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Harris Heads To Georgia After Reports Of Abortion Ban Deaths There; GA Election Board Rules Election Day Ballots Must Be Hand- Counted; CNN Uncover Racist, Sexist Online Posts By NC GOP Nominee For Governor. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 20, 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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[14:00:48]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The fight over reproductive rights taking center stage in the election as Vice President Kamala Harris makes a campaign swing through Georgia. She's set to speak about an hour from now as the first in person votes are cast in the presidential race.

Plus, fallout from that bombshell CNN report about Mark Robinson, the North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate, refusing to quit the race. We're going to speak with a former Governor of that state about the impact and a state that both presidential campaigns covet (sp?).

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And baseball's new goat, Shohei Ohtani, shows out on the baseball diamond and leads some to wonder if he could be the best player of the modern era. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

SANCHEZ: Happening right now, voters are casting ballots in what polls show is one of the tightest presidential races in modern American history. Three states started early in person voting today, Virginia, Minnesota and finally South Dakota, where an abortion rights initiative is on the ballot. And in the next hour, reproductive freedom will be front and center in the battleground state of Georgia. Vice President Kamala Harris is set to speak in Atlanta. And sources say, she's directing her campaign to go to the peat state after ProPublica revealed how two mothers died in Georgia, likely because of abortion restrictions there. Their names Amber Thurman, seen on the left, and Candi Miller on the right. ProPublica said their deaths are the first to be publicly tied to an abortion ban and they were officially deemed preventable.

Let's take you now live to Atlanta with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, who's covering the vice president's trip. Priscilla, what should we expect to hear at this campaign up?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, if you want any indication as to what the Vice President is going to say, you only have to look at the signs behind me which say one in three women lives under a Trump abortion ban. Trump abortion ban being a phrase that the Vice President coined during a stop in Arizona earlier this year when she was warning and talking about abortion restrictions in states.

Now, of course, this is the type of rapid response travel that the Vice President did multiple times over the last year. And sources tell me that she was the one that directed her team to take this detour to Georgia before heading to Wisconsin later tonight. Of course, that was the only travel she had until she added this in because of this devastating ProPublica report, which has the stories of those two women, one of whom the family was in the crowd yesterday during the Vice President's event with Oprah. Take a listen to that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANETTE WILLIAMS, MOTHER OF AMBER THURMAN: You're looking at a mother that is broken.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Amber's mom shared with me that the word over and over again in her mind is preventable. These abortion bans have been passed that criminalize healthcare providers in a couple of states, prison for life, Oprah, prison for life in a couple of states for a doctor or a nurse who provides healthcare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, Harris advisors tell me that these are the moments that the campaign is trying to seize on elevating and amplifying issues like reproductive rights when they can. And that this stop for her was a natural succession of what she did do over the last year, going to Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, among other cities and states. And, of course, Boris, reproductive rights, top of mind for this campaign because it is also top of mind for voters according to polls. And they see it as being the galvanizing issue, especially in a state like Georgia, a crucial one, a battleground one for them to clinch in November. Boris?

Priscilla Alvarez, live for us in Atlanta. We will, of course, bring you the vice president's remarks as they happen. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Let's listen now to a little more of what Harris said last night about medical personnel and the dilemma that they face in states that have abortion bans.

[14:05:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, HOST AND TELEVISION PRODUCER: Even when the mother's life is in danger --

HARRIS: But see, here's the problem with that. Here's the problem with that. So is she on death's door before you actually decide to give her help?

WINFREY: Mm hmm. That's the problem.

HARRIS: Is that what I'm saying? WINFREY: Yeah. That you've got to prove you're on own death door.

HARRIS: Like literally a doctor or a nurse has to say she might die any minute. Better give her now a care because, otherwise, I might go to prison for life in some cases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining me now is Dr. Nisha Verma in OB-GYN practicing in Georgia. She is also a Senior Advisor for Reproductive Health Policy and Advocacy at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which is a professional association. Doctor, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. Tell us about what Vice President Harris said there, if that's accurate. Is that how you're seeing it play out in Georgia, this dilemma?

NISHA VERMA, OBSTETRICIAN AND GYNECOLOGIST PRACTICING IN GEORGIA: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. So I have been able to practice as an OB-GYN in Georgia before and after Georgia's six-week ban went into effect. And things were far from perfect. Before the six week ban went into effect, we were dealing with multiple other restrictions on access, but they have gotten much, much worse. And what Vice President Harris said is absolutely correct. We are grappling with these really difficult situations where we're trying to figure out when in this continuum of care we can intervene. There is not a line in the sand where someone goes from being completely fine to acutely dying.

It's often that can completely what the right thing to do is we train for years and years and years and years to be able to take care of that individual person in front of us. But it's really unclear based on that law, based on that exception for medical emergencies when we can intervene in each particular situation.

KEILAR: So you testified before the Senate, giving details of what happened to your patient Em (sp?) who gave you permission to tell her story, what happened to her?

VERMA: So she was a patient who broke her water around 17, 18 weeks before that baby could develop lungs to survive outside of her uterus. She decided with her husband, her family that the right thing to do for them was to move forward with a dilation and evacuation procedure to remove that pregnancy. However, based on Georgia's law, she was unable to get that care. And I want to be clear, this was a highly desired pregnancy. Em (sp?) had told me that she had gone through IVF. This was their final embryo. This was a very desired pregnancy. And before the law we would have been able to provide care for her and her husband and her family. After the law, there was a lot more confusion. She had broken her water. This was not a pregnancy that could continue to term and result in a baby. But we had to ask those same questions. Do we have to wait for her to get sick, to develop an infection in her uterus or to start bleeding, or for that pregnancy to no longer have cardiac activity?

And as you know, all of that is going on. And we're trying to figure out how sick does she have to get that delays care, right? And that's a really difficult situation for patients and families to be in, for doctors to be in. We want to take care of our patients. We want to intervene. We want to do what's best for them, what they are asking for our patients or the experts on their lives, right? And they know we provide medical evidence. They let us know what the best course of action is for this patient, the dilation and evacuation was what she needed, and we were unable to do that. And she was put in this situation. She told me how devastating it was to be told that she has to get sicker before she can get care and how much that exacerbated her suffering in this already terrible situation.

KEILAR: And then in the case of this ProPublica story about Amber Thurman, she had taken abortion pills in neighboring North Carolina, where it was legal at the time that she took them. She didn't expel all of the fetal tissue from her body. That created sepsis. She needed that lifesaving D&C. Went to doctors to get it in the ER, and it took them 20 hours to operate when clearly, they should have done it sooner. There was no even nonviable at that point fetus, or, you know, there was no fetus that had a heartbeat or anything inside of her at that point. But these kinds of instances, Doctor, if you can speak of this, what should a woman in these states, like yours or their families do to advocate for themselves?

[14:10:11]

What can they do in this situation to try to make sure if they can, you know, that they remain safe and cared for, anything?

VERMA: Yeah. You know, what happened to Amber is absolutely devastating. This is a patient who should have been able to get care in her community in Georgia and who shouldn't have ever had to leave the state. That is the law is to blame for that. She should never have had to leave the state for care. She should have been able to get that with us. And patients should not have to be afraid to go into the doctor until they're very sick. Doctors shouldn't be afraid to care for patients because, again, this law that has nothing to do with medicine or science. I think getting out to vote is important. You know, I think that this law is very dangerous. It's got to go. And, you know, I also think that doctors and patients can both continue to advocate for themselves, for doctors being able to provide the maximum amount of care that we can under these really terrible laws and for patients to know, to try to advocate as best they 4can for that maximum level of care. But it is incredibly restricted under this law. And we are practicing in this environment of fear and confusion that makes it hard for everyone in our state.

KEILAR: Yeah. We're seeing it play out to devastating effect in some of these cases, like Amber Thurmans'.Dr. NishaVerma, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

VERMA: Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: We're also following another story that could have serious implications on the election in Georgia. The state's Republican- controlled election board just ruled to require that ballots cast on Election Day be hand-counted, a step that could delay the results from the battleground state. And notably, Georgia's Republican Attorney General previously warned that board that this controversial move is likely unlawful. Let's get the latest from CNN Political Director David Chalian. David, you, perhaps more attentively than most, are eagerly watching election results as they come in. How could this reshape the way we see those votes come in in Georgia?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: So let's be clear, Boris. Even before this rule change in Georgia was passed by the election board, the likelihood that we were going to have an actual result to the election on Tuesday night, of election night, very low, right? It's just -- if you look at the seven battleground states that are going to decide this race, Georgia being one of them, and you look at how they count their votes, there are several, Pennsylvania, Arizona, even Wisconsin, sort of goes into counting into Wednesday mornings. Unlikely that we would have a result. But now, it becomes even more unlikely because hand counting is a slower process, right?

And so obviously there are politics behind this decision, right, because this is tied to Donald Trump's election lies in 2020. This is all a response to that because remember Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State, the republican secretary of state in Georgia, who Donald Trump infamously --

SANCHEZ: Called.

CHALIAN: -- called and said, find me the votes. He was removed from this election board by the Republican-controlled legislature at Donald Trump's urging in the aftermath when he was still and still is pursuing that lie about the 2020 election.

So now, we have an election board that has three Trump supporting allies and two that were opposed to this, and they were able to change this rule. As you note, the Attorney General says in the state, this is probably going to be impermissible. Clearly, there's going to be legal action. But if you have to hand-count the ballots that are cast in-person on Election Day, that is going to take a longer time. And it's one of the seven states that will decide the election.

SANCHEZ: We saw in 2020, the dynamic known as the red mirage, the idea that Republicans were going to hold this huge advantage early on in counting. And then eventually as more ballots were counted, that would sort of dissipate and the race would be more competitive. Is this part of an effort to sort of grab the narrative before we know the definitive results?

CHALIAN: So I don't know the answer to that. I don't know that that is the answer. Clearly, that is part of the larger conversation inside how the parties are assessing how these votes are going to be counted. But by the way, in some states there was a red mirage. In some states, there was a blue mirage. It depends how each state counts their votes. What we do know are Democrats tend to vote in greater numbers early and absentee. Republicans tend to vote greater numbers in-person on Election Day.

So you could imagine, if you have to hand-count the in-person on Election Day, some of those republican votes, it'll take a little while to get counted. And if all you're looking at are Democratic early absentee votes, you may have a not fully accurate picture of what is going on in the state as the votes are coming in on election night. [14:15:05]

Obviously, lots of Democrats vote on Election Day, too.

SANCHEZ: Right.

CHALIAN: But that is the pattern that we see. And that could have an impact.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. We have to keep a close eye on this one because as you noted, there's likely legal action to come. David Chalian, appreciate that update. Thanks so much.

Still ahead on CNN News Central, Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, vowing to stay in the race despite being engulfed in a scandal over racist and X rated online posts unearthed exclusively by CNNS KFile team. We have much more on the fallout ahead.

Plus, we're following massive destruction in Lebanon's capital where an Israeli strike has leveled a multistory building. At least 12 people in Beirut are dead, dozens injured. Local media is reporting that many of the dead are women and children.

And we're back in Georgia, where students across the state are walking out of school demanding action on gun safety. The bill they want state lawmakers to pass on CNN News Central in just moments.

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[14:20:42]

KEILAR: North Carolina's Republican candidate for Governor Mark Robinson says he is staying in the race following a bombshell CNN KFile investigation that uncovered a string of sexist and racist comments that Robinson made online, including defending slavery. CNN KFile Senior Editor Andrew Kaczynski is here with details. Andrew, where did Robinson make these comments first?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Brianna, my colleague MSec (sp?) and I found a series of highly disturbing posts made on the message board of a pornographic website more than a decade ago. And we traced them directly to Mark Robinson. Now, we did interview Robinson yesterday and he categorically denies making these posts. I'm going to get to that in just one moment. But first, I want to walk people through just some of them. Take a look at this one right here in one post, Robinson called himself a, quote, "black Nazi." And when discussing then President Barack Obama in 2012, wrote, quote, "I take Hitler over any of the shit that's in Washington right now." It even goes beyond that. Another disturbing post, Robinson defended slavery, writing, quote, "slavery is not that bad. I wish they would bring slavery back. I would certainly buy a few." All of these comments and many others that you can read on cnn.com that we couldn't even show on air were made on the message board of a porn website called Nude Africa.

And Brianna, in addition to those posts, he also expressed views on Nude Africa that sharply contradict his current policies as a socially conservative candidate for governor. For example, he has been vocally anti-transgender. But look at what Robinson wrote on the porn message board a decade ago, writing that he liked, quote, "watching transgender porn," adding, quote, "that's effin hot" and called himself a, quote, "perv." In another thread that was disgusting the story of a woman who said she was raped by her taxi driver while drunk, Robinson wrote, quote, "and the moral of this story, don't f a drunk white bitch."

KEILAR: So, I mean, it's appalling. It's even more appalling what you cannot put on the screen there. He wrote all of these years ago when he was, you know, just an ordinary citizen before he got into politics. How do you know it's him?

KACZYNSKI: Well, Brianna, we found that Robinson consistently used this same username Minisoldr that he used on Nude Africa in pretty much all of his social media. You can see it on Pinterest, Black Planet, YouTube. He even previously used this as his Twitter handle. His full name was actually also listed on Nude Africa, along with an email we found that he was using on Nude Africa that he used on several other websites. The biographical data from multiple websites along with Nude Africa using the username Minisoldr, also matches Robinson exactly, including his date of birth, his hometown, the fact that his mom worked at an HBCU, even that his favorite episode of the Twilight Zone is number 22.

SANCHEZ: So what does Robinson say about all of this? You talk to him.

KACZYNSKI: So Robinson, he calls the story trash. He says it's not him. We asked the campaign for comment. We gave them 24 hours to respond. That deadline was yesterday morning, and that's when Lieutenant Governor Robinson agreed to do a brief interview with us. Here is just a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

KACZYNSKI: Lieutenant Governor Robinson, thank you so much for being willing to talk to us. I think we'll just jump right into it. Do you deny that this account is you?

MARK ROBINSON, NORTH CAROLINA GUBERNATORIAL NOMINEE: Well, first off, let me say thank you so much for allowing me to come here and clearly hear. We absolutely ado. This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me, nor has it ever been. The people here of North Carolina know I have been completely transparent about my history. All the warts (sp?), we pull them all out. We let folks know about it. But the folks here also know my character. They know who I am. They know my voice, so to speak. This is not my voice. This is not things that we would ever say or even think. And so, absolutely, we do. KACZYNSKI: How do you explain all of the matching details on this

profile, the profile on Nude Africa lists your full name as Mark Robinson?

[14:25:05]

The email listed on the account is an email that you use -- you have sued elsewhere on the Internet, including with your photo. You have used that name, Minisoldr, on multiple social media accounts, including Twitter, Pinterest, Black Planet, and YouTube. How can you deny, with all of these matching details, that this is you?

ROBINSON: Look, I'm not going to get into the minutiae of how somebody manufacture these salacious tabloid lies. But I can tell you this. There's been over $1 million spent on me through AI by a billionaire son who's bound and determined to destroy me. The things that people can do with the Internet now is incredible. But what I can tell you is this. Again, these are not my words. This is simply tabloid trash being used as a distraction from the substantive issues that the people of this state are facing. We have addressed it. We have said it's not true. And we wish we could move on and get busy with the business of the people of the state.

KACZYNSKI: Okay. Well, these posts, they do take place over a five- year period from 2008 to 2013. You mentioned AI. Are you saying that somebody was somehow manufacturing biographical details to exactly match you using your username?

ROBINSON: Look, I have no idea how this was done. I have absolutely no idea how it was done. And I have five weeks left in this campaign to focus on the substantive issues that North Carolinians face. I do not have time for tabloid trash.

KACZYNSKI: There have been rumors that some of your campaign staff have quit. Can you tell us if that's true or not?

ROBINSON: Absolutely not. And we are not getting out of this race. There are people who are counting on us to win this race because, again, we don't want a governor who's going to be a person that can't be counted on to tell the truth. And I can assure you, my opponent has been taken to court for not telling the truth in campaigns. And he's been completely dishonest in his ads against me. This camp is so desperate to destroy us. It's just like Clarence Thomas said years ago, this is a high tech lynching.

And, you know, back long years ago, they used to use rope. Now, they're using cable.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

KACZYNSKI: And Brianna, I just want to clarify one thing. I said we gave them 24 hours. We actually gave them 48 hours. We reached out to them Tuesday morning. They got back to us Thursday morning. We interviewed Governor Robinson in the afternoon on Thursday. That's that interview you just saw. And then after our interview, he released a video on X shortly after that underscoring that he plans to stay in this race.

KEILAR: Andrew Kaczynski, great reporting. Thank you so much. We do appreciate it. Boris?

SANCHEZ: We want to discuss this story with a prominent voice in North Carolina Republican politics. Joining us now is the former Governor, Pat McCrory. Sir, thank you so much for being with us. I just want to point out to our viewers that you did not endorse Robinson. Former President Donald Trump has, though, you've actually been vocal for years now, warning that unsavory details about Robinson would come to light.

I see you smiling. You lamented that those warnings were ignored. Why do you think they were?

PAT MCCRORY, FORMER NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: I think they were ignored because he was probably one of the most effective, populist, dangerous speakers that I've ever seen on a campaign trail. And he appealed. He told people what they wanted to hear, not that what they needed to hear. And people responded to him. And therefore, the past Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley, who is now Chair of the National Republican Party, ignored many known flaws that many of us knew about him and just assumed they'd be brushed over. But this has been a ticking time bomb for several years now. And frankly, a lot of the things that have come out during the past year by conservative blogs about his business dealings, along with his wife, has raised enough issues that would disqualify many people for any elected of office, whether you're Republican or Democrat. So it's very disturbing.

But he's been a powerful voice with the base and no one wanted to challenge him. In fact, from a personal standpoint, he participated in TV ads against me in a U.S. Senate race in favor of Ted Budd, sponsored by the conservative Club for Growth, which were very, very effective and very convincing. They were not truthful. But this shows the powerful voice that he's had. He's an individual that came out of nowhere to become lieutenant governor based upon a YouTube video, which kind of shows the way politics is going at this point in time. But it was just a matter of time.

And this story that has come out at a terrible time for the Republican Party because now it's too late as of yesterday to replace him on a campaign or election that's starting in weeks, regarding early voting.

SANCHEZ: I wonder if you think he's going to hurt other Republicans on the ballot and whether you would call on him to drop out.