Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

13 Days Out: Harris at CNN Town Hall, Trump Campaigns in GA; Today: Trump Campaigns in Battleground Georgia; The Atlantic: Trump Said He Needs the Kind of Generals Hitler had; White House Confirms at least 3,000 N. Korean Soldiers in Russia. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 23, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:01:43]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Thirteen days until the election and we're just hours from a critical moment in this neck-and-neck race. Vice President Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania for a CNN Town Hall. She'll be live taking questions from undecided voters in the state that could be the linchpin to an Electoral College victory. It could decide it all. It's happening as former President Donald Trump prepares to rally his base in another battleground in Georgia.

And Trump's longest serving White House chief of staff John Kelly is warning that his former boss fits the definition of a, quote, "fascist." The retired general also confirming reports about Trump's praise for Hitler.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And one of the most popular menu items at McDonald's linked to a deadly E. coli outbreak and it's expected to get worse. The CDC's urgent warning as people get sick across the U.S.

Hi, there. I'm Brianna Keilar alongside Boris Sanchez here in Washington and we're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: The clock is ticking as it has been now for months and we've been keeping you updated on, we're just 13 days from the election and today both candidates are taking their messages to critical battleground states that could ultimately determine who wins. In just a matter of hours, Vice President Kamala Harris will be taking questions from undecided and potentially persuadable voters during a CNN Town Hall in must-win Pennsylvania.

KEILAR: And then former President Trump, meantime, is in battleground Georgia where he's participating in a town hall before rallying supporters just outside of Atlanta.

Our coverage begins with CNN's Eva McKend who is live at the site of tonight's CNN Town Hall.

And Eva, we're also hearing from Harris as she tries to court Latino voters in a new interview with Telemundo that is set to air later this evening. What's she saying? EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, this was an interesting exchange with Telemundo because she was asked about immigration but from a different lens than we usually hear politicians asked about this issue. She was asked why aren't politicians making an affirmative case for immigration talking about the contributions that immigrants make to this country about the future of temporary protected status and DACA. And here's how she responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need smart, humane immigration policy in America that includes a pathway to citizenship, putting more resources at the border in terms of security, honoring America's history as a country of immigrants, not vilifying people who are fleeing harm, but instead, creating an orderly system for them to actually be able to make their case. That's where I stand. I stand on the principle that we should not be talking about immigrants as "poisoning the blood of America."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: Now, where the Vice President has landed on this issue and how we most often hear her talk about it on the campaign trail is saying that if that bipartisan border enforcement bill that doesn't, by the way, include a pathway to citizenship in it did ever come to her desk as president, she would in fact sign it into law.

[15:05:13]

But Republicans will seize on this. This is a very different policy vision than we hear espoused from the former president on this issue who has called for mass deportations, though has not explained how a future Trump administration would carry that out, Boris and Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Or just how expensive it would be as an operation and then the cost to the U.S. economy of losing that many millions of workers.

Eva, Harris is preparing for tonight's CNN Town Hall. What can we expect once she takes the stage?

MCKEND: Well, the Vice President's closing argument here is coming into focus. We suspect that she will lean into her personal biography as a mechanism to really connect with these undecidable - undecided and persuadable voters in a human way, because much of the country is still getting to know her because of her late entry into this contest.

She's also going to talk about her policy vision for America, which she characterizes as the opportunity economy. And then we also suspect that she is going to make a forceful case against former President Donald Trump. She has argued that in the past several weeks alone, that he has exhibited increasingly alarming behavior that is disqualifying. That should give Americans pause.

And so she's not only going to talk about Trump. She also has to make an affirmative case for why she should be elected, her policy view, why people should trust her. But we suspect that she is also going to ring the alarm or sound the alarm about Trump as well. Boris, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Eva McKend, thank you so much.

And any moment now, former President Trump will be taking part in that town hall in the critical swing state of Georgia.

SANCHEZ: That's where we find CNN's Alayna Treene traveling with the Trump campaign. She's just outside Atlanta where later this evening Trump will hold a rally. So what's in store for that, Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right. I'm here in Duluth where Donald Trump is going to have this rally tonight. There's a massive crowd here already, many of whom have already been going into the venue. But look, this is a rally hosted by Turning Point Action. And that's notable, because Turning Point Action is actually one of the biggest and most crucial outside groups that has been helping Donald Trump's campaign with their ground game strategy and resources, not only in the state of Georgia, but also in the other battleground states as well.

Now, the group's founder, Charlie Kirk, as well as a series of other high profile figures, people like Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Marjorie Taylor Greene, also the country star, music star, Jason Aldean, all of them are also going to be appearing here tonight in Georgia.

Now, something that's also notable about Georgia, and I think you're going to hear Donald Trump talk about this tonight, is how far along they are with early voting. As of yesterday evening, the Georgia Secretary of State's office said that already 1.7 million people had voted early. I'm sure that number is bigger now that it's almost 24 hours later.

And this is something Donald Trump has really been, and his campaign, have really been trying to zero in on in this final stretch before November 5th, trying to encourage their voters to get out and vote early, as well as use mail-in voting. Of course, things that we know Donald Trump has in the past been very skeptical of, I think I would argue he's still skeptical of that, but also has been critical of.

But now, when I talk to Trump's top campaign advisors, they tell me that they recognize they need every tool that they can use in order to be successful in just two weeks. So that's part of this.

I'll also note that just this morning we heard Donald Trump himself tell Fox News that he's going to be voting early himself, so that's part of this. I think just some of the other key things you'll hear tonight, obviously, the economy is one of the number one issues that he is going to focus on, his campaign wants him to focus on this evening. Also the border.

And I think you'll also hear him really ratchet up some of those personal attacks on Harris that we've heard him escalating in recent days. Boris, Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Alayna Treene live for us in Duluth, thank you so much. Let's expand the conversation now with Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, and Tim Naftali, CNN presidential historian and the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library.

First to you, Tim, obviously there's less than two weeks to go before the election, former Trump chief of staff, John Kelly, coming out, confirming to The Atlantic these reports that Donald Trump had privately praised Hitler, also telling The New York Times that Trump had talked to him about seeking generals that were more loyal, loyal like Hitler's generals were to him, notwithstanding that Hitler's generals conspired to kill him.

Tim, as a historian, what do you make of a U.S. president speaking that way about that Nazi leader?

[15:10:01]

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Let's make it clear that those words, those ideas are un-American: 350,000 Americans died in World War II fighting fascism and Japanese imperialism. Those people fought against the ideas that Gen. Kelly associates directly with the man he worked for, President Trump.

So those ideas are antithetical to who we are and what we want to be. That's our historical tradition, and those words and ideas are contrary and opposed and undermine our American tradition.

KEILAR: This is a key time to come out and say something. And, you know, as we've heard from people who know Kelly, it's not something he does lightly, but he was spurred on by something that Donald Trump said that he found particularly concerning, Susan, which was these enemy from within comments that he keeps making, which if you're talking about things that are un-American, this idea of using your power to target your political opponents is something that is very un- American. That is actually the thing that had Kelly feeling that he needed to come forward.

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: You know, we've heard Donald Trump use the language of fascism before when he talks about poisoning the blood, immigrants poisoning the blood of America or talking about the press as an enemy of the people. This is language we've heard before, including from Adolf Hitler.

It's not a surprise that Kelly feels that way. We've known he's felt that way. But a couple of things makes this - makes it, I think, more important at this moment, two weeks before the election, some voters are just tuning in to who they want to vote for or trying to make a final decision. That makes it important.

And while we know that Donald Trump's core supporters are probably not going to be affected by this, he's got soft supporters, he's got undecided Republicans who are trying to think about now, what are they going to do on November 5th?

SANCHEZ: I wonder how you read the way that the message from his team that they've put out there in response to this, saying that Gen. Kelly has Trump derangement syndrome, how does that land with those voters that are on the fence? It becomes a he said, she said sort of - or he said, he said, so to speak.

PAGE: He is a respected general whose son gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. So to say he's been beclowned, which is one of the words that they used in the statement from the Trump spokesman, I think will offend some people, will offend perhaps military families and people who are on the fence. You know, in our new USA Today Suffolk (ph) poll, 5 percent are undecided and 8 percent say they might change their minds. And when you've got a coin toss race like this one, that is the margin of victory.

KEILAR: Tim, I'm wondering how you see Vice President Harris' reaction to this. She made a statement from her residence at the Naval Observatory. And this is part of a bigger strategy here to focus on by her campaign to focus on Donald Trump as a threat to democracy here as part of her closing message, which is different from the message that she had coming out of the gate with her candidacy.

NAFTALI: She - in my humble estimation, she needs both messages. She - this is not a time for subtlety. This is not a time to play it safe. This election is close. And by the way, keep in mind, she is fighting against the historical current. The incumbent president right now is very unpopular. Donald Trump was more popular in 2020 at this point in the election cycle than Biden is right now.

Now, Biden's not on the ticket, but it's Biden's party that is seeking the White House. So she has to make a better and stronger case that she's a change agent. There's a way to do it, but she's got to take some chances. So she needs, I think, both a positive message and she needs to hammer in the message that Donald Trump is a great danger.

But there are many Americans who've forgotten the chaos of the Trump years. And all they remember is what they think they were experiencing in 2019 before the pandemic. And they credit Trump with creating a marvelous economy.

So she just can't focus on the negative. She needs to present an even stronger positive case and frankly, take some risks.

SANCHEZ: Tim, part of the warning from General Kelly is about what might happen during a second Trump administration when there are not folks in the room that might seek to temper some of the former president's instincts. I'm wondering if there was ever a time in U.S. history where a president seemed to just act - you're shaking your head no. Was there a time where a president just seemed to act unilaterally and without having folks around him that might counsel him out of decisions like pulling out of NATO or bombing a hurricane?

[15:15:00]

NAFTALI: Boris, within six or seven weeks of Richard Nixon becoming president, even his ally, the chief of staff wrote in his diary that there are times I just cannot implement what the president is suggesting. And by the way, he should have done that more often. He should have avoided implementing things because Nixon's presidency, as we know, did not end well.

But we've never had a president without guardrails. And the Supreme Court of the United States this summer, by wrapping official acts of a president in criminal immunity, has made it much more likely that we will have an abusive president in the future. Because an abusive president can use his power to act illegally and then pardon those people who've implemented his illegal acts.

So it's a perfect box. He will protect everyone and he can proceed with a criminal conspiracy. So we are more vulnerable to an abusive president now because of the Supreme Court's decision last summer than we've ever been in our history.

KEILAR: Susan, do Democrats that you speak to think that Harris is being bold enough right now? No. And I think they're particularly concerned about her failure to convince a lot of Americans that she's told them enough about herself and about her policies and about what she would do. Part of that is this very, very short campaign that she's had.

But we found that by 20 percentage points, 57 percent to 37 percent, likely voters said she has not told me enough about her specific policies. That includes one out of four people who's supporting her. So that's one thing she can do tonight in this town hall. She can talk about not only Trump as a danger to democracy, she can talk about herself as a president and what she would do.

KEILAR: They're being clear about what they want. They can read it right there. Susan Page, thank you so much. Tim Naftali, thank you.

And still ahead, we'll have some more on Gen. John Kelly's ominous warning for America. We'll get reaction from Republican congressman, Michael Waltz, who is a Trump supporter and a decorated retired Green Beret himself.

SANCHEZ: Plus, U.S. officials say there's evidence that North Korean troops are in Russia. The new details from the White House about why they may be there.

And American Airlines being fined $50 million. How the FAA says the airline mistreated people in wheelchairs, including one passenger who claims she felt like a piece of luggage. Stay with us. We're back in just a few minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:48]

SANCHEZ: Just in to CNN, the White House confirming North Korea has sent at least 3,000 soldiers to Russia in the last month. National Security Spokesman John Kirby telling reporters today why it's unclear that they're there, but there is, "a highly concerning probability that they'll join the fight against Ukraine." Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR: if North Korean soldiers do enter into combat, this development would demonstrate Russia's growing desperation in its war against Ukraine.

Russia is suffering extraordinary casualties on the battlefield every single day, but President Putin appears intent on continuing this war. If Russia is indeed forced to turn to North Korea for manpower, this would be a sign of weakness, not strength, on the part of the Kremlin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss further with former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, Evelyn Farkas. She's also the executive director of the McCain Institute.

Evelyn, thank you so much for joining us.

What does it mean for the war if North Korean troops are training in Russia with the potential to deploy to Ukraine?

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE & EURASIA: Yes, Boris, it's deeply concerning. It means that the war is expanding to include now personnel from North Korea. We know that North Korea has provided weaponry to Russia, missiles, ammunition and other weaponry. We know that Iran has provided drones and the know-how to manufacture drones to Russia. But this is now personnel. These are people.

So the war is, in effect, broadening. I can't underscore how dangerous it is because there will be a response, frankly, from South Korea. We've already heard their officials saying, well, maybe we will have to provide weapons to Ukraine now. They're not talking about personnel, but nevertheless, the war now is expanding to include more countries. It's becoming much more global.

SANCHEZ: Kirby made the point of saying that this demonstrates Russia's, quote, "growing desperation." Do you agree? Is this a sign that Vladimir Putin is growing desperate?

FARKAS: Yes, absolutely. I studied North Korea closely. I traveled there a couple of times, including to Pyongyang during the Bush administration when I worked on the Hill. And North Korea is, they're known for having a lot of men in arms, but they're not known for being very sophisticated. They're not known for being well-fed.

So these troops are not going to come in very well, well-equipped or well-trained. They're likely don't speak Russian. I'm not - you know, I'm sure they'll have interpreters. But this will be a difficult undertaking. So taking on these kinds of troops does show desperation. Vladimir Putin, the experts say, has to get about 25,000 to 30,000 new troops into the field every month. Clearly he's having trouble or he's hesitating because it's a political challenge to get them internally inside the Russian Federation.

SANCHEZ: Kirby also posed what is an unanswered question in all of this, and I'm curious to get your read of what the answer might be, and that is what Kim Jong-un gets out of this.

[15:25:06]

What he's getting in exchange for giving Vladimir Putin this boost in manpower, what do you think?

FARKAS: Yes. I mean, I think, Boris, this is why the South Koreans are so alarmed and probably the Japanese as well, and we should be, because it appears that what the North Koreans want and they may well get is technology in order to improve their missile capability. We know that they have a nuclear weapons arsenal. We know that they are building their missile capability so that they can take a nuclear weapon, put it on a missile, launch it successfully across the Pacific at, frankly, the United States. They haven't been able to do that yet, but Russia, we know, has the technology to teach them how to do that, and that would be incredibly dangerous for us, obviously, and our allies.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and the world. This troop movement appears to be happening around the BRICS summit of emerging economies. Iran also recently joined. Putin claims that some 30 nations have expressed interest in becoming part of that group. What is your thought about the implication of a strengthened BRICS alliance, what that means for the world?

FARKAS: Well, I don't want to overstate what the BRICS is. It's supposed to be an economic group similar, I guess, to the G7. Really what it's done is show for Vladimir Putin to his people that he's not isolated diplomatically on the international stage. He's really used it for that purpose, and I think the other nations who have joined it also use it to show independence, you know, independence from the United States and the European Union, and also to hedge their bets in case, you know, China and Russia end up winning in this standoff that we have right now, the United States and our allies against those autocrats.

So I don't think the BRICS is much more right now than a diplomatic membership, but of course what is of great concern is if they do start working together militarily. North Korea, we should note, is not a member of BRICS.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Yes, and another angle of this story to keep an eye on. Evelyn Farkas, always appreciate the analysis. Thanks for joining us.

FARKAS: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, a new warning from Donald Trump's former chief of staff, how Marine General and Gold Star Father, John Kelly, describes the former president's praise for Hitler.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)