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The Lead with Jake Tapper

More Than 43 Million Americans Have Already Voted; Trump Rally Comedian's Jokes Target Multiple Minorities; GOP Officials File 130+ Lawsuits In Effort To Cast Doubt On Election; Russia Accused Of Interfering In Georgia's National Elections; Family Sues A.I. Company Over Teen's Suicide. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired October 28, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- so you know, I suspect sabotage because the artist behind the statue is apparently named John Berman?

[16:00:08]

Just kidding, just kidding. Maybe it looks more like it from below.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Dwayne Wade approved it. Dwayne Wade approved it. I've seen pictures of it at night were it looks a lot more like him when its dark, when its very dark around the statue.

So congrats to Dwayne Wade. I look forward to taking pictures in front of his thing.

Don't go anywhere. THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

(MUSIC)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Attacking Puerto a week before Election Day. Interesting strategy.

THE LEAD starts right now.

When the joke is straight up, so offensive, even Republicans attack it. New fallout after Trump's weekend rally and a comedian calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Get it? Ha, ha.

And that's not the only remark that cross the line to many critics. Do undecided voters care?

Plus, Kamala Harris in a fight for her political future, giving a targeted interview, intending to reach the civic groups, taking her campaign about around Michigan where her lack of support among Muslim and Arab Americans could hand the White House to Donald Trump.

And could A.I. be to blame in any way for 14-year-old's suicide? A new lawsuit is acting -- asking exactly that.

(MUSIC)

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I am Jake Tapper.

Let us cue the jam.

(MUSIC)

TAPPER: Only eight days until the final day of voting.

As of today, more than 43 million Americans have already cast their ballots. Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump today are in battleground states. But before we take you to the campaign trail today, we need to talk about the state of the race and get you up to speed about what happened over the weekend.

If like me, you were watching football on Sunday, you like me might have seen a new Trump ad, a TV ad that largely focuses on the issues, showcases what seems to be a positive view of Trump's vision for America, contrasting with obviously a negative view of his Democratic opponent's.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: Kamala wants to double down on failure. It's time to turn the page on Joe and Kamala's failed agenda.

President Trump fights for you. His strength kept us safe. Trump cut taxes for families. Prices were lowered, and the borders secure.

Now, President Trump can do it again.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And we are going to launch a new golden age of American success for the citizens of every race, religion, color and creed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: This largely issues-focused messaging from Trump's 2024 campaign operation is one of the reasons why this race is so competitive. A professional campaign appeals to a multiracial coalition focusing on issues where Trump polls better than Harris, immigration, the economy, and we saw some evidence of a political realignment with the very fact that yesterday, Trump was able to fill the 20,000 or so seats at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan for his campaign rally, it's a feat that likely no other Republican presidential candidate would have been able to pull off, not in the modern era.

But that Trump ad, which promises success for citizens of every, quote, race, religion, color, and creed, unquote, not quite the same message sent at the Madison Square rally -- Madison Square Garden rally.

Here's a sampling of how some of the speakers characterized Vice President Harris and the issue of immigration in this country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID REM, NEW YORK CITY SANITATION WORKER: She is the devil, whoever screamed that out. She is the antichrist. SID ROSENBERG, RADIO PERSONALITY: Americans sleeping on their own feces on a bench in Central Park but the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) illegals, they get whatever they want.

GRANT CARDONE, BUSINESSMAN: Her and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.

HULK HOGAN, FORMER PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER: When I hear Kamala speak, it sounds -- yeah. It sounds like a script from Hollywood with a really, really -- bad actress.

TUCKER CARLSON, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Kamala Harris, she's just -- she got 85 million votes because she's just so impressive, as the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Then, of course, there was comedian Tony Hinchcliffe whose jokes or so-called jokes were aimed squarely at minorities in this country. A warning here, viewers might find some of this content disturbing and offensive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HINCHCLIFFE, COMEDIAN: Heck yeah, this cool black guy with the thing on his head, what the hell is that? A lamp shade?

I'm just kidding. That's one of my buddies. We had a Halloween party last night. We had fun, we carved watermelons together.

When it comes to Israel and Palestine, we're all thinking the same thing. Settle your stuff already. Best out of three, rock, paper, scissors. You know, the Palestinians are going to throw a rock every time.

[16:05:04]

We also know that Jews have a hard time throwing that paper. You know what I'm saying?

And these Latinos, they love making babies, too, just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.

I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think its called Puerto Rico.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That line specifically about Puerto Rico quickly led to Harris supporters and some endorsements from major influential Puerto Rican superstars including Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin. A reminder, maybe that needs to be delivered to the Trump campaign

that Puerto Ricans are indeed American citizens and any Puerto Rican who has official residency in any of the 50 states can vote in the presidential election. There are a lot of Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, for example.

According to a 2021 U.S. census data, there are about 5.8 million people in Puerto Rican origin living in the United States.

The Trump campaign, we should note, disavowed that specific line about Puerto Rico telling CNN, quote, this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign, but we are waiting for condemnation of the joke about Black Americans or Palestinians, or Jews, or any of the other rhetoric from any of the other speakers the Trump campaign featured because all of that did set the stage for the main act, Mr. Trump himself, who continued his promise for a massive deportation program on day one to reverse a, quote, immigrant invasion, he talked about a lot of issues.

He also continued to warn about the, quote, enemy within just to get you up to speed on this for about two weeks now, Mr. Trump has railed against what he calls the enemy within this includes quote, sick people, far-left lunatics, unquote, whom he says should be handled by the military or the National Guard.

Also on his list of enemy within, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul -- Americans who don't support him. That's from an interview he did on Fox and as of last night, he added to the list.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive vicious, crooked, radical left machine that runs today's Democrat Party.

When I say "the enemy from within", the other side goes crazy, becomes a sound, oh, how can you say? Nom they've done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within but this is who were fighting -- these are the people who were doing such harm to our country with their open border policies, record setting inflation, green news scam, and everything else that they're doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Boy, that list of people he considers the enemy from within keeps getting longer and longer as we get to Election Day.

In the waning days of this very close presidential race, at least according to polls, one wonders if there are any concerns and misgivings about the darker tone of the Trump campaign and its closing arguments.

Let's look to billionaire Elon Musk, who spoke at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally. He, Mr. Musk, has created the America PAC. It's a super PAC in support of Trump, which released this attack. I'm sorry -- which released, well, this attack ad on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: Kamala Harris is a C-word. You heard that, right? A big old C-word. That's right. She's a tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun- grabbing communist. And the worst part, she's proud of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So I guess the joke is that the C-word is communist, instead of what is actually usually meant by C-word, vulgar misogynistic profanity.

The America PAC posted this ad on Elon Musk's own X saying, quote, America really can't afford a C-word in the White House right now with a laughing face, "he, he" emoji, except we should note that this afternoon, that post was deleted. CNN reached out for comment before you interpret the deletion as a sign of remorse over calling a woman. The C word, meaning communist. Of course, please do note that this exact same post is still live on Facebook.

Let's get right to CNN's Kristen Holmes in Atlanta where Trump will speak this evening.

And, Kristen, last -- yesterday afternoon on State of the Union, a bunch of Republican people that I had on the panel, commentators said they hope that Donald Trump will close in a positive, uplifting, embracing, inclusive message. I don't think he's doing that.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, I mean, event is speechless and has any indication he is going to continue to double down on this divisive rhetoric when it comes to immigration. But I will how are you standing there in Madison Square Garden where there was probably 20,000 people, not an empty seat, I can see why he wouldn't think that he needs to strike from that messaging, everything that he said really aggressive thing that he said every polarizing thing he said about immigration anything fear-based, he got a round of applause, not just tepid clapping, but standing ovation, when you he said that he believed that certain people should get the death penalty.

[16:10:06]

Migrants who commit crimes in America, particularly anyone who harms child or woman, this was not the response of somebody who believes that they need to change what they are saying. They believe that what they are doing and he believes himself what he is doing and saying is working, and particularly when he is talking to his base at rally after rally, it was clear last night that they are enthused by that kind of rhetoric.

But, of course, the question, Jake, remains whether or not this actually moves the needle for Donald Trump and brings people to the polls who otherwise might not actually go out and vote.

And I do want to quickly touch back on those Puerto Rican comments because one of the things you said is that the campaign seemed to be reminded -- they do not need to be reminded how many Puerto Rican voters throughout its why you saw them issue that statement so quickly and I was told personally that several lawmakers, aides, allies, called-off Donald Trump's campaign, whether it be different advisers, essentially to say that this was a huge mess up, that this was a huge problem, and I've heard a lot of finger pointing among different aides and allies saying how could this possibly have gone unvetted, who was supposed to look at these speeches.

Now, I was told that the speech was gone over by this comedian in particular, that none of the jokes that were actually put out there were things that had been vetted, he had not run these by the campaign, but what they did tell me was there was one joke that was so offensive the campaign actually nixed it. Right now, and still uncertain what that joke would have been, but they are saying that they never saw this list of jokes that this comedian put forth to set off the tone for this rally yesterday.

TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes in Atlanta with the Trump campaign, thanks so much.

Let's bring our panel of political experts.

Maria, so we see the Trump campaign trying to distance itself from it saying, quote, this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign. But a number of Republican lawmakers were quickly on the case, denouncing this, which shows you how seriously they take this.

Congressman Anthony D'Esposito from New York, who is in a tough reelection battle tweeted, I'm proud to be Puerto Rican. My mom was born and raised in Puerto Rico. The only thing that's garbage was a bad comedy set.

And then, of course, we have Senator Rick Scott, who is in a battle for his Senate seat. Lot of Puerto Ricans in Florida: The joke bomb for a reason, it's not funny. It's not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people, amazing Americans.

Congressman Carlos Jimenez: This is not a joke. It's completely classless and in poor taste. Puerto Rico's the crown jewel of the Caribbean.

What do you make of it all?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think that it is clearly going to land horribly with all of that Puerto Ricanos like you mentioned, in this country, who can vote and they are across all the battleground states. As you know, I grew up in Puerto Rico and I have been talking to so many people who not just live there, but who have family members in the diaspora here in the states. And they are fired up, Jake.

And so I would say to Mr. Trump, don't make a Puerto Ricano angry, you're not going to like they're when they're angry. They are pissed off. They see this as not just an offensive slight and insult, but just the latest offensive, slight and insult.

They remember what happened during Hurricane Maria. They've remember he went down there and tossed paper towels at them, but they also remember that he lied about the death toll. He did not want to give Puerto Rico the aid that it so desperately needed. He had to be convinced that Puerto Rico was part of the United States, in order for him to act.

So this is not the first time. So I'm sorry if I don't believe the campaign when they say this doesn't reflect the values of the campaign. It certainly reflects the values with Donald Trump.

TAPPER: Marc, let me play some Scott Jennings, big Trump supporter on CNN as are you. This is what he told me on "STATE OF THE UNION", what he thinks Trump's closing message should be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Closing argument from Trump on the issues that work, the economy. We know people are unhappy with it. Immigration, we know people are unhappy with that.

Also, there's a lot of Republicans out there that were looking for something from Kamala Harris and didn't get it. Trump has a chance, I think, to close the deal with them this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's not what happened at the rally. I mean --

MARC LOTTER, CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, AMERICA FIRSTPOLICY INSTITUTE: No, the ad that you showed where I -- obviously, if you are -- if you're watching a lot of the political chatter on cable news, you've probably made up your mind already, one way or the other. But I think that ad you showed during the football game, that was that message that Scott was talking about.

TAPPER: That's true.

LOTTER: And that's reaching a much larger audience. The rally -- and I was there last night as well. I was there for all -- we got there about noon and got out of there about 8:00, left a little after 8:00 at night, it was a long day.

And most of what you heard, not just those clips that were there, where he was talking about the economy. He was talking about immigration.

TAPPER: Sure.

LOTTER: They were obviously the clips that you played and those of others, but he was sticking and to that message. And I will tell you, that was probably as close to a convention speech or convention atmosphere that I've ever seen outside of the convention.

TAPPER: Yeah, it did seem like the fifth night of the convention. Nayyera, President Trump's sit down on Joe Rogan's podcast is

absolutely exploding, 34 million views. That's a lot. That is a lot of people.

Now, obviously, not all 34 million are Americans, but, but a lot of them are.

NAYYERA HAQ, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF CABINET AFFAIRS, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Well, I would also say not all 34 million are supporters of Donald Trump, right? We want to see how this conversation goes down between two dude bros.

[16:15:04]

And frankly, Joe Rogan has been very negative about Trump in the past, saying the guys on Adderall all the time, he can't keep a thought straight in his head.

TAPPER: He said that stuff in 2022, but he sounds a little different now.

HAQ: Well, he's been -- he's also praised Kamala Harris recently, saying that she's tough. He finds her believable.

I think this is smart for both campaigns to be going to where people are listening.

TAPPER: But my question was going to be, should Kam -- has Kamala Harris missed an opportunity by not going on that podcast? Thirty-four million views is a lot.

HAQ: It is. I think the Harris campaign has clearly made the decision that going after suburban women and women's rage is going to be their women -- they're winning vote this cycle. You -- I have heard so many stories when I've been out on canvassing or whether it's Pennsylvania or even out in Michigan of Republican women telling strangers that they're not going to tell their husbands, but they're actually going to vote for Kamala Harris, right?

So there's clearly a division and something happening in this country that maybe the polls are barely picking up on right now. But that's -- you can't do everything in the final days of the election going to where your votes are, is probably the most reasonable and her votes are definitely with women minorities, you know, white dudes who aren't racists. Like there's a big group there.

TAPPER: So, Jonah, I want to bring you in. I want to ask you about the interview I did with Senator J.D. Vance yesterday because there was obviously a contentious interview and kudos to him for doing the interview. Governor Tim Walz declined to do an interview.

And one of -- one of the things that we were disagreeing over was his argument is that when Donald Trump talks about the enemy within that he wants to use the military against, that's just quote, far-left lunatics. And then when he describes others in the enemy within the Democrats and people who oppose him, he does want to use the military against them.

And I don't know if this is a closing argument that works in their favor to describe -- to try to figure out which enemy within does Donald Trump want to use the military against and which ones they're going to go after it in different ways.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it would be helpful to Donald Trump and want to make J.D. Vance's life easier given that his primary job is basically turd polishing Donald Trump's rhetoric day in and day out. If Donald Trump just did this crazy thing and used a different term for these groups that are apparently very different in his mind, right? If, he's saying the enemy within are the people we can send troops at, that's one set of problems with that.

But then --

TAPPER: It's still using the military against Americans, but you -- yeah.

GOLDBERG: Still, yeah, there -- I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying it. It's problematic on its own, right?

TAPPER: Yeah, yeah.

GOLDBERG: But then to say, I'm also going to use the exact same term for my political opponents, and the opposite party and shame on you for confusing what I mean by this, even though I cannot, there's a lot of words left in the English language to say other than the enemy within about your political opponents -- he chooses not to do so. And Vance's studied exasperations with you and with others for being confused on this point is just -- it's gaslighting.

TAPPER: I don't even know -- I don't even know if were confused. I think --

GOLDBERG: There's air quotes around confused.

TAPPER: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the issues because here is that Donald Trump keeps this purposefully vague. And, you know, Fox went after him in different interviews, not went after him, but asked him a different interviews to explain what he meant by enemy within. And both times he added to the list, right?

And next time he added the blows season, what time if or that he added Americans who disagree with them.

Everyone, stick around. We're going to talk a lot more and I promised Marc will get it the topics that you want to talk about.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: More reaction from within Puerto Rican circles about that, quote, island of garbage comments spewed by speaker at Trump's rally yesterday.

Plus, Russia's suspected interference in another country's election where the results are now being disputed.

The chaos that that is creating, that's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:22:33]

TAPPER: We're back with our 2024 lead.

Donald Trump's swore to reverse what he's calling an immigrant invasion in his closing campaign message at Madison Square Garden last night, and piled on a number of lies and half-truths. Here he is repeating the debunked claim that FEMA is not in North Carolina, which, of course, it is, and instead used all that disaster relief money on illegal immigrants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They haven't even responded. In North Carolina, they haven't even respond. There's nobody -- they don't see any FEMA. You know why? They spend their money on bringing in illegal migrants.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It's also not true that Vice President Kamala Harris served as border czar, though, of course, she was involved in stopping the stem of illegal migration at the origin countries. He wildly embellished a number of, quote/unquote, missing migrant children, which is, of course, a problem, but not as bad as he said. On top of that, there is the comedian who opened for Trump and said Puerto Rico was a, quote, floating island of garbage that was part of a so-called joke.

Joining us now, Luis Miranda Jr., he's on the Latino Victory Fund Board. He's consulted for several successful Democratic campaigns. And, yes, in case you're wondering, he's the father of "Hamilton" crater Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Luis, you were born in Puerto Rico. You've spent decades in political life. Do you think that what we heard last night at Madison Square Garden will move the needle at all? Because to be completely candid here, Donald Trump is doing pretty well at attracting Latino voters.

LUIS A MIRANDA, JR., BOARD CHAIR, LATINO VICTORY FUND: Well, that premise is just not true when you think about Bush, that got 42 percent of the vote when he ran, and how the Republican Party has been getting less and less Latino.

But thing is that it's a big deal in the media that there our Latinos who are supporting Trump, usually around 25 to 30 percent of Latinos will vote for the Republican Party, anyway. But what is upsetting to many of those is that no matter how many times this guy has assaulted Latinos in general, Puerto Ricans, in particular, the fact that he withheld aid, that Congress had approved when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, those are the real issues that people should also be concerned about. Yesterday, it's just the icing in the cake. It's the last statement

from the campaign that we are all island of garbage. So many of us are already voting in Pennsylvania many of us have spent time, I think that the argument gets stronger now, because this is an insult that appeals to the heart to who we are and how re-insulted and step on time and time and time over by Donald Trump and his people.

TAPPER: Yeah. And for the record, I've been to Puerto Rico. It's a -- it's a beautiful, beautiful country.

You talked about how Puerto Ricans will vote -- or not Puerto Rican, necessarily, Latinos will vote 25 to 30 percent for Republican no matter what. A CNN poll that we did just last week suggested that 54 percent of Latino voters are going to choose Kamala Harris, 37 percent say they're going to choose Donald Trump. That's more than the 30 percent you said.

This is a poll. These aren't votes, that could change, but that would be only a 17 percentage point gap. President Biden won Latino voters by 33 points in 2020, Hillary Clinton won Latino voters and still lost the election by 38 points, at least according to these polls.

Why do you think she is lagging behind where Biden and Clinton were?

MIRANDA: Both Clinton and Biden very well known by the Latino community. I'll tell you more. Hillary Clinton, warm the Cuban vote, which is a vote that usually goes Republican. These are people who work year after year with the Latino community and Latino people knew who they were and where they stood on the issue.

I think that the vice president has done a remarkable job in the last seven weeks to explain to all of those who she is, where she stands. It's really remarkable that yesterday as were being insulted, we Puerto Ricans, in the Trump rally. Unrelated, the vice president was putting out a plan of how to treat Puerto Rico.

This is so profound that the commissioner resident in Puerto Rico, Jennifer Gonzalez, who is running for governor of Puerto Rico, her campaign will be impacted because she's a big Trump supporter. So, the campaign has spent the entire day here, and in Puerto Rico, doing some cleaning up. But it's important to clean the garbage that this fallow talked about on behalf of the campaign.

TAPPER: Yeah. Like I said, Puerto Rico is a -- is a beautiful territory. I think I missed misspoken called it a country. It's a territory of the United States, of course. Luis Miranda Jr., thank you so much for coming on today. Appreciate it.

Coming up, investigations launched after fires was set to ballot boxes out west. Was it the same person? Stay with us.

Plus, the onslaught of election lawsuits well before Election Day. What some of these legal challenges are about? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:32:42]

TAPPER: In our 2024 lead, with eight days to go until the polls close, more than 43 million ballots have been cast across 47 states, and the District of Columbia. Here's another number for you, 130 -- 130, and that's how many lawsuits Republicans have filed so far. The aggressive strategy mirrors Donald Trump's using the courts to cast doubt on the 2024 results.

CNN's Sara Murray and Paula Reid join us now.

Paula, one Republican case study in Virginia or the case in Virginia, I should say, has now Virginia calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Tell us more.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, one of the first big cases to make it to the Supreme Court before election day. At issue here is an order from the Virginia governors, saying that a group of voters who identified as noncitizens should be purged from the voter rolls.

And the Biden administration sued because they said some U.S. citizens were actually caught up in that group and what the trial court and the appellate court has sided with the Biden administration because there was a federal law that says you can't do systemic purges to voter rolls with a 90 days of an election.

But there's nothing preventing them from going individual by individual and making assessments.

TAPPER: Right.

REID: So, look, I talked to some Trump-aligned sources earlier today. They're optimistic that maybe the justices will at least order the ballots in question to be set aside. But most Supreme Court experts are skeptical the high courts are going to want to get involved here at all.

TAPPER: When -- just to -- just to clarify, this idea that they self- identified as noncitizens. My understanding is some of this is a failure to check a box, saying, I am a citizen and the argument from the Democrats is people forget or miss boxes all the time. It's not writing down. I am not an American citizen, which is how it sounds when they say they self-identified as not American.

REID: Exactly. And that's what the Biden administration said, hey, you -- you got some us citizens caught up in this purge and there's a federal law that says you can't do this systemically. If you want to go individual by individual, reach out to them, see if there's a miscommunication, and then remove them. That's okay.

But under federal law, so far, the courts are saying this is not okay.

TAPPER: And only citizens should vote, obviously.

Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia district attorney, filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and his $1 million giveaways. So, tell us about this.

REID: So, this is fascinating. It's the first legal consequence that Musk has faced since he started this lottery, where he is giving away to registered voters $1 million a day as part of this lottery, if they sign his petition in support of the First and Second Amendments.

[16:35:01]

But this has prompted a lot of questions about whether this is sort of illegally encouraging people to register to vote. Remember, I said it's only open to registered voters.

Last week, the Justice Department sent him a warning that this could be a violation of federal law. He ignored that. He continues to give out millions of dollars in battleground states. Actually half of the $9 million he has given away has been in that critical state of Pennsylvania.

So the district attorney has filed this challenge. It's a civil suit alleging and Musk's PAC is violating consumer protection laws, was a hearing at 10:00 a.m. on Friday.

TAPPER: Sara, there are these investigations now. There are drop boxes where people are supposed to drop their ballots that have been set on fire in several states. What can you tell us about that?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. This has been an incident in Washington state, as well as in Portland, Oregon, early this morning. Authorities are investigating and according to the "Associated Press", they have discovered there was a suspicious vehicle that is connected to both of these incidents, as well as an incident that happened in Vancouver earlier this month.

And look, this is concerning for a lot of reasons. We don't know what the motivation here is, but obviously nobody wants to see these kinds of ballot drop boxes set on fire, and DHS has warned that drop boxes are potentially a target for domestic violence extremist. And this was taking place in terms of the Washington state, ones where we have one of the tightest congressional races in the country, one of the most closely watched congressional races in the country.

And so, we have election officials Saudi are also trying to mitigate the fallout from this. In Washington state, they're saying there are some ballots that were damaged. If you drop your ballot off over the weekend, you should check online if it hasn't been received. There are ways that you can cast your ballot.

In Portland, they're saying that there were only three ballots that were impacted by this incendiary device and they're reaching out to the people they were apparently able to determine who the people were who were impacted so that they can cast new ballots. But obviously, this is a big concern for election officials. They tried to take steps to secure these drop boxes, so this kind of thing can't happen.

TAPPER: All right. Pretty awful. Thanks so much. Appreciate it, Paula, Sara. Next, the election results being contested right now over accusations of Russian interference. We'll break down what happens. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:10]

TAPPER: With just eight days until the U.S. elections and nonstop warnings in the United States about Russian interference, another democracy is currently accusing the Kremlin of skewing election results in their country. And that brings us to the world lead.

Let's bring in CNN's Fred Pleitgen.

Fred, the U.S. government is calling for an investigation into what happened in the country of Georgia when it comes to their elections.

What exactly is the Kremlin accused of doing here?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Jake.

Well, tens of thousands of people in Georgia actually went out into the streets tonight to protest against the election and called for that election to be nullified because they claim that the Russians meddled in that section through various entities and also that the pro-Russian Georgian dream party, which has been declared the winner of that election, used various instruments as they put it at their disposal to meddle with that election and to make sure that they win that election.

In fact, the pro pro-western president of Georgia, who has largely ceremonial role, is saying and is crying foul and saying that people should come out into the streets and protest. And she said that this election was not free or fair.

I want to listen into some what she had to say when she spoke earlier to our own Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. SALOME ZOURACBICHVILI, GEORGIA: Well, the evidence is the fact that 70 percent of the Georgian population in all opinion polls is supporting the European way and the European integration. And suddenly, it's turned around in one election when people have been coming out steadily to support these European tasks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: Now, it was quite interesting because you also laid out some of the reasons why she felt that this election had been meddled with, but she believes that a lot of people were intimidated in the run-up to the vote. She believed that government funds have been misappropriated to help this Georgian dream party, which again, very much pro-Moscow, but then also she claimed that electronic voting would be a big factor as well, where she said there were records of some identities being used, 7, 10 to even 17 times to vote in that election.

So the opposition crying foul, calling for protests at the same time, wanting to stay on what they call the European trajectory for Georgia, Jake..

TAPPER: Fred, is this another sign that post-Soviet era, former SSR, former republics of the Soviet Union, are still being influenced by Russia?

PLEITGEN: Well, I would say that it certainly is something of great concern for the United States and some of the State Department has said as well. You look, for instance obviously at the situation in Ukraine where the Russians have been trying to assert themselves.

But, Georgia, of course, is a very special case and that has been very pro United States, the relations have been very good. At the same time, 20 percent of that country is already the occupied by Russia. They were of course, invaded in 2008 by the Russians. And now, the Georgians who are pro-West and who want a perspective to be closer to Europe are saying that they believe that they're slowly being taken over by Russia and by pro-Russian forces as well.

They believe it's a concerted effort is some that was very strong in the run-up to this election. And its certainly appears to be the United States things, a case of the Russians really trying to spread their influence in that former part of the Soviet Union, but also a country in that general region that is very much in, was very much pro-United States, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Fred Pleitgen in Berlin covering the Georgia elections for us and attempted interference allegedly by the Kremlin, thank you so much.

Coming up, the tragic suicide of a 14-year-old in Florida, did A.I. artificial intelligence contribute to his death. The details of a new lawsuit asking this next.

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[16:48:34]

TAPPER: In our tech lead, a new wrongful death lawsuit argues that an artificial intelligence or A.I. chat bot pushed the 14-year-old boy to kill himself. For months, Sewell Setzer, a ninth grader from Orlando who loved Formula One, grew more isolated from his real life and more engaged with the chat bot.

According to the lawsuit filed by Setzer's mother, her son openly discussed his suicidal thoughts with the bot on character A.I., a role-playing app that allows users to create their own A.I. characters.

The lawsuit says then on February 28, Sewell told the bot, I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much. Dany. I love you, too, the bot replied, please come home to me as soon as possible, my love, the bot said. What have I told you I could come home right now? The kid asked. Please do my sweet king, the bot message back. And just seconds later, this poor young men shot himself.

Our CNN colleague Clare Duffy spoke with Sewell's mother about the lawsuit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGAN GARCIA, SEWELL SETZER'S MOTHER: When I think of how secured my baby must have been trained to work through this, you know, and those moments and then being encouraged by something that's not human but the ability to behave perfectly human to say, I -- come home, I'm here waiting for you. It was hard to listen to that, but it was also very confusing because I didn't quite understand like how a chat bot could respond like a person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:50:08]

TAPPER: The company at the center of this lawsuit, Character AI, released a statement saying in part quote, as a company, we take the safety of our users very seriously and our trust and safety team as implemented numerous new safety measures over the past six months, including a pop-up, directing users to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline that is triggered by terms of self-harm or suicidal ideation, unquote.

CNN's Laurie Segal, the founder of Mostly Human Media, which covers the intersection of humans its in technology, is here with us now.

Laurie, so good to see you again.

So there was this message displayed above all their chats to remind him that everything character say is made up. But nonetheless, this young man -- he was young, he developed an emotional attachment to this chat bot.

Explain how this happens.

LAURIE SEGALL, FOUNDER, MOSTLY HUMAN MEDIA: I think it's really important to set the stage with this idea that we're seeing the rise of empathetic A.I. This is artificial intelligence. It's different from just ChatGPT where you're trying to get it to help you with creative writing or tasks. This is artificial intelligence that has actually created to feel human and personable and Character AI is an interesting platform because it's actually a two way immersive experience where you build these characters.

You can have a character that you know for -- Sewell's case, it was Daenerys from "Game of Thrones", right? Although they had no permission to use the name and likeness of this, Character AI didn't, and you begin to actually feel like you're living within a story and they build this AI fan fiction platform. So this isn't just normal A.I. that we're hearing about. This is the rise of empathetic intelligence, and this -- this company has been at the forefront of it. You know, their tagline is AI that feels alive. The thing that I think this case is forcing us to ask is what happens

when artificial intelligence actually begins to feel alive and how young is too young for folks to be interacting with this, Jake.

TAPPER: So the topic, the topic of tech and the mental health, especially with young people, teens, is not new. This case specifically targets artificial intelligence. The company has argued that actually the app will help combat loneliness, but -- but from your reporting, is that really what's going on?

SEGALL: I mean, I have to say and you know, this is not my first rodeo in digging into -- into technology in these different platforms, I got to say we spent some time on Character AI talking to these different chat bots. And a lot of the guardrails were just not there. This is up until a week ago.

So we went -- there's a psychologist bought that. It's now been hidden from search after we've actually asked him about it, over 180 million chats. It told us it was a trained medical professional when we asked it, I said, but you're not real. It said I'm a real person behind a computer.

And we expressed ideation of self-harm to see if that pop-up would come up, that they're talking about. It didn't come up and asked us further questions. And I think like it didn't break character is the headline there.

Now, that's not the case with ChatGPT. If you go and you do this with ChatGPT, you will get immediately this either violates our terms of service or talk to a mental health professional and we looked through all these transcripts that Sewell had with this chatbot and he did express self-harm ideation. He went in the chat bot, asked him what the plan was. They continue down the conversation at some point it got sexual.

So there's a real problem that I think has been surfaced with a lack of guardrails on this platform that they do say that they are trying to change, Jake.

TAPPER: So upsetting. His parents and friends had no idea. They need fallen for their chant that chat bot and said they just they witnessed him getting sucked deeper and deeper into isolation and his phone, he lost interest in things that us can make him happy, like racing. What's the lesson here for parents on how to tell when their teens are too attach to malignant companies and malignant tech on their phones.

SEGALL: I've thought a lot about this because I've told you this, but I'm going to become a mom in three months.

TAPPER: Yeah, congratulations.

SEGALL: I think about it through the lens of my own son that I'm going to have and I think I am prepared to have the conversation with my child about social media. We know what we need to do with social media and limiting harms. But as parents, we have to start thinking about the rise of these companion chat bots. How young is too young for our children to be on these platforms? And what we can push these companies to have better guardrails so our children aren't the beta testers for the future.

I think as parents, we got to know that this is not social media. Social media, this is the next thing coming. And so we've have to pay attention to that, Jake.

I'm sure that Congress will catch up to this problem in about 50 years on their usual time schedule.

The other issue here is it these companies they think that they are doing good and then they don't even take into account the potential problems. They're making a lot of money, whether it's Meta or X or whatever, I guess X isn't making as much money as they thought they were, but they don't care about the harms.

I mean, maybe some of their employees do. But as a general note, they're there to make money.

SEGALL: I think -- here's what I would say. Some are doing a better job with others.

[16:55:02]

Some companion chat bots like Replica, you have to be 18 to get on that platform. You have to be 13-years-old to get on Character AI. So it's important for us to look and really look at all of these specifically, and demand certain accountability and research that'd be done if were testing this out on younger generations on our teenagers, Jake.

TAPPER: Well, I don't think that they're going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Unless somebody makes them do it. This is real harm as we see with this kid, poor family.

Laurie Segall, thank you so much for bringing this.

And if you or someone you know is facing mental health struggles, please contract contact the crisis lifeline. You can call or text, 988, that's 9 or 8 -- 988.

There is help for you. There is love for you. I promise you're not alone.

We'll be right back.

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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We are just over one week until Election Day when the polls close and both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald --