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Fight for Final Votes with Three Days Left in 2024 Presidential Race; Trump Doubles Down on Cheney Attacks; Floods Claim 205 in Spain's Deadliest Disaster in Decades; U.N.: Situation in Northern Gaza is "Apocalyptic"; Celeb Endorsements in U.S. Election. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired November 02, 2024 - 03:00   ET

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

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ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and welcome to all our viewers watching around the world. I'm Anna Coren, live from Hong Kong.

Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, the final stretch; Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both campaign in the battleground state of Wisconsin with only three days until the election.

Rescue operations underway in Spain as the death toll from massive flooding rises, we go to one of the worst hit areas for the latest.

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CARDI B, RAPPER: Are we ready to make history?

COREN (voice-over): And bring on the star power.

We look at how much how much impact celebrity endorsements are having in this year's U.S. presidential election.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Hong Kong, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Anna Coren.

COREN: It's a sprint to the finish line for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump with only three days left in the U.S. presidential campaign. And, yes, the race is still tight. In the coming day, Trump is set to stop in North Carolina and Virginia, while Harris is expected to hit North Carolina and Georgia.

On Friday, Wisconsin was the center of attention, with both candidates holding dueling rallies. There

Well, polling shows, as it has for weeks now, no clear leader in the battleground state. According to CNN's Poll of Polls for Wisconsin, Harris is holding on to a slim 3-point lead over Trump with likely voters.

Well, the U.S. vice president is calling on more star power to boost her support in these final days of the campaign. She held a rally in Milwaukee, where a slew of celebrities, including rapper Cardi B, stumped for the Democratic nominee. Earlier in the day. Harris drew a contrast with her rival's zero tolerance for his critics.

Harris said she would seek common ground and common sense solutions. And she said she would listen.

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KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I pledge to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make.

I will listen to experts. I will listen to the people who disagree with me because, you see, unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at the table. That's what a democracy is about. That's what leaders do

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COREN: Well, Donald Trump is defending his controversial comments about former congresswoman Liz Cheney, the Republican, who's now one of his strongest critics and is supporting Harris. Well, here's what he said in Arizona on Thursday night.

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DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her OK. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.

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COREN: Trump campaign is pushing back, saying he was, quote, "clearly explaining that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them rather than go into combat themselves."

Liz Cheney reacted on X, writing, quote, "This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death."

With the election only days away, Trump is doubling down on his contempt for the former congresswoman. Here is CNN's Kristen Holmes with more.

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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Former president Donald Trump spending Friday in two critical battleground states, Michigan and Wisconsin, as his team seeks to drive out any single vote they can.

Now in between his attempts to try and stick to his closing message, which they believe the campaign should be focused on the economy, immigration, crime, he spent a lot of the day trying to clarify those comments that he made about Liz Cheney the night before in Nevada.

First, he posted on Truth Social. Then during multiple stops throughout the day, he brought up those comments or they were -- he was asked about those comments. And here's what he said.

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TRUMP: I think that Liz Cheney is a disaster. All she wants to do is blow people up. She's a war hawk and a dumb one at that. And if you ever put her into the field of battle, she'd be the first one to chicken out. She wouldn't fight.

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HOLMES: Now it's rare to hear Donald Trump trying to clarify anything that he says. Generally, if he says something and there's an enormous amount of backlash, he allows his campaign or his surrogates to try and clean it up.

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But there is clearly something about these remarks, particularly so close to the election, that either he or his campaign thought it was important for him to continue to try and clarify what exactly he was saying during that rally in Nevada.

Now at his last stop in Milwaukee, very clearly, this was his second time in the state in just a week. They were trying to come here to try to drive out early voters to take some of the pressure off of that November 5th Election Day of, get those votes out.

Both sides that I have spoken to have said there's a little bit of a lack of transparency in the state, particularly of Wisconsin, where they're not sure what's going to happen. It was so close the last time around.

They are both working as fast as they can and as hard as they can to try and drive out voters, because, as we have repeatedly reported, this election is going to be determined in the margins and they need every single vote they can get -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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COREN: The death toll from the devastating flash floods in southeastern Spain has surpassed 200 people and authorities warned that number, tragically, is likely to rise.

Meanwhile, rescue operations are ongoing. Spanish armed forces have already rescued more than 4,000 people, according to one official. But authorities say collapsed roads are impeding search and rescue efforts and train tracks in the area are so badly damaged that service is not likely to resume for weeks.

That's according to Spain's rail authority. Let's now go live to Atika Shubert, who's in hard hit Valencia at a volunteer collection point.

Atika, explain to us what's happening around you.

ATIKA SHUBERT, JOURNALIST: Well, thousands of people have turned out to try and help with the cleanup effort, so much so it's incredible outpouring of community.

But there's simply not enough buses to get people to the affected areas.

Yesterday, the government was having problems with so many people showing up on their own to try and help, they put out a call and said, show up here at 7 am and we'll bus you to the affected areas.

But I'm just going to spin the camera around so you can see what I'm talking about. The line goes out behind me for quite a while. And then if I come up here, you can probably see, it just goes on and on and on.

And they have about 50 buses that they're hoping to pack people onto. They can take about 2,000 people at a time. But honestly, it's going to be a real logistical challenge to get all these people -- and they want to help. Everybody's got brooms, mops, anything they can do to help clear away some of this mud.

But you know it's going to take weeks to recover from something like this. The devastation is really -- it's on a magnitude I think the government really couldn't understand initially. And now it seems they've also underestimated the support from the community. So it's going to be still a few tough days ahead -- Rosemary (sic).

COREN: Atika, it's incredible to see that outpouring of community spirit. Obviously, everyone wants to wants to help. But you mentioned the government underestimating obviously the floods, those flash floods. There is a great deal of anger at authorities for the lack of warning. Speak to us about that.

SHUBERT: Absolutely.

I mean, I've spoken to many people now, who say that they saw what was happening either on social media or the news. They looked out their balcony and saw the water coming toward them. So they managed to get their family out.

But then they got the alert an hour later, maybe half an hour later. So for many, it was simply too little, too late. And there's a lot of anger and frustration already on the fact that it seemed as though they didn't get enough warning.

On top of that, the kind of help that's been coming in has really been hindered by the amount of debris that's blocking the highways. All the highways in and out of Valencia are blocked. They have cars piled on top of each other because of the way the flood picked up cars and deposited them right on top of train tracks and highways.

So what you're seeing, part of what you're seeing here is a response to the government. The fear that the government isn't capable of responding has turned out thousands of people to try and help in any way they can.

What we've seen on social media is appeals from neighborhoods, saying, please help us. We don't have food. We don't have water, we don't have power. Come and help us, you know, try and get back to some sort of normalcy.

And these are not remote areas. These are areas that are the suburbs of Valencia City. And that's why you're seeing so many people saying, look, we can walk there. We can get there. Let's get out and do it.

So what you're seeing here, yes, it's community spirit but it is also a response to what many people here see as the failure of the government.

COREN: And before I let you go, I believe that there is more rain on the forecast.

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So obviously the risk of further flooding hampering cleanup efforts is just multiplied

SHUBERT: Yes, I mean, we've been lucky so far. There hasn't been too much rain. But the storm has not left the area. And in fact, in other parts, much further north, there has been a little bit more flooding.

But again, you don't need rain to cause a flood in this area. You need rain up in the mountains and it travels down. That's what happened on that Tuesday. And so that's why meteorologists are saying we are not out of the emergency situation yet.

COREN: Atika Shubert, it's great to have you there covering this story for us. We really appreciate your reporting. Thank you so much.

Well, a new warning from the United Nations. Why heads of several agencies now say the situation in northern Gaza is apocalyptic.

That's ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

Plus, police officers far from the front line suddenly become the targets of Russia's relentless attacks on Ukraine's second largest city.

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COREN: Lebanon's state news agency says Israeli airstrikes caused massive destruction and leveled dozens of buildings. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COREN (voice-over): This is what the scene looked like after the Friday strikes.

The Israeli military says it struck Hezbollah targets in Beirut.

In Israel, dashcam video captured an explosion in the city of Tira. Officials say at least 19 people were injured by three projectiles fired from Lebanon.

In northern Gaza, the United Nations says the situation is apocalyptic. The U.N. says virtually all incoming supplies and humanitarian services have stopped. Well, CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us live from Abu Dhabi with more.

And, Paula, I feel like we struggle to articulate what is actually happening inside Gaza, specifically in northern Gaza. But the word, apocalyptic, I mean, it doesn't get any worse than that.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Anna. And the fact that a group of 15 heads of U.N. departments have felt the need to write a letter, to point out how apocalyptic the situation is, is very telling.

They have been warning for a month now that the situation is dire and yet it continues to deteriorate. Now this all started at the beginning of October, when the Israeli military started another operation in this area.

They say that they believed Hamas was regrouping and rebuilding and they asked for that area. And very little food, water or humanitarian aid has been getting in since. So in this letter, I'll read part of it to you.

The U.N. heads say, quote, "People are desperate for food because livestock are also dying.

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"Crop lands have been destroyed, trees burned to the ground and agrifood systems infrastructure has been decimated."

Saying that the entire Palestinian population of northern Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from famine, from disease and also from violence. So it really is a sounding the alarm at the situation in this area.

Now we have also heard from many humanitarian aid groups beyond the U.N. that this situation is desperate here because they say that aid has not been allowed to get through to this area, where we know that there are still civilians that are living.

Some not wanting to move yet again, having been moved on a number of times over the past year and more. We know that hundreds have been killed. This is coming to us from a number of different sources; no breakdown though, of militants versus civilians.

The Israeli military say that they have killed hundreds of Hamas militants. And we also know that there is one spot of good news, that the polio vaccinations in northern Gaza that had to be postponed at the end of September, because one of the schools where they were going to be distributed to children, was targeted by the Israeli military.

We do now know that those vaccinations are hoped to be, the third round they hope they will be able to carry out in the short term. But they do worry that there's some 15,000 children who may be inaccessible in certain areas -- Jabalya, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun -- these are the areas where the Israeli military has been operating significantly.

So this is a very dire warning from the U.N., a warning we have been hearing for a month. But they have felt the need now to put it in a letter and, as you say, Anna, they have used the word apocalyptic so that there is there's no mistake as to just how bad the situation is there.

COREN: We can only hope that it puts pressure to allow aid into the area. Paula Hancocks, joining us from Abu Dhabi, we really we really appreciate the update. Thank you.

Well, for at least the third time this week, Russian strikes have zeroed in on Ukraine's second largest city.

Two missiles tore through a police station in Kharkiv on Friday, killing one officer and leaving 30 other people wounded. Most of them were police officers as well.

Meanwhile, Russia is praising what it calls very close contacts with North Korea's military and intelligence and says they could deepen. The statement came after U.S. officials said North Korean troops sent to Russia could start fighting Ukrainians within days. Ukraine's president says his allies now need to draw a line for Moscow.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Putin is checking the reaction of the West. Putin is checking the reaction of NATO countries. Putin is also checking the reaction of South Korea.

And I believe that, after all these reactions, Putin will decide and increase the contingent. And then if nothing happens -- and I believe that the reaction that is there today is nothing, it's zero -- then the number of Korean soldiers will be increased on our soil.

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COREN: In the final stretch of the U.S. Presidential election, candidates turn to celebrities for some star power in hopes of getting voters to the polls.

Just how much influence do they have in an election?

That's ahead.

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CARDI B: I wasn't going to vote this year. I wasn't. But Kamala was Harris joining the race. She changed my mind completely.

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COREN: Rapper Cardi B there at Kamala Harris' rally in Wisconsin.

Well, she's not the only celebrity getting involved in the U.S. presidential election, lending their star power to Harris or Donald Trump. Some of the biggest stars on the planet have thrown endorsements to the candidates in hopes of swaying voters.

But just how much influence do celebrities actually have in an election?

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Joining me now is Mark Harvey, associate professor and director of graduate business programs at the University of Saint Mary.

He's also the author of "Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion and Issue-Based Advocacy."

Mark, great to have you with us. There's been a long list of celebrity endorsements for Kamala Harris, from Oprah to Taylor Swift to Eminem, Beyonce -- how influential are they?

MARK HARVEY, DIRECTOR, GRADUATE PROGRAMS, UNIVERSITY OF SAINT MARY: Well, it's really hard to say quite honestly. If you ask the average voter what's going to influence their vote, most of the time they're going to talk about the economy or food prices, gas prices, what their political party is.

But what Taylor Swift thinks really isn't that high on the list usually. Now that's not to say that they're not influential at all. There are some cases -- or at least one case we know of that's documented -- where Oprah Winfrey supported Barack Obama and it seemed to make a measurable difference.

But the challenge is trying to delineate the effect of a celebrity endorsement in this sort of crowd of many, many other variables that are going on out there.

COREN: I want to ask you about Oprah but, first, on Friday night, Cardi B was on stage with Harris; on Thursday, it was J.Lo.

Before that, we saw Beyonce in Texas. I mean, these are all women of color. You know, speaking on key

issues, including you know, Latino, Hispanic heritage, women's rights, can these targeted and issue based endorsements swing undecided voters?

HARVEY: I think it's possible. Based on my research in my book, there are some variables that I think are important to the credibility of celebrities. And keep in mind that context was when they're endorsing on issues rather than candidates.

But I do think that there are some things that can be learned.

First of all, it's important to say that, just because somebody is famous and just because of celebrity, doesn't necessarily mean that they're influential, right?

But some of the things that do cause them to be credible are things like, do they have expertise?

Are they connected to an advocacy network of other people who support their cause?

But something that I think speaks to your question about how targeted they are has to do with identity. For example, we discovered that Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres are more credible than many other politicians on LGBTQ issues.

Willie Nelson is more credible than most politicians on marijuana legalization, even though his main thing is he's a musician and he smokes pot. So there is something to be said about a celebrity being associated with an issue or, in this case, maybe with a group of people.

Right. So you take Eminem and you put him in Detroit. He's not just a celebrity, he's a hometown hero and so that increases that connection. It's the same thing, I think, when you have women of color speaking to other women of color.

You know, the connection that you have sometimes when there's shared identities makes them potentially more influential.

COREN: And relatable, obviously. You mentioned Oprah endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008 and that it made a difference.

Why did her endorsement matter?

HARVEY: Well, I think there's some personal reasons and there may be also some reasons in terms of credibility. Some of the credibility stuff I already mentioned but, keep in mind, Oprah had already established her brand for a long time. She already was influential in terms of knowing the kinds of things that that fit her brand.

And in addition, she testified before Congress. She shared -- she was very genuine in the way that she shared her own abuse stories and tried to advance legislation to support that. And so she has some history in politics as well that, I think, kind of uniquely made her able -- more accessible.

But I also think this idea of brand match is a really important thing, too, right?

I often talk about a study that was done in the early 2000s about Jessica Simpson, where they discovered that Jessica Simpson could sell perfume but she couldn't sell pocket knives. Right?

Well, I think maybe advocacy, celebrity endorsement of candidates, that may be pretty on brand for Oprah. It may not necessarily be on brand for every celebrity.

COREN: Well, after the presidential debate, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris.

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As we know, her Swifties are a huge, passionate, motivated fan base.

Can she move the needle for Harris and do you expect her to take the stage with Harris in the final days?

HARVEY: Well, it's funny you should mention that. My colleagues and I actually did some research on that very question. And the research we did was back in August before Swift actually made her endorsement.

And the question was, if she endorses Democrats, is it going to matter?

And so we did a study with over a thousand people. And half the people we exposed to pictures of Taylor Swift, saying, go vote, and the other half vote for Democrats. And the only people that she was able to influence really are people in her fan base, which is not surprising.

Right?

You know, they're going to be influential with the people who are the fans. But we found that the ones that supported Trump on one side aren't going to change their mind; the ones who were supporting -- who were supporting Harris. I mean, they're -- they already know what Taylor is sort of on brand for.

So they were already decided. It was the undecided ones where she made an impact. And when they said, just go vote, then these people were much more likely to want to go and register, which is consistent with what we've discovered, when she starts saying, hey, go register.

I mean, we've seen the numbers and there's definitely a burst of activity there. However, when she said vote for Democrats, people were actually less likely to want to vote for a Democrat, which is a little counterintuitive, right?

But I think that there's a lot of people out there who just simply don't necessarily want their entertainment and their music mixed with their politics.

COREN: Mark Harvey, thank you for joining us.

We appreciate you sharing your insights.

HARVEY: No problem. Thanks a lot

COREN: Well, people in Bolivia spent lots of time in cemeteries on Friday to mark Dia de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead.

Now they're not grieving but rather celebrating departed loved ones, who they say come back to Earth for a visit one day each year.

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COREN (voice-over): Offers of food for the deceased typically include favorite treats or the loved ones -- of the loved ones for their journey back to the afterlife.

Well, one tradition includes sharing sweet loaves of bread, which are often shaped into human faces. The so-called "bread babies" are said to ease the transition journey for the dead.

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COREN: What a lovely way to send off the departed.

Thank you so much for your company. I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong, "INSIDE AFRICA" is next. Then Kim Brunhuber will be here at the top of the hour with more of CNN NEWSROOM. Stay tuned.