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CNN This Morning
Trump Uses Foul Language Against Harris at Rally; At Least 2 Dead and Hundreds Rescued Amid New Mexico Flash Flooding. Aired 6- 6:30a ET
Aired October 21, 2024 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Monday, October 21. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.
[06:00:20]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Fifteen days to go. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris ramping up attacks as the race for the White House enters its final two weeks.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She never worked at McDonald's. In other words, she's Lying Kamala.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He's loving it. Trump takes a step behind the McDonald's fried counter to baselessly cast doubt on whether Harris ever worked there.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, FOUNDER, TESLA: You're just signing something you already believe, and you can win a million dollars. That's awesome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The billionaire's giveaway. Elon Musk's latest strategy to boost support for Trump sparks calls for an investigation.
And then -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are really bad right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Battleground beat. Campaigns collide in the Great Lakes state of Michigan. We're going to speak live with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at New York City on this Monday morning.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
Election day is two weeks from tomorrow, just 15 days away. More than 13 million ballots have already been cast across 45 states. Early voting begins today in Florida, and of course, it's a sprint to the finish for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Harris plans to appear with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney in the suburbs in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin today as "The Wall Street Journal" reports her campaign has zeroed in on a group of undecided voters they've identified to be, quote, "soft GOP-leaning voters and moderate independents," including voters who backed former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley over Trump in the GOP primaries.
Her (AUDIO GAP) them sounds like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: He's becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged. And it requires that response. I think the American people are seeing it, witnessing it in real time.
And we must take note of the fact that this is an individual who wants to be president in the United States. And I think the American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Trump campaigns in North Carolina today; was in Pennsylvania over the weekend. His strategy in the final days: unconventional, sometimes funny, often crude.
There was the former president wearing an apron, working the deep fryer at McDonald's.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is fun. I could do this all day. I wouldn't mind this job.
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HUNT: Then there's the rally that Trump kicked off by telling a crass story about the late Arnold Palmer's genitals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, Oh, my God. That's unbelievable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And then there was this attack against Harris, which "The New York Times" described as Trump descending, quote, "to new levels of vulgarity."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So, you have to tell Kamala Harris that you've had enough, that you just can't take it anymore. We can't stand you. You're a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) vice president. The worst. You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired. Get the hell out of here. You're fired. Get out of here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining us now to discuss all of this and more, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios; Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator, Republican pollster and strategist; and Meghan Hays, former director of message planning for the Biden White House. Welcome to all of you on this Monday morning.
There is so much to talk about. But let's start with, you know, honestly, we -- we have gotten a bit inured to the way Trump has brought vulgarities into our politics in ways that are not, you know, historically prohibited.
But I think it's worth kind of stopping, Kristen, on what he said and did at this rally. Because "The Times" put it in context this way: "Mr. Trump has always enjoyed shocking people. And in addition to cursing volubly, he enjoys talking about sex and men's and women's looks. But in the past, he has refrained, for the most part, from being overtly crude publicly as a candidate or as president. Now, however, as he makes his third run for the White House and has become visibly angrier since Ms. Harris joined the race, there has been a notable uptick in such behavior, especially in the campaign's final weeks and days."
[06:05:06]
And at that rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, he actually kind of explained some of this. Because he had said -- and he often tells the story about a letter he got from Franklin Graham, the you know, notable conservative religious figure, who said you need to stop swearing. He sort of explicitly said, Well, I'm not doing that today. Let's watch that part, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I'm in big trouble tonight. You know why? Franklin Graham wrote me -- you heard this -- like two months ago. He said, President, we love your stories. We love your speaking, but sir, please. Please don't use any bad language, bad words.
I wrote him back. I said, I'm going to try and do that, but actually, the stories won't be as good. Because you can't put the same emphasis on.
So, tonight I broke my rule. I've done it for weeks, but I tonight I just said, look, I'm in Pennsylvania. What the hell? What the hell?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He's in Pennsylvania. What the hell? Does how do you view what he's doing here in these final days and whether it matters?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think he is somebody who enjoys being out on the campaign trail. He treats his rallies like entertainment, like it's pro wrestling. I mean, that's very much what you're seeing out there.
And I think for these voters that he's trying to win, who are on the bubble, it depends which type of swing voter you're talking about.
If you're talking about the kind of Republican who has found Trump's influence on the party to be noxious, you look at this and you go, See, I can't vote for that guy. I can't do this.
But at the same time, is there somebody who doesn't care at all about politics but sees these clips in his life behind that as kind of funny. I mean, those voters really do exist, as much as you may want to think that they don't. They really do exist, and they are part of Trump's coalition. And they find him entertaining. They find this entertaining.
HUNT: I mean, in many ways, it explains MAGA? Right? I mean, Meghan Hays, what do you think?
MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING FOR THE BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: Yes. I mean, I think he's an entertainment person. He knows how to entertain people. I think that he's talking to his base, which is men. This is locker room talk. This is how you discuss things in locker rooms, I would assume. I haven't been in a men's locker room.
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I never heard the Arnold Palmer story.
HAYS: But I just -- I mean, I think that, like, these undecided voters are like, this is not presidential. You don't want someone out there talking like this. You're going to go talk to world leaders like this? We don't want you on the world stage.
And I just think he's becoming more and more like an entertainment figure and not an actual serious presidential candidate. HUNT: I mean, the question to me, Alex, seems to be whether what he is
doing here is exciting the people that already like him enough, you know, more to get out to vote, versus -- I mean, these are -- Kamala Harris is basically out there making the argument that, when he does that, this is awful.
And suburban women, who clearly are not likely predisposed to like this, should go out and vote because they don't like it.
THOMPSON: This is part of the reason why you're seeing a historic gender gap and why Kamala Harris is really trying to drive turnout in those -- in those suburbs.
Polls show, actually, that while she is weaker than Joe Biden in some areas -- you're talking about, like, black men -- she's actually much stronger with white women than Joe Biden. And this is part of the reason.
But, you know, this has been always the critique of Donald Trump, is that he has always run a base strategy and not a strategy to the middle.
And to Kristen's point, this is not a bug, but a feature for a lot of the people that love Donald Trump, is that he'll, like, go, and he'll just be a little inappropriate. He'll be a little entertaining. And he'll say stuff that you're not supposed to say.
HUNT: Well, and we're going to talk a lot about the various things, because we just have a little taste there at the top. We haven't really considered what he had to say about Arnold Palmer yes. It feels a little early for it, but we've got to do it.
Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, a more direct line of attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He's nearly 80 years old.
He's not up to this anymore, folks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: How -- how the Harris campaign is trying to sharpen their case against Donald Trump.
Plus, nearly one million votes have been cast in Michigan. We're going to speak live with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson about how she hopes to combat election misinformation.
And Elon Musk's latest attempt to drum up support for Donald Trump raising significant questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSK: Every day from now until the election, we're giving out a $1 million prize. And all you have to do is sign a petition in support of the Constitution.
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): When you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:14:04]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And you know, Elon came up -- Elon Musk gave us his total endorsement. How good is that, right? Elon endorsed me. He's in another part of the of the commonwealth, and he's campaigning now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Elon Musk literally putting his money where his mouth is, using a new tactic to boost Donald Trump with his billions of dollars.
During an appearance in Pennsylvania, Musk making a new pledge to give away $1 million a day to registered swing-state voters, and then gave away the first giant check.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSK: The next thing we'd like to do is to announce today's winner of the million-dollar prize. So, it's Kristine Fishell. Would you like to come up?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: As the winner made her way onto the stage, Musk explained how you could be the next one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[06:15:01]
MUSK: Every day from now until the election, we're giving out a million-dollar prize. That is -- and all you have to do is sign a petition in support of the Constitution. It's very straightforward. You don't even have to vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The giveaway, though, now raising questions about whether it is even legal, since federal law makes it a crime for anybody to, quote, "pay or offer to pay or accept payment for registration to vote or for voting."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAPIRO: I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently, now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians, and is deeply concerning.
But when you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions that folks may want to take a look at.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, Kristen, clearly, bribing people to register to vote or to vote is illegal. I don't think any of us are campaign finance experts. If you are, correct me if I'm wrong.
But what do you make of what Musk is doing here? It does seem to be -- I mean, not that there's any real teeth in the penalties that could push back against him here.
But he clearly has put a new twist. Shall we say, on supporting a candidate?
ANDERSON: Sure. I mean, what I said earlier about this strange kind of leaning into the entertainment factor. That is also what's going on here.
Although it's easy for me to imagine if the shoe is on the other foot and you had some sort of prominent progressive billionaire who was handing out million-dollar checks, it's not hard to imagine Trump really seizing on that, being like, Wee, you have to pay people to support you.
It sounds like here, he's saying it's just a petition, not actually registering to vote. So that -- if that's the case --
HUNT: You do have to be registered to vote to sign the petition, apparently.
ANDERSON: Interesting. So, legally, I don't know what lines this crosses, but I feel like it's just trying to be more of that entertainment factor.
HAYS: And this is a game show. This is, like, so unserious, and it's so offensive to people. Like, this is the person who's running to have the nuclear codes to be the commander-in-chief -- chief of our military.
Like, this is so offensive to people. And voters should be horrified that this is what our politics have come to, that we are now paying people a million dollars to sign a petition. And Elon Musk is just out there, just like giving them money.
Like, I would be interested if those checks cashed. That'd be my first question.
But I mean, it's just like -- that's the thing. This is so offensive to me and so -- this is a game show. And, like, the president United States should not be a game show contestant.
THOMPSON: Well, Elon is approaching well over $100 million investment in this late stage of the campaign. And it is an investment, because if Donald Trump wins, his companies are set to make billions of dollars.
Starlink requires, you know, FCC sort of tweaks. SpaceX, Tesla, and electric -- electric vehicles. The vectors that Elon is set to be part of this administration in a way, the government efficiency role that Donald Trump has talked about. And that can make $100 million investment mean billions.
HUNT: Yes. No, it's a good point, although it also seems like a significant risk, right? In the event that he -- that Harris would win, because those companies do rely so strongly --
THOMPSON: And that's why he's so all-in right now.
HUNT: Right.
All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, trash interference. Texas fans littering their own field over the weekend. This is one of five things you have to see this morning.
Plus, Alec Baldwin returns to "Saturday Night Live," not, though, as Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYA RUDOLPH, FORMER CAST MEMBER, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": May I please finish?
ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: I'm asking you to.
RUDOLPH: Then you have to listen.
BALDWIN: Well, I can't, because I'm talking.
RUDOLPH: Well -- well, when will you stop?
BALDWIN: Maybe when I go to bed?
RUDOLPH: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:22:54]
HUNT: All right, 22 minutes past the hour, five things you have to see this morning.
A deadly helicopter crash in Houston is now under federal investigation. Four people died Saturday night when the chopper collided with a radio tower.
There was a child among the dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are not our king! You are not our sovereign!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: An aboriginal Australian lawmaker heckling King Charles in her country's Parliament. The senator represents an area home too much of Australia's indigenous population, who lived for thousands of years on the continent before the arrival of British settlers, 230 years ago.
Officials in California are now trying to identify the man in this video, seen -- oh, gosh, that's awful -- whipping sea lions with what appears to be caution tape, causing them to flee and fall down the hill. The incident was reported to police.
The Texas Longhorns apologizing for their fans after they threw trash onto the field during their football game against the Georgia Bulldogs.
ESPN reports the team has been fined $250,000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am sitting on the roof in my cop car, my police truck. I am completely surrounded by water.
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HUNT: A New Mexico sheriff found himself stuck on top of his police truck as he was surrounded by floodwaters. The Eastern part of the state was under a flash-flood emergency as historic rainfall fell on that region.
And on that note, time now for weather. Well, that flash flood watch has now expired in New Mexico. At least two people were killed. Hundreds more had to be rescued.
Let's go to our meteorologist, Derek van Dam, with the latest on this. Derek, good morning.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Good morning, Kasie.
We sure are grateful for the Chavez County sheriffs, the brave men and women who go out there and are performing and have performed these rescues.
But when you see a video like that, when you see a sheriff stuck on top of his vehicle, unknowingly with the water overtaking his own SUV, who rescues the rescuer, right?
I mean, these are the real-life situations that they have to be -- thrust themselves into in order to make these daring rescues that you see on the video behind me.
[06:25:04]
But again, we are so grateful that they were able to pull those individuals, at least, out of that rushing water. Now this is just incredible, to see how much water fell from the sky.
Over four times their entire October monthly average. This is their wettest day they've ever recorded in Roswell, New Mexico. No wonder we're seeing the damage pictures this morning and all weekend long, frankly, of cars piled up across the bridges and impacting some of the local roadways there.
A lot of precipitation falling just to the Southwest of Roswell. That's where the hardest hit areas of Chavez County was actually impacted.
Now, this storm system is moving away from New Mexico. That's the good news. We'll get an opportunity to dry out, assess the damage.
But this will also bring a chance of severe thunderstorms today -- just a marginal risk, but something we need to be aware of -- across the nation's midsection from Nebraska Southward through Kansas and into Oklahoma. Damaging winds, large hail, and a tornado or two.
Quite some rescuing or harrowing video, I should say, coming out of Chavez County.
HUNT: Indeed. All right. Derek van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thanks very much for that.
Coming up here after the break, election officials in Michigan, a critical battleground, combatting concerns over voter fraud. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson joins us live.
Plus, Donald Trump taking his love for fast food to the next level, manning the fryer at Mickey D's.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't know how you do it. I've put together some really impressive deals. But this thing you've pulled off, it's amazing.
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[06:30:00]
