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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Nearly 55 Million People Have Already Voted; Harris In Major Speech: I'll Be President "For All Americans"; Trump Stokes Voter Fraud Fears In Pennsylvania As Counties Investigate And Officials Urge Patience; Cruz & Allred Race In Texas Could Decide Control Of U.S. Senate. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired October 30, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And one guy just pries the glove open, taking the foul ball away.
[16:00:02]
You got to see the look of satisfaction on that fan's face.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yeah. What are you talking, man? So he -- the other guy who held his arm, he gets booted. That guy gets booted. They're banned from game five.
That's not hurt. So that's the good news here.
SANCHEZ: The cognitive dissonance arguing that it was -- it was fair what they did is just fantastic.
Hey, thank you so much for joining us today. Stay around for THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: It is garbage clean up day.
THE LEAD starts right now Donald Trump, taking advantage of President Biden's gap in which he seemingly referred to Trump supporters as, quote, garbage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know what the truth is, they've treated our whole country like garbage, whether they meant to or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Biden denies that's what he meant, but now, Kamala Harris is trying to distance herself from the remark, if not the president.
Plus, six days before Election Day, a major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing a battleground state to remove folks from their voter rolls close to the election.
And a somewhat new venture for comedian Seth Meyers. This one is a family affair and he will be here to discuss (MUSIC)
TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
Only six more days of voting in the 2024 elections, so cue that election game jam, please.
As of this moment, nearly 55 million of you beautiful people have already cast ballot and last night at the ellipse here in our nation's capital, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech that was delivered as a major one, a closing argument with crowds overflowing and onto the National Mall, all the way to the Jefferson Memorial.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at the table. I pledge to be a president for all Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Kamala Harris campaign wanted Americans to see and hear and remember, but you see, the White House behind her in that image -- that's where President Joe Biden was sitting and he was discussing on a Zoom call, Donald Trump's recent rally in Madison Square Garden and making a comment that completely undermined Vice President Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico, a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you some. I don't -- I don't know the Puerto Rican that I know or Puerto Rico where I'm -- in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters, his -- his demonization seen as an unconscionable. And its un-American, it's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So the president quickly tried to hit the proverbial undo button saying that he was only referring to the Trump rally speaker that one comedian and not all of Trump's supporters as garbage.
And the White House press office attempted some cover punctuation to argue that that's what he in fact meant.
Democrats in and around the Harris campaign are reportedly exasperated by Biden's comments and ultimately, Vice President Harris herself had to do some garbage cleanup.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: First of all, he clarified his comments, but let me be clear. I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they voter for. I believe that the work that I do, it's about representing all the people, whether they support for me or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: We're going to have more on the fallout from Biden's remark in a minute, but let me also note that Mr. Trump is continuing to set the stage to potentially challenge the results in key battleground states, just as he did four years ago.
On Truth Social this morning, he posted, quote, Pennsylvania is cheating and getting caught at large scale levels rarely seen before. All caps, report cheating to authorities. Law enforcement must act all caps now.
To be clear. Pennsylvania is not cheating. The alleged cheating Trump is referencing relates to a couple of separate things. First, there is a dispute related to Pennsylvania's in-person mail ballot voting in Bucks County, and a judge has just ruled on that. We're going to explain that more in depth in a moment.
Second is the fact that there are two counties in Pennsylvania, Lancaster and York counties that are investigating, suspected fraud related to voter registration forms and Lancaster about 2,500 voter registration forms contain duplicate handwriting and inaccurate or unverifiable addresses. We know this because Lancaster County officials announced it and they have contained those sketchy forums and they are asking for the publics patience while they investigate rather than acknowledging that are waiting on the results of these investigations, Donald Trump is making wholesale claims that Pennsylvania in general is cheating, which is not accurate.
[16:05:09]
Do you remember 2020? We do. Trump in 2020 made numerous wild allegations for exam -- for example, falsely claiming that poll watchers had been prevented from observing the vote count in Pennsylvania. Here -- here's what Mr. Trump said at the time in November 2020, 7,000 -- I'm sorry, 700,000 ballots were not allowed to be viewed in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, he wrote, which means based on our great constitution, we win the state of Pennsylvania.
Okay. First of all, it's a commonwealth, but beyond that, it was nonsense. Trump's campaign lawyer eventually fessed up in court in Philadelphia saying campaign observers were allowed to watch in Philadelphia, the term he used in court under oath was that there was a non-zero number of Republican observers. There are non-zero.
CNN's Marshall Cohen, in fact, reviewed more than 25 unique claims that Trump made about Pennsylvania voting in 2020. And guess what? They're all false or disputed by the authorities, debunked by Democratic and Republican election officials, the state attorney general, local prosecutors, the Justice Department, state and federal judges, conservative election lawyers independent fact checkers and on and on.
This was, of course, one of many ways Mr. Trump tried to convince Americans that the election was stolen in 2020, which it was not. So, now, his latest comments on cheating appear to be possibly heading
down the same road. Over the course of the hour, we're going to have much more on the 2024 election integrity, what to expect as votes are counted.
But first, let us go straight to CNN's Danny Freeman, who's live from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Vice President Kamala Harris will soon hold a rally.
And, Danny, how is the Harris campaign handling President Biden's rather ill-timed suggestion that Trump supporters are, quote, garbage.
DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Jake, I think it's clear to the Harris campaign understands that this was not a good comment from President Biden. It's not going to get a good time. And frankly, the campaign and the candidate would not like to be talking about this specific issue with just six days to go until election day.
Nevertheless, we heard from Vice President Harris a little bit earlier as you referred to. She is already distancing herself from those comments, saying that she strongly disagrees with criticizing people based on who they're voting for.
Meanwhile, Jake, we're also getting a little bit of insight inside of the campaign from reporting from CNN's MJ Lee. She said on the one hand, one adviser told her that we won't lose a single voter over this.
But on the other hand, a former Biden administration officials said that he was fury because nobody wants him out there after this particular gap. So we'll see whether President Biden spends more time on the campaign trail in the final days of this election.
Meanwhile, on the trail, Vice President Harris continues to emphasize the message that she and her campaign want to get out there that hurt ticket is the one of unity over party that her ticket, his be bipartisan ticket. Just earlier today in Raleigh, in fact, she said that we have so much more in common than what separates us, which is part of a normal stump speech, but, of course, says, who knew waits after these comments from President Biden last night. Then she also added contrast as she has before saying that while President Trump has his enemies list, she has her to do list for once she gets so the White House, if she gets to the White House, and the vice president has arrived in Harrisburg, Jake, we expected to be on stage behind us in just a matter of minutes.
Back to you.
TAPPER: All right. Danny Freeman, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania thanks so much.
Let's bring in our panel.
So, Jonah, let me start with you. Here is what Mr. Trump just said on the campaign trail in reference to Biden's garbage comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple. You can't lead America if you don't love Americans. You just can't. And you can't be president if you hate the American people. And there's a lot of hatred there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: All right, you know, that's an argument. But keep in mind, Mr. Trump calls those who don't support him the enemy within.
Here he is defending that comment to Fox two Sundays ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: You talk about the enemy within, there's enemies for America that's in the outside. The enemy within is a pretty ominous phrase if you're talking about other Americans.
TRUMP: I think it's accurate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, two days ago I was on here, and we were talking about why Harris campaign doesn't use Joe Biden more as a surrogate.
(LAUGHTER)
GODLBERG: I think we've settled that question.
TAPPER: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: You know? Yeah, look, I -- the first source in the report was about how this isn't going to cost the Harris campaign any votes. I think that's true. I think it probably helps motivate some Trump voters at some -- at the margins. I actually -- well, I don't like -- I don't think the Harris campaign wants to be off message.
I think Biden actually gave her something that's on-brand to distinguish herself from Joe Biden on, and maybe it wasn't over choosing and maybe she's not as forceful at it as she should be.
[16:10:03]
But like this might be something of an opportunity given that she's trying to pitch like the Nikki Haley swingable moderate center voters. Hearing her say that's not how I talk, it's not a terrible message for her.
TAPPER: Yeah. And, Daniella, I should note, I mean, before there were questions about President Biden's age, I've covered him for 25 years. He would say wildly inappropriate things and remember in 2012, you remember when he said he was speaking for Black crowd and he said something like they want to put you back in chains. I mean, just like -- yes, that's slave master Mitt Romney wants to put you back in chains.
So I think it's fair to say that we're not going to see Mr. Biden on the campaign trail for Kamala Harris, at least not a lot.
DANIELLA GIBBS LEGER, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: Probably not, look, President Biden has a long history of making gaffes. That's not a surprise. He's not on a ballot and I think her comments for spot on. That's not how she talked. She always is about being inclusive and being a president for the American people.
So I understand why the Trump campaign is trying to make this a thing but please miss me with the outrage from the man who consistently demeans and denigrates the American people since 2015, please?
TAPPER: Ramesh, do you think this is worse than Hillary Clinton's deplorable remark?
RAMESH PONNURU, EDITOR, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, just in the sense that if you actually look at what Hillary Clinton said in 2016, she said about half of Trump's supporters are in his basket of deplorables.
TAPPER: Numerically you mean.
PONNURU: Yes, exactly.
You know, I think that Biden is so -- is completely correct to say that he's always been prone to gaffes. I do I think the age has something to do with it. If you look at that transcript, that the White House put out with clever punctuation, as you said, yeah, it is a little disquieting that the current president of the United States is almost incomprehensible in those remarks.
TAPPER: No, I think that's fair.
Let's talk -- let's get back to a gaffe and I'm sure, well, it's not a gaffe, but something I'm sure you'd rather talk about, which was the comedian on Sunday in Madison Square Garden who insulted Puerto Rico. He was making a joke, but a lot of people obviously didn't find it very funny. My understanding is a lot of people in the Latino community have really been offended by it.
And we should note that one of the biggest Latin music stars in the world, Nikki Jam, announced today he's withdrawing his endorsement of Donald Trump over the Madison Square Garden rally Puerto Rico joke. He has more than 43 million followers on Instagram.
Do you think that that even though its from a comedian that most people have never heard of as opposed to the sitting president of the United States might actually have more impact?
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It actually has a lot more impact. I mean, what about what Trump said was and what Biden has said of people have all that baked in. Like they're all just go say these things. He specifically was talking even though it wasn't Trump himself about a group of people where there's over 500,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, 267,000 of them voted in the last election. When they got up Monday morning, my personal PAC had said every one of
them, that clip, and you started seeing it grow and grow on WhatsApp chats and within groups, you saw -- there's a big radio station there called La Mega that's right there outside of Allentown, Bethlehem, and in this area where all of these Puerto Ricans have moved from New York and New Jersey.
And it was something very particular about them and their island which you just never do. Anybody who's ever been to a Puerto Rican parade knows better.
TAPPER: So one of the things that's going on is the Trump people seem very confident and we've seen people who might have big roles in their administration talking about what they're going to do.
Here is a little montage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget?
ELON MUSK, TESLA CEO: Well, I think we can do at least $2 trillion.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Trump has promised me, is as control of the public health agencies which are HHS and it's sub agencies.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Healthcare reform is going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we're going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we've got a lot of things still on the table.
ATTENDEE: No Obamacare?
JOHNSON: No more Obamacare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I mean, what do you think?
PONNURU: I think that the first and third of those things about spending and about Obamacare is a reflection of a kind of pre-Trump Republican Party. Trump was in office, right, he did not cut spending. He increased spending. He failed to get rid of Obamacare, has not had a plan since then.
And then the second one --
GOLDBERG: Two weeks, he's going to have one in two weeks.
PONNURU: Right, forever, in just two weeks.
You know, Robert Kennedy is going to get the fluoride back out of the water. Well, I guess that's a pre -- very pre-Trump Republican troupe.
TAPPER: What do you think?
ROCHA: Look, we've heard this. We've been down this path before, like its five days before the election, folks at cared a lot about this deep policy stuff have already voted -- over 55 million people have already voted. Now, it's time.
TAPPER: Everyone, stick around. We got a lot more to talk about coming up. More reaction next, what elected Democrats are saying about Biden's garbage comment about Trump's supporters. Will Kamala Harris have anything more to say about it? We'll be monitoring her campaign remarks when she speaks in just a few minutes in battleground, Pennsylvania.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:18:44]
TAPPER: And we're back with our 2024 lead.
Vice President Kamala Harris, just moments away from holding a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That's in Dauphin County which went blue both in 2016 for Hillary Clinton and for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Let's bring in Democratic Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii.
Thank you so much for being here. It's good to see you in person.
SEN. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-HI): Nice to see you, too, Jake.
TAPPER: So, there is this small window of time for Vice President Harris to reach the undecided and persuadable voters in Pennsylvania, and the battleground states. Does President Biden's comment, however, he meant it hurt?
SCHATZ: No. Look, Joe Biden's not the candidate and there's a reason for that. We have a very disciplined candidate who made it very clear that she respects all voters. She'll be the president for people who voted for her and people who didn't vote for her and people who didn't show up to vote. What we have now is a small portion of undecided voters. And we have a very clear message, which is Kamala Harris is going to work on reducing costs and increasing freedoms and former President Trump is going to try to get Americans pissed off at each other while he helps billionaires to pick everybody's pocket.
TAPPER: Okay. I hear you. President Biden seemed to -- even though he -- if he tried to correct himself after call, Trump's supporters garbage.
[16:20:02]
Obviously, that's not in keeping with language which I've heard from you, Vice President Harris, and I'm wondering if this is maybe and let's -- we can talk about policy after the election. We're in strategy here now. SCHATZ: Sure.
TAPPER: Strategically, is this not an opportunity for her to distance herself from an unpopular president and not just Donald Trump, but also Joe Biden and the politics of the past and divisiveness and using words like that.
SCHATZ: Sure. And I think she's done that. I mean, she -- she got off the plane and said as much. People may quibble with a particular words that she chose to use, but she made it very clear that is not her view.
And I think that's enough and I don't think that in the final six days of a campaign that people are going to be gas prices just went down for a lot of people below three bucks the economy is humming along. We have a candidate who has a very, very clear message and a disciplined campaign. And they have a candidate who's essentially melting down.
And so, of course, they want to talk about Joe Biden, right?
TAPPER: Well, Democrats have been talking about a comedian at a Trump rally on Sunday. I mean, Biden is inarguably a more important than a comedian whose name I bet you can't even tell me.
SCHATZ: Tony something, yeah.
TAPPER: OK. You take my point though.
So listen, here is somebody who wants to be one of your colleagues, Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. She's running for Senate in Michigan, and she felt the need to say this:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): In terms of what President Biden said yesterday, he shouldn't have said it. I mean, it is inappropriate. And for me, I just think that kind of talk is the last thing we need in our politics.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
SCHATZ: Yeah. I mean, I agree with what Elissa said and I think she's going to win in Michigan. I also think Kamala Harris is going to win in Michigan.
The thing that Kamala Harris said in the thing that Elissa Slotkin said, are basically the same substantively, maybe tonally. It sounds like you want her to be a little more ferocious in batting down --
TAPPER: I don't have an opinion. I just think it's politically as an -- as an analyst, I think it's an opportunity to say, lets turn the page on a younger, newer generation.
SCHATZ: Sure, we don't think like that.
TAPPER: And we don't think that -- like I think that you probably have more -- well, I don't know. But I mean, you seem like a much more bipartisan kind of guy, even though your voting record is pretty -- pretty Democratic.
SCHATZ: Yeah. I mean, look, I think -- I think Kamala Harris is conveying the right message to the right people. There are still a kind of shockingly high number of undecided voters and Donald Trump has had great difficulty getting above 47, 48 --
TAPPER: Because -- because of his style.
SCHATZ: Well, yeah. Wow, because of his conduct in office?
TAPPER: Yes, that's what I mean. Yeah.
SCHATZ: Well, it's style, but it's also conduct. It's also policy.
And I think Kamala Harris is finishing in a way that is focused on the things that matter to people. You had the current speaker of the House basically saying they're going to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. You've got a billionaire out there saying where to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget and it will cause economic pain, but it will come out the other end stronger.
And I don't think that Republicans want to talk about any of those policies. And that's why Kamala Harris is talking about those policies because I think what matters the most to people is what are these two presidential candidates going to do for people? Not what did the president who stepped aside from the -- from the candidacy say last night.
We already know he says unhelpful things. He's been a great president, but he's been known for 30 years to say unhelpful things.
TAPPER: Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii. Thank you so much.
And we're going to get back to those baseless claims from Donald Trump that there is rampant cheating going on being committed by the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Plus, the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court six days out from Election Day, allowing the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove some voters from their roles. Why are they doing that? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:28:04]
TAPPER: More now in our 2024 lead, and the U.S. Supreme Court today issuing a key decision that will impact who can vote in the election. The high court siding with Virginias Republican governor, Trump supporter Glenn Youngkin, who signed an order to remove from the commonwealths voter rolls about 1,600 people that had identified as noncitizens, either because they checked a box at the DMV, like about 600 did or other government records indicated they were not U.S. citizens.
CNN's Paula Reid and Sara Murray join me now on ballot watch.
Ladies, thank you so much for being here.
So let me ask you, Paula, it's a very significant ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court siding with Youngkin on these 1,600 voters. What does it mean so close to the election?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you noted, we're talking about -- about 1,600 voters here. And it was a bit of a surprise that the Supreme Court weighed in at all, and also that they sided with Republicans because what trial court and the appellate court actually sided with the Biden administration that said, you cannot implement a systemic removal of suspected noncitizens with a 90 days of an election pursuant to federal law.
The Supreme Court divided along partisan lines, disagree, but I will note there are -- we know that there are some citizens two were impacted potentially by this. But if you were improperly removed from the voter rolls because you did check a box, didn't check a box, one of the clerical error is, in Virginia, they do have same-day registration. So if you're someone who is impacted by this, you can still register to vote when you go to the polls next week.
TAPPER: All right. Well, that's good news. At least same-day registration is a fantastic thing.
Let's switch which from the commonwealth of Virginia to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So former President Trump is already alleging fraud over issues in Lancaster and York Counties.
Help us understand. What's going on?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Lancaster issue we've talked about, you know, 2,500 of these mail ballot applications and they were going through them and they noticed some issues and believe that there issues that were some of them are potentially fraudulent. These are under investigation. They've been segregated.
This is how the process is supposed to work. You're going through. You're checking these applications.
[16:30:00]
You're looking for issues. If you see issues, you investigate.
York County isn't commenting on whether they think there are fraudulent ballot applications, but what they are saying is they got this trove of election-related materials thousands of election-related the documents from this big third-party organization. And so, they are going through this trove of documents trying to figure out if there could be an issue where any of this is potentially fraudulent.
Again, this is how the process is supposed to work.
TAPPER: Okay. Let's go closer to Philadelphia, and the collar counties. You've got Delaware County and Bucks County. There's something having to do with on-demand mail-voting. What's going on?
MURRAY: So, in Delaware County, what officials there are saying is there was an issue, who was disruptive, who needed to be removed from a polling site. There's not actually an indication that this was a person who was trying to vote, but she he is a member of the Republican Party and Republicans have basically said she was disenfranchised, voters were disenfranchised.
So that's one issue police say, you know, officials there say she was disruptive. She had to be removed. In Bucks County, the issue was there were extremely long lines yesterday, which was supposed to be the last day where you could show up, register, vote by mail in person, and the Republicans said that there were officials who turned people away, even though they were in line when the polls are closed. You know, they weren't supposed to do that.
And they actually got a victory here. They went to court and the court said, okay, we are going to extend this in-person voting in Pennsylvania, or at least in Bucks County until Friday that right now, the Democrats are trying to get a little bit more clarity and county officials trying to get a little bit more clarity on what exactly the court meant.
And this -- I should just note -- what's happening in Bucks County is more of the traditional election-related challenge that we expect to see. We're probably going to see more of this on actual Election Day of polling location opens late. There's a lot of people in line. We might see more of this kind of litigation, just making sure people who are already in line when polls close have the ability to vote. It doesn't mean again that there's widespread voter fraud.
TAPPER: Yeah, or that anybody is trying to disenfranchise anybody necessarily. But, you know, let people register, let people vote. I mean, that's --
MURRAY: Absolutely.
TAPPER: Absolutely.
MURRAY: Paula, does the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court did intervene here in this Virginia case suggest that they might be more active than they have been in the past when it comes to elections?
REID: Yeah, I think it does. Even lawyers working on both sides and both campaigns were a little bit surprised that they weighed in here. We're also waiting for another big decision from them about the so- called naked ballots. It is as exciting as it sounds in Pennsylvania.
TAPPER: But it does sound exciting.
REID: Isn't it exciting? It's about the secrecy sleeves. But you have a huge impact.
TAPPER: It's about ballots, not people.
REID: But it is exciting if you want to get all the electoral votes in Pennsylvania.
TAPPER: Right, okay.
REID: But nobody expects really that they would weigh in here. The fact that they weighed in on the Virginia case suggests they could weigh in on the Pennsylvania case and that's significant because that of course could mean the ballgame for Harris or Trump. But we also saw this decision today along partisan lines, and we know that Republicans have intervened in over 130 lawsuits related to the election already.
And many of these are designed to potentially go all the way to the Supreme Court where Trump has appointed a third of the high court. If that's what it takes to figure out who won here.
TAPPER: All right. Ballot watch, I love it, keeping an eye, making sure people have an opportunity to vote.
Sara, Paula, thank you so much.
Staying in our politics lead, things are heating up in Texas when it comes to the race for the U.S. Senate. Congressman Colin Allred is trying to become the very first Democratic senator from the Lone Star State since the early 1990s, before Sara Murray and Paula Reid were born.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz is running to keep his job in what has been a ruby red state for quite some time. And it's a race that could determine control of the U.S. Senate.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Dallas.
Ed, help us understand why there are so many eyes on Texas.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting, Jake, because, you know, Republicans like Greg Abbott and John Cornyn have recently won elections by comfortable margins.
But once again, Senator Ted Cruz finds himself in another tight race. You remember back what happened to him in 2018, winning by just about 200,000 votes in this state. "The New York Times"/Siena College poll just recently out shows that Cruz has a slight edge by about four points, so far.
So once again, Democrats getting hopeful that this could be the year that they win a statewide election, which they haven't done since 1994.
Cruz on the campaign trail, we've been following him around for the last few weeks is really hammering home at the issues of border security and immigration also tapping into what we see Republicans playing, doing nationwide, transgender and girl youth sports as well.
But the one thing Ted Cruz does not talk about it as campaign rallies is the abortion issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LAVANDERA: I listen to your speech tonight. There's no mention of abortion. Why not?
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Well, I understand that's what Democrats want to talk all day long about it, but the Supreme Court made clear that's an issue for the voters state by state.
LAVANDERA: But it's still a huge issue for millions of Texans. Why not take --
CRUZ: Look, guys, it's what the press is obsessed with. But, you know, it's interesting --
LAVANDERA: No, no, no, no, we're just not do that. This has nothing to do with what the press is upset. There are voters that are obsessed with that.
CRUZ: I recognize this is what the press is obsessed with and I recognize --
LAVANDERA: Voters, voters are interested.
CRUZ: OK, I know that the press thinks that voters are what they're obsessed with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:35:07]
LAVANDERA: So, you see there, a little difficult to get senator answer those types of questions.
On the other side, you have Colin Allred who has been hammering away at Ted Cruz on this abortion issue. He's also gotten a lot of mileage out of Ted Cruz's trip to Cancun during the Texas freeze several years ago. That has been an ongoing thing throughout his campaign. And we -- you know, that's one of the things that you've seen in the ad, were Democrats here in the state of spent 108 million on already ads in this campaign.
This is what he says about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. COLIN ALLRED (D-TX): This is could not be a more serious topic this abortion ban is Ted Cruz's abortion ban. He celebrated and called for the Dobbs ruling, said it was a massive victory. He said the law that we have here in Texas is perfectly reasonable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: So, it's just a few days left, Jake, in this campaign, those are kind of the overall themes that you're going to be hearing a lot from these candidates as we approach Election Day -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much. Coming up, what a second Trump term could look like if he wins. Robert Kennedy said a -- Robert Kennedy Jr. says he was promised a job as any setting up some radical changes he will make if that promises were filled.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:40:26]
TAPPER: Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking now in Harrisburg in battleground Pennsylvania. Let's listen in.
HARRIS: Here's the thing, let me say -- let me say something. Let me say something.
We are six -- we are six days out of an election. We are six days away from an election and ours is about a fight for democracy and your right to be heard.
That is what is on the line in this election. That is what is on the line in this election. Look, everybody has a right to be heard, but right now, I am speaking.
(CHEERING)
HARRIS: And one of the biggest issues that folks around the country want to talk about and hear is about how we are going to bring down the price of living for working people, and people know that Donald Trump's answer to the financial pressures that you face is the same as the last time, another trillion dollars tax cut for billionaires and big corporations.
And this time, he will pay for it with a 20 percent national sales tax on everything you buy that is imported.
TAPPER: We're listening to Vice President Kamala Harris. She's in Harrisburg, in battleground Pennsylvania. We're going to continue to monitor her remarks. You just heard her there talking about Trump's tariffs. And also talking about how she is going to give a middle- class tax cut to 100 million Americans.
We've also heard former President Trump make this promise to the American people talking about Robert F. Kennedy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, that's Donald Trump prescribing a role for Robert F. Kennedy if he were to win Donald Trump a second term, RFK Jr. seemingly affirmed the former president's words earlier this week. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: President Trump has promised me, is control of the public health agencies which are HHS and its sub agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others. And then also the USDA, which is -- which, you know, is key to making America healthy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Just a reminder, RFK Jr. has no medical license and has made wildly inaccurate claims about all sorts of medicines, including childhood vaccines and, frankly, this is what he said, kind of a deranged remark about coronavirus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: In fact, COVID-19, there's an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacked certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Back people, the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I mean, there aren't even words to describe what hackery that is, wildly inaccurate, plenty of Chinese people, plenty of Ashkenazi Jews died because of coronavirus. Actual medical professionals are sounding the alarm about RFK Jr. playing any sort of role in health care with this country.
CNN's medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell, is with me.
Meg, tell us more about what medical experts are saying about the concerns here.
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Jake, uniquely dangerous is one line that I heard from Jason Schwartz, who is a professor of public health at Yale.
Devastating to public health as the way Dr. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota put a potential Trump administration. He said he has served a health role in every administration back to Ronald Reagan and he's never made such the public pronouncement, he told me.
I also spoke with Paul Offit who is a vaccine scientist at CHOP, who warned that it would be a disaster if RFK Jr. were put in charge of health policy in a Trump administration.
[16:45:00]
He harkened back to vaccine misinformation involving some cases in Samoa of measles thousands of cases where he talked about it with you last month.
Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER: What he did in Samoa, which was claiming that the measles mumps, rubella vaccine was killing children, cause a drop in immunization rates in that company, which he visit -- country rather, which he visited, hung out with the anti-vaccine activists, wrote a letter to the president of Samoa, immunization rates drop. There were 5,600 cases of measles and 83 deaths in children in Samoa, all less than four years of age as a direct consequence of his lobbying efforts.
That's what this information does. It kills and I think that were he in a position of authority regarding health, we would be in serious trouble.
TAPPER: So it would be like Samoa except at the scale of the United States.
OFFIT: Right.
TAPPER: Samoa is a small island nation of 200,000 people. We have 300 million people. So imagine what it could, that could be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TIRRELL: Jake, I also heard from people who had served in the Trump administration, including Dr. Jerome Adams, who is Trump's us surgeon general. He warned that RFK Jr. could take us back to the dark ages in regards to vaccine preventable diseases. And he says that he's heard the Trump campaign has been warned by donors and others about appearing to be anti-science and the risk that measles and polio could come back under their watch.
TAPPER: Meg Tirrell, thanks so much.
Coming up next, something we all could appreciate these days, a moment of levity. Comedian Seth Meyers is with me. His new project that brings in his entire family, that's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:50:31]
TAPPER: In our pop culture lead, today, Emmy Award-winning writer, comedian, and late-night TV host Seth Meyers is taking a closer look at his own family, in finding that his wife and three young children are giving the former "SNL" alumnus a lot to joke about and his new HBO comedy special, "Dad Man Walking".
Here's a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SETH MEYERS, COMEDIAN: My wife and I are so tired. Not only do we not been shows, I would describe the way we watch television as micro dozing, we watch ten minutes of an episode at a time. My wife falls asleep after the first five minutes, but I'm not allowed to turn it off because the sudden drop in volume will wake her up. So I just have to slowly bring down the volume continuing to watch while the characters just kicked quieter and quieter, which I think is what its like to watch TV when you're having a stroke.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Very, very familiar.
Here now the writer and performer of "Dad Man Walking" airing now on HBO, which I should note like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Seth Meyers also the host of NBC's "Late Night", as you all know already.
Seth, welcome back. Good to have here.
MEYERS: It's so exciting to be back.
TAPPER: Yeah.
MEYERS: It's been years.
TAPPER: It's been I think a decade, although I had your wife on earlier this year for a much more serious segment.
MEYERS: Here you go.
TAPPER: So this special is a bit of a departure from your gig on late night. You basically trade in the political jokes for dad jokes and husband jokes.
MEYERS: Yes.
TAPPER: You say you want your kids to be content, but you also want them to be content. Does that make some of the more challenging moments of being a dad more enjoyable, knowing that you can turn them into content.
MEYERS: Very much so to the point where my wife sometimes when things are getting really hairy with the kids will have to turn to me and say stop writing because she can tell that I am not actually trying to help alleviate the situation. I'm just trying to figure out how I will talk about it onstage.
TAPPER: You know what? I have some and I'll tell you off camera, I have some great stories that you can just take -- great story, great stories.
MEYERS: Yeah. Well, they are, they are fairly universal. It turns out.
TAPPER: Yeah, just remind me to tell you what. Well, I'll keep it clean.
So, your wife, Alexi, been a guest on the show to talk about serious topics were huge fans of hers here at THE LEAD. She's also fodder for the special. You call her mean wife. You tell her a very funny story about her determination to struggle hummus through airport security.
And you acknowledge it for her. It's hard to be married to a comedian. Does she mind being used in your act?
MEYERS: Look, she has veto power and I my only defense for myself as I was a comedian when I met her. So she did kind of go in with eyes wide open, but she's fantastic.
You know, she has a great sense of humor that is also a sort of unforgiving sense of humor. She does not like the hacky jokes. She only likes the good stuff. And so basically hey, her rule is if it's really good and if I can say it an original way, I'm allowed to take our business to the streets.
TAPPER: So, you largely avoided talking about politics, in this special.
MEYERS: Yeah.
TAPPER: You do tell a story about when your kids got to meet President Biden when he was a guest on the show. Take a look at this clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEYERS: Reached into a bag and he pulled out stuff, Commander, the White House dog, and he held it out to add anyone like --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MEYERS: He does go on to say with full sentences, I should note.
TAPPER: I know, but this sounds a lot more accurate in that little clip. But tell me why you wanted to keep the special focus more on family and less on current events, which obviously is your bread and butter during the week?
MEYERS: Yeah, you know, I feel like what the weekly show, you know, I should say daily show, right. We're doing it and we understand that it has its most value that night or the next morning maybe. And then they don't age particularly well. And I wanted to make an hour that people could watch five years from now, ten years from now, and would still be entertaining because it about stuff that is not going to go out of style.
And it's also just look, you do it too. Sometimes it's fun to talk about things you love as opposed to things that make you angry. And even though my kids sometimes are frustrating, I never don't love them, and I think that comes across in the special.
TAPPER: I don't think you and I ever talk about politics really when you and I --
MEYERS: We don't really. When we get together, we really don't.
TAPPER: It's a lot about comedy and a lot of a family.
So, we should have a new president sometime soon. I don't know when.
MEYERS: Sure. TAPPER: But sometime in the next few days, I think it's fair to say --
MEYERS: If you say so, you're CNN, right?
TAPPER: I think it's fair to say that you're not as strong supporter of Donald Trump.
[16:55:02]
So -- but, but let me ask you this, should he win --
MEYERS: Yeah.
TAPPER: -- as a writer, you're going to have a lot more material. It's entirely possible that late-night ratings, not just for your show, but every comedy show, and also I should acknowledge cable news, will go way up because there'll be a lot more going on.
Do you ever think about the election personally versus professionally, like are you preparing for a Trump victory in any way, thinking, well at the very least it will be good for our family, financially?
MEYERS: Yeah. I'm very happy to say I'm not -- I'm not looking at this election for my own financial wellbeing, and I'm very disappointed in the people who seem to make that their number one reason for who they're voting for.
Look, I personally would be very tired to go through another four years like we did the first time out. I don't -- I think, you know, material when you're a comedian is always out there. You don't have to have it serve to want to play it. It's almost more fun when it's a little bit harder to get to.
So I would appreciate the challenge of a post-Trump world where we didn't have it thrown in our face every day. I bet you probably feel the same. I mean, I know you're not allowed to say, but --
TAPPER: You know, you have no idea who I'm voting for or what I think about any of this. And I'll cover the news no matter what.
MEYERS: You're down in the middle.
TAPPER: Right down the middle. You know me, baby.
So, Seth Meyers, congratulations. The show is fantastic and very, very, very funny. And you at home, you can stream his latest comedy special, "Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking" on Max. Seth, thanks so much. Great to see you again.
MEYERS: Thanks, Jake. Great being here. Thank you, everybody.
TAPPER: After Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris will hit the battleground, Wisconsin. Donald Trump will also be in Wisconsin this evening.
Much more in the 2024 lead with six days left in this race. Stay with us (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
