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Harris & Trump Criss-Crossing Swing States With Just 15 Days To Election; "Central Park Five" Members File Defamation Suit Against Trump; TX Lawmakers Say Death Row Inmate Will Not Testify Today; Cuba Slowly Restoring Power After Weekend Blackout Amid Protests. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 21, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:32:31]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: In this final stretch, Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are rallying voters in several critical battleground states.

Today, Harris is hoping to convince undecided voters and strengthened blue wall support with stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Trump, in the meantime, is crisscrossing the key swing state of North Carolina.

So let's talk about this now with Larry Sabato, the director of The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

And, Larry, here we are. I can't believe it, just a little over two weeks until Election Day. Every vote matters, of course, where each candidate is today, certainly telling. What do you see in their choices?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, THE CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, you know, you're talking about undecideds, the choices that are undecided to make?

KEILAR: Undecided and getting out the vote in these states.

SABATO: That's the critical part of it. I was going to say undecided is much less important at this point than the motivation to vote, to get out the vote effort, the voter contact effort that's been going on for months.

And really, that is a significant and not so hidden advantage of the Harris campaign and the Democrats. They have had, by all measures, a superb get-out-the-vote effort.

The Trump campaign has delegated a good deal of that to other organizations that may be well-funded, but that doesn't mean they know what they're doing or they're doing it very efficiently.

So if this does, indeed, turn out to be as close as many of the polls suggest it will be, it's that additional increment of a half a 0.1 point 0.2 points that get out the vote can generate.

And that's -- what I look at undecideds, they're conflicted. That's why they're still undecided. And a lot of them will decide not to vote because they are conflicted.

And others are just covering for the fact that they don't follow politics and aren't very interested in it, and they also won't vote.

SANCHEZ: Yes, these candidates aren't only competing against each other, but perhaps apathy as well.

And Larry, we mentioned a moment ago that Harris is focusing on those blue wall states. The most recent CNN polling shows that Harris has a slight edge over Trump in all three. But it's still a tight race. As you see on the top right of your screen, there was no clear leader in these races.

How much of a difference do you think can be made with just two weeks until Election Day?

SABATO: Well, again, talking about undecided voters, not much. But the get-out-the-vote operations are absolutely critical. And in those states, massive investments have been made.

[13:35:02]

That's also where Harris' financial advantage comes in. I think people have been surprised to see how well Harris has done and the Democrats have done, especially given the abbreviated campaign of Kamala Harris.

But she has a big edge in money and a lot of that is going to be invested, already has been invested in voter contact and get out the vote.

KEILAR: What is the big wild card right now for you, if any, as you're looking? What is sort of up in the air about how this election may perform or different voting groups may perform?

SABATO: Well, we always like to talk about October surprises. I don't think we're going to have a really big one. I'll be very surprised if we do.

But October surprises come in different sizes and shapes. And so you do have a series of October surprises every presidential election that can move a few thousand votes here, a few thousand votes there. So I think that's critical.

The other part of it that we often ignore is that, OK, Harris is relatively low with black males today, or relatively low with Hispanic males today, or relatively low with males between 18 and 30. And Trump is having a lot of problems with women of all ages, even white women.

But you know, things change as partisan identification kicks in, as the actual Election Day approaches. And that's when many of the people who have been apathetic or don't know for whom they're going to vote or are only leaning slightly to one candidate or the other, actually firm up.

And in the end, they're often fewer surprises than you think. The gender gap's an example. Many times, the gender gap has been shown in campaign after campaign to be enormous during the polling period in September and October.

And then on Election Day, it's still substantial, but it's not nearly as big as it was projected to be by polling.

KEILAR: Larry, always great to speak with you. Thank you so much. We'll keep the conversation going here in the coming days.

SABATO: Thank you.

KEILAR: About two weeks to go until the election and former President Trump is facing a new legal battle.

Members of the Central Park Five are now suing the former president over, quote, "false and defamatory statements" they say that he made about their 1989 case during a presidential debate last month.

SANCHEZ: And CNN senior crime and justice reporter, Katelyn Polantz, joins us now with more.

Katelyn, what is in this lawsuit?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, this lawsuit is about comments that Donald Trump made publicly at this presidential debate.

At the debate in September in Philadelphia, Kamala Harris had brought up the fact that Donald Trump, just days after the Central Park Five were arrested for this assault in Central Park in 1989, he had put an ad in several newspapers, full-page, that said bring back the death penalty, bring back the police.

And then Donald Trump responded at the debate just this year this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: "A lot of people, including Mayor Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted -- they said -- they pled guilty.

And I said, well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt the person, killed a person, ultimately. And if they pled guilty, then they pled we're not guilty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: So the Central Park Five now say that he is saying these things as a way to cause distress to them because they we're exonerated, ultimately. They had ultimately settled with New York City after being forced into giving false statements. They had gone to trial.

And they are all saying now, they never pleaded guilty. They were cleared of the wrongdoing. No one was killed in this attack in 1989.

And this has been a pattern from Donald Trump, dating the whole way back to the aftermath of that attack when these men were arrested, that he has wanted to intentionally harm them and cause them distress.

And one of the plaintiffs, one of the men in the Central Park Five, he was at that debate in Philadelphia and even tried to approach Trump and they had what he said, or what his attorneys say, was they wanted to have some sort of polite discourse about what Trump had said in the moment on national television about these exonerated men.

And Trump essentially blew him off. You wouldn't engage with them. So this lawsuit is the defamation case that they're bringing now to try and say, make us whole, stop intentionally lying, stop intentionally harming us.

And of course, the context here is right before the campaign. There's quite an ongoing appeal among the campaigns to black men, specifically, a lot of discussion about crime.

And then also, in this context, Donald Trump has been found liable for defamation before against E. Jean Carroll.

SANCHEZ: Yes, we'll see how he responds to this new lawsuit.

Kaitlyn Polantz, thank you so much.

I just want to note for our viewers, in the next hour, we're going to speak to the lead counsel for the exonerated Five on this case. So stay tuned for that.

[13:40:02]

Also, when we come back, a Texas death row inmate may soon testify in front of Texas lawmakers about his murder conviction. How this hearing could make a difference on his pending execution. Stay with us.

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KEILAR: Just into CNN, Texas death row inmate, Robert Roberson, was supposed to testify before a committee of state lawmakers, but we just heard that he will not testify today.

Roberson was scheduled to be executed last week for the 2002 shaken baby death of his 2-year-old daughter.

SANCHEZ: Yes, you just saw the live image there of the empty seat.

[13:45:01]

Remember, at the 11th hour, the state Supreme Court issued a temporary stay allowing him to appear before Texas lawmakers. Uncertain at this point exactly why he's not appearing today.

Let's go live to CNN's Ed Lavandera, who's in Texas following the story. Ed, what's happening?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what was supposed to have been a historic and unprecedented moment, a death row inmate here in Texas being brought to the state capital to testify before this House Jurisprudence Committee, has, we've been told now, that this will probably not happen today by the chairman of the committee who just announced that as the hearing just gotten underway.

And at heart here is that the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, sent a letter to the committee just a few days ago saying that they would not allow Roberson to appear in person, but that he could appear virtually over Zoom or some other form of electronic communication.

But the committee and Roberson's lawyers have been adamantly opposed to that for days. They want Roberson to testify in person. In part, for several reasons. The lawyers want the committee to be able and the public to be able to assess Roberson's credibility as they see him face-to-face.

The other issue is that they say Roberson has been diagnosed with autism. And because of that, communicating over Zoom they feel would not be fair to him.

They also say that, given his condition, it's very difficult to -- for him to have conversations with people face-to-face. So they want the lawmakers on this committee and the public to be able to see Robert Roberson for themselves testifying in this situation.

Now, the attorney general has been opposed to this in the court filings we've seen.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has been quiet on this case for days, filed a court filing this morning where he is essentially says that this House committee has stepped out of line with this subpoena requests, a subpoena that essentially halted this execution.

And the governor is saying that any House committee in the future could do this exact same thing to basically cause an end-around any future executions here in the state.

The legal drama will continue to play out. They are not giving up hope that Roberson might be able to figure out a way to testify in the future. One of the representatives even suggested that the lawmakers make a field trip to the Livingston, Texas, Prison where Robert Roberson is held for a field trip to do this testimony in-person there.

SANCHEZ: Another chapter in this emotionally charged story.

Ed Lavandera, thank you for bringing us the latest.

Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

New video shows the moment a helicopter slammed into a radio tower in Houston last night. Look at the top right of your screen. You see the impact, an explosion there.

It said the radio tower crashing to the ground near homes. All four people on board the helicopter we're killed, including a child.

The NTSB says the group is apparently on an aerial tour when they crashed under unknown circumstances. Anyone with information or surveillance video is being urged to come forward and help the investigation.

And in Georgia, officials are looking into what caused a boat dock gangway to collapse during a cultural festival over the weekend. This was on Sapelo Island. And we're told that seven people who died were between the ages of 70 and 93. There we're a handful of others who were also critically injured.

And we're learning more about the 17-year-old who was left clinging to his kayak for nearly 12 hours last week before he was rescued. The teen had been paddling with his high school kayaking team when he capsized and accidentally drifted away from them.

He lost his paddle and was not wearing a life vest. After searching for hours, the Coast Guard finally spotted him out 4:00 a.m. last Thursday. He was taken to the hospital where he was treated for injuries and hypothermia. His school district is investigating.

[13:48:57]

And Cubans are protesting with pots and pans as the energy crisis keeps them in the dark for days. Add a tropical storm on top of that, and you can imagine the frustration there. We are live from Havana next.

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[13:53:50]

KEILAR: Cuba's aging power grid is slowly coming back online after repeatedly collapsing and leaving millions of people in the dark.

SANCHEZ: The widespread outages are feeding frustration across the nation, much of it aimed at the Cuban government.

CNN Havana bureau chief, Patrick Oppmann, joins us now, live.

Patrick, the first outages were reported on Friday, and the government tried to get things back online seemingly all weekend. What's the status now?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: You know, you can hear our generator behind me, so that's the status for us at the moment.

Others are having a bit more luck. About half the capital, we hear, has had power restored. But of course, it comes and it goes.

And officials themselves say that there'll be essentially rotating who has power throughout the day. So you might get it for a couple of hours if you are lucky.

Other people that I spoke to last night in the poor neighborhood of Havana have not had power this entire time, since Friday. And they said their food has spoiled. They're sleeping outside with their children on the sidewalk. They fill essentially abandoned.

So if you get power, yes, it helps you. You were able to have refrigeration. Maybe you can have some water because you don't have running water here if you don't have power. But for other people, you know, this is a power outage that has been continuous.

[13:55:08]

So, yes, it's crashed the entire national system four times. And that is something unprecedented.

We are talking about a historic power failure in Cuba because of these ailing plants that have not been maintained due to U.S. sanctions, the reason that these plants are constantly failing throughout the years. This is not the first time.

But of course, you hear how jerry rigged these plants are, how people tell you, who work there, that they have to make their own pieces to keep them running, kind of like the old cars here.

And so it was a matter of time before they completely collapsed. And now officials are having real trouble getting them back online and keeping power.

KEILAR: And, Patrick, tell us about the protests and how the government is responding.

OPPMANN: Yes. I mean, this is a real risk in Cuba. If you go out and protest against the government, you know, we've seen previously people get years, even decades in jail for -- for doing this.

But we talk to some of these people who are frustrated, that have not had power, they feel they have nothing left to lose.

The government warned last night -- the president of Cuba warned last night that people who doing this are vandals and alcoholics, he called them.

Of course, many of the people in Cuba, 10 billion people, who are without power, couldn't hear this because they don't have power.

But the governor making it very clear that while people have a right to be upset, to be upset, they do not have a right to protest.

Patrick Oppmann, live for us in Havana, thank you so much better.

With just 15 days he's left until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are zeroing in on specific battleground states.

Another hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts after a short break.

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