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Taylor Swift Urges People to Register to Vote; Swift Endorses VP Harris; Harris Team Moves to Mobilize Swing-State Voters; Pressure on Biden to Ease Restrictions on U.S. Weapons; Congress on More Federal Security on Jan. 6, 2025; Trump False Claims That Migrants are Eating Pets; Ohio Officials Refute Pet-Eating Rumor. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 12, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR SWIFT, WINNER, "VIDEO OF THE YEAR" AWARD: This is a fan voted award and you voted for this. I appreciate it so much. And if you are over 18, please register to vote for something else. It's very important (INAUDIBLE) presidential election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Taylor Swift using her moment on stage at the VMAs to call on voters to register, young voters, especially, to register to vote. The night before that she had announced her support for Kamala Harris. And one voter registration group has pointed to a huge spike in traffic and telling CNN the Swift effect is undeniable.

Let's look at all of this. Harry Enten is here. So, undeniable.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Great, great words.

BOLDUAN: You get to be the judge on that. This all gets to young voters.

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: How much does she need help? How can --

ENTEN: Yes. I mean, why does Kamala Harris welcome Taylor Swift's support? Why does she need the help? Well, let's just point out something that I have been noting all along during this campaign, and that is the underperformance that both Joe Biden and now even Kamala Harris has among young voters.

All right. So, this is the Democrat versus Trump margin among voters age 18 to 29 or under the age of 30. You go back four years ago at this point. Look, Joe Biden had a 28-point advantage. A 28-point advantage over Donald Trump. Now, you look when Joe Biden dropped out of the race, he was up by just seven points.

Now, Kamala Harris has improved on Joe Biden's standing. But look at this. She's only up by 15 points. That is significantly less than Joe Biden was up at this point among the youngest voters in our electorate. It's only about half the margin that Joe Biden was pulling in. So, Kamala Harris will absolutely welcome in the support of Taylor Swift if she can move young voters at all. Because the bottom line is Kamala Harris is, in fact, not doing as well among young voters as you might expect a Democrat to necessarily be doing based upon history.

BOLDUAN: And what we heard from Taylor Swift last night was a call to register to vote. Get involved. Why -- how much of voter registration and why is that key? How important is this?

[08:35:00]

ENTEN: Yes. I mean, look, let's go to the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. All right. And what we're going to do here is look at the Democratic advantage over Republicans in voter registration. This is party registration registering as a Democrat, a Republican or unaffiliated.

Look, if you go back to September of 2020, look, among active voters in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So, Democrats, look at that, a 559,000 voter edge over Republicans. You jump now. Look, Democrats still have an edge. But look how much that's dropped. It's now just 169,000. We're talking about the Republicans closing the gap by nearly 400,000 voters in just a four-year time span.

You go to North Carolina, it's the same exact trend, right? You go back to September of 2020, you see Democrats with a 415,000 voter edge, and now they still hold an edge, but it's just 128,000. And of course, both of these states were determined by less than 100,000 voters back in 2020.

So, the bottom line is Republicans have been doing a significantly better job of registering voters than Democrats have been doing over the last four years and getting folks to switch over from Democratic registration to Republican registration. So, yes, Kamala Harris would definitely welcome the idea if Taylor Swift could bring in some more younger voters, Democratic leaning voters in the electorate. Because the bottom line is Republicans have been doing a heck of a lot better job of registering voters than Democrats have over the last four years.

BOLDUAN: I mean, that -- this seems like a warning sign. Well, you know, in the result of it, we have to wait and see, right?

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I mean, registration doesn't equal votes, but it's something of an indicator.

ENTEN: It's an indicator.

BOLDUAN: So, speaking of indicators, what is the Swift effect?

ENTEN: Yes, what is the Swift effect? So, look, what do we know? Visitors to vote.gov, due to Taylor Swift, who clicked on that link on her Instagram post. As of 2:00 p.m. yesterday, look how many folks clicked on that link. It was 338,000 folks. Now, not all those folks, obviously, are going to register to vote. But the bottom line is, this is a ton of folks who could be entering the electorate.

Look, it's not necessarily something that's going to change the election if Donald Trump ends up winning by two or three points. But of course, the votes in these key battleground states are so, so tight that any help that you could get at all, this is a clear effect of folks going and getting interested to register to vote.

You saw her last night, Taylor Swift again urging folks to go register to vote. Democrats will take any of the help because the bottom line is this election is so close that any small impact could be all the impact in the world, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Are you saying turnout matters?

ENTEN: Turnout. Turnout. Turnout.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: You two goofs. All right. So, how much of an impact might Taylor Swift make with young voters? I'm joined now by CNN Political Commentator Van Jones. He's also a former Obama administration official, and Meridith McGraw,, national politics correspondent for POLITICO.

Van to you. We have to see if there is a Swifty effect. I am coining the phrase, the Swifty effect. She certainly had an effect on people being interested in registering to vote. We don't know if they actually did. They did click on the link. Do you think she could make an impact? Because you and I have talked about this before. Usually, celebrities don't really --

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes.

SIDNER: -- they don't really change people's minds.

JONES: Well, here's the thing. What she can do is to motivate people who might have been Kamala curious to actually look at Kamala Harris as an option. And you do have a whole different world. You and I, we watched television. We are -- we know the news. We -- hopefully everybody at home watches us every day. A lot of people don't wake up calls of political class. A lot of people don't follow every Donald Trump press conference. Everything that Kamala Harris ever done.

SIDNER: They're too busy in their lives. Yes.

JONES: And so, when they're on their Instagram, their TikTok, Taylor Swift, if she moves her left elbow, it's massive news. And so, what you're doing is you're creating an on ramp to politics for a generation of young people that may not honestly have been paying attention at all.

And so, just the mere fact that you get a little bit of a looky-loo, that people are looking over there, gives Kamala Harrison an advantage that she would not have had with people who are not political junkies.

SIDNER: That is a heck of a lot of people, 337,000 people.

JONES: No, no, no. Million people.

SIDNER: Right. I mean, yes.

JONES: Right. I mean -- no, no.

SIDNER: Yes, yes, yes. (INAUDIBLE). That they click on the link, but there are millions of people on her -- yes.

JONES: Yes. Well, there's 300,000 people, as you said, who clicked, but she has 300 million social media followers.

SIDNER: Right.

JONES: She's got more social media followers than a lot of countries have citizens. That's a big deal.

SIDNER: It's about the size of the United States, that are people following her from all over the world. All right. I want to talk about swing states, because this is an incredibly close race. And, you know, we need to recognize that. Debbie Dingell for -- you know, a congresswoman from Michigan, talked about her particular state, which was a huge state and a state that Hillary Clinton really needed and lost during her campaign against Donald Trump. Let's listen to what Debbie Dingell said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): I think Michigan is a dead heat. People know, but there's just a lot of people in the middle. I don't understand, at times, what people see in Donald Trump. They know what will happen to this country if he's president again, but they believe strongly. And it's just closer than people realize.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[08:40:00]

SIDNER: Meridith, why is this race so incredibly, literally historically close when you look at the polling right now?

MERIDITH MCGRAW, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Well, we're seeing that there still remain millions of undecided voters, and these people are younger, they seem to skew a little bit male, and there are a lot of educated women who are in this group who still have not made up their minds about Harris or Trump.

And both campaigns are working hard to try to win them over and also find out where they are in these key battleground states so that they can campaign there and they can tailor their messaging for them. And the Trump campaign and the Harris campaign are on this blitz in the next few days to try to go to these battleground states and make their message. For the Harris campaign to try to, you know, move forward with the momentum they have after the debate. And for Trump to try to reset and refocus on the policy issues that he failed to really talk about the other night.

SIDNER: Van, to you. I don't remember -- and maybe you do. You've been doing this -- you've been in this game a lot longer than I have.

JONES: That's true.

SIDNER: But I'm not sure I remember ever hearing someone say, we really have to focus on the male vote.

JONES: Yes.

SIDNER: The men's vote, But the men are actually making a difference here, and they are going towards Donald Trump.

JONES: Yes. Well, look, we have a gender gap, there's been one for a while. That's not new. But what's new is, I think, the intensity of it. I think Donald Trump is running a very masculinist campaign. Kamala is not running a feminist campaign and she's not, you know, underscoring the fact that she's a woman. Hillary Clinton did that, didn't work out as well. But there is this kind of masculinist approach where you're going to what's called the manosphere, which is a bunch of podcasts that are really aimed at men. He's trying to get -- bring in a lot of the so-called bro culture, and it does to have an effect.

A lot of young men are saying that they don't feel the Democratic Party sees him in a good light. They think the Democratic Party sees all men as being, quote/unquote, "toxic." And that's starting to have an effect.

And so, I think Kamala Harris has an opportunity to make up some ground here because I know her personally, nobody more enthusiastic about young men being successful than a former prosecutor. She -- you know, she's been somebody rooting for young men in California to get jobs, to get out of trouble, to get on their way, that needs to be underscored more given the dynamics of the race.

SIDNER: I do want to talk to you about something that the campaign did, the Harris campaign did. They went on Twitter, as one does, and they trolled Donald Trump. I want you to see it. They said, this is our latest campaign ad. And what is it? It is simply the entire debate. There's that laugh again. There it is.

JONES: I just saying that -- I mean, that's kind of a mic drop on that. I love it. It's funny because like, I mean, she whooped him. And I think that Kamala Harris did something that no politicians been able to do in this whole past decade. Donald Trump has been eating up politicians like Pac Man. He went through 16 Republican governors and senators, whooped them and made it look easy.

Kamala Harris went out there and she just owned him on every question, and I just think that she's right at this. I think it's hilarious.

SIDNER: It is an interesting way to go, but it's definitely a drool. Meridith, when you are looking at this race and you sort of see some of the things that are being done, does she, Kamala Harris, need to do more to explain to the public what her policies are? Because that's the thing that keeps coming up in polling as well, that people don't really know what her policies are all about.

MCGRAW: Well, that's one of the big questions that a lot of voters have, what are her policies? How is she going to try to differentiate herself from President Biden? And who is Kamala Harris?

You know, a lot of voters know Donald Trump, know who he is. And one of the goals of the Harris campaign has been trying to introduce her to the public and help the public understand who she is, what her story is. And that's something we saw on the debate stage. You know, her talking about her upbringing and trying to help voters get where she's coming from.

But, you know, for the Harris campaign, they're really going to have to try to articulate, I think, more clearly to voters exactly what some of her policy points are as she gets out there on the campaign trail. And we know from the campaign that she's going to be doing more interviews, something we haven't seen her do a lot of in the past weeks, and that she's going to be, you know, really trying to expand on her outreach to voters that have questions about who she is and what her policies are.

[08:45:00]

SIDNER: Meridith McGraw and Van Jones. By the way, Van Jones, don't think I missed the Gen X shout out to the Pac Man and the whooping, because those are both things that I am well familiar with. My backside still hurts, OK, from some of those whoopings that I used to get.

JONES: Look, we got a Gen X candidate, Kamala Harris.

SIDNER: Thank you so much, Van. All right. John, over to you. John is smirking, because you know what that's all about.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm a young, young man. Today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Ukraine as President Biden faces mounting pressure to loosen the country's weapons restrictions. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen is the latest lawmaker calling for those restrictions to be lifted so Ukraine can reach critical Russian targets.

Here's the situation. The U.S. Is Telling Ukraine it can only use U.S. weapons to conduct cross-border strikes right over the border, not deep into Russia with U.S.-made weapons. CNN Anchor and Chief National Security Analyst Jim Sciutto joins us now, with the importance of this ask, really, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Listen, this is a pattern we've seen, John, with virtually every major new weapons system provided by the U.S. to Ukraine. It happened with tanks, it happens with HIMARS, ATACMS, F-16s, and now, the ability to use some of those weapon systems, particularly the ATACMS long-range missile system inside of Russia.

And it's a battle, right, because this administration is concerned about escalation with Russia, specifically that this becomes a conflict between the U.S. and Russia as opposed to between Ukraine, backed by the U.S. and its allies, and Russia. And you have these various little decision points here, right? Like, will Russia read this system as so advanced and the use of this system to attack Russian territory as, in effect, a U.S. attack on Russian territory? That's been the issue.

Now, the criticism, and you're seeing it now from, for instance, within the president's own party, Jeanne Shaheen, but also, close U.S. allies, is that they've worried about that with every weapons system come around to providing that weapon system, it's helped Ukraine and it hasn't led to an escalation. So, you do have criticism from some inside the U.S. alliance that this has been a slow process.

Here's Senator Jeanne Shaheen saying, in light of Putin's increasingly horrific attacks on civilian targets, it's time to lift restrictions on the use of long-range U.S.-provided weapons to allow Ukraine to reach high value Russian military targets.

The point being there, right, Russia is certainly using its territory to rain down missiles, not just on military targets in Ukraine, but on people, right? Civilian infrastructure. It's killing civilians in their homes, kids, families in their homes. So, the argument is, why put these handcuffs on them, right?

And I'll just tell you, John, it was interesting to see the U.S. secretary of state next to the Polish foreign minister just a few minutes ago, where Secretary Blinken said, OK, we've always been adapting, we may adapt again here. The Polish foreign minister said, hey, we've always thought it's OK for Ukraine to use weapons on Russia to stop war crimes, right?

I mean, that's not mincing words. They're saying Russia's, you know, devastating Ukraine in so many ways. They shouldn't have to face these kinds of restrictions. So, this is the latest chapter in a long story.

BERMAN: One of the things you tend to hear from people like the Polish foreign minister and Zelenskyy himself is, ultimately, the U.S., you do say Yes, just get to yes much more quickly and it will put Ukraine in a much better situation. Jim Sciutto, great reporting. Great to see you this morning. Thank you so much.

SCIUTTO: Thanks a lot.

BOLDUAN: That's an excellent point. You're going to get there, just get there faster.

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Coming up still for us right now, nearly 400,000 people in Louisiana are still without power this morning after Francine made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane. How it's looking there this morning as flood watches are in effect for 14 million people today across the southeast now in the path of Francine.

And a runaway penguin saved by a typhoon. A survival story that her keeper calls a miracle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:00]

BOLDUAN: There's new reporting today on efforts to bolster security at the Capitol as federal authorities are looking ahead to January 6, 2025, all in an effort to stop a repeat insurrection before it can even start. CNN's Lauren Fox has this new reporting. She's joining us now. Super Bowl level security is how some are describing it. Explain.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we are hearing from the Secret Service that they are now going to designate the certification of the election on January 6, 2025 as a national special security event. And what this means is increased security presence on Capitol Hill, a broader and wider perimeter than we saw on January 6, 2021, as well as new technology to sort of help bolster the security here at the U.S. Capitol building.

Now, this was one of the recommendations from the Select January 6th Committee that they made at the end of their tenure year. We also, of course, are getting a statement from Secret Service laying out what this means for just a few months from now here at the Capitol. They say, quote, "The U.S. Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants."

[08:55:00]

Now, Kate, obviously, there are also conversations happening up here on Capitol Hill about how to ensure election integrity as well as how to talk about the election, no matter who wins after November. That obviously played a huge role in inspiring people to come to the Capitol and then break the perimeter at the Capitol on January 6th back in 2021. So, that is an important component as well, but you're getting the sense here that they are preparing just to ensure more safety up here on Capitol Hill. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Lauren, it's great to see you and great reporting. Thank you. Sara.

SIDNER: All right. On our radar this morning, a lifesaving mission. That's how the U.S. Forest Service is describing what firefighters are doing in the Angeles National Forest in Southern California. That is where the Bridge Fire, as it's being called, has scorched nearly 48,000 acres. It's just north of Los Angeles. The wildfire remains zero percent contained this morning.

At least 30 people injured after a pickup truck -- watch this, good grief. After pickup truck there slammed into an elk lodge in Arizona on Saturday. Apache Junction police identified the driver as 73-year- old Thomas Kain. They say Kain was leaving the lodge when his vehicle crashed into the building. He's charged with aggravated assault, endangerment, and DUI. CNN has reached out for comment and has not heard anything back.

A runaway penguin has been found safe. Thank goodness. Look at that cutie. In Japan, nearly two weeks after she first went missing. How did she do it? By paddling 28 miles during a typhoon. In a survival story, her keeper called miraculous. The six-year-old Cape penguin named Pen was swimming with staff when she suddenly swam through a hole in her enclosure out into the open waters.

Her keeper says she avoided boat collisions and getting caught in nets because of the stormy conditions. She is back with her staff and resting comfortably. I'm not saying this. Yes, I am. Fantastic news, John.

BERMAN: Penguin on the lamb. That's how you can headline that story. This morning, turmoil in an Ohio community after Donald Trump and J. D. Vance continue spreading baseless and false claims that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets. CNN's Omar Jimenez went to Springfield, Ohio, to speak with migrants about the impact this rumor is having.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST (voice-over): Viles Dorsainvil is the head of the Haitian Community Health Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. He came to the United States about four years ago from Haiti, and he hasn't just questioned the nature of the recent rumors, he's questioned what they will do to his community.

VILES DORSAINVIL, RUNS HAITIAN COMMUNITY CENTER IN SPRINGFIELD, OHIO: It's just like xenophobia, it's just like bigotry, discrimination, and racist. And they do not normally take time to see the impact that can have on the mental health of the immigrants fleeing the country from all kind of chaos.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): To be clear, Former President Donald Trump's claims are not supported by evidence. In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the City of Springfield said, there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.

But all of this has also come as part of a very real surge in Haitian population in Springfield.

MAYOR ROB RUE, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO: We have realistically been saying 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants is what we've -- what we have. Counted through the Health Department and other agencies.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): And they are here legally under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for temporary protected status. Haitian temporary protected status was recently extended and re-designated for Haiti, mainly due to violent anarchy in the country. But the total population of Springfield is around 58,000. So, that's around 25 percent Haitian and the growing pains in the community have not always been easy. State officials say it's stressing resources.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): That obviously represents a massive increase based upon percentage of the population in Springfield. It is unprecedented in such a short period of time. Federal government simply has to be part of the solution. They have to step up. It's their policies that have created these surges.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The influx of Haitians has also manifested itself in other ways, including a tragedy, specifically in 2023 when 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed in a Springfield bus crash, one that involved a Haitian immigrant who had a driver's license that was not valid in Ohio as reported by The New York Times.

Aiden's father declined to speak on camera, but as others have posted about the tragedy recently, he told CNN in a statement, we just want our family out of the news.

[09:00:00]