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Trump: Synagogue Killer and Pipe Bomber Stopped My "Momentum"; Trump Tries Claiming Earlier Midterms Were Not a Big Deal; Strong October Jobs Report Out Days before Midterms; Are Midterms Safe from Hacking and Meddling?; Fed Judge Rules "Pending" Georgia Voters Must Be Allowed to Vote. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired November 02, 2018 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00]
REP. STEVE COHEN (D), TENNESSEE: He didn't talk about the anti- Semitism. He didn't talk about -- he talked about how he was received, how he didn't see the demonstrators, et cetera.
I take both of these things very much personally, as an American, as a Jew and as a person who was queried by the bombmaker in Miami for my name and my address. The bomb could have been sent later on to me.
I don't appreciate the president not having concern about the safety of public officials, even if it's those of us who have made comments about him that the maniac didn't like.
The president seems to gloss over that and it's my safety and it's my health and it's my religion and the possibilities of being attacked. And people, when they hate, Elie Wiesel was clear; when people hate Jews, they hate blacks. When they hate blacks, they hate others.
People who hate, hate others. We need to look out for all of America. We are a family; we should be one.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I didn't know you were potentially on his hit list.
Have you reported that to the FBI?
Have you gone through the law enforcement process?
Are you beefing up your security?
COHEN: They informed me, the Capitol police informed my staff last week and the FBI in Memphis notified me yesterday. We had increased security and I think it's important that everybody in Congress have increased security because there are maniacs out there, who have been given license to act, they believe, by conduct and speech that has not been heretofore known to be uttered by a President of the United States of America.
BLITZER: Well, be careful out there, Congressman. Thanks so much for joining us.
COHEN: You're welcome, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right.
Tonight at sundown marks the first Shabbat service since a gunman killed worshippers inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Today families, friends and loved ones, they are saying goodbye during the final funeral.
That's where the oldest victim, 97-year-old Rose Mallinger, is being laid to rest this hour. Her family said the synagogue was the center of her life.
Look at this. This morning, the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" paid tribute to the victims, marking the top of its front page with the first words of the Kaddish, the Jewish Mourner's Prayer, beginning with the traditional words in the original Aramaic -- (speaking Aramaic) -- "Magnified and sanctified be your name."
Saturday's shooting is believed to be the deadliest attack against Jews in American history. Our deepest condolences to their families and their friends. May all 11 rest in peace and may their memory be a blessing.
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[13:35:00]
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BLITZER: Voter turnout is key with just four days until the midterm elections. Turnout is typically lower in the midterms than in years where there is a presidential race. But President Trump claims he's changing that.
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TRUMP: These are the midterms. Nobody thought of the midterms as being that big of a deal for years. Nobody thought of the midterms. You hear midterms and it's like let's go to sleep. This year we are breaking every single record in attendance for the midterms. They are getting more people than some of presidential elections.
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BLITZER: Let's go to our CNN Politics reporter, the editor at large, Chris Cillizza, who is joining us now with a closer look at how midterms were a big deal before President Trump, why they clearly mattered for many, many years.
Chris, walk us through the voting numbers from recent --
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CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS EDITOR AT LARGE: OK, so let's start here, Wolf, this is just -- our first slide is just who is voting. OK. Now you see these numbers, these are in millions, 87 million, 96 million, 95 million, 92 million.
Now it's important to note, about 36 percent of the voting age- eligible population voted in 2014, it was the lowest since World War II. Obviously this number is lower but not as a percentage of the population.
So you are looking at 36-ish percent of the population. Remember, in a president's year, it varies a little bit. In a president's year it's somewhere between 58 percent and 62 percent or 63 percent of the number of people who were eligible to vote who actually do.
So 92 million people is not anything to sneeze at. These were big deals. But as compared to a presidential year turnout, not that close.
BLITZER: What about midterms that have actually stalled presidencies?
CILLIZZA: Right, and this is important, I think. So you look at these numbers, say, oh, they are not as big as presidential years. They're not but it doesn't change the fact that they have huge impact.
OK, in 1994, we remember -- this is Bill Clinton's first midterm, Wolf. House and Senate flip; Newt Gingrich rises up. Bill Clinton totally changes his approach, brings in a total different set of strategists. He goes, moves to the middle third way. Triangulation, gets reelected in 1996.
2010, this is an election in which -- Gloria mentioned this earlier in the show -- in which you have massive losses at the Senate -- excuse me -- House, gubernatorial, state senate and state legislative level.
That fundamentally reshapes not just Congress but the lines being drawn in the country. Remember, after this election, they redrew the entire country's lines. So this one mattered more than I think people thought at the time.
BLITZER: I know the early voting numbers that we're seeing right now, people have been voting for several days now.
Look, compared to other midterm elections?
CILLIZZA: This is a place where that quote you played from Trump is borne out a little bit. So in the purple here, you have got 2018 versus --
[13:40:00]
CILLIZZA: -- 2014. So everywhere you have -- look at this number in Texas. You are talking about more than 3 million early votes. So, yes, across the board, early voting is higher. That tends historically to be good for Democrats.
But the thing to remember is, early voting, these are people banking votes. These are votes that are already cast before Election Day. The question is which party turns out better on Election Day.
Republicans have typically been better at Election Day turnout; Democrats better at early voting. So theoretically early voting up should benefit Democrats. But theoretically Donald Trump was never going to get elected president and look where we are.
So take it with a grain of salt but certainly up from where they were in 2014.
BLITZER: Chris Cillizza, good analysis as usual. Thank you very much.
Meanwhile, U.S. stocks are down sharply today, surprisingly after this morning's jobs report. We learned the U.S. economy added 250,000 jobs in October. Wages rose 3.1 percent in the month and the unemployment rate remains at a 49-year low, 3.7 percent.
I want to bring back our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, and our political analyst, David Gregory.
This great news for Republicans, for President Trump right now, very positive jobs numbers.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Very positive jobs numbers. I think there are lots of Republicans who want the president to continue to talk about the positive jobs numbers and maybe tax reform and those kinds of things. That would help them in the House tremendously and also in the Senate.
The president is clearly bragging about it.
But the question is, how long will he continue to talk about it?
It is really good news for him coming so close to the election. And he really ought to be playing it up.
BLITZER: Because normally very positive jobs numbers like this only a few days before the midterm elections would be great news for the President of the United States.
DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I agree, although I tend to think -- Chris is going through some of these big midterm elections that I usually associate with big issues that are bad issues for the incumbent: so health care, bad for Obama; war, bad for President Bush.
And so a lot of fear and anger tends to be driven out in a midterm race, where typically you don't have as high a turnout. But I do think the economy is strong but what's hurting that a little bit is I think some anxiety about the gyrations in the stock market and whether a recession is coming and how long they can stave that off with government policy.
And I know that is certainly on the president's mind and I also think there was a calculation made by the president and others that, look, if we just run on the economy, we are not going to get those core Trump supporters out because they are going to think everything is fine and won't feel the need to come out and vote.
Unfortunately, he has gone to this political extreme by ginning up this fear on immigration.
BORGER: Yes, you can't be afraid of a good economy. Yes. You can be afraid of what the president calls invaders. And that's how he gets out his base. He likes to stoke rage. This is what he does. He has said --
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BORGER: -- Bob Woodward. It is --
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BORGER: -- likes it. He likes it and he understands that fear is what drives his base out.
GREGORY: The smart money and the economy has been going so well for so long. The fundamentals of the economy are strong. The fact that you have the president fighting with his Federal Reserve chief because the economy is turbo charged, the reality is we have been in a bull market now for so many years that there is fear that a slowdown is coming.
As a political matter, you never want that to be on your watch. And make no mistake, the president is talking up the midterms. He is thinking much more about himself when it comes to 2020 when we know an economy, good or bad, has real effect --
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BORGER: -- uncertainty about China and what's going to happen at the G20.
Is there going to be a meeting?
Are they going to get some kind of a deal or are there going to be tariffs?
And so I think that unsettles a lot of --
BLITZER: A deal with South Korea, with Mexico, with Canada. I assume they will work out --
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: -- deal with China as well.
BORGER: -- Larry Kudlow says they are talking but we don't know.
BLITZER: We'll see if that happens. Guys, thanks very, very much.
As Americans continue early voting, the Homeland Security secretary says there hasn't been a sustained attack on our electoral system.
But what are the threats on Election Day?
Plus, a new fact check of the racist video the president tweeted, including how the convicted migrant that was featured was actually released by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who received the president's very first pardon.
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[13:45:00]
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BLITZER: With just four days until Election Day, are the midterms safe from hacking and meddling?
Here's what the Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said earlier today.
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KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: As of today we don't have any information that a foreign government has a sustained effort or plan to hack our election infrastructure. What we've seen are continued attempts to scan, to access the systems.
That's kind of like a burglar walking around your house and trying your windows. In some very limited cases, we have seen access but they've been quickly prevented or mitigated.
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BLITZER: Our national security analyst, Samantha Vinograd, is with us.
What kind of threats, Samantha, are officials looking at right now?
SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: There are several different threats. I want to make a point here, Wolf, really prioritizing these threats is key. Focusing too much on Chinese propaganda that hurts the president's feelings, for example, rather than the threat of domestic terrorism motivated by a political agenda, could have fatal consequences.
We have just seen the potential for political violence. We have the mail bombing campaign last week. That is very real. And the actual physical safety of Americans is at stake. We know --
[13:50:00]
VINOGRAD: -- hostile foreign powers have successfully hacked elections in the past. And we know Russia was, as recently as June, still trying to interfere in our elections, at least in the information domain. And finally, unknown actors can view these elections as high-profile
events with a heavy amount of media coverage. They also may have been inspired by the attacks of last week against Democrats and the rhetoric since then.
BLITZER: So these unknown actors, what kind of targets are they looking at?
VINOGRAD: They could be looking at even American voters going to the polls. We know where a lot of Americans are going to be and when on Tuesday. And that, again, makes the physical security of voters really paramount on the day of the elections.
We also know that campaigns themselves have been successfully attacked by foreign countries. Remember, Russia hacked information and laundered it in the 2016 campaign. And we have more recent reporting that several Democratic races have been the subject of phishing attempts, denial of service attacks and more.
And the information domain may actually be where attackers get the most bang for the buck. It's relatively low cost, it doesn't cost a lot of money and with every tweet that's issued, millions of Americans are impacted, especially, unfortunately, when President Trump tweets misinformation about a controversial topic, like immigration or George Soros.
And finally election infrastructure remains highly vulnerable, Wolf. We've made some security upgrades but not enough.
BLITZER: Are we better prepared than we were two years ago, with all the hacking that was going on in 2016?
VINOGRAD: It's a mixed bag. We have designated election infrastructure as critical infrastructure, which means it gets more support from the government in identifying threats and responding to them.
We have allocated more money to make defensive upgrades but that's happening over five years, which means we're not there yet. And our opponents have also upped their game, which means deterrence is king. We have to impose costs on our potential attackers so that they're deterred from attacking us in the first place.
BLITZER: Yes, they have to know that, if they're going to do this to the U.S., the U.S. can do a whole lot worse if the U.S. wants to.
VINOGRAD: Exactly.
BLITZER: Samantha, thank you very much.
Just in, as the former president, Barack Obama, is set to campaign in Georgia, we're getting word a judge has just ruled that thousands of pending voters must be allowed to vote. This is a big deal, amid accusations of voter suppression. Stand by.
Plus, where is Melania Trump? You're going to hear why the first lady is a no-show out there on the campaign trail during these final days.
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BLITZER: This is just coming in to CNN and a major blow to the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia.
A federal judge has just ruled that more than 3,000 recently naturalized U.S. citizens, whose voter registrations were placed on hold, must -- repeat -- must be allowed to vote on Tuesday.
This was part of a lawsuit alleging voter suppression. The Republican gubernatorial candidate, Brian Kemp, is also the secretary of state in Georgia. We're going to have full analysis on all this, coming up in a few moments.
But first, later tonight, here on CNN, there will be a special report on this, the eve of midterm elections. Voter rights are under assault in various states across the country. Our Kyung Lah has been investigating all of this for us.
Kyung, what are you finding out?
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we're seeing it come to a head there in Georgia just now in those breaking developments.
But this is a war that has been brewing for many years. In this hour, we will take you to ground zero, to the state of Kansas, where there has been open warfare for years.
On one side, Kris Kobach, who says that what he is doing is trying to prevent so-called voter fraud.
On the other side, advocates and people he's prosecuted, who say that his actions are nothing more than an assault on democracy.
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ARI BERMAN, AUTHOR: What we saw in Kansas was that one in seven new voters that tried to register were blocked from registering. If he's able to succeed and pass these kind of laws on a nationwide basis, it will have a very suppressive effect on voting in this country.
LAH (voice-over): In 2015, claiming hundreds of noncitizens were on the voter rolls, Kobach convinced the state legislature to make him the only secretary of state in the country with the power to prosecute election crimes.
LAH: How prevent is the issue of voter fraud here in the state of Kansas?
KRIS KOBACH (R), KANSAS SECRETARY OF STATE: The form of voter fraud that we see most frequently is double voting. People voting in Kansas can vote in another state in the same election.
LAH (voice-over): In the three years Kobach has had the authority, at least 14 people have been found guilty of voter fraud. Most were older, many registered Republicans, often owning property in two states, like Lincoln Wilson, one of Kobach's first targets.
LINCOLN WILSON, VOTER FRAUDSTER: I thought it was a crank call.
He said, "Is this Lincoln Wilson?"
"Yes, it is."
And he said, "The secretary of state has filed three felony charges."
This one is...
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LAH: So learn more about what is happening to the fundamental American right to vote tonight -- Wolf.
BLITZER: We certainly will. Looking forward to it, Kyung. Thank you so much for doing this important work.
And make sure to catch CNN's special report, "Democracy in Peril: The War on Voting Rights." It airs later tonight, 11:00 pm Eastern. I'll be back 5:00 pm Eastern in "THE SITUATION ROOM." "NEWSROOM" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.
