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Harris Team Enters Aggressive New Phase Post-Debate; Schumer to Force Re-Vote on IVF bill; California's Bridge Fire Spreads to Over 51,000 Acres. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 12, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Both campaigns revving up with just 54 days left. And soon, we could get our first insight into post-debate strategy as VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS and former President Trump embark on a battleground blitz.

And vote. Taylor's version, fresh off her endorsement of Kamala Harris, the pop superstar now urging her fans to register and cast ballots. It looks like her swift call to action is already making an impact.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, the rent is too dang high and only getting higher. What new census numbers are telling us about the state of the housing market? We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: In the race for the White House, the candidates are sprinting through the battlegrounds. Moments from now, Vice President Kamala Harris will arrive in North Carolina, where she is set to speak next hour. She's kicking off a new tour across swing states today as her campaign shifts to what it calls a more aggressive phase, following this week's showdown with former President Donald Trump.

In the meantime, Trump is back on the trail with a stop in Tucson, Arizona, his first rally since the debate. And many of his top allies remain on damage control after his performance on the debate stage. Joining us now, we have CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

And Jeff, there's some new reporting that the Harris campaign is guarding against overconfidence following the debate. After all, this is a race that is neck and neck. You look at the polls there, it's all in the margin of error. So what's her strategy?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, there's -- overconfidence is certainly not a key thing here because they're not that confident is the reality. I mean, yes, they won the debate. The Harris campaign believes they won the debate. And there's, you know, so much evidence to back that up. But winning debates did not win elections. You now remember that from 2016, Hillary Clinton academically won the debate, she lost the election.

So what the Harris campaign is doing is using her words from the debate, particularly on abortion. They're launching a new abortion advertisement -- abortion rights advertisement really drilling down on one specific part of exchange she had with the former President talking about abortion rights.

And in North Carolina with young voters, suburban women voters and others, they believe that certainly resonates there. Healthcare also an issue. But another reason she's going to North Carolina, early voting is going to start any day now. It should have started already, but it will start as soon as the ballots without RFK are printed. But North Carolina is a critical swing state. Obama was the last democratic presidential candidate to win it. The Harris campaign believes that they have a very good shot in North Carolina.

The Trump campaign is worried. They've started spending much more money there. So that certainly is a key battleground here. And she's trying to take that confidence from the debate stage out onto the campaign trail for two stops today.

KEILAR: And just the big picture of the state of the race and how critical these states are.

ZELENY: Look, I mean, the reason that North Carolina and Arizona matter, Donald Trump is in Arizona, their insurance plans, if you will, insurance policies for a losing Pennsylvania. And here's why. If you look at the CNN race to 270, Pennsylvania is the biggest battleground of all with 19 electoral votes.

However, if you lose Pennsylvania and if you win either North Carolina or Georgia, plus one more state, that can make up for a loss in Pennsylvania. But the Harris campaign believes winning North Carolina above and beyond can block Trump's path to 270. Again, all of the 70 battleground states you see in yellow right there on your map are absolutely essential, but they matter in different ways. Pennsylvania had the most electoral votes, but North Carolina can block that path. That's why she's going there. And of course, Donald Trump is on a swing out west as well.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be looking for that, Jeff. Thank you so much.

ZELENY: Yeah.

KEILAR: Let's bring in CNN's Daniel Strauss now. Daniel, Trump's team out with a new ad buy in Pennsylvania, obviously the biggest electoral vote poll there of these critical states. He's hammering Harris on fracking, which was a key issue in the state. It was at the debate. Where does his campaign stand right now?

DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN REPORTER: Yeah. And it's important to emphasize that this election is increasingly looking like it's going to come down to Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral votes. And the Trump campaign is hedging that, hitting Harris on vague questions about her previous stances on policy positions that are especially important to Pennsylvanians is what is going to propel them to victory in Pennsylvania.

[14:05:11] So they have a new ad out today highlighting previous comments that Harris has made on fracking and banning fracking. Let's take a listen.

(Begin VT)

UNKNOWN #1: Will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office?

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking.

MAN #1: That will immediately put tens of thousands of Pennsylvania out of work and send utility bills skyrocketing.

(End VT)

STRAUSS: Now, Brianna, I can't emphasize enough that this is something that the Harris campaign itself is on high alert about. Harris has said her beliefs, her principles have not changed, even though her position on fracking seems to have changed since those years ago in the clips that the Trump campaign is using and her position now as the democratic nominee.

The importance here again, though, is that voter -- the Trump campaign and Republicans feel that if they can swing voters in Pennsylvania, they can win this state and its razor sharp margin in polling. And that will give them control of the electoral map in this election.

KEILAR: All right. Daniel Strauss, thank you so much for that report. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Back on Capitol Hill, a controversial vote coming on IVF. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announcing he will force a revote next week on a bill that would guarantee access to in vitro fertilization nationwide, a measure that Senate Republicans killed in June, but it's now revived after former President Trump proposed making the government or insurance companies pay for such treatments.

Let's discuss with the sponsor of that IVF, democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. Senator, I know you are a Harris campaign co- chair, but because of the Hatch Act and obviously where you're coming to us live from on the Hill, we're not going to be talking about the campaign. We want to talk about this issue, one that I know is personal for you. You had two daughters via IVF.

We're grateful that you're here to share your story with us. I am curious about what you think Republicans might do to try to derail this effort, because reports indicate that they might vote yes, but then attach a series of amendments to demand votes on issues that they see as problematic for Democrats. Are you concerned that strategy might hurt the bill's chances?

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, UNITED STATES SENATOR: Well, obviously, if Republicans do that, it will be sending a very clear message that they truly don't support access to IVF for all Americans. I hope that they don't do that, but we'll deal with that if it comes.

Frankly, you know, we're pushing them forward with this because my colleagues have been saying all along that they support IVF. I have so many of my colleagues who say, hey, I support IVF. Great. Vote for this bill. It's the right to IVF Act. It's really simple. It just says you have the right to access IVF or other forms of assistive reproductive technology if you want to access it. It also has a provision for military men and women. You know, I suffer from infertility as a result of my military service.

And it would cover military men and women so that they could access IVF. And it also would allow for the largest employer sponsored health plan in the world, the federal employee health Benefit plan, to cover IVF. It's really simple. If you support IVF, vote for the bill.

SANCHEZ: I am curious about the finances behind this. HHS estimates that the average cost for one individual to conceive via IVF can easily exceed $40,000. How would it be paid for it? Is your preference a mandate on insurance companies?

DUCKWORTH: Well, part of this in this bill is a provision to bring down the cost. It's also about making sure that more people can access those healthcare costs. A big part of the cost of IVF is actually the drugs. It's the -- it's all of the injectables that you have to use. And we can bring down the cost of prescription drug medication. We've already started to do that. This is where using the power of mass buying will help. Again, the FEHB is the largest health insurance plan that's sponsored by an employer in the world.

If you have that employee plan actually purchasing and negotiating for lower prices, you're going to bring the prices down.

SANCHEZ: Do you have an estimate on how this could affect insurance premiums?

DUCKWORTH: I think it will bring down premiums. Again, this is something where people can -- if they want to purchase additional coverage, they can. But this is about, with my right to IVF act, the ability to offer it, the ability to seek it, and the ability to provide the treatment if you want to, as a medical provider.

SANCHEZ: Now, you mentioned veterans a moment ago. And initially, the bill got criticism from Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana because it required private insurance to provide unlimited IVF. But it had a cap, I understand, on how many treatments a veteran could get from the VA.

[14:10:04]

Would that be changed in this version?

DUCKWORTH: Well, that's -- his criticism was not accurate. The bill just says that veterans should be able to access IVF. They already can in many ways, access IVF. It would also allow veterans, actually military, active duty military men and women, to freeze their eggs or freeze their sperm before they are deployed to a combat environment. So many of our service members actually lose their ability to reproduce or have children of their own because they step on landmines, for example. And so this would allow you to preserve your reproductive genetic material prior to going into combat. I don't think any Americans oppose that.

And overall, the bill -- the cost of this is not that expensive. I think the studies that I've seen shows that it's only going to be about $1.25 more in the plan overall if we have this mass participation by a large number of participants in the plan. Again, this is the power of being able to negotiate and mass buying that brings down what the price is, is really the cost of the drugs.

KEILAR: Senator, there some Republicans that were critical of your bill who put forward bills of their own attempting to enshrine IVF protections into law, even though Democrats argued that that wasn't exactly what their bill did. I' thinking of Senators Katie Britt and Ted Cruz, have you heard from any of them on this bill or any other Republicans about where they stand on this?

DUCKWORTH: I have not heard from them directly. They're welcome to join as a co-sponsor of my bill. And of course, they've welcomed their vote next week when we put it on the floor for the vote. Her bill was actually very damaging. It did two major things, which was it opened a back door to states actually dropping out of Medicare and Medicare -- I'm sorry, Medicaid programs, because it says that if you don't provide IVF, if you ban IVF in your state, and no state right now bans IVF, by the way, it just says that you can't destroy fertilized eggs, which, of course, is part of what happens with IVF. You know, eggs that are non-viable, that are fertilized, you discard of them. It would allow them to actually drop out of federal health insurance plans.

And the other is she wanted to create a registry of all pregnant women. I do not want the federal government tracking my pregnancy. I think most women don't.

SANCHEZ: And Senator, one more question on a broader note about regulation. The fertility industry currently isn't regulated by the federal government the way that other areas of health care are. It's largely self-police. So things like the reporting of serious problems or errors, that's not required by law.

The inspection and accreditation of labs is also something that's usually self-regulated. That has created a number of issues for patients that I think has widely been reported. I'm wondering if you think any new legislation of IVF has to include stronger regulations to monitor the industry at the federal level and protect patients the way it's done in the United Kingdom, for example.

DUCKWORTH: Well, you know, we have accreditation. JCo (sp?) Accreditation is an independent accreditation agency that accredits hospitals. They accredit Walter Reed, for example, where the hospital that saved my life post my injury in Iraq. And so I think we need to work with partners within, you know, the medical institutions to strengthen those requirements. And certainly, I would be supportive of that. My bill specifically says that the IVF treatments that you have the

right to access must be medically supported. And that means that it has to be something that is up to current medical standards. You can't use experimental technologies or anything like that. It would rule all of that out. It's standard medical practice in the industry is what we're allowing people to access.

But certainly, I do think that we need to make sure that people seeking fertility treatments, whether it is IUI, IVF, or just taking a pill to produce more eggs, are well-regulated and are also protected, and that it is done in a safe way.

SANCHEZ: Senator Tammy Duckworth. We have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate your time.

DUCKWORTH: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, burning out of control with no relief inside. California Firefighters racing to put out more than 70 wildfires across the state. We'll take you live to the front lines at one of the largest.

Plus, new reporting on what happened right before last week's Georgia high school shooting. Investigators now revealing where the gunman hid out before he opened fire.

And the cost of rent rising faster than home values for the first time in a decade. A financial expert is set to share strategies to deal with the high cost of living, including whether you should rent or buy, and this tumultuous housing market. We'll be right back.

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[14:19:34]

KEILAR: The state of emergency continues in southern California from a trio of raging wildfires. Three infernos covering more than 100,000 acres are tearing through numerous homes and buildings. Take a look at this dramatic video from Orange County. It shows a barefoot woman emerging from the flames of the Airport Fire before being rescued by firefighters.

And NASA released these photos of the line fire. The blazes are so intense. They created what is called fire clouds that actually became thunderstorms.

[14:20:05]

CNN, Stephanie Elam has been on the front lines of the largest active fire burning in the state, the Bridge Fire that is in San Bernardino County. Stephanie, tell us how things are going for firefighters.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Brianna, this fire is so big. It's actually in LA and San Bernardino County. It is a massive fire that started out on Sunday afternoon, about 4,000 acres. It had burned through -- by Monday, it had burned through 30,000 acres. So it shows you just how quickly it exploded in size. It's now over 51,000 acres that have burned here in this area, which people do come to for a lot of recreation.

In fact, just this past winter, the San Gabriel mountains where we're standing were inundated with so much snow, people were having trouble getting in and out of the mountains. Now, you look at it and it looks almost like a moonscape here. And also, just to show you how hot this fire was burning, you can see back there that telephone pole, you see those lines are burned down, there's some where the poles are completely burned away in some areas.

And again, this is not just here in the San Gabriel Mountains. You've got the Airport Fire that's down in Orange and Riverside Counties. And you also have the line fire as well, which you're showing that imagery from. All in all, it's taxing resources here.

Normally, they would assign aircraft to a fire. They just can't do it with these three fires burning in southern California, so they're flying between them. We just saw that there was a jet that flew over a mountain range where we see some hot spots over to my left, flying over and dropping either water or fire retardant.

But really, when you look at how much manpower is needed here, they've even had to bring in firefighters as far as from New Jersey to be here to help battle this blaze here. And while we've been standing here, Brianna, you know, we're standing out here in the wilderness along this highway here, and you see these trees, a lot of them look like they're burned out behind us. But we just heard what sounded like a tree falling over after it's been burned so much that it starts to collapse. And that's part of the danger of being out here.

The air quality is still very thick. They have to wait for the sun to come up before they're able to get those jets in here to drop the fire retardant. And we can see now as the sun is starting to heat up the land, we're seeing more and more of these hot spots starting to burn again. And the firefighters are out here roving and trying to put them out. But still, people evacuated and they stayed away. And one official told, told me that has really made the difference because they could focus on keeping the property safe since the people had left.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, fortunate that folks heeded those warnings. Stephanie Elam, thank you so much for the update.

Millions of people across America already can't afford to buy a home. And, now it's getting harder to save for one for renters, rent and utilities got more expensive in 2023.

New census numbers show that rising rents outstripped home values for the first time in a decade last year. Rent rose nearly 4%, while home values rose nearly 2%.

KEILAR: And 21 million Americans renting a home last year were spending more than 30% of their income on it. That's considered risky by personal finance experts. And many of the people in that riskier spending zone are black or hispanic renters. Joining us now to talk about this, we have personal finance expert

George Kamel. George, what does this tell you about the state of the housing market in the U.S.?

GEORGE KAMEL, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: Well, on the good front, we see home values are slowing in growth, so we can at least applaud for that. But on the other side, this rent, utilities, it's really hurting people out there who aren't in that home ownership land. They want to be there. They're more frustrated than ever. And the good news is there's a lot more in their control than they think.

SANCHEZ: So this week, mortgage rates fell to their lowest point since February 2023. That 30-year fixed rate is now down to about 6.2%. Does that mean that buying is a better deal than renting?

KAMEL: Well, it's not apples to apples. You see, rent is the most you'll pay, whereas a mortgage is the least you'll pay. That's just where you get started. You've got to add in the cost of home ownership, which includes homeowners insurance, your property taxes, repairs, maintenance, HOA, PMI, the list goes on.

So I don't want people to think that they're throwing away money on rent. What they're really doing is they're buying patients, and it's leaving them with less risk and more flexibility. And that's okay right now while you get your financial in order to be able to buy a house.

KEILAR: We'll talk about that. What should people be considering before they decide to buy a home? And how can they purchase responsibly?

KAMEL: That's one of the things in their control. And so the way you get yourself set up to be able to buy a home is get consumer debt-free first, because those debt payments are stealing from your income and your ability to save up to buy that house and put that down payment.

On top of that, we've got to look at our lifestyle. We've got to look at, you know, the emergency fund. Most people, 4 out of 10, have nothing in savings. You don't want to jump into home ownership with debt and zero in savings. It's a recipe for disaster. And we get those calls on the Ramsey Show. People call in, they say, George, we have no savings.

[14:25:02]

Our mortgage is 60% of our take home pay. Should we sell our house? And so I want you to own a home. I don't want that home to own you. And that's why you've got to go slow, get out of debt, get the emergency fund, and then focus on the down payment.

SANCHEZ: George, is there anything you see in the data out there that illuminates perhaps why this is happening and if it's a trend that we might see decelerate anytime soon?

KAMEL: Well, we're seeing across the board. Insurance costs are going up. And so what you're paying for as part of that rent is the cost to the landlord, to the actual homeowner. And so as we see property taxes go up, homeowners insurance go up, the market increase. They have to increase prices as well. But we are seeing it slow down from where it was. And I hope it continues to slow so that people can get their head above water.

But you got to remember, you can't control the housing market. You can't control rent, but you can control where you live, where your income is. You can get that income up. We can get out of that debt. We can control our lifestyle and our spending. And that gives me hope. That's a lot more control than we think.

SANCHEZ: George Camel, always great to get your analysis. Thanks for being with us.

KAMEL: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris and calling on her fans to register to vote. Thousands of them are doing it, but is that enough to move the needle in the direction she wants?

New numbers into CNN on the superstar's impact.

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