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Trump Lagging in Support From Women, Texans; U.S. Citizen Vitali Shkliarov Released From Belarus; Hurricane Zeta to Make Landfall Tonight. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:31:10]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The president needs women to get out and vote for him. The numbers and the polling is devastating among women, so here was his pitch yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I love women and I can't help it, they're the greatest. I love them much more than the men, much more than the men. So I'm saving suburbia, I'm getting your kids back to school.

I'm also getting your husbands, they want to get back to work, right? They want to get back to work. We're getting your husbands back to work, and everybody wants it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Let's discuss with Ron Brownstein and Julie Hirschfeld Davis. Good morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

HARLOW: OK, so --

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Morning.

HARLOW: -- Julie, I think the president missed the fact -- and of course he wants their husbands to get back to work, everyone wants to get back to work. But I think he missed the fact that this has been dupped the she-cession, that 80 percent of the million people that dropped out of the workforce in August and September were women. I mean, is this appeal even going to work to any of them, not to mention it's sort of out of the '50s?

HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: I mean, like you say, it is -- it's such an old- fashioned thing to say. It sort of plays on these very kind of anachronistic stereotypes of what women care about. Six million women have lost their own jobs since this pandemic began, and you know, women are as worried about, you know, their own prospects jobwise and otherwise as they are about their husbands'.

But this is sort of in keeping with a pattern of how President Trump has set out to try to appeal to them. And he obviously has seen these poll numbers, he's trailing 20 percent or more behind Joe Biden with women in key battlegrounds. And he has really made just these very literal appeals to women, please like me, you know, I'm -- why don't you like me?

And instead of actually addressing the concerns that many women and many voters have, he's just made these very sort of literal kind of stereotypical appeals that he somehow believes is going to -- are going to resonate with this really crucial block of voters.

SCIUTTO: You know, Poppy hit it, it's '50s-esque, right? You know, get your husbands back to work. And, Ron, it doesn't stop there: saving suburbia, right? I mean, that is --

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- you know, drop the dog whistle, that's about people of color coming to your neighborhood, right? When the president talks about, you know, banning projects and you know, low-income housing, et cetera, or even Jared Kushner, right? Talking about whether black people really want to be successful.

I just wonder, that clearly appeals to a portion of his base, right?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Is there any evidence that it appeals beyond that? I mean, this question about, like, the secret Trump voter, the silent majority, right? The secret support for this kind of stuff?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, there are a couple different questions in there. Yes, look, he has been -- he has appealed to racial resentment more overtly than any national figure since George Wallace in the 1960s, and that is a clear dividing line in the electorate, Jim.

If you look at the academic studies that have been done in 2016, without question, attitudes about race and about gender -- for that matter -- were a far better predictor of whether or not you supported Trump than any definition of economic strain.

So there is obviously an audience for this, and there's an audience even among women on the gender side. I mean, there is -- you know, in polling it's pretty clear, there is a portion of women, particularly blue-collar white women, evangelical women, other religiously devout women in some cases who are uneasy with the changing gender roles in society, and that is who he is talking to. But that is a minority of the country.

And what is happening in 2020, I think, is that these lines are being ingrained (ph) even more deeply. And the voters who are kind of more moderate on racial issues, more moderate on gender issues, who may have voted for him in 2016 because he was a Republican, they wanted lower taxes and lower regulation. After living through this for more than four years, they have clearly moved away. I mean, you can see that in all of these suburban numbers, I mean, that's what he's talking about there.

[10:35:09]

And the result is that he's left even more reliant on the minority of the voters who are the most uneasy with the way the country is changing. Because so many others are looking at that and saying, is that the coalition there I really belong?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Ron, just quickly to you as a follow-up, your piece this week is fascinating --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

HARLOW: -- when it comes to Texas. And I just want your take on this because Matthew Dowd, a former top advisor to President George W. Bush, said to you, "Texas is in transition on steroids right now." Talk about what you're seeing, and even if Biden can't pull off a win --

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

HARLOW: -- in the state of Texas, what him being this close to the president, what does that tell you, big picture?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, Texas has become part -- a big example of what I'm talking about. You know, the suburban movement away from the Republican Party that began in the '90s on the coast, extended to northern Virginia and Colorado in the early part of this century, has really accelerated, obviously, under Trump. And importantly, it has expanded into the Sun Belt.

So while Trump may be able to -- probably, you know, you'd say most people say he's favored to hold the state because he's so popular in the rural areas. He is looking at an unprecedented deficit in metro Texas, what's called the Texas Triangle between Houston and San Antonio in the south, to Austin and Dallas in the north.

If you look at the five biggest urban counties in Texas -- Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth -- Obama won them in 2012 by 130,000 votes. Hillary Clinton won them by about 560,000 votes. Then in 2018, Beto O'Rourke won them by 790,000 votes. And this time, there are serious estimates that Biden will exceed a million-vote advantage in there. He could double the margins for Clinton in places like Austin and Houston, given the huge turnout we're seeing.

And so even if Trump can hold the state this time by turning out enough rural voters to get there, given that all the population and job growth is in the urban centers that are moving -- and the inner suburbs that are moving away from the Republicans, the trajectory, Poppy, is pretty clear.

Texas is becoming part of America politically, seeing the same -- SCIUTTO: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: -- divide between metros that are becoming more blue, rural areas that are becoming more red. And it is those metro areas that are adding people.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: So interesting.

SCIUTTO: -- those metro areas around Houston, Harris County, has one mail-in drop box. Why is that?

HARLOW: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, before we go -- put you on the spot here -- you know, the question about the polls, right? The sort of ethereal question forever.

I'm not going to ask you whether you believe the polls, I'm going to ask you -- because you cover politics -- do the campaigns believe the public polling, right? As to where this campaign stands.

HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: I mean, listen, I think we've all lived through enough -- particularly in 2016 -- enough election cycles to know that polls can be misleading and sometimes give one side or the other a false sense of security.

I do think, though, that where the presidential race is concerned, certainly where the congressional -- the race for the control of the Senate and for the House -- are concerned, I have spoken to a lot of Republicans in recent days who do believe what they're seeing, and they're very, very nervous about it.

They're nervous in particular because as Ron pointed out, the president does seem to be really laser-focusing his appeal on this small minority of voters. And if you look at the polling, particularly in these battleground states that he needs to win, he is lagging behind Joe Biden in too many places for them to feel very confident about his chances. And that also obviously can trickle down to the congressional level.

So I think there's a lot of uneasiness. Of course, there's also a lot of nervousness among Democrats who know that these things can -- you know, can give you a false sense of security going into a crucial final few days.

SCIUTTO: Yes, yes, post-2016 traumatic distress syndrome.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes indeed.

SCIUTTO: Julie Hirschfeld Davis -- HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: It's real.

SCIUTTO: -- Ron Brownstein, thanks to both of you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, guys.

HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, be sure to join us for "ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA," CNN's special coverage starts Tuesday, 4:00 p.m. Eastern time only here on CNN.

[10:39:01]

And we'll be right back.

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SCIUTTO: This is first on CNN and it is good news. An American who was detained in Belarus for three months has now been released and returned here to the U.S.

HARLOW: That's right. Our Kylie Atwood has this reporting. She joins us from the State Department. Good morning, Kylie, what more do we know?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a man, Vitali Shkliarov. He is a dual American and Belarussian citizen. He was detained in jail in Belarus for three months, and he has been released -- Secretary Pompeo confirmed in a statement today, saying that he had returned to the United States and he has been reunited with his family.

Now, he had traveled to Belarus last summer to visit friends and family. He is someone who is an American, political consultant. He has worked for the campaigns of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, and he was charged in Belarus of helping an opposition blogger to organize some illegal rallies. Now, his wife has said that that is untrue.

And this is a man who is known for being kind of, you know, outspoken to the Belarussian president at times, btu this is someone who was detained wrongfully -- the United States says -- and he was treated with some harsh punishment while he was detained in Belarus. A source familiar tells me that there was some interrogation, some physical punishment.

But he is in good spirits, he has returned to the United States and he is undergoing just some last-minute medical checks, but he is in good health -- back to you.

[10:45:06]

HARLOW: Thank goodness. Thanks, Kylie, that is good news.

SCIUTTO: Yes. HARLOW: All right, tracking the hurricanes now. Hurricane and storm

surge warnings are in effect from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle. This as Hurricane Zeta barrels toward the U.S. Gulf Coast. It's expected to make landfall as a category two storm later this afternoon, and the fifth named storm to hit this state.

SCIUTTO: Chad Myers, tracking Zeta as always for us. How big, how bad?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it could be 100-mile-per-hour storm for some people, Jim. And, yes, fifth named storm this year. It's hard to -- just in one state. It's hard to wrap your head around that.

The category one storm right now, 90 miles per hour but forecast to get a little bit stronger than that as it works kind of closer to the coast there of New Orleans. We will see most of the area here, as the storm moves on up toward New Orleans, begin to go downhill when it comes to their weather.

By about 5:00 this afternoon, New Orleans, you're going to see the worst weather that you are going to see all day, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 to 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts, very big storm surge. Even in Lake Pontchartrain, three to four feet.

And then it's going to move and it gets closer to Biloxi and in Gulfport and even Dauphin Island. And that's the area that is going to see the real problem here, with surge. There's going to be, in some places, nine feet of saltwater storm surge. We're going to see a lot of flooding.

This storm is moving quickly now, guys, and it's going to continue all the way up to Montgomery by midnight. So we're not going to lose a lot of steam, we're not going to lose a lot of energy, a lot of wind. It's still going to be a 60-mile-per-hour storm over Montgomery, likely still a 45-mile-per-hour storm over Atlanta.

And the leaves are still on the trees, and those trees are going to come down and the power lines are going to come down as well, so we have a lot to think about here. This is one that's actually going to be the closest to a direct hit for New Orleans that we've had all year.

HARLOW: Oh, wow, OK. Coming later this afternoon, it sounds like. Chad, thank you so much for being there and tracking it.

Meantime, a coronavirus scare in the middle of the World Series, a star player pulled from the game, put into isolation but then back on the field celebrating? Ahead.

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[10:52:12]

HARLOW: OK, so the Los Angeles Dodgers are World Series champions, congrats to them. But this morning, a question, will they be allowed to go back to L.A. right away?

SCIUTTO: Why? Because star third baseman Justin Turner, he was pulled out in the middle of the game after testing positive for COVID-19. But he returned to the field to celebrate, both sometimes wearing but sometimes not wearing a mask. Andy Scholes joins us now to explain.

Listen, I get it, right? They haven't won a World Series since 1988, but what's going on here?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: It's definitely a tough situation, Jim and Poppy, and you've got to feel for Justin Turner. You know, he was two innings away from realizing a lifelong dream of winning the World Series, and someone comes up to him and says, "Hey, you tested positive for coronavirus, you've got to leave"? I can't imagine what that was like for him.

But Major League Baseball, getting this World Series in just in the nick of time. You know, they hadn't had a player test positive for COVID-19 all postseason long, and then one of the Dodgers' star ends up testing positive right in the middle of their clinching game.

As we mentioned, Justin Turner, he had to leave the game in the eighth inning, pulled from the game after Major League Baseball learned that he had tested positive in the latest round of testing. So ESPN's Jeff Passan reports they got the results of Monday's test in the second inning, and those came back inconclusive. Samples then taken from Tuesday then arrived and were run, sources told ESPN. Those tests showed up positive.

So the Dodgers, they were leading three to one when Turner left the game in the eighth. Julio Urias, striking out Willy Adames to get that final out to clinch the elusive World Series title for L.A.

Corey Seager was named MVP of the series, Dodgers champs for the first time since 1988. And Seager, saying after the game, it was really tough for the team to not have Turner out there at the end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COREY SEAGER, WORLD SERIES MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: To take that away from him, you know, it's gut-wrenching. You know, it hurts me. I can't imagine how he feels, you know? If I could switch places with him right now, I would.

CLAYTON KERSHAW, LOS ANGELES DODGER PITCHER: I'm sure it's really hard tonight and we all feel for him, but I hope that he can take solace in the fact that we're not here without him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: So Turner, tweeting after the game that he's asymptomatic, he couldn't believe that he wasn't able to be out there to celebrate with his guys for that final out, but Turner did eventually return to the field, wearing a mask. He hugged some teammates and then he sat (ph) next to his manager, Dave Roberts, for a team photo. Turner then, even lowering his mask a couple times for those pictures. Now, the Dodgers' president of baseball operations guy says that the

whole team was going to be tested when they got back to the hotel. We've reached out to the team about the results of those tests, haven't heard back yet.

[10:55:01]

We also were questioning when the Dodgers are going to be able to travel back to Los Angeles, haven't heard back yet about that either.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, they won the World Series, right? Let's give them that --

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- they've been waiting a long time, what is it, 32 years? So you know, good for Los Angeles.

HARLOW: Yes, good for them. Andy, thank you very much, good to have you.

And thanks to all of you for joining us today, we'll see you tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with John King starts right after a short break.

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JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Hello everybody, I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing another very busy news day with us.

[11:00:00]

Six days to go, and a few massive election milestones.