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Trend Emerges of Republicans Bailing on Their Debates; Families Hit Hard by Pandemic Now Facing Eviction; Updates on Early Voting in Key Battleground States. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired October 30, 2020 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:31:12]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: There's that old saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. But some Republicans may not be reading it the way it was intended.
With the races getting tough, with the debates getting tough, they're just going away. They're just skipping debates.
This happened with Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. It reportedly happened reportedly with Senate candidate, Roger Marshall, in Kansas.
The latest is Senator David Perdue in Georgia. He's skipping the last Senate debate after -- which is against his challenger, Jon Ossoff, so he can attend a Trump rally in Georgia.
But I'm sure this moment from his last debate is probably also still on his mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON OSSOFF, (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: Perhaps, Senator Perdue would have been able to respond properly to the COVID-19 pandemic if you hadn't been fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading.
It's not just that you're a crook, Senator. It's that you're attacking the health of the people that you represent.
You did say COVID-19 was no deadlier than the flu. You did say there would be no significant uptick in cases.
All the while, you were looking at your own assets and your own portfolio. And you did vote four times to end protections for preexisting conditions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: S.E. Cupp is a CNN political commentator. She's the host of CNN's "S.E. CUPP UNFILTERED." It's so weird to see all these candidates skipping out on these
chances to make their cases to voters.
What do you think about this pattern?
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You said the magic word "voters. To me, it's another in a long line of middle fingers to voters.
When you won't show up to debate your record or explain a proposed record, forgive me, it's an F.U. to voters.
And it comes from the very top. When the president of the United States won't show up to a planned debate, when he storms out of interviews with journalists he doesn't like.
And of course, the big one, when he tries to prevent you from voting, I think it's safe to say the Republican Party of Trump doesn't have any respect for the will of voters.
KEILAR: It's also -- it makes me think of how -- look a lot of people deride this idea of cancel culture. We hear it a lot from Republicans.
But this seems to be part of that to me, that they're just blowing this off and kind of cancelling their appearances.
CUPP: They're blowing off the voters.
I think we all stand to be reminded that they are public servants. They work for you and me, Brianna. Not the other way around.
So this idea that they don't have to be health accountable to the voters, to the press, to internal and external oversight, to checks and balances, this really is sort of an overriding of long-held, you know, political tradition that they are servants.
Again, it starts from the top, and it trickles down. Trump has created a culture of unaccountability.
Frankly, I hope it's one of the first things that Joe Biden does, if he's elected, is to restore that idea of accountability to voters, to the press, to oversight, to Congress, because that's been sort of eroded over the past four years.
KEILAR: I wonder here, just a few days out from the election, how you're feeling. We're hearing from a lot of people who just think -- they just don't know what to think after 2016, where everything seemed completely upended --
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: -- from what expectations were.
How is it looking to you?
CUPP: I have been -- I'm sure you have, too -- just from covering 2016 the way we did, I have been having some serious flashbacks. [14:35:08]
Hillary Clinton was up 14 points around this time in 2016. I was talking to lots of smart people who are saying it was kind of hers to lose.
We heard from some folks, who said, no, no, Trump voters are underrepresented.
I always agreed with that, that they were underrepresented in the polls. But I didn't think there would be enough of them to really swing it for him.
At least when it came to the popular vote, we were right.
This time, I'm just a nervous, frankly. Biden is doing just as well as Hillary was. He doesn't have her unfavorables, which is positive for him.
I don't think national and even statewide polling is all that predictive when it comes to presidential races.
So I really -- I don't know what to expect on Tuesday or the coming weeks.
KEILAR: Yes. I think a lot of people are in that boat with you, S.E. Who knows?
CUPP: The message is to vote, Brianna. Vote. Because even if you think you're in a state that doesn't matter, it really will this year.
Every single vote will matter. Especially when the Republicans are trying to suppress them all over the country.
KEILAR: S.E. Cupp, thank you so much for joining us.
CUPP: Thanks.
KEILAR: It is a Trump administration order aimed at protecting people from getting evicted during this pandemic, but it hasn't actually stopped people from being forced from their homes.
One photographer documented get-wrenching scenes in Arizona as law enforcement asked people to pack up and go. He will join me, live, next.
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[14:40:49]
KEILAR: Millions of people are still out of work because of the pandemic. Despite a moratorium on some evictions, there's real fear among people who can't pay the rent or the mortgage, that they will soon be homeless.
A photojournalist on location in Arizona spent a week came up further the capturing the anguish of these residents.
He followed sheriff's deputies carrying out the daunting and unenviable task of serving legal notices. And he snapped gut-wrenching images of people either losing their homes or trying to stave off eviction.
John Moore is the Getty photographer who captured all of these images.
He happens to be on assignment this afternoon at the Trump rally in Michigan. That's where he's joining us from.
Thank you so much for being with us.
Can you tell us what you noticed the most when you go out and shoot these scenes? Is there any one thing that shows out to you about people being evicted or the sheriffs serving these notices?
JOHN MOORE, PHOTOJOURNALIST, GETTY IMAGES: It's interesting. There's so many thousands of people just on the verge of the abyss with this upcoming eviction crisis.
In Arizona, I was in Maricopa County with constables, and they were going house to house and evicting people from their homes.
Now, it's hard to describe really the level of chaos that is in people's lives, especially on the lower end of the economic spectrum here.
The COVID -19 pandemic really has brought people to the brink, and they don't know how to deal.
People who are naturally already in crisis because of their economic situation are in much more pain straits right now.
KEILAR: Can you describe the most difficult eviction or near eviction that you have witnessed so far? Can you tell us about it? Tell us what it was like to be watching that?
MOORE: I arrived with a constable to a house of a mother and several children. She was not home at the moment.
As they were knocking on the door, she drove up to the driveway, much to her horror, and the landlord was there as well. They had to advise her they were about to evict her from her home.
She was surprised. She had kids, who would -- you know, in the car with her. She had to go up and get their cats.
I can tell you, the constable actually really helped the woman try to collect her belongings and collect her pets.
It's easy to think that there might be victims and villains in this, but really I saw a lot of kindness on the part of constables whose job it was to evict them.
I know it sounds strange, but people are in a difficult situation all around.
KEILAR: John, we have covered some of these evictions and we have seen the same thing. You know, the sheriff's deputies doing it, and then the folks, even landlords have helping put people out, that they too are affected so emotionally by having to do this.
It's their job and they do it.
But one person we watched said it could be me tomorrow, my sister or my mother.
We're hearing, I think there's probably some strangeness in the fact we're hearing the village people playing behind you, quite a jovial scene there at the Trump campaign event.
But I wonder if this, the suffering the Americans, especially on the lower end of the spectrum, as you said, is that something that came up today at this event?
MOORE: Not really. You don't really hear a lot about that as a Trump campaign event.
You know, when I come to events like this, or there in Arizona with these families, you know, I see it as my role to show really what's happening.
Not what people read on Facebook, not what they see in a tweet, and not what they hear from a crazy uncle. I want to get out there and show what's really happening.
Although we were concentrating on this election right now, as well we should be, there are millions of Americans right now, who are on the brink of absolute desperation.
[14:45:07]
Without additional financial help from the federal government, whether it's in terms of loans or debt relief, at the end of this year, when the CDC moratorium expires, there would be an absolute tidal wave of evictions.
What I have done in the last few weeks is try to show the tip of that iceberg on what may come very soon.
KEILAR: John, you have done an amazing job. Looking at your pictures, they sort of cut to the bone, right? They just get you in the heart when you're watching them.
Thank you so much for talking about them with us.
MOORE: Thank you, Brianna.
KEILAR: As we talk about people suffering, just in, Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, saying today not to expect a new stimulus bill until at least 2021. So that leaves two months until that timeline. Both sides have been negotiating, still no deal. Next, we are live in three key ballots ground states as early voting
has surpassed the entire turnout in 2016 in some places.
You're watching CNN's live special coverage.
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[14:51:05]
KEILAR: The number of early voters in Texas has now surpassed the total turnout for the 2016 election. More than nine million people have cast ballots. That is about 53 percent of registered voters.
CNN is on the ground in all of the key battleground states. So let's start with North Carolina.
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DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dianne Gallagher in Raleigh. More than four million North Carolinians have cast a ballot. That's about 86 percent of the total number of people who voted in 2016.
You can see the long lines that are stretching outside of these early voting centers.
Today is the final full day of early voting. Tomorrow is the last day. It ends at 3:00 p.m.
However, the North Carolina Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit to try to get Rockingham County to extend its hours tomorrow and Sunday because it had to shut down one of its centers due to a COVID-19 exposure.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kyung Lah near Phoenix, Arizona, at a suburb called Tolleson. And we're seeing the convergence of the election and the pandemic.
Over here to my left is an early voting site. You see a trickle of people coming in and out throughout the day.
But if you swing over this way in the parking lot where I'm standing, you see this white tent over here? That is a COVID-19 testing site.
So in the same location where you early vote, you can also get tested for COVID.
Technically, today is the last day to early vote. But this site and about a hundred others are going to stay open for so-called emergency voting here in Maricopa County.
I want you to take a look at this video from the Elections Department where we were. And we watched as these blue ballot boxes were rolled onto trucks along with PPE.
All of them heading out to those 100 voting centers that will be rolled out on Saturday. In a plan that was approved last month in response to COVID, these voting centers will be open all weekend.
As far as the ballot count, there are now, according to the secretary of state, 2.36 million ballots have been cast here in Arizona. That is approximately 55 percent of the registered voters.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Drew Griffin in Tallahassee, the capital of the battleground state of Florida, where just yesterday 400,000 people did what these people are doing right now, voting. And 7.8 million Floridians have already cast their ballots.
Both candidates came to this state to make their final arguments yesterday. Jill Biden will be back this Sunday.
Eric Trump will be back also this weekend in what's turning into a dogfight to get out the last and final votes for the battleground state of Florida -- Brianna?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: Drew, thank you so much.
And thank you so much to all of our colleagues for those reports.
[14:53:58]
The final stretch of campaigning comes as the U.S. just recorded its highest daily total of new cases since the pandemic began. And despite the risk, people are turning out in record numbers to early vote. We are live on the trail, next.
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[14:58:42]
KEILAR: As the pandemic wears on, many families are struggling. "CNN Hero" Sheldon Smith has noticed it's been especially difficult for the young fathers in his program.
For the last decade, Smith has taught life skills to hundreds of young African-American men who want to be better dads. When many of them were laid off in this crisis, he mobilized to help them.
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SHELDON SMITH, CNN HERO: The message that I'm trying to spread is that black fathers are important.
When businesses were closing and doing layoffs, we wanted to just make sure that our fathers knew that we were there for them.
How many boxes of food do you need?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just like one box.
SHELDON: We'll give you two. The young men in our program have beautiful hearts. And they are
volunteering their time so they can be better fathers.
(CHANTING)
SHELDON: Right now, we're talking about the injustices in America that need to be changed.
We have to continue to believe and work together and not make it about when a death occurs that this is the time we need to stand up.
Right now, as a country, as a nation, we have an opportunity to change and show the world what we're really made of.
Once you invest, build and believe, you bring about a different solution.
All right. Thank you so much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: And to see the full story, go to CNNheroes.com.
[15:00:04]
Our special coverage continues now with Jake Tapper.
