Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Harris, Trump Visit Wisconsin With 4 Days Until Election Day; Trump Uses Violent Rhetoric Against Liz Cheney; Lebanese PM: Israeli Strikes Signal Rejection Of Truce Efforts; U.S. Economy Adds Only 12,000 Jobs In October. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired November 01, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:37]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It's 7:00 p.m. in London, 2:00 p.m. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 3:00 p.m. here in Washington. I'm Jim Sciutto, thanks for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM.

And let's get right to the news.

Just four days left until Election Day here in the U.S. Given the stark differences between the two candidates, it is a vote that could have enormous consequences, both at home and abroad.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are spending time today in the blue wall state of Wisconsin, where polls show they remain neck and neck. The vice president arrived near Madison, Wisconsin, just a short time ago. There, she addressed Trump's shocking comments from yesterday that Republican Liz Cheney, a fierce critic of his, should have guns trained to her head.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He has increased his violent rhetoric, Donald Trump has about political opponents and in great detail -- in great detail, suggested rifles should be trained on former Representative Liz Cheney. This must be disqualifying. Anyone who wants to be president of the United States who uses that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly disqualified and unqualified to be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: We're going to look more at Trump's comments in just a few minutes. At the same time, back in Wisconsin, the Harris campaign and allies say if she ultimately does not win that swing state, it's coveted 10 electoral votes as well. It will not have been for a lack of trying. Wisconsin was the first state, she and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz campaigned in after the DNC convention. The candidates spent Thursday crisscrossing Arizona and Nevada, where early in-person voting ends in just a few hours. Georgia is another battleground state where early voting is wrapping up soon.

Let's go to national politics correspondent Eva McKend. Tell us what the focus is of Harris in these final days beyond the obvious part which is going to these swing states and try to get out the vote. What's her message going to be in the coming days?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, we're seeing the vice president do two things. She is both sort of waving her hands here and characterizing the former president as unfit and unhinged and saying to voters, look, he is increasingly distributing behavior that is disqualifying. That illustrates that he is unfit to return to the White House.

But in addition to this, she's also making an affirmative case for herself. She says that her number one priority would be to pursue an opportunity economy that brings down rising costs. She argues that she would do all that she could to restore reproductive rights and really be a unifying figure in this time that that the country needs one.

She was in Phoenix yesterday. We were with her on the road and these were events really targeted at Latino voters. And speaker after speaker, prior to her talked about how immigrants have been demonized. And you had the vice president get -- get up on stage and say how she would pursue a border enforcement bill, but there was no reason to put pit people against one another, arguing that the former president is doing as such.

So we see her doing multiple things on the campaign trail traveling to every battleground state in the final few days here, just continuing to press her case

SCIUTTO: Eva McKend, thanks so much. We'll continue to follow.

Well, Donald Trump has, we should note, previously hurled quite personal insults and some of them incendiary at one of his most prominent Republican critics, Liz Cheney. His latest rhetoric against the former congresswoman making headlines again, understandably so. Trump said to explain those comments that she's a war hawk. This when speaking last night with the former Fox News host and quite vocal Trump supporter Tucker Carlson

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.

[15:05:04]

You know, they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, gee, well, let's send -- let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Cheney herself responded by saying on X, formerly known as Twitter, quote, this is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death.

CNN's Steve Contorno covers the Trump campaign. He's now in Warren, Michigan, ahead of Trump's rally there.

I wonder, is the campaign viewing this as potentially damaging, right? I mean, they certainly saw -- saw the comments about the island of garbage, as it relates to Puerto Rico from that comedian at the Madison Square Garden rally is damaging. And they, you know they made some effort to try to clean it up. Do they see this one in a similar category?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Jim, far from distancing Donald Trump from those comments, he is instead doubling down on them. He just posted moments ago on truth social and a defense of what he had to say. I'll read it to you right now.

He said: All I'm saying about Liz Cheney is that she is a war hawk and a dumb one at that. But she wouldn't have the guts to fight herself. It's easy for her to talk sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand and let her go fight and she'll say, no thanks.

She went on -- or Donald Trump then went on to criticize her father, Dick Cheney, over his Middle East policy. And as you said, Jim, this is far from the first time that he has posted suggestive threats toward Liz Cheney. He reposted a Truth Social a post that called for called her guilty of treason and called for her to face military tribunals and other posts, said that she should be going to jail.

So even though they have defended this rhetoric yesterday and said it was not meant to be violent toward her, he has suggested that she should be facing military tribunals in the past.

Now, all this taking place as Donald Trump enters the final stretch of his campaign. I'm in Michigan today where hell be speaking in just a couple hours. And then from there he goes to Wisconsin, two critical battlegrounds and two of those blue wall states that Michigan and Wisconsin are that that Vice President Harris is really relying on in this closing stretch.

Donald Trump appears to have fallen behind Vice President Harris, at least according to our latest CNN polling. She has a slight edge entering the final days of the race here. So Donald Trump has his work cut out for him. We know he's going to be in Michigan today. He's also planning to make Michigan one of his final stop, just saying how critical this state is to his campaign and how much focus they are putting on here.

SCIUTTO: Steve Contorno, thanks so much. We should note that as Trump criticizes Liz Cheney for not serving, he, of course, avoided military service in Vietnam, claiming bone spurs.

Let's take a closer look now at the state of the race with our political experts. Eli Stokols is a White House correspondent for "Politico", coauthor of "West Wing Playbook", and Ron Brownstein, senior political analyst, senior editor with "The Atlantic". Good to have you both on.

Listen, Ron, I mean, you've covered a lot of campaigns. You've certainly covered this campaign and you've covered your share of offensive comments by Trump.

Place this one here, taking aim quite literally at Liz Cheney in the pantheon of Trump comments. Trump incendiary comments, and Trump comments that could be interpreted by some as -- well, violent.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, I mean, not only violent, but, of course, called her dumb, you know? I mean, I think we need a list of all the women that Trump has publicly called dumb, dumb as a rock, low IQ individual. I mean, I said yesterday on X that you would, you know, you would need more than 280 characters. You'd have to have that kind of elongated special status because it's a long list.

Look, a smart person said to me a year ago when Biden was still in the race, that in many ways, the key question in a race against Trump again would be, what is the question in the final days of the campaign? Obviously, Republicans wanted the question to be are you better off than you were four years ago? Because most Americans, despite all the other accomplishments on the economy, the job market, the stock market, the investments in new manufacturing will say no because of inflation.

But that is not what we are discussing in the final days. I mean, just think about the last week, racist rally at Madison Square Garden, island of garbage. I will protect women, whether they like it or not. The speaker of the House saying they will try to repeal the Affordable Care Act if they have unified control. RFK will be given control over health and women's health, and now this language about Liz Cheney.

[15:10:06]

It might not be enough for Harris in the state of Pennsylvania, above all, that she has to win. But certainly this is not the dialogue -- this is not what the Trump campaign wanted people to be thinking about and talking about in the final days of the campaign.

SCIUTTO: Eli, I mean the particular attention was on the island of garbage comment to the Trump rally there is reporting that the Harris campaign is seeing data that that comment is moving late deciders particularly among Latino voters. Listen, I always take with a grain of salt what campaigns say in the final days of an election campaign but based on your reporting, have you seen credible data or have the campaigns discuss credible data that that comment in particular is moving voters?

ELI STOKOLS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Well, I've talked to people who I find credible as sources who are close to the Harris campaign or close to super PAC supporting that campaign, and they have said the evidence they're talking about is sort of anecdotal focus group things, but recognition that that comment really did register with specific blocs of voters, especially Latino voters in central Pennsylvania. We've talked to, you know, Latino leaders there, radio hosts, elected officials, people who have said, look, I'm hearing this from everybody. Everybody's talking about this, this is a big thing.

We know that a lot of prominent Latino influencers, musicians, actors and actresses, people with hundreds of millions of social media followers combined have reacted to this online so that does seem to be breaking through.

Ron is right that, you know, the final conversation, the final news cycles have been dominated by sort of adlibs and asides that deviate from Trump's actual campaign message. His campaigns paid media. It is on TV and on digital in all of these battlegrounds. And that is delivering the "are you better off than you were four years ago" message.

But Trump continues to kind of step on it all over the place every day. Every time he's on stage, there's another comment that is driving news cycles and definitely the thing about Puerto Rico, that Madison Square Garden rally, that broke through with Latino voters, from what we're hearing, whether it really moves a lot of whether there are enough votes to be moved, were going to find out.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. And listen, by the way, whether Trump's paid media is sticking to the message or not, certainly the Harris campaign has clipped those comments to attempt to gain advantage from them.

Ron, your latest piece on the election says that Harris's path to winning this cycle depends more on the strength among white voters than previous Democratic candidates. Tell us why. And is that a viable path for her?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. And there are big implications to that, Jim. I mean, the big implication of that is that she may be capable of winning with a smaller margin in the national popular vote than both parties have assumed Democrats need to do so. I mean, Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by two points and lost. Biden won it by four and a half and barely won.

So the assumption became that Democrats have to win the popular vote by a lot to get over the top. The 270, in the Electoral College, but you know, if you look at the polling this year, I mean, there is a very consistent pattern, which is that Harris is largely holding Biden's winning 2020 share among white voters. She might be down a tick or two among whites without a college degree, up a little bit among whites with a college degree. The net is that she's pretty much in the same place, both nationally and in the key states, sometimes ahead of where Biden was in 2020.

The decline she's suffering that's allowed Trump to come closer in the national popular vote is primarily among voters of color, especially Latino men. Now, that does complicate her path in the southwest, in Arizona and Nevada. And if she has any decline among Black men, that complicates her path in North Carolina and Georgia.

But Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, 80 percent of the voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania are white, 90 percent of the voters in Wisconsin are white. If she holds the white support that Biden got in 2020, which was importantly, several points above what Clinton got in 2016, even if she wins the national popular vote by only about the same margin as Clinton did, she would be better positioned than Clinton to bring those three states. You know, the states that fell out of what I once called the blue wall, and she would be better positioned to hold them and get to 270, even with a smaller margin in the popular vote than I think both parties have assumed Democrats can win with.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, yeah, we've said this before maybe we should call it the blue sliding door these days, given that you know, shown some ability to move back and forth.

BROWNSTEIN: Right, those three.

SCIUTTO: The -- you're looking at live pictures there of Donald Trump in Dearborn, Michigan. There are, Eli, as you know, quite public battles over what the early voting data shows and what it means. You have many on the right claiming it shows a clear Republican advantage, and those on the left saying the opposite.

[15:15:11]

Now, "The Washington Post" had its own analysis that noted the number of women turning out early may be a positive sign for Democrats. I wonder, Eli, as you've looked into this, does that make sense to you?

STOKOLS: Sure. It makes sense that women would be more animated and more eager to vote than men for the simple fact that we have seen that in every election since the Dobbs ruling was handed down, we've seen Democrats outperform expectations in pretty much every election and we've seen that driven by women voters, including Republican women, who have been galvanized by the ballot questions around reproductive rights in some states and just by the broader issue in state and national elections in the midterms, for sure, we saw that.

And so, yeah, I think that the Democrats are obviously looking at that, and that makes them feel a lot better to see not -- you know, they know there's going to be a large gender gap in this election. If Harris is doing, say, ten points or better with women -- if women are making up 55 percent of the early vote, that puts Democrats at ease.

I've also heard from the, you know, the Harris campaign did a call with reporters. They've been doing this the last few days where senior staff is talking a little bit about how they're seeing the early vote numbers, what they're seeing. And the thing that's giving them the most confidence is that in terms of their own research, they believe they are winning the late deciding votes by more than double digits.

And so, if there's -- if this race is really on a razors edge, you know, if its all sort of going her way at the end among those small -- that small number of voters making up their minds at the end, they feel that they would rather be in that position than not. That's for sure.

SCIUTTO: Ron, just quickly, because we don't have much time. Do you have a similar read of that data?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think that the really important point is that women have cast more votes in every presidential election since 1980. Women are a majority of eligible voters and actual voters in 2020 in every one of the seven swing states. And what that means, Jim, is that in all likelihood that to win, Donald Trump has to win men by at least a little more than Kamala Harris wins women.

And with all -- everything else swirling around, all the other demographic and geographic considerations that we've all been chewing over, that is a very simple yardstick for people to kind of measure where this is going.

SCIUTTO: No question. Eli Stokols, Ron Brownstein, next time we talk, we might know the result of all this, kind of interesting to think about that. It's only a few days away. Look forward to welcoming you back.

Still to come this hour, fierce new strikes on Lebanon and Gaza by Israel as ceasefire efforts stall. How the timing of the U.S. election could play a role in Israel's calculations.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:20:57]

SCIUTTO: Lebanon's prime minister says Israel's expanded strikes on his nation signal its rejection of efforts to broker a ceasefire there. These are new pictures from the southern port city of Tyre, after an Israeli strike today, quite a large one. Hours earlier, Israel bombed Hezbollah targets in southern Beirut for the first time in days.

Lebanon's state news agency is reporting, quote, massive destruction there. Dozens of buildings leveled. Apocalyptic conditions as well in northern Gaza as described there. New warning for more than a dozen U.N. agencies saying the entire population of Gaza is at imminent risk of death from disease, famine and violence.

Israel has intensified a weeks long assault on Gaza, saying it is trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping. The trouble is, those strikes have killed many women and children. Israel is also escalating attacks on central Gaza. Palestinian medics say at least 64 people were killed in new Israeli strikes overnight and into Friday. The civilian toll continues to rise.

CNN's Matthew Chance is in Jerusalem.

And, Matthew, more in a moment on Gaza. But you have some new reporting about the possible Iranian retaliation for the Israeli strikes we saw overnight leading into last weekend. What do you know?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, its not entirely clear to the Israeli military sources that I've been speaking to that Iran will definitely strike back. Israeli sources tell me that they're still sort of reading the decision making process in Tehran to determine if and when a strike is forthcoming.

But if it is, then it may come from one of Iran's proxies in the region. And a former Israeli intelligence official that I spoke to earlier today has said that that could be or is a high possibility. I think is what she said, of being a militia group inside Iraq. There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, it means that Iran, which has been damaged by the recent strikes, will be able to say it wasn't directly responsible for any kind of strike or retaliation strike on Israel.

But secondly, and more importantly, these militia groups are geographically close to Iran. They can be armed easily with the kind of missiles and weaponry necessary for a strike on Iran, you know, and they haven't been degraded yet crucially, unlike other Iranian proxies in the region, particularly Hezbollah, which, in the words of this former official, is now fighting for its existence.

This, of course, as CNN reported, that, you know, you know, the rhetoric in Iran has changed significantly since we were here reporting on this story last weekend when Iran was playing down the possibility of a retaliation strike. And now, that rhetoric has really hardened and Iran telling CNN that a retaliation strike could be forthcoming -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Of course, always hard to hard to gauge as you get closer.

Now about Gaza, because the World Health Organization has been forced to suspend a polio vaccination campaign a week ago due to ongoing security concerns as Israel continues its war there. Now were hearing possible efforts to resume that campaign?

CHANCE: Yeah, well, we understand now, according to the Israeli military and the United Nations, that that effort will resume tomorrow which is good news, because polio resurfaced as a disease in the Gaza Strip in September when a baby was paralyzed with the disease. It's the first case of polio in the Gaza Strip for 25 years. And that sort of says a lot about the appalling humanitarian and medical situation on the ground there.

So the go ahead has been given to restart the vaccination program, which is, of course, focusing on children but the U.N. say that the pause that's been being made is much shorter than was agreed. A pause in the, you know, in the -- in the attacks -- in the -- in the conflict that the Israelis are allowing for this vaccination program to take place. It's much shorter than they wanted for -- wanted it for the geographical area has been reduced as well.

So, it's now just Gaza City. And so, the idea that tens of thousands of people are going to be vaccinated in this session has now been sort of revised quite, quite dramatically, but still, it is at least some tiny amount of progress.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. I mean but, of course, in the midst of just the idea that such a disease is resurfacing, there is a sad indicator.

Matthew Chance in Jerusalem, thanks so much.

Back to election security here in the U.S. The U.S. intelligence community says that Russia is behind recent election disinformation videos, fake ones, including one from Georgia, which falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia. Georgia's secretary of state, in addition to the FBI and the office of the director of national intelligence, has also said those videos are false.

Jennifer Hansler is live at the State Department.

I wonder, as we look at this, how is the intelligence community assessed? It is Russia specifically behind these fakes because there's so much disinformation swirling out there.

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTER: Well, that's right, Jim, the intelligence community is sounding the alarm about this particular video that is going viral in Georgia as well as the overall Russian influence campaign that we have seen become Russians have repeatedly sought to sow distrust in our election system and to divide Americans.

I want to read you directly from their statement here. They said it was based on information available to the intelligence community, as well as prior activities of other Russian influence actors, which included videos and other disinformation activities.

Now it is notable in this case, Jim, with this particular viral video that these actors were seizing on this anti-immigrant, anti-Haitian immigrant sentiment that we saw earlier in the election campaign. And they are also targeting here a U.S. swing state.

Now, the intelligence community is warning that this is not going to be the last. They are expecting in the days leading up to Election Day, that is just a few days away, as well as in the weeks and months following Election Day. They expect Russia to create more fake videos to try to further sow distrust here in our election process, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And the trouble is, you have U.S. actors that are all too willing to share those videos, share those fake allegations of fraud to pursue their own narratives.

Jen Hansler, thanks so much.

So with the election just four days away, some of Donald Trump's backers are already talking about what they'll do if he loses. We're going to have the details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:31:01]

SCIUTTO: The final jobs report before Election Day is in a report card murky. Just 12,000 new jobs created in October, far fewer than expected. We should note the headline does not tell the whole story about the health of the U.S. economy, because that number is a reflection of temporary shocks due to extreme weather events and labor strikes.

Who knows better than CNN business editor at large, Richard Quest.

So, take us beyond the headline number here as you always do, Richard, and tell us what these numbers really mean.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Thank you.

I think when you look at these numbers, I was very interested in what you were just saying there because the number itself is weak. There's no getting away from it, Jim. The number is weak. It's weaker than what's expected, and it's weaker than probably desirable but its not as bad as it looks.

This is a classic on the one hand. On the other hand, because you've got the Boeing strike, you had poor weather and you had certain job of the number of new jobs. And that's why you end up with 12,000.

Most important, from the Democrats point of view, the unemployment the unemployment number, the headline, if you will, stayed steady at just over 4 percent. So in that particular report, both sides can take something and both sides can use the results to bash the other.

SCIUTTO: Which they always do and would do no matter what you or I said about them or what they indicated, probably in the current state of politics. But point taken.

So put it put it into the larger picture. Given the strong job reports we've had in previous months, the GDP numbers we've seen, where the stock market is, where does the economy stand and inflation numbers, I should note coming down

QUEST: Right, very good point. I think because that that jobs number is much weaker than had been expected by quite a large measure, a quarter point cut in interest rates is baked into the Feds meeting just after the election next week. You can pretty much take it to the bank. I think now that the fed will want to guarantee that job creation does continue because remember, we're seeing a lagging indicator. Job numbers are the last to respond to, if you will, the cuts in interest rates. They were also the slowest to respond to the rise in interest rates.

As a result, the fed will want to take out more insurance next week. But by then, of course, for say, where I come from, it will be too late. This is the number you're going with into the election. This is the stock market you're going into and the GDP number, which was much better than everybody had expected. That, of course, is grist for the mill as well.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, we'll watch the trends as always.

Richard Quest, thanks so much.

Of course, you could watch, Richard --

QUEST: Thank you. SCIUTTO: -- and "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" right here on CNN, coming up in

a moment, top of the hour.

So some of Trump's supporters are already pushing false claims of voter fraud, promoting lies once again about a rigged election frankly, its part of a pattern with Trump. He did in 2016 and 2020 as well.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has more now on the multi-front plan they have to contest the election.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like how much theft can they get away with in order to prevent Trump from winning?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Do you think he's going to win?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we have a fair election, yes.

O'SULLIVAN: There's no way he can lose fairly?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fairly, there's no way.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): MAGA world is preparing its followers for a stolen election.

GREG STENSTROM, AUTHOR: They're just going to announce Harris as the winner. They're going to go, we win again. And not try to stop us again. And what's stood for this time is we're going to be able to stop them.

MARK BURNS, PASTOR: Is there anybody here in North Carolina ready to take this nation back by any means necessary, say, yes, yes, yes.

[15:35:04]

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): They're laying out step-by-step plans to overturn a potential Harris victory. These are not random Trump supporters. These are influential figures in the MAGA movement.

IVAN RAIKLIN, MAGA ACTIVIST: It's all going to depend on what they end up doing and a plan and strategy for every single component of it. And then January 6th is going to be pretty fun.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Many of them, like Ivan Raiklin and Michael Flynn, have huge audiences online and are involved in election-denying groups that have spent millions of dollars furthering election conspiracy theories.

MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: And we should know by Tuesday night by about 9:00 or 10:00 at night that one party won.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Election officials across the country have explained that we likely won't know the full results on election night. To conspiracy theorists, however, that is a sign of fraud.

FLYNN: In this case, I strongly believe that Donald Trump, if this thing is a fair election, he'll win all 50 states.

RAIKLIN: Now, if it's legit, we don't have to worry, right? But who thinks it's going to be legit? You think they're just going to give it to you? No, this is going to be a fight.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Raiklin has encouraged people to pressure their state representatives not to certify election results if they suspect fraud.

RAIKLIN: We try to play it fair. They steal it. Our state legislatures are our final stop to guarantee a checkmate.

Be prepared on January 1st to apply the maximum motivation to your state reps, state senators.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In North Carolina, he and another right-wing activist are going as far to say there should be no election because of the destruction after Hurricane Helene. They say the Republican- controlled state legislature should decide which presidential candidates get their Electoral College votes.

NOEL FRITSCH, NATIONAL FILE: We don't have to do this popular vote in the state stuff for this federal election. We don't have to do it.

RAIKLIN: You got 120 House reps. How many of those are Republican? The majority.

How about a significant majority? So then how is the House body going to likely vote with your motivation for the Republican nominee? What about the Senate? Majority.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The idea is fringe and it is extreme, but a Republican congressman endorsed the idea at an event with Raiklin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it's heck him up. You've got this enfranchised in 25 counties. You know what that vote probably would have been, which -- which should be, if I were in the legislature, not to go, yes, we'd have to be in the legislature. We can't --

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Before eventually walking it back.

The idea that the only way Harris can win is if the election is stolen is being pushed across hundreds of MAGA media outlets and from the former president himself.

TRUMP: Because they cheat. That's the only way we're going to lose, because they cheat.

O'SULLIVAN: And it's convincing his base.

What if the results show that Harris won? Do you think Trump will accept that? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think anybody will accept that because we know it's going to be a lie. But -- but -- but if that's what it is, it's what it is. We'll -- we'll go from there. We'll see what happens.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So I just don't think that Trump's going to lose.

O'SULLIVAN: You think he won last time?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, definitely.

O'SULLIVAN: What happens if he loses?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If he loses, we're all going down January 6th.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Listen to what they say.

Our thanks to Donie O'Sullivan for that story.

And we'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Just four days now to a big U.S. election with enormous potential consequences here in this country and around the world, in fact, is many millions of voters have already voted via early voting.

For more just on where this race stands, but also the effort to undermine the election if Trump loses, let's bring in Larry Sabato. He's the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

Larry, always good to have you on.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA'S CENTER FOR POLITICS: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So it's my last chance to speak to you on the air before the election. So I'm going to take advantage of that by asking you where you, a wise man in politics, believes the election stands.

SABATO: Well, first, it's clearly down to Harris and Trump, in case you were thinking, maybe somebody else.

SCIUTTO: Good, that's helpful. That's helpful.

SABATO: And I know, I know, it's right, I know. And I can also point out all the toss ups to you. Of course, when you call things toss ups, you don't ever have to call them.

But look, Jim, we all know it's extremely close. We all know the polls can't tell us much more, at the last bit of a campaign, I go to the political people who have been around like I have forever and you do get a sixth sense about campaigns. Occasionally, you're wrong, even then.

But what -- what I've learned the last couple of days is that there is a small drift -- drift to Kamala Harris. Maybe part of it was generated beginning with the ridiculous rally with all the insults to Puerto Ricans and several other ethnic groups on Sunday, interrupted, of course, by President Biden's gaffe machine mistake.

But basically, it's still -- people were turned off to that. I think the attack on Liz Cheney is probably reinforcing that, because at the end, people say, can I put up with this person for four years in my home, in my living room every single day? Can I do that?

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SABATO: And that's when people occasionally will switch or also is like a half a vote for the other candidate.

SCIUTTO: There is a read that I've heard from some of the campaigns that Democrats are particularly confident about the blue wall that they feel that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. And when I say good, it's all relatively good. No one is putting anything in the bank. And less so about the Sunbelt states, quite a general statement.

Do you find that a credible read of where things stand?

SABATO: That's a generalization that ill subscribe to, Jim, because the political people that I've talked to in -- certainly in Arizona and Georgia tell me they think even though it will be very, very close in the end, they think it will go to Trump.

Now, Nevada, which went Democratic, the last time that may switch to Trump. There seems to be a drift to him there.

The one that interests me, though, is North Carolina. I would watch that. I'm suspicious of it because Hillary was supposed to win it in 2016 and Trump won it. And then Biden was well ahead in the polling averages in North Carolina, and he lost it to Trump.

But there's a little giveaway that I don't think many people have noticed. The Trump campaign has Trump in North Carolina four times between now and the Tuesday election. You don't do that at the end with your candidate unless you're nervous about the way things are going.

[15:45:05]

And we know that the hurricane had displaced a lot of people in the Republican western part of North Carolina, and we know that the gubernatorial nominee for the Republicans in North Carolina has been a disaster and is going to lose by probably ten points, and that hurts Trump. It hurts any Republican on the ballot.

SCIUTTO: So lets then talk about what happens after election day night perhaps after this race is called. Do you believe -- listen, we know Trump's going to challenge the results if he loses. He's saying it outright, right? He's laying the groundwork both in courts, but also in the public disinformation sphere, to do just that.

Are the people in agencies who are monitoring the election particularly in battleground states, are they trustworthy, right? To deliver a -- to deliver the reality like deliver the real result? I mean, look at a place like Georgia run by Republicans. But in 2020, they held the line. And you see them, for instance, with these fake Haitian videos, right? Saying, no, this ain't real, that kind of thing.

Can voters feel confident that the monitors will be true to their duty?

SABATO: Well, not every one of them. I certainly wouldn't vouch for every one. But I'll tell you why I have special confidence in Georgia. Governor Brian Kemp, conservative Republican, endorsing Trump, voting for him despite Trump's insults to him and his wife, and the secretary of state there who runs the elections, Brad Raffensperger, who proved four years ago that he's a man of integrity. His new book, "Integrity Counts", I think says it all.

They are at the top and it still matters what the people at the top think and do. And I have confidence that both of them will make sure this is honest.

SCIUTTO: So you talked about a tell in North Carolina the number of times that Trump is visiting that state might indicate some nervousness there.

Could it also be a tell how much Trump and allies are amplifying the fraud claims now to be clear, they were doing it already and have done it in past cycles in 2016 and 2020. So it comes from a well-worn playbook. But given your experience, would you read the further amping up of these claims as a sign that they're worried, hey, this may not go our way?

SABATO: That's half of it. The other half is they want to make sure that the MAGA crowd, the Make America Great Again base of Trump is as excited and enthusiastic and, pardon me, angry as possible going in.

Look, that media on the right and one of your reporters did a wonderful segment on it, they are so far to the right they listen only to that particular channel, network, blogs, whatever they're looking at, and all of them say the same thing. Trump isn't just winning, he's winning overwhelmingly.

It's one of the reasons Trump is going to Virginia, my state, on Saturday, which he is not going to win and just came out of New Mexico, which he is not going to win, because it sends the image to his people that he's doing great and he's going to carry states that the big bad mainstream media doesn't even get.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. Well, same reason you might argue. He went to Madison Square Garden in New York, right? Another state he's not going to win.

So, final question is a big picture one, and, you know, we don't know. But the system held in 2020 under great stresses it did at the state level and at the national level. A president -- a sitting president attempting to overturn an election, will the system hold this time?

SABATO: Yes. I'm optimistic for once and I haven't always been, I'm optimistic because the people in charge and the places that matter by and large, are determined to make this work because there's no alternative. It's the end of our system if it doesn't work.

So when you're pressed up against the wall as everybody is, you generally come through.

SCIUTTO: Our better angels, as Lincoln would have said.

Larry Sabato, I'll talk to you after the election. We'll see how it all turned out.

SABATO: Thank you. Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, two U.S. presidential candidates, two vastly different takes on a whole bunch of things including climate change. How the climate crisis could be dealt with or not, depending on who voters elect on Tuesday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:52:07]

SCIUTTO: When it comes to climate change, the two people running for U.S. president have vastly different takes on the issue. One of them, frankly, has denied it.

As our chief climate correspondent Bill Weir puts it, one candidate plans to build on the clean energy growth of the current administration. The other calls the human-caused climate crisis a hoax.

So let's go to someone who knows this issue pretty darn well. Bill Weir joins us now from New York.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Bill, I've thought about this as well. I'm glad you wrote about it and in your piece on CNN.com, you said looking back through time, it's hard to imagine a more severe or consequential gap between candidates on a single issue.

Just in short form, describe what a Harris climate policy would look like and what a Trump climate policy or lack of one might look like.

WEIR: Well, yeah, I mean, looking back through history, you can imagine, Jim, if Lincoln had lost in 1864 or if FDR or Reagan had ignored their generals, the American experiment might have ended, but it wouldn't have affected the health, wealth and happiness of 8 billion people. And you know, the fate of about a million plants and animals on the brink of extinction right now.

There's nothing more stark than this, really, one who says they want to do an all of the government approach. The Biden-Harris administration, which we've seen. And on the other side, a man who proved himself really to be a climate denier in chief, just -- here's some old and new sound bites blended together to refresh the Donald Trump take on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: These people, I don't know if they're for real, but if they're not, they're covered by the words climate change. If it gets cooler, that's good. If it gets hotter, that's good.

We have countries that have tremendous nuclear power. And when I hear these people talking about global warming, that's the global warming you have to worry about. Not that the ocean is going to rise in 400 years and eighth of an inch. And you'll have more sea front property, right? If that happens, I said, is that good or bad? I said, isn't that a good thing?

LNG is being sought after all over Europe and all over the world, and we have more of it than anybody else. And I'm not going to lose that wealth. I\m not going to lose it on dreams, on windmills.

It'll start getting cooler.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish --

TRUMP: You just -- you just watch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish science agreed with you.

TRUMP: Well, I don't think science knows, actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: There's about 140 authors of the Project 2025 agenda that we've been talking about which wants to dismantle all of the climate projects. And a few of them actually told CNN, Jim, that now that they know where the light switches are, now, they know how the system works they can act with much more speed and try to permanently roll back the inflation reduction incentives, pull this country out of the Paris climate accords, et cetera, et cetera.

SCIUTTO: So Republicans, they've long argued climate has that argument at all changed, though, as the private sector, not just in this country but around the world, has embraced the transition to renewable fuels in part because its good business, right?

[15:55:10]

I mean, look at even super red Texas. It produces a third of its energy via renewable resources today.

WEIR: That's right. Buddy Carter, a MAGA congressman from Georgia, is a huge fan of electric vehicles because he happens to have the biggest battery plant under construction in his district, 75 percent of inflation reduction money going into red districts. Al Gore told me he thinks that's one of the smarter things they did as well. We have some video to show you of already some of these projects

making ground. In Minnesota, Sherco, the giant coal fired power plant, being replaced with solar gradually so they don't have to lay off workers. And the last fire will go out in 2030 there as well.

But its not just there, it's blue to red states like you said. And so it'll be hard to pull a claw a lot of this back from places where ground has broken but that's cold comfort to the billions -- or million species on the brink of extinction. The 1.3 billion climate migrants that are expected by mid-century if things continue to break, you know, entire ecosystems derailing in record time, right now.

And so it's a hard contrast, Jim, the planet is really on the ballot this year.

SCIUTTO: No question. I mean, for Trump to say an eighth of an inch in 400 years is just not true.

Bill -- Bill Weir, thanks so much.

WEIR: You bet.

SCIUTTO: And thanks so much to all of you for joining me today. Hope you have a great weekend. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.