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Trump & Harris Focus On Latino Vote With 2 Weeks To Go; Harris, Trump Focusing Today On Critical Bloc Of Latino Voters; Harris Unveils New Economic Agenda Targeting Latino Men; Bruce Springsteen To Campaign With Harris On Thursday; Harris To Give Major Abortion Rights Speech In Texas On Friday; Walz: Cheney Give "Permission" To "Do The Right Thing". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 22, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, punch time. There may be two leagues until election day, but 18 million Americans have already voted. The campaigns are putting the finishing touches on their closing messages to the shrinking sliver of undecided voters. And we're learning that Bruce Springsteen will campaign with Kamala Harris this week and hit the streets of Philadelphia with Barack Obama next week.

Plus, Texas holdup. The Harris campaign is going all in on their bet that abortion rights will bring people to the polls. We have brand new reporting on their plans, including a trip to a reliably red state. And the richest man in the world is using his time, influence, and of course, money, to push Donald Trump's campaign. So, what does Elon Musk want in return?

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

First up, two weeks to go, less than 330 hours left in this wild presidential race. And today, both campaigns are focusing on the Latino vote. A force in battleground states like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with Telemundo in a few hours where she is expected to announce new economic opportunities for Latino men.

Donald Trump is speaking of what was described as a round table event with Latino voters at his Doral Golf Resort in Florida. His focus has been on the familiar grievances and misleading attacks that you can see at any of his rallies.

I want to start with CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is in Greensboro, North Carolina. Kristen, what have we heard from Trump so far?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you said, Dana, a lot of this is just his general campaign rhetoric. He did thank the Hispanic community, and we should know that this is a key voting demographic. As we head into November, both sides, both Harris and Trump, believe that Latino voters could be a determining factor in who goes to the White House in November. And when you talk to the Trump team, they feel very confident in what they say is a significant increase in the support from this community. Now, Donald Trump was sitting down with these Latino business leaders, faith leaders in Doral, but then he seemed to stray off topic. He spent a lot of time attacking Kamala Harris, saying she was sleeping because she's not on the campaign trail today.

As you said, she is doing an interview with Telemundo and as well NBC later today, but she is not traveling on this day. But the other thing that he really went into is his border policies and attacking what is going on in the border. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I actually think that the biggest thing is the border because the border is destroying our country. But I really think that the biggest problem this country has is what they have allowed to happen to us on the border. They have allowed our country to be destroyed. They are allowing thousands of murders and drug dealers and terrorists and people from mental institutions. They are emptying out their jails into our country. They are emptying out their jails.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And Dana, it might be surprising to you to hear that he's using this kind of rhetoric at an event that is supposed to be courting Latino voters, particularly when he talks about people coming across the border from those South American countries, from Mexico, for example. That when we talk to voters here on the campaign trail, we're traveling around. We talked to Hispanic voters in particular. They say that kind of rhetoric doesn't bother them.

Now, remember, we are at Trump rally. So, it's people who are coming to see Trump. They say we know who he is and that he's not talking about them. He's not talking about them. And even if they are new U.S. citizens, they came and they immigrated here. She doesn't believe -- they don't believe that he is talking about them specifically, but about other people who are crossing the border.

And some of the recent polling that we have seen shows that these Hispanic voters care more about things like the economy and inflation and immigration policies than they do about anything else, which might show you why Donald Trump is gaining support there, because those are the policies, or those are the issues in which he pulls ahead of Kamala Harris on. So, but interesting still to hear him using the same kind of language, even at an event like this.

BASH: Yeah. Kristen, thank you so much for putting that in perspective because it is important. Yes, as you said, you do talk to people who are big supporters of Donald Trump in the Latino community at these events. But you hear this more than I.

I'm sure that the Trump campaign is convinced that even undecided Latino voters, especially those who live in those border states are very much open to that kind of rhetoric. Certainly not all, but they want to try to win this and winning these states just like every other battleground state is probably going to be done on the margins. Thank you so much, Kristen. Appreciate it.

I want to talk to my terrific group of reporters here at the table, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, Hans Nichols of Axios, Franklin Foer of the Atlantic, and CNN's MJ Lee. Let's stick with the question of Hispanic voters. And let's just kind of set the table with what the voting pattern has been in the last two elections.

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2016 Hillary Clinton won. This is according to exit polls by -- this is just in Arizona. I should say where they are right now. Hillary Clinton won by 30 in 2020, Joe Biden won by 24. So, these are big margins. This is according to this New York Times/Siena College poll. Again, this is just in the state of Arizona. Harris is up by 20.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST, "WEEKEND EDITOR SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": And that's where the concern comes in, and that's where you hear all of the kind of the jitters that are on the Democratic side is because that there is this feeling. And these polls are showing that Kamala Harris -- Vice President Harris is underperforming with Latino voters.

And I think you know kind of what we've already talked about is Latino voters are not monolithic, right? And there are plenty of Latino voters who are concerned about the border, may want a stronger border.

May look at, you know, the rhetoric that that Trump has about, you know, immigrants or people coming over and say, that's not me. I did it the right way. They didn't do it the right way. And he has an economic -- an economic message, and a pro-business message and an anti like socialism message that can resonate with some Latinos.

BASH: Yeah. And let's look at the share of the Latino vote. As it -- look, as it pertains to the larger electorate, it has grown. This is a very important growing community in America. Just go back to 2008, 9 percent and in 2024 it is expected to be 15 percent.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: I thought you're going me a pop quiz on the Latino percentage in all the swing states, and I was struggling.

BASH: You have the answers?

NICHOLS: I think it's 14 in Arizona, and I think it's -- but it's lower in Georgia. There's a surprising number in Pennsylvania. And that -- but that's where it gets interesting, right? And I think to Ayesha's point, Hispanics, Latinos are surveying differently in many of the key states.

In Arizona, it looks like there's a 20-point delta. In Texas, it's much closer. You have a lot Hispanics, even in the Rio Grande Valley, who are more pro-Trump than pro-Harris. Again, it is Texas. Florida, different dynamics.

So, you see these different dynamics everywhere. But the delta is concerning to Democrats. It's concerning to the Harris campaign. It's especially more pronounced among male Hispanics, and that gets in the bigger question that everyone in town is talking about, which is, how big is the gender gap going to be?

BASH: Which put a pin on that because I want to talk about that more broadly. But before we do, we saw -- I think it was last week. The weeks are all like, what is time?

NICHOLS: It's kind of struck (Ph).

BASH: Exactly. The Harris campaign was aggressively reaching out to black men. They put out a policy proposal, or at least a set of them, that they called the opportunity agenda for black voters. Today, they are doing the same with Latino men, creating opportunities through training programs, remove college degree requirements for some federal jobs, provide forgivable loans for business owners, increase number of first-time home buyers.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You know, if you're the Harris campaign, you are in this final stretch going after groups like that because not to sound like a broken record, those groups may end up making all of the difference, and may end up being decisive, even groups that you might have historically been able to count on to have your back. You want to make sure that they are actually turning up to vote.

And I think, on the economic message that is being tailored by both campaigns to Latino men, for example, you're seeing a really interesting, looking backwards versus looking forward. Contrast between the Trump message and the Harris campaigns message.

Trump is essentially out there saying, hey, for your community, you did pretty well economically when I was president for four years in terms of jobs and wages and opportunities. The Harris campaign is saying, when I am president, I will make sure that you have all of the economic opportunities that you don't.

I mean, some of the things that you just put up on the screen, you know, opportunities for people that may not have college degrees, opportunities for training. I think there's an interesting sort of fundamental human psychology here are people more willing to buy into something that they thought they might have had before. Or are they more enticed by the idea of something new and different that could come with a different candidate?

BASH: Yeah. That's an interesting way to put it. And then there's the whole question. I was listening to Mike Murphy, longtime Republican strategist who does not like Donald Trump on Hacks on Tap. And he was talking about all of these different kind of micro targeting campaign events and policy roll outs.

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And whether or not he didn't use this analogy, but I will, whether they're sort of missing a discussion about the forest, as opposed to just having discussions about individual trees. And whether that's a component that is important, especially in a closing message of a campaign.

FRANKLIN FOER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Right. And then you see within the Trump campaign that there is this tension between the intellectual desire that they have to expand their coalition and his visceral desire to just continue to talk to the base. And so, they know that in a lot of these swing states, they need to get to 48, 49, 50 percent in order to win and that requires adding.

And so, Latinos are a good group for him, because there are all these divisions within American politics that split right through the Latino community, whether it's religiosity or it's the education gap, and it's the way in which his policies and his populism resonates specifically with that group. And yet, as we saw, he's not really staying on message. He's just talking to an audience broadly.

BASH: I know that you don't think that men have gotten their due in this society. So --

NICHOLS: As we've talking -- as we've spoken many times at this round table, it reminds me of the Knights of the Round Table --

BASH: Yeah. So, we should -- so, we should really give men in this country their do and talk about them more. But in all seriousness, I say that because that is a big part of the sort of push in the poll of both of these campaigns. And for the Harris campaign, they are seeing what's happening on the Trump side of the ledger and saying that the gender gap is big.

And we learned that the Harris campaign and Kamala Harris herself is going to campaign with Bruce Springsteen on Thursday. And he's going to have a concert.

NICHOLS: Right? And I think in most presidential campaigns that you and I have been involved in Bruce Springsteen tends to close. I remember 2004, he had the beautiful concerts, regardless of his politics, music was beautiful, right? Bruce Springsteen is kind of a go to closer for Democrats.

To the broader men question, to me, the most interesting aspect there, the most telling tell was when Obama kind of came out and really took the wood to black male voters, saying you need to vote for her. And that -- when they -- when they deployed Obama in that specific targeted way, was to me, it was a real indication that they're seeing something in their numbers that's not great.

BASH: And they're going to be campaigning together next week in Philadelphia. On that note, I just want to read a part of an op-ed from John Della Volpe, and it's called Trump's bro whispering could cost Democrats too many young men.

Donald Trump has gained ground with Gen Z by systematically exploiting the fears and insecurities of young men, making them feel that their masculinity and future are under siege. That in a nutshell is the crux of the Trump outreach to -- and the Republican outreach to men.

RASCOE: Well, it's just Trump. Like it's Trump being Trump, because what Trump can tap into, and everyone knows what you get with Trump. There is a vulgarity there. But there's also like, I'm a macho man's man. I'll talk about a golfers, you know, private parts. Like I'm the locker room, right? And I think that.

But there's also business and money, and I'm smart with money, and I know what to do business wise, which I think that also caters to, especially like young men who want to be entrepreneurs. And there's also a kind of counter cultural. I'm not just going to tell you what you want. I'm going to, you know, give it to you real.

Whereas what Kamala Harris -- what Vice President Harris has to do is she has to come out with programs. And because she's being asked, what are you going to do for me, specifically. Like she has to come out with plans, and she has to introduce herself. Whereas Trump is just has to be him to reach out to some of these young men.

BASH: I love that you talk about macho man, which is one of his theme songs from the village people --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: I don't know if anybody is going to tell him, that we'll see. Up next. New reporting on how the Harris campaign plans to spend the final two weeks of their campaign, includes putting a surprise trip to a red state. And later the billionaire bromance. What does Elon Musk want out of a potential second Trump administration? Frank wrote all about it. We'll talk about it later.

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BASH: Vice President Harris will make a rare trip on Friday to a state that is not on the list of battle grounds. She's going to give a major speech on abortion rights in Texas, a state that has virtually banned abortions.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez broke the news this morning and joins me now from Madison, Wisconsin, where former President Barack Obama and Governor Tim Walz will speak this afternoon. Priscilla, tell us about your reporting.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana. This is a bit of an unusual stop in the closing weeks of the election. And in some ways, it's less about location, more about message. Of course, this has been part of the strategy from the beginning, doubling down on reproductive free debt. So democratic officials and campaign officials see this as an issue that is galvanizing for voters.

And sources I have spoken with say, look, Texas is the epicenter of these abortion bans. Texas, of course, effectively banning abortions. And the vice president on the campaign trail, calling this quote, a healthcare crisis. And featuring women in as and on the trail that are from Texas, like Kate Cox, who have been impacted by this. So certainly, this is part of the strategy to lean further into reproductive freedoms as they close out this election.

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Now, in addition to this, is part of the broader, attacks on freedoms that the vice president has been talking about repeatedly on the trail. So, she's going to be delivering this speech in Texas on Friday. She'll also notably be joined by Representative Colin Allred who is running for Senate.

Now, during her stop there, she'll also be doing a podcast interview with Brene Brown. This is what we anticipate over the course of the next several days, the sprinkling in of traditional and non- traditional media to try to get more exposure for the vice president.

But Dana, of course, the vice president started 2024 with a reproductive freedoms tour. She is now ending her campaign with much of the same focus. But this will be a significant stop, given that it is in a red state like Texas, but where the campaign thinks that they could really amplify this message and underscore the stakes of the election.

BASH: Sure, it's great reporting. Thank you so much, Priscilla. And back here, MJ, you've also done a lot of terrific reporting on the campaign. And also, specifically how much, despite all of the sort of -- as we've been talking about kind of micro targeting to different demographics. How much over all of this is the issue of Roe and Dobbs which is in place now?

LEE: A very important issue for all of the reasons that Priscilla just mentioned. They fundamentally believe, it is an issue where they're on the right side. They can harness that anger, that frustration, and have it really represent a something that sort of paints a picture of an era that they think voters don't want to go back to.

Just in terms of the general mood of the Harris campaign right now, as Priscilla is traveling out there in the really final stretch. I was talking to one senior campaign source this morning, and they said, you know, we only have 13 more wake ups left. And they casually mentioned later in the conversation, you know, sometimes people apparently say that in prison as a way to count down the number of days that are left.

And I said, wow, that's quite the -- quite the term to use. And they said, you know, it's basically optimistic, like we are counting down. We are ready for this to be over, but fundamentally it's optimistic because you're looking forward to what comes next when this current stage is over.

I mean, they are the campaign in general. They absolutely believe that this is going to be a close race, and they believe that because every single piece of data shows that every single battleground state is going to be competitive.

BASH: Incredibly competitive, and too close to call. And on that note, I want to turn to a terrific piece by our colleague, Isaac Dovere, which you can read on cnn.com. Today, we'll just give you a little taste of it.

It's entitled, the jittery Harris campaign makes big plans to clinch a narrow win. Expect more events like the vice president's interview with Charlamagne tha God and Julia Roberts' trip to Georgia, both ideas that came right out of the campaign's research. We're not throwing spaghetti against the wall. We have literally studied who these voters listened to, said a campaign official.

Which kind of reminds me of what David Plouffe was saying on the show on Friday, which is when he was talking about Trump being untethered and unhinged and all of those things. He was pretty clear, every one of those terms, never mind the strategy to go after Trump. It's all based on the data that they are seeing.

FOER: It does sometimes from afar have the spaghetti against the wall feeling because they're careening from talking about abortion to democracy to Trump's lunacy, to narrow casting at these very specific swing groups that are up for grabs. And in a way, when everything is so close, you have to play small ball in order to get those incremental percentages that get you across the line.

BASH: I like that. I got that sports analogy.

FOER: Thank you.

RASCOE: A small ball. What sport is that?

BASH: I think you're talking about football. You got it well, right?

(CROSSTALK)

RASCOE: You got to go yard-by-yards, you --

BASH: OK. All right, I had football on my -- it's a football season.

RASCOE: It is. It is.

BASH: OK. All right, let's focus on politics. Liz Cheney spent the day with Kamala Harris yesterday, and she had so many interesting messages. One of them was reminding people, particularly women, that nobody sees who you vote for. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ CHENEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN CONGRESSWOMAN: You know that she is going to always be thinking about what is best for this nation. We might not agree on every issue, but she is somebody that you can trust and someone that our children can look up to. They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence, but they'll do the right thing. And I would just remind people, if you're at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:25:00] NICHOLS: I mean, what they're trying to do is create a permission structure for Republicans to go against their tribe, and to vote for Kamala Harris and to keep it a quiet secret in the ballot box that seems like a fine strategy. I'm more interested in their private conversations between Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris and what they talked about on foreign policy, but that's my own prerogative as a reporter.

Like, when you have people from such obvious ideological differences, what do they talk about? So, you know about that Iraq war, is it just kind of brushed under. But it's -- endorsements are always about permission structures. It's not about actually getting Democrats there. It's about trying to find some sort of wavering independent being like, well, even Republicans are voting for her.

BASH: And before you come in on this -- forgive me, I just want to play some of what Tim Walz said on The Daily Show, which is kind of about this theme.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Cheney thing. Do we really have to do that?

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, it goes broad in that. Look, Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, Taylor Swift --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no, no, no.

WALZ: Having Liz Cheney on board?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no.

WALZ: The constitutional piece, there are a lot of people out there. I think Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney give permission to those folks who want to find a reason to do the right thing. It doesn't mean they agree with us. We're not going to take their foreign policy decisions and discussions, you know, and implement those.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RASCOE: I think that that shows like, the tricky nature of what the Harris campaign has to do. They're kind of playing Jenga, right? Like they have to like, pull a piece out, keep it -- keep it hanging. Because whatever they pull on this side, you know, when they tack a little bit to the center, they go upset the left.

And if they do it -- and that's what they're trying to keep it from toppling over, whereas as I said, the Trump -- the Trump is Trump. And so, he's just going to give you, like, what he's not trying to broaden, right? Like he's not trying to bring more people in. It's either you're interested in it or you're not, and there are people that are interested in it and he's seeing that.

We're seeing those black male voters and those Latino male voters who are interested in it. And so, he's just selling what he's selling. But whereas, you know, you got to play a little Jenga if you're Vice President Harris.

LEE: And you were raising the question before of missing the forest for the trees. I mean, there have to be trees to make up a forest, like yes, the campaign, of course, needs an overarching coherent message that's always important.

But I do think the Harris campaign is really leaning into the small pockets of voters adding up, and that might be Latino men here and there. It might be, you know, Republicans who never would have thought about voting for a Democrat in past cycles. They are hoping that all of that will come together, I guess, to make a --

BASH: And if you're -- if you're eating lunch, grab the thumps, because I'm going to read this quote from Isaac Dovere's piece. At some level, you just want to be the one to make the last argument to them as loudly as you possibly can, one top Democratic operative helping to get Harris elected wrote in a text. Here's the thump's part. But this thing is going to be decided in the last week, I am sure of it.

OK. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, they are a critical vote in Motor City and deeply divided on this election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm desperate, so I'm willing to try anything right now to make sure that I can fulfill my responsibility to take care of my wife and kids. That's all I care about.

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