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Polls Show Harris with Slight Edge; Presidential Race Remains Tight; Hezbollah Claims Strikes on Israel. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 19, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISER TO GEORGE W. BUSH AND JOHN MCCAIN: Be with, not attacking them for the way that they live. And - and I - as I said, I think it's been a problem for Republicans since 1992 and remains one today. And I think Republicans may see the consequences of what - I mean let's think about it, how many single women are there in America? A ton, right? I think, like, the - I'm not sure the exact number, because like 50 percent of American women are single, or childless. That's a lot.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Mark, so - that's - that's a lot.

MCKINNON: That's a lot to be attacking.

BOLDUAN: And just so you know, a lot can swing an election, especially one that's been 50/50, 50/50, 50/50 since they - since we - in the resent months.

It's good to see you. Thank you so much.

And you can tune in to "TV On the Edge: Moments that Shaped our Culture." It premieres this Sunday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on CNN.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the new battleground polling that might tell a new story about where this campaign is this morning. Pretty clear trends in the most important states.

Exploding walkie talkies. A new round of deadly attacks against the terror group Hezbollah. How this was all orchestrated. And the moment a police officer climbed from one moving car to another - my goodness - all to save a driver's life.

Sara Sidner is out. I'm John Berman, with Kate Bolduan. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BOLDUAN: Breaking overnight, a slew, a bevy, a ton of new polls from key battleground states out. When you add them all up, you combine them all, you get a new CNN poll of polls that finds in battleground states - in battleground Pennsylvania, Harris - Kamala Harris is averaging 49 percent support among likely voters to compare to Donald Trump's 47 percent. Harris seeing a slight bump there as she soon heads to battleground Michigan to campaign what the campaign is billing as a huge virtual rally with Oprah Winfrey.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez back with us.

There's a lot going on this morning. We've got this new CNN polls after you and I were talking this morning about just how you add them all up and what it means to these campaigns. What are you hearing?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, campaign officials that I've spoken with repeatedly say, we get it, the race is going to be tight. But they're paying attention because over the last several days, the vice president has spent almost the majority of her time in Pennsylvania. And that was one of the bright spots in the New York Sienna College poll this morning, which is, as you see there, that she has a slight edge over former President Donald Trump.

But a CNN poll of polls also finds that, generally speaking, it is tight. It is a deadlocked race. And that is exactly how the Harris campaign is operating. You hear it from the vice president herself when she says that they are the underdogs and they're generally running this campaign as though they're losing.

Now, when you look a little deeper into the data here in these polls, the economy is still a top issue for voters. That is something that the vice president has been fine-tuning her messaging on. But also on immigration. Former President Donald Trump continues to hold the lead over the vice president. And yesterday, during her remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the vice president targeted former President Donald Trump's immigration proposals in an explicit way, one that we haven't generally seen on the campaign trail.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. How's that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, the vice president, just before that, also called back to the family separation policy. Now, generally, her message has been, immigration reform plus border security. Whether or not she continues that message, you heard there on the campaign trail, remains to be seen.

But today the vice president also going to go to Michigan, where she is going to participate in a livestream with Oprah. That is an effort to essentially try to shore up support with black women who are very influential in their communities, which is a key part of the Democratic coalition, and overwhelmingly supported President Joe Biden in 2020. So, it is these types of events that the Harris campaign is trying to use, unconventional methods, like this, Zoom live stream, to try to mobilize voters, especially the parts of the coalition that they think is really helping get out the vote and help with voter registration. So that coming later today.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Priscilla, thank you so much.

John.

[09:05:01]

BERMAN: All right, as Kate noted, a bevy, I think that's the word she used this morning, of new polling out today.

With us now is CNN's senior data reporter, Harry Enten.

Though there are many polls, Harry, there is one - one that stands out to you that may be the most important. Why?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes. It's "The New York Times"/Sienna College poll from the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And what we see here now is a four-point advantage for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.

You look last month, it was the exact same thing. So, you're seeing consistency among "The New York Times"/Sienna College poll.

Why is that so important to me? Because given the sort of controversy around polling over the last few years, I want to look at the pollsters who have been most accurate. And if you look at "The New York Times"/Sienna College poll back in the 2022 Senate race, what you saw was, the result was John Fetterman, the Democrat, by five points. And the final "New York Times"/Sienna College poll had John Fetterman ahead by five points. So, a very accurate pollster back in 2022 showing a consistent - small, but consistent advantage for Kamala Harris in the state that might prove to be the most pivotal.

BERMAN: So, we've talked a lot about all this new swing-state polling that has come out in the last 24 hours. There are a couple polls from not really swing states but polls that I think you think tell an important story.

ENTEN: Absolutely. You know, one of the things that was so notable about "The New York Times" poll was Harris was ahead by five in a state that Joe Biden only one by one point. So, an overperformance. She's outperforming Biden's margin by three points.

And let's take a look at some other pollsters who not just got 2022 right, but who got 2020 right, which a lot of pollsters did not. So, let's go to Iowa, right? Ann Selzer, one of the best pollsters in the business. You go back to her final poll in 2020. She had Donald Trump ahead by seven points. He ended up winning in Iowa by eight.

Look at where she has the race right now. A poll that was released just on Sunday. Donald Trump ahead, but just by four. So, Kamala Harris is doing three points better than Joe Biden did in the final poll back in 2020.

How about in New Hampshire, the UNH poll. Again, this poll was within a point, the final one, in 2020. It had Joe Biden winning by eight. In the granite state he won by seven. Look at where Kamala Harris is ahead by. She's ahead by 11 points. So, a three-point over performance. Again, the same as we saw in Iowa. The same that we see in New Hampshire. Very consistent with a three point over performance that we see, or the four-point over - the three-point over performance that we see in, of course, Pennsylvania in terms of "The New York Times"/Sienna College poll versus the 2020 results.

Always looking for trends. I think that's what you're doing and that's why this is all important, and why we appreciate the lessons you give us.

Talk to us about the difference between some of these northern swing states and the southern ones.

ENTEN: Right. So, these are all northern states, right, New Hampshire, Iowa, and, of course, Pennsylvania. And so if we, right now, look, Harris versus Trump in the battlegrounds margin, you look in the northern battlegrounds, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, what we see is Harris up by three. If you look in the sunbelt battleground states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, we see a tied race. So, Harris doing better in those northern battleground states than she's doing in those southern battleground states.

And again, John, so pivotal, the electoral map, the race to 270. Even if Harris loses say in North Carolina and Georgia and then in Nevada and Arizona, if she carries these Great Lake battleground states up here, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, that gets her to exactly 270 electoral votes. So, the bottom line is, there's good polling for Kamala Harris in these northern battleground states. Maybe just enough to get her over the top in the Electoral College.

BERMAN: It is a path to 270.

ENTEN: It is a path.

BERMAN: All right, Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now, Karen Finney, CNN political commentator and former senior adviser and spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and former director of the strategic communications for Donald Trump's campaign, Marc Lotter.

Hello, friends.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, Kate.

MARC LOTTER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Good morning.

BOLDUAN: Karen, you add up this polling, and you want the Harris campaign to do what?

FINNEY: Well, Kate, you know how I am about polls.

BOLDUAN: You love them. You love them, you trust them and you lean hard on them.

FINNEY: I love them. I love them. No, look, I'm always skeptical. Look, I think generally the trends look good. But when you get under the hood, what I always want to know is, how are different demographic groups, how is she performing with different groups because we know in those states there are going to be key groups of voters who will make the difference between winning or losing. So, my advice to the Harris campaign, continue to run like you're behind because, again, you want to understand, how are you doing with the groups that will make the difference on Election Day? And my sense from the polling that I've seen is, you've still got a long way to go to make up the coalition that Joe Biden had in 2020 and improve on those numbers.

BOLDUAN: Marc, let me put - let me add two things together and you get to tell me what it equals. Factoid number one, Tim Malloy, the Quinnipiac University polling analyst on their poll says this. "Three crucial swing states wave a red flag at the Trump campaign. The GOP's most go-to attack strategies against Democrats on immigration and the economy may be losing momentum.

[09:10:07]

Likely voters now see little daylight, in most cases, between Harris and Trump on who best handles those key issues."

Added to leaving - when we - when - if we're talking about immigration, now you have this added fact, that Donald Trump now promises that he's going to be going to Springfield - Springfield, Ohio, in the next two weeks to continue to lean on what the Republican governor has said is a bunch of garbage in terms of these conspiracy theories about immigrants eating pets.

Why? Would you advise him to go and do that?

LOTTER: Absolutely I would advise him to go because they - what's going on in Springfield, Ohio, what's going on in Aurora, Colorado, it's not just about a specific incident, it's about what we see, these unchecked immigration doing to these communities as people are fighting for housing, fighting for services.

BOLDUAN: No, it definitely has to do with specific things, Marc. Come on. We are - I have officially entered the realm of gaslighting. I have good friends and - and analysts now coming out over the past two days telling me what is reality is not reality.

Marc, the governor says it's garbage. They say what happened there has - there are no pets being eaten in Springfield. So, it - it is an embodiment or a representation of absolutely zero.

LOTTER: Well, you do have a community of 60,000 people that have had 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants dumped into that community. And you have residents there who are worried.

FINNEY: No.

LOTTER: They are - they are facing reduced services. They are seeing their parks over run. You do have - there's - there's discussions about people who are squatting on people's yards. There's a lot of problems there.

FINNEY: No.

LOTTER: Look at what's going on in Aurora, Colorado, where you have Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes. These are very real consequences.

FINNEY: No.

LOTTER: And a lot of very small, middle-sized communities are struggling under it.

BOLDUAN: So, just -

FINNEY: OK, that is - yes, Kate, I -

BOLDUAN: Karen, you can definitely respond, but -

FINNEY: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Are you happy then, in a political sense, even though it is probably dangerous for the community potentially, that - that Donald Trump continues to lead on this?

FINNEY: No, it's disgusting and shameful and it is endangering the lives of children and families. Shame on him, and shame on J.D. Vance. Because here's the truth, nobody dumped people on Springfield, Ohio. Businesses in Ohio had jobs shortages. They were recruiting Haitian migrants who are here in this country legally to come to help fill what her menial labor jobs that people who live there didn't want to do. That's what happened.

What they need, as the mayor himself said, is help, not hate. Not the KKK showing up. Not the Proud Boys showing up.

And let's be very clear about what Trump is doing. This actually has nothing to do with a conversation about immigration reform. This is a political tactic. We've seen it cycle after cycle, leading up to an election, where you demonize, dehumanized, and lie about migrants to scare people. But the thing is, if you - if the - if you stop, what you realize is, you're not hearing real solutions from Donald Trump. What you're hearing again is lies and hate, but you're not hearing, as the VP said - asked in that - in that clip you showed, OK, so you're going to do mass deportations. How are you going to do that? Are cops going to go house to house and just pull people out of their homes. How are they going to decide who's here illegally and who's here not legally? Is it going to be deportation camps? I'm telling you, like, it's a disaster. And who's going to pay for it, by the way?

LOTTER: Start with the criminal.

FINNEY: And let the -

LOTTER: Start with the criminals and the gang members. That's what they're going to do. That's what the American people want.

FINNEY: Great. We'll do -

BOLDUAN: I guess we're going to have to start - we're going to have to start defining - right, right, people don't want criminals - people - people don't like criminals.

FINNEY: No. Correct.

BOLDUAN: I think polling would suggest people don't like criminals.

FINNEY: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Mostly.

FINNEY: Fair.

BOLDUAN: But you're going to have to define what a criminal is because they're - some of the - the immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are being wrongfully labeled criminals by Donald Trump.

FINNEY: And they're not.

LOTTER: It's a fact that, look, there are so many communities out there that are struggling to keep up with services. Whether it's New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, wherever. Now we're seeing it going into smaller communities. People are worried. They're seeing their tax dollars being - going to support illegal immigrants or immigrant communities that are in their communities while their services are being reduced, their schools are being filled with folks, their students aren't able to learn. They can't go to parks.

They do see an increase in criminal activity in their homes. Traffic problems in Springfield, Ohio.

FINNEY: It's -

BOLDUAN: OK.

LOTTER: All of these things are documented and real.

FINNEY: Marc, stop.

LOTTER: And by Donald Trump highlighting the problems, that's what we're talking about here.

BOLDUAN: I'll - FINNEY: No. No. Donald -

LOTTER: Kamala Harris wants to let more in.

FINNEY: No. No, that's not - Marc -

BOLDUAN: I don't think that's - no, just, on a factual basis -

FINNEY: No.

BOLDUAN: It's not highlighting a problem. It's - it's - it's - it's - it's not.

FINNEY: No. Lying.

BOLDUAN: Because factually it's not happening in Springfield. Go find your problem elsewhere then if you want to have the fact -

FINNEY: Right.

BOLDUAN: The factoid. I just - that's my - that's my point.

[09:15:02]

It's not - it's not, Marc, that there isn't problems with immigration in this country right now. Democrats and Republicans agree with that. But it's finding examples that don't exist that is the problem here.

FINNEY: Right.

BOLDUAN: Which is why I'm saying strategically, it seems - it's - it's a choice.

LOTTER: There are 12 million people here illegally. Many of them unvetted. We've got people that have - we've got young women who have been murdered in communities.

BOLDUAN: So you think it's 12 - well, Marc, you at least think it's 12 million, not 22 million, that Donald Trump is now talking about, right?

LOTTER: We can - I can show 12. It could be up to 20. Who knows? But I know at least that there are 12.

FINNEY: But I think -

BOLDUAN: Final thought.

FINNEY: Can we get back - what I think what this - well, you - the issue is, we need comprehensive immigration reform. That includes a path to citizenship for those people who are here legally, who are here on temporary status. How do we decide -

LOTTER: So, amnesty.

FINNEY: Marc, Stop. Then we also need to - we need to take care of our DACA kids. We need

border security. We can have all of these things and we can have a conversation about them without dehumanizing, demonizing, and lying about people and scaring people for - and I would also remind you, Marc, that the bill that the Republicans walked away from would have actually provided about - I think it was like $14 million in that bill to provide services for cities like Springfield to handle the influx and changes in population.

LOTTER: It would have allowed 5,000 more illegal immigrants per day.

BOLDUAN: Happy Thursday.

LOTTER: It would have allowed 5,000 more illegal immigrants per day.

FINNEY: No.

BOLDUAN: Happy Thursday. Happy Thursday. Happy Thursday, because this is -

LOTTER: Happy Thursday.

BOLDUAN: This is really - really clearing things up for folks.

Thanks, guys. Karen, Marc, let's do it again.

LOTTER: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Polling works.

FINNEY: Thanks.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: Is it still Thursday?

BOLDUAN: I don't know. I'm not sure.

BERMAN: All right. A new era of war. People in Lebanon now fearing everyday items after back-to-back attacks involving walkie talkies and pagers.

We're just minutes away from the opening bell. The first opening bell since the Fed lowered borrowing costs. Oh, look at that green. That's some big green. Futures look solid this morning. So, what does it mean for your money? It means good things for your 401k, at least right now.

And the heroic rescue as a deputy jumped out of a moving cruiser - look at that - to save a driver in distress.

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[09:21:45]

BERMAN: All right, we've got new video in this morning of the Israeli military evacuating the wounded after Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile from Lebanon. The IDF also targeted Hezbollah overnight as tensions flare across the border. Israel is calling this a new era of war. It comes after two straight days of these coordinated attacks on communications devices belonging - belonging to members of Hezbollah. More than three dozen people across Lebanon were killed, thousands more injured. First, it was its pagers that exploded, and then walkie talkies that suddenly exploded.

CNN national security analyst, former deputy director of national intelligence, Beth Sanner, is with us.

Beth, great to see you.

Why now? Why is Israel doing this now?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: There are a couple theories. We don't know yet, but I suspect we will soon because this - we keep finding out more and more. But, you know, I think the number one theory in my mind is that they had to set off these explosive devices that they had been slowly putting in. And then, very quickly, as Hezbollah was increasing orders, but they were discovered. That somehow Israel believed that the cat was out of the bag and all of this effort to put thousands of pagers with explosive devices inside them were going to be uncovered, so they had to hit the button. Because it doesn't make a lot of sense.

The other theories are about maybe preemptively just trying to drive Hezbollah to either agree to a ceasefire or to retaliate in a way that would allow Israel to go full in against Hezbollah.

BERMAN: What does this do to Hezbollah? How much damage does it do? I know we are going to hear from Hassan Nasrallah later today, the leader of Hezbollah. How could they respond?

SANNER: This group is absolutely reeling. I don't think that we can really understand the kind of psychological impact, as well as the military impact on this group. So now they have literally no way to communicate with each other because they were relying on these pagers. And they had already said no phones because they knew the Israelis could get in there.

Then they've lost thousands of people who are literally the commanders at all these different levels. So now those people are in hospitals.

And then you just have the shock of it. Like literally people don't want to be next to each other. They don't want to, you know, have any electronic devices on them, or plugged in. People are really just absolutely in shock.

BERMAN: So, we -

SANNER: So, you cannot imagine to me this day - this amount of damage.

BERMAN: And that in and of itself, I suppose, has strategic value to Israel. Anytime you can weaken Hezbollah, that is, of strategic value, at least in the short term. What do you think the long-term implications are for Israel? Are they better off today than they were yesterday?

SANNER: Wow, that's a big question, John. I would say that, you know, in terms of the short term, absolutely.

[09:25:00]

If I were going to invade Lebanon, now would be the time to do it.

But, you know, over the long term, the second and third order effects of this, you know, are Lebanese going to rally around Hezbollah? You have Egypt and Turkey and Jordan saying this was a terrible thing for Israel to do. And, of course, you have the impact potentially on what happens in Gaza. So, I think it's absolutely an open question whether this is a, you know, a tactical success wrapped in a strategic failure. And this is what, you know, most American officials are very worried about with Gaza. Over the long term, is this a weaker Israel as a result? They haven't finished the business in Gaza yet.

BERMAN: These are important questions to ask.

Beth Sanner, thanks so much for helping us understand this really incredible, and I mean that word literally, incredible series of operations that we've seen unfold the last few days.

Thank you very much.

All right, House Speaker Mike Johnson running out of time and options after his funding bill was rejected by his own party, some members of his own party. With 12 days left, what will he do next? Are we staring at a government shutdown?

And Harvey Weinstein back in court and pleading not guilty to a new sex crime charge.

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