying, well, if we don't get our full results on election night, that's a sign of fraud. It's so transparent what they're doing in terms of setting this up to say fraud, fraud, fraud.

COLLINS: Yes, that's a really great point there. Donie, we'll be watching this, obviously. Donie, Jim, great reporting as well.

The question that Donie just raised there, when will we know the winner of this election, is what everyone would like to know. We're going to look at the numbers here. We have the always clairvoyant Harry Enten joining me right after this.

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[21:55:00]

COLLINS: Tonight, more than 75 million Americans have already cast their ballots. Of course, every state has a different process and a different set of rules for counting those ballots, which means results from the seven key battleground states could take some time.

CNN's Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten is here with me. And, Harry, the question that I was asked by basically everyone I've communicated with in the last five days is, how long will it take to call the election this year?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I mean, look, if you go by recent precedent, it could take a really long period of time. Remember, it took four days to declare that Joe Biden, project that Joe Biden won back in 2020. You go to 2022, it took four days to figure out that Democrats had held on to the Senate. And it took eight days to figure out that Republicans had gained control of the House. So, recent history is not on our side if we want an early finale to this election.

COLLINS: So, you just heard, I think it was Congressman Lawler pointing to Pennsylvania and the counting there, because it is different for every state. That's the problem. Because you can't say, well, they do it immediately here in Georgia, so this is what it looks like in Pennsylvania. And given how critical Pennsylvania is to the result Tuesday night, what is the sense from officials there of how long that will take?

ENTEN: Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. Look, it took four days to declare that Biden had won Pennsylvania, projected that Biden won Pennsylvania. That's why it was the state that put him over the top in the Electoral College. But remember the margin last time around in Pennsylvania, the 2020 presidential race, was a single point. If we get a wider margin than that, you know, say in the Senate race in 2022, John Fetterman won that race by five points, we were actually able to project Pennsylvania on Wednesday morning.

So, you can see this wide margin of error. If you get a really tight race, it could take a really long time to declare or project the winner. But if you get a mediocre blowout, which five points almost feels like in these day and ages, you could get a projected winner actually rather early.

COLLINS: Mediocre blowout sounds like an oxymoron.

ENTEN: An oxymoron? Well, my life is an oxymoron.

COLLINS: Okay, we'll get into that later. But on election night in 2020, I remember this because we tried to like warn -- just not warn, but let everyone know what to expect, that Trump was going to do really well the election day voting, but because he railed against mail-in voting, once those started coming in and being counted, you would see the shift of the race likely change, which is what happened. Trump used it to claim something was up and that they went to find votes. We know that's not true. What happens this year, since we're not in a pandemic, given how many people have voted early?

ENTEN: Yes. I think that there are going to be a number of states specifically in the central, the swing states in the central and the east, you know, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, where I think all of those states, we should have most of the votes counted in all four of those states by Wednesday. Georgia, North Carolina, specifically, are going to be really quick. Even Wisconsin, you know, we were able to have a pretty good idea who won on Wednesday in 2020. And Michigan has implemented some new rules so you'll be able to pre process those ballots, those absentee ballots, and so we should get a pretty good idea who's won Michigan by Wednesday.

COLLINS: I don't see Arizona or Nevada on that list.

ENTEN: Yes, forget about Arizona and Nevada. If the election comes down to Arizona and Nevada, it could take forever to get those ballots counted. A lot of --

COLLINS: How long is forever?

ENTEN: We're talking weekend. We're talking maybe into potentially early the week after the election week.

[22:00:03]

It just depends how close it is. But, remember, Nevada, we weren't able to project the Senate race there in 2022 until Saturday night. And that was a race that was decided by about a point. So, if we end up with Nevada being the ultimate state, God help us, Kaitlan Collins. God help us.

COLLINS: Well, on that cheery note, Harry, thank you so much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

COLLINS: Okay. Hopefully, that does not happen. We will keep you up to it. We'll have Harry on standby.

So, thanks for joining us. See you tomorrow. CNN News Night with Abby Phillips starts now.