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Harris Says, Yes, I Do Think Trump is a Fascist; 12 Days Out, How Early Voting is Shaping Presidential Race; Harris and Trump Rally Voters in Battleground State of Georgia. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 24, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Vice president Kamala Harris not holding back in her warnings about a second term in the White House for Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Yes, I do. Yes, I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Harris is delivering that stinging message as she hops back on the campaign trail today in battleground Georgia, joined by former President Barack Obama. The vice president is running out of time to put some distance between herself and the former president, as new polling suggests the race is deadlocked. She's now betting on a strategy that paints the former president as a fascist, following the damning criticism from former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who described Trump as a danger to the country.

Harris is set to deliver her closing message in a speech next week from The Ellipse near the White House, where Trump delivered his infamous January 6th speech in 2021.

Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

All right, let's get right to CNN's Eva McKend in Pennsylvania, where the critics and the party had hoped she would have a stronger performance at that CNN town hall last night. What's the campaign saying about her performance, Eva? What can you tell us?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, they are confident in the strength of the argument that the vice president is making, that the former president, in her view, is unfit and unhinged, and that he is exhibiting behavior that would indicate a second Trump presidency would bring extremes. But, listen, they are also talking about reproductive rights, the campaign up today with a brand new ad featuring the harrowing story of a Texas woman who suffered a medical emergency when she could not access adequate reproductive care. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her blanket.

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: First of all, I'm the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe in punishment for abortion?

TRUMP: There has to be some form of punishment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So, you hear in that ad, they are using the former president's own words against him, expecting them to continue to do as so. And also they are cutting digital ads featuring the story of that woman's husband to illustrate that reproductive rights is also a men's issue, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, you had to think that the message in the final stretch here for Kamala Harris was going to be on Dobbs and democracy, and that's where we are right now. I mean, there were a myriad of topics covered at that town hall last night here on CNN, including immigration. How did she navigate that issue?

MCKEND: Well, historically, the vice president and Democrats more broadly have cast suspicion on the effectiveness of a border wall, championing instead drone technology or mechanisms for comprehensive immigration reform that would allow people a dignified process to seek asylum in this country.

But here's what she said when pressed about the border wall last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Under Donald Trump, you criticized the wall more than 50 times. You called it stupid, useless, and a medieval vanity project. Is a border wall stupid?

HARRIS: Well, let's talk about Donald Trump in that border wall. So, remember Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it. Come on. They didn't. How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw is about 2 percent. And then when it came time for him to do a photo op, you know where he did it? In the part of the wall that President Obama built.

COOPER: But you would agree to a bill that would earmark $650 million to continue building that wall?

HARRIS: I pledge that I am going to bring forward that bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our border. Yes, I am. And I am going to work across the aisle to pass a comprehensive bill that deals with a broken immigration system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And, Jim, it is worth paying attention to the framing of this issue, because she was asked about immigration from Telemundo, essentially on the other side of this debate. Would she show compassion for immigrants? Does she still support temporary protected status and DACA? And she said she doesn't demonize immigrants like the former president.

And then, Jim, of course, we know that though the former president has called for mass deportation, he has not been pressed to explain his plan and how he would carry that out if elected.

[10:05:09]

Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Eva McKend, thank you very much. Let's bring in my panel to discuss CNN Senior Political Commentator Ana Navarro, Democratic Strategist Chuck Rocha, and former Spokesperson for Republican Governor Doug Burgum's presidential campaign, Lance Trover.

Ana, let me start with you. I'm sure you heard that there was some criticism of Kamala Harris' performance last night. Trump this morning is saying that it was her worst performance. Obviously, he's going to say things like that, but there was some criticism coming from inside the party. What did you think?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I will tell you one thing. Donald Trump was invited to be there, right? This was supposed to be a debate that CNN invited both candidates to. So, if Donald Trump wants to ask Kamala Harris any questions, he should show up instead of being the scaredy cat he is and running away from all sorts of interviews from CBS 60 Minutes to CNN.

He could go on and do a town hall himself with CNN and Anderson Cooper, but he doesn't have the guts to do it. So, until he has the guts and puts on his big boy pants and shows up to answer some questions from an outlet that's not Fox News or a friendly to him, he really has no standing in my book to criticize for Kamala Harris for anything, because she is showing up and she is answering the tough questions.

Are the answers always perfect? No. But she's showing up and she's showing the strength and the willingness to answer questions from the American public, which he is not.

ACOSTA: Yes, Lance, I mean, what do you think about that? Why didn't Donald Trump show up and do a debate with Kamala Harris? LANCE TROVER, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR GOP GOV. BURGUM'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Well, if I look at The Wall Street Journal poll that's out this morning, and it came in overnight, I'm not sure he needs to do a debate. I mean, the thing is she's been three weeks out into the public answering questions, and obviously the public doesn't like what they're hearing if you look at this poll.

But I looked at this town hall last night, and it seems to me her message to the public, her closing message is that Donald Trump's bad, so elect me. But if you look at that poll this morning, his approval rating as president is higher than hers was as vice president. She has a 54 percent disapproval rating as vice president. So, it seems to me that's a message that's not working with the voters.

So, if she wants to hang out here in Washington at the vice presidential residence and give talks about being a fascist, if she wants to give speeches on the mall with this message to thousands of adoring fans saying, oh, Donald Trump's bad, then she can go do that. But if you look at the consistent polling, that is not a message that's resonating with voters right now.

ACOSTA: Yes. Chuck, Lance just mentioned that Kamala Harris is going to be doing this speech down on the mall at The Ellipse where Donald Trump gave that infamous speech on January 6th. What do you think of that idea? A good idea?

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think it's a good idea because here at the end, and we've talked about this on the program, if you care deeply about a policy, if you care deeply about an issue, you've already made up your mind. Probably you've already early voted. The last bit of voters here need to see a comparison contrast on what she's betting his character It's who you trust and who you like.

Sure, to Lance's point, there's a lot of folks who think quote unquote that Donald Trump is tough and whatever thing he is would be in a bully and they think that maybe she's the only adult in the room. The contrast she's going to do on the mall is saying there's somebody that deserves the respect of that Oval Office and this hallowed ground here in Washington, D.C., and somebody else who's at McDonald's making fries and then talking about some old golfer's genitals. Who do you want in the White House? Somebody who acts like a president, or somebody who acts like a fool?

ACOSTA: And, Ana, I may be hearing cha-cha right now, so I better go to you. Lance referenced this new polling from The Wall Street Journal. It does show some negative views of Harris have increased. 53 percent of registered voters have an unfavorable view of her. That's up from 49 percent in August. Trump has become slightly more favorable in that time.

I mean, one of the questions I have is whether or not the polling is really going to reflect where the daily news cycle is and what's coming out of that daily news cycle. I mean, this poll does not reflect what John Kelly has been saying and so on. But your thoughts on where the race is shaping up? There's not a whole lot of time left. So, I was saying earlier for her to put some distance between herself and Donald Trump,

NAVARRO: Which is why I think this idea of her speaking at The Ellipse is a very good one because I think you need to make the point, she needs to make the point that this race is a binary choice. Your choice is between the guy who stood at The Ellipse and talked to tens of thousands of adoring fans, as Lance says, but talked to them about an insurrection, talked to them about not accepting the election results, motivated them to then go and charge the Bastille, right, to go and charge the Capitol and do the things that we saw them do.

And on the other side, the other binary choice, the other choice in this binary election is Kamala Harris, who will talk about preserving democracy, who will talk about the need of defending democracy and how frail it is, who will talk about the rule of law and that no president, no American, regardless of their position, is above it.

So, for me, this idea of her doing it at The Ellipse, which will get a lot of press, right, doing it at The Ellipse doesn't mean that it stays at The Ellipse. It's going to go all over the place. And I'm in Las Vegas right now. I'm in Nevada. I'm talking to voters. People are asking me about what John Kelly said. Some folks don't remember if his name is John Kelly or Jim Kelly or George Kelly, but they know what he said. They know he is a general, they know he served with Trump and they know he is ringing the alarm bells.

So I agree with you that some of these things that are happening now that people are actually paying attention to are not being reflected in the polls. And, you know, with ten days to go, Jim, I would -- you know, I would obsess less about the polls and I would be much more about getting folks out to vote.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, I mean, Chuck, Kamala Harris was asked how she would bring down the cost of groceries if elected. Let's listen to how she answered that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: The price of grocery is still too high and we need to address it in a number of ways. One of my aspects of doing what we need to do to bring down the cost of living for working people and the middle class in America is to address the issue of grocery prices. Part of my background and how I come to it is probably a new approach grounded in a lot of my experiences as a former attorney general, where I took on price gouging. And part of my plan is to create a new approach that is the first time that we will have a national ban on price gouging, which is companies taking advantage of the desperation and need of the American consumer and jacking up prices without any consequence or accountability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes. Chuck, how do you -- I want to ask Lance that too. Chuck, how do you think she answered that question?

ROCHA: I thought it was perfect. I think that when you go in and I've prep candidates for this, first, you have to acknowledge somebody's pain. Sure, it's been too high and it's coming down, but it's nowhere near it needs to be. Who's the villain? These corporate raiders who are making things higher than they need to be. We lived through COVID. Sure, things went up. They should have come back down. But because of these rich cats, they are trying to take advantage of workers. I understand your pain, which is a big part of this. And then talk about what your vision is for the future.

So, those things are exactly what you have to do with voters because you have to motivate them to what I said earlier. The group of folks who know that they're going to be with have already voted. You've got to have some motivation to get folks who normally don't vote to the polls.

ACOSTA: And, Lance, what do you think about that message of going after price gouging?

TROVER: I think the issue of high costs are what's driving this election and it's why Donald Trump's leading in the polls right now. But here's the problem that she continues to have with the voters on issues like this and the border is that she fails to acknowledge that she's been vice president for the last three and a half years when prices have soared over 20 percent.

It's the same issue with the border when she talked about that last night when she tried to again gaslight the American public into believing that she and Joe Biden had nothing to do with 12 million illegal immigrants coming into this country. And that is the central theme and the issue that keeps coming out of this and why she continues to struggle is because she cannot make the case to voters that she won't be a second Joe Biden administration.

ACOSTA: And, Ana, you said you're in Nevada, how is the vice president handling this immigration issue? And what are you hearing from voters, particularly Latino voters, on immigration when they hear things like Donald Trump saying they're going to be mass deportations, when he's talking about going back to a law from 1798, using a law from 1798 to round up undocumented people in this country? What are you, are you hearing from Latinos in places like Nevada saying that they have a problem with that?

NAVARRO: I'm going to be frank with you. No. You know, I've spoken to a lot of Latino voters all over the country and in the swing states. Very few of them bring up the immigration issue, but a lot of them do bring up Donald Trump's tone. A lot of them are very troubled by the way Donald Trump has spoken about the military, about veterans, about POWs. Remember that Latinos are the largest minority group across all of the military branches.

So, that's something that strikes very close to home. They want respect for their veterans and for people who served. And a lot of them are concerned about the way he has spoken about Latinos. They've heard about the way he talked about Vanessa Guillen allegedly and her funeral. And those are things that they believe because it's just one more time that Donald Trump has said horrible things about Latinos, whether immigrants poison the blood of America or Mexicans are criminals and rapists, or they are bad hombres or, you know, there's -- when we can spend the rest of the hour going through the things that Donald Trump has said at one point or another about immigrants. And that, I think, is beginning to come home and, again, it's part of that binary choice.

And, listen, you want to talk about grocery prices, you want to talk about grocery prices? And what would happen if there were massive deportations? What would be the price of an apple or the price of a bunch of grapes if all of a sudden Donald Trump did massive deportations of millions of people, immigrants work in all sorts of fields?

[10:15:10]

But one of the places they work is in the fields. So, if you want to lower the price of groceries, I would suggest to you that maybe deporting the people who are doing the back breaking work from sun up to sundown might not be the best tactic.

ACOSTA: All right. Chuck, Lance, Ana, thank you so much, guys. I appreciate it. There's cha-cha. I think that's our time to -- our cue to wrap there. All right, guys, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Coming up, the surprising early voting trend and four key battleground states. We'll talk about that in just a moment

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ACOSTA: 12 days until Election Day and more than 24.7 million Americans have already cast their ballots.

CNN's Harry Enten is monitoring all of this for us. Harry, what are you keeping your eye on and in the early voting numbers that are rolling in?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Wow, Jim, as you can tell from my title slide, my dear friend, early voting is down. I like to make it easy for you. That's what I like to do.

ACOSTA: That's good, yes.

ENTEN: And that's -- you know, we're -- because if we were in the same room, I'd keep it perhaps a little bit more complex. But because of the beauty of television, you're further away from me.

Look, the votes cast early at this point in 2024 versus 2020, states with more votes, well, it's pretty simple. It's zero. It's zero states with fewer votes, all of them, 38 states have fewer votes that are cast early, either early in-person or by mail. And you might say to yourself, well, wait a minute, Jim. What is going on? What is going on, if you were asking yourself that question.

Well, this is actually fairly predictable. Why? Because there was a pandemic in 2020, right? We were all staying inside. We weren't going out talking with each other person to person, which hopefully will do soon. And so there's no real credible baseline, right? The votes cast early by in-person or by mail, 69 percent of them were in 2020. If you look at the polling, what we're seeing in the real raw vote is reflective of it, right, because 53 percent in the polls say that they're going to vote either early or by mail. So, what we're seeing right now is reflective of it.

Now, here's the thing, Jim. One thing that I've been seeing a lot of, a lot of on social media is the fact that the GOP is making up a larger share of early voters versus 2020. This is based on party registration, right? We see it in key battleground states. Let's go through them, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, all in red here, all in red.

But, again, Jim, this ain't too surprising because it matches up with what we see in the poll. So, back in 2020, right, according to the Monmouth University poll, 66 percent of Democrats said that they would vote early in-person or by mail, just 36 percent of Republicans. Look at it now. 49 percent of Republicans say they'll either vote early by mail or early in-person compared to just 59 percent of Democrats.

So, the voting patterns are changing. We see that in the polling. We see it in the real results. The polls show a close race. Nothing in the early votes suggests otherwise, my dear friend. So, the bottom line is what we see in the early vote and mail vote is reflective in the polls and the poll show close race, and that's what's going to be, my dear friend.

ACOSTA: Yes, so we can't draw any conclusions as this means this person is winning or that person.

ENTEN: No. The only conclusion that you can make from this segment is that we make beautiful T.V. together.

ACOSTA: Well, I can't argue with that. Fact-check, true. All right, Harry Enten --

ENTEN: Daniel Dale says A plus.

ACOSTA: A plus, exactly. All right, thanks a lot, Harry. I really appreciate it.

New this morning, Elon Musk's Super PAC did not announce a winner Wednesday for its daily million dollar giveaway to registered voters in swing states. This comes after CNN reported that the Department of Justice sent a warning to Musk's group that the sweepstakes could be illegal. Federal law prohibits paying people to register to vote.

The pro-Trump Super PAC has announced a winner every day since Saturday, but so far has not announced its latest winner.

Still ahead, the path of the White House could run right through Georgia. The chair of the GOP party in that state joins me next.

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[10:25:00]

ACOSTA: With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, the presidential candidates are setting their sights on undecided voters in battleground states, especially Georgia. Kamala Harris will be in Atlanta later today, and Donald Trump campaigned in the state just yesterday. He spent his time slamming Democrats and praising early voting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The early voting is -- people have never seen anything like it. They've never seen anything like it, because the American people are fed up with the people that are leading us down a road to disaster.

You got to get out there and vote, but most importantly, just vote whichever way you want to do. I've been one that says, whichever way, just get out and vote. Be a little careful. Make sure your vote gets counted. There are ways of doing that too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, I'll speak to a Georgia Democratic congressman. But, first, joining me now is the chairman of Georgia's Republican Party, Josh McKoon. Josh thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

You have praised your party's takeover of the state election board. They've recently tried to enforce new controversial rules that would require county officials to conduct a, quote, reasonable inquiry into election results before certifying them. The state Supreme Court, as you know, has stopped that from happening, but there are still some in your party who claim the 2020 election was stolen, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Do you believe that to be the case? Was the 2020 election stolen?

JOSH MCKOON, CHAIRMAN, GEORGIA REPUBLICAN PARTY: Look, there were tremendous irregularities in the 2020 election. Joe Biden won paper absentee ballots that were put in drop boxes by 395,000, Jim. That's one of the reasons the legislature passed Senate bill 202 that made absentee voting in the state much more secure.

At this time, four years ago, we had 1.4 million paper absentee ballots had been requested as opposed to 300,000 in this election, which is pretty similar to what we saw in 2022. Again, record turnout, as your earlier guest noted, lots of people voting early, but a lot of fewer people voting that are absentee.

ACOSTA: But, Josh, I can't -- yes, I can't let you go on too long because you're saying there were voting irregularities.

[10:30:02]

The Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger said that the election in 2020 was fair and square and that Joe Biden won.