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CNN This Morning
New Polls: Harris Leads In Pennsylvania And Michigan, No Clear Leader In Wisconsin; Trump Campaign Targeted By Iranian Hackers; Storms Could Bring Large Hail, Strong Winds, And Even Tornadoes. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 19, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:38]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, September 19th.
Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:
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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We must also reform our broken immigration system.
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HUNT: Closing the gap. New polling shows Kamala Harris gaining ground on one of Donald Trump's key issues, immigration.
And this --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Number one is the economy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the big issues right now is women's rights.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immigration is a huge concern.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Our battleground beat, Wisconsin some voters weigh in on what's most important to them this election. Is the Badger State closer than some think?
And --
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Now we go back to the playbook. We'll draw up another play.
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HUNT: Funding fight. Fresh off his defeat on the House floor, Speaker Johnson, going back to the drawing board with a divided Republican Party.
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HUNT: All right, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the Capitol Dome on this Thursday morning.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
We are just 47 days from Election Day and we're getting some new polling from the states that will decide the election. And it shows how close the road to 270 really is. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump 51-46 in a head-to-head matchup in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, this among likely voters. The poll shows no clear leader in Wisconsin, Harris with a one-point edge there.
But let's take into the key issues. When asked who would be better at handling immigration, Trump is still leading there, but Harris is gaining ground. Quinnipiac's pollster says these results show, quote, three crucial swing states wave a red flag at the Trump campaign. The GOP's most go-to attack strategies against Democrats on immigration and the economy may be losing momentum. Likely voters now see little daylight in most cases between Harris and Trump on who can best handle those key issues.
Now, both candidates were talking about immigration on the trail yesterday. Donald Trump, once again, attacked Haitian migrants in Ohio, while Kamala Harris called out his mass deportation plan.
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HARRIS: They have pledged to carry out the largest deportation a mass deportation in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. How's that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're getting them out of our country. They came in illegally. They're destroying our country. We're getting them out. They're going to be brought back to the country from which they came.
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HUNT: All right. We should note that the Haitian migrants in Ohio are here legally according to Ohio's Republican governor.
Joining us now to get us started this morning is Laura Davison. She is political editor at "Bloomberg News".
Laura, good morning. Wonderful to have you.
So these -- let's start with a new Quinnipiac polling. It shows honestly some results that I think once I have some more time to call my sources, I might hear a little bit differently from people who are really watching these race racist closely, especially in Pennsylvania. If we could throw those numbers up, at 51 percent, having Harris over 50 in Pennsylvania, I would be surprised if I had a source on the ground who thought the race was this far apart in Pennsylvania.
Wisconsin, they're showing as a very, very tight. That's interesting to me, I think a lot of the others, when I when I again talk to sources, they don't necessarily think it is that close in Wisconsin. They think Harris may have a bigger, a bigger edge there and there they are more worried about Pennsylvania.
What do you make of these numbers and what they do tell us about the race?
LAURA DAVISON, POLITICAL EDITOR, BLOOMBERG NEWS: With polling, it's really important to look at the breadth and we've gotten a bunch of different polls, Quinnipiac, as well as others that have come out in recent days and what were seeing is that nearly everything is within the margin of error or just outside the margin of error.
It's important to note that Harris is really building or gaining on Trump on the issues on immigration and then economy. The two issues we know that will probably decide this election. Biden had a large deficit there, and Harris has been gaining multiple polls have shown that. So that's sort of a sense that that is probably a strength for her that's building.
HUNT: Yeah. It's -- it's very important to point that out because as we've talked about in this incredibly compressed time frame, it's really been a battle of who can define Harris, right?
[05:05:07]
And Republicans are trying to tie her to Joe Biden and his numbers on those kinds of issues, right, linking her to his policies, while of course, she has tried to put some distance, I don't know that she's actually put a ton of policy distance between herself and the president. But she's tried to do it in certain ways. It seems like maybe she's winning out on that push and pull.
DAVISON: Yeah. What she's been able to do is, you know, kind of distance herself from the inflation and some of the negative aspects that people didn't like about Biden's record and just focus on the stuff that she would do if she were elected, things like down-payment assistance. She came out this week saying she wanted to limit childcare costs to just 7 percent of income, which would be a big decrease for people, I'm talking about, you know, expanded childcare or child tax credit.
So these are things that are resonating. When you look at new poll on some of these issues, you have 70 percent of people like them. So that's a broad swath of both Democrats as well as Republicans.
HUNT: Yeah, we also saw yesterday a significant interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve, half, half a point there. Donald Trump was out there talking a little bit about this. Let's listen to what he had to say yesterday. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I guess it shows the economy is very bad to cut it by that much, assuming they're not just playing politics, the economy would be very bad, or they're playing politics one or the other, but there was a big cut.
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HUNT: So he's insinuating, of course, the Federal Reserve is independent, but he's saying that there's politics here. Perhaps he's suggesting to help Kamala Harris.
What do you make of his comments?
DAVISON: So Trump has been signaling for a long time that if the Fed cuts interest rates, it's because Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, is trying to help Harris. That is not true. Powell has said multiple times that he this is not an election issue, but it does signal that a lot of the economic indicators are pointing that is now time to bring interest rates down, that could have a side effect of potentially making people more optimistic in the economy.
However, it's not likely to change the facts on the ground. These interest rate changes, look, it's a half point, that takes a long time to ripple out throughout the economy. It's not, you know, the difference between, you know, suddenly decided that you're going to not be able to afford a house. And then today be able to afford a house.
HUNT: Right. It's -- he's saying, well, could -- it could politically help Harris, but on the flip side, it also could mean -- it could be an indicator. They waited too long to do this and we could be in for a bumpy ride here.
Laura Anderson -- thank you so much for starting us off this morning. I really appreciate it. Laura Davison, I'm sorry. She's not Anderson.
All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING: foreign aggressors trying to meddle in U.S. selections, targeting Donald Trump.
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TRUMP: Iran hacked into my campaign. I don't know what the hell they found. I'd like to find that, couldn't have been too exciting. But they gave he went to the Biden campaign.
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HUNT: Iranian hackers sending stolen information to people associated with the Biden campaign.
Plus, Harvey Weinstein back in court, accused in a new sexual assault case.
And in our battleground beat, spotlighting the cheeseheads. Why it could be difficult for either candidate to gain a significant edge in Wisconsin.
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REPORTER: Do you know who you're going to vote for November for president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I'll vote for Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will vote for Kamala and Tim.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kamala Harris.
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HUNT: Iran emerging as one of the most aggressive foreign adversaries trying to influence the 2024 election. And Donald Trump's campaign is the latest target.
Law enforcement officials say Iranian hackers sent stolen unsolicited information from the Trump campaign to people affiliated with Joe Biden's campaign over the summer. There is no indication that Biden's staff ever replied. A campaign official tells CNN the material was never used, but that didn't stop Donald Trump from saying this.
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TRUMP: They gave them of the materials because Biden is working with Iran, and Iran doesn't exactly like me, because they were ready to make a deal, except we had an election that was rigged and stolen.
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HUNT: U.S. officials say that Russia has also been part of election interference efforts, targeting the Harris campaign. At a Senate hearing Wednesday on foreign meddling in American elections, one tech executive said it's all part of a broader concern.
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BRAD SMITH, PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT CORPORATION: We know that there is a presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris but this has also become an election of Iran versus Trump, and Russia versus Harris.
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HUNT: Fascinating.
All right. Joining me now, CNN international anchor Max Foster. Max, good morning. Always wonderful to see you.
That Microsoft executives seem to put it quite well, or at least succinctly in terms of what -- what we may be seeing here. Again, all raising significant concerns about the role of foreign adversaries who are, of course adversaries, not just the U.S. but of many western democracies in general interference in the Democratic process in the west.
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: That's fascinating, isn't it? Hearing the Microsoft's exact there because, you know, Russia and Iran have an alliance effectively now, militarily. And there was a new agreement signed between the two countries recently. So they seem to be on many levels in the same axis with support from North Korea and from China as well, potentially. But here, we see them supporting different sides in the U.S. election.
So the latest accusation is simply that Iran hacked into the Trump campaign, found some information they thought would be useful to undermine him, and they sent it to members associated with a Harris campaign to their private email accounts, as we understand it. And as you just said, the Harris campaign said they didn't use it but they're clearly I'm trying to undermine Donald Trump.
[05:15:00]
Meanwhile, on the Russian side, they're trying to undermine the Harris campaign.
HUNT: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think -- and, Max, I think we should be precise. I think our understanding is that this, of course, the Biden- Harris campaign has evolved into the Harris campaign. But at the time that this was sent, it was still the Biden campaign. Things have come out us a little bit fast this camp season.
But here is what Merrick Garland had to say earlier this month, about the broader campaign here, not just this specific incident. Watch.
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MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle. That includes recently reported activities by Iran to compromise former President Trump's campaign and to avoid an election outcome that it regards as against its interests. Those recently reported Iranian activities also include efforts to obtain access to the visuals who themselves have access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties.
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HUNT: So, of course, of course, Garland is talking about the kind of the broader campaign here. And, you know, I think what was interesting there as he referenced that they were actually trying to get access to people who then would have access to the campaigns that implies kind of a different level of how they're thinking about this. FOSTER: Yeah. You remember back this Iranian tactic is seen as
anything new. You'll remember that 2016 election, when Donald Trump called for Russia to find thousands of emails, but only to Hillary Clinton, in the end, Russia did find some emails and try to leak them. So a lot of this isn't new.
This is interesting because they're trying to undermine campaigns. There's a separate Russian campaign that Microsoft exact was also talking about, which is simply setting up fake accounts on social media yeah and spreading conspiracy theories. That very much targeted at the Harris-Biden campaigns because they would see Donald Trump I think is probably a favorable to their perspective on the war in Ukraine. They'd rather have that outcome.
So it depends which axis you're looking at here and what sort of tactics they're using a fundamentally, they're trying to sow discord in the U.S. election, chaos, and trying to undermine it that way in their own interest.
HUNT: Yeah, for sure.
All right. Max Foster for us this morning -- Max, always grateful to have you. Thank you so much.
All right. Coming up here after the break, a body found in the woods.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You could smell it, and I told him I said, there's something awful in here. It smells. It smells really bad.
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HUNT: Officials say that puts an end to a massive manhunt. We'll explain in the morning roundup.
Plus, another day of explosions against Hezbollah militants. The retro devices that were targeted this time.
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HUNT: All right. Twenty-one minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.
Former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein pleading not guilty to one count of first-degree criminal sex act. It involves an incident with a victim in 2006, that woman has not yet come out to the public, but will testify in the trial. Weinstein remains behind bars on a 2022 sex assault conviction and is awaiting a November retrial in his 2020 sex assault conviction after that one was overturn.
The search for the man who opened fire on a Kentucky interstate now appears to be over after a couple of found a body in the forest for authorities have been searching for the past week. They even live streamed the discovery.
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SHEILA MCCOY, FOUND SUSPECTED I-75 GUNMAN'S BODY: I was crossing over the trees, a horrible smell of something dead. You could smell it, and I told him I said, there's something awful in here. It smells. It smells really bad.
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HUNT: Officials say that they are very confident that this ends the manhunt, but they are waiting on DNA test results to confirm that.
The Justice Department filing a lawsuit against the two companies means that owned and operated the container ship behind the bridge collapse in Baltimore earlier this year. The suit claims that they quote, cut corners in ways that risk lives and infrastructure. The suit seeking more than $100 million from those companies.
All right. Time now for weather. Warmer temperatures fueling a chance for severe storms across the Upper Midwest and down to the Great Plains today, and cooler temperatures could be moving in by the weekend.
Let's get to our meteorologist, the weatherman, Derek Van Dam.
Derek, good morning.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Kasie.
You said it well there. We're going to have warm air that fuels the chance of severe weather today. You need three things for thunderstorms to really develop, severe thunderstorms. You need warm temperatures, you need some sort of instability which could be high relative humidity and you need a trigger, something like a cold front that will actually cause the uplift and trigger those development of thunderstorms.
So here's the warmth. Look at that upper 80s, lower 90s across the nation's midsection. The upper Midwest, there's the cold front, that's the trigger. And you can already see some of the thunderstorms firing ahead of that cold front as it advances eastward.
So this is the areas that were highlighting today, Duluth, Minnesota, to Minneapolis, southward to Des Moines, to Kansas City, even outside of Tulsa, damaging winds, large hail, isolated tornadoes cannot be ruled out with some of these storms that spin up later this afternoon timeframe, right around that evening commute heading back from work in Minneapolis.
So heads up, you want to be keeping an eye to the sky of some of these late season thunder storms start to fire up. Now that above average temperature will shift eastward.
[05:25:03] So if you thought false fall was nice across the Southeast -- well, welcome to summer again. Temperatures warm to the 90s, and I want to give you an early heads-up. We are watching potentially for tropical development across the gulf for the middle parts of next week, lots of signs pointing towards some sort of tropical system forming within that area, but that's for next week -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Fair enough.
Did you get a haircut, Derek? It looks nice.
VAN DAM: I did. Ten years younger today.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: Very good. We appreciate it as I'm sure our viewers do too. I'll see you in an hour, Derek Van Dam. Thank you very much.
All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, just 47 days from the election, no clear leader in a critical state. Today in our battleground beat, we're going to go to the Badger State and dig into the wishes of -- the issues that have voters in Wisconsin divided.
Plus, the House failing to pass a government funding measure. We're inching closer to a shutdown.
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REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): This is a complete failure of the speaker's strategy.
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): We're not shutting the government down 48 days to go in the election.
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