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Harris & Trump Crisscross Battlegrounds with 8 Days to Election; Harris to Focus on Manufacturing Jobs in Key Battleground MI; Trump Uses Dark Rhetoric, Fearmongering in Closing Pitch at NYC Rally; Philadelphia DA Files Lawsuit to Stop Musk's $1M Giveaways; GOP's Court Strategy Sets Stage to Cast Doubt on Election Results. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 28, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:25]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: It's the final full week of the 2024 election, and both candidates are where you would expect them to be, in swing states. Donald Trump moments ago in Georgia, while his campaign is in damage control after inflammatory and vulgar remarks were spewed at his New York rally last night. Meantime, Kamala Harris is in Michigan, a blue wall state zeroing in on manufacturing jobs.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And Elon Musk and his super PAC sued: Philadelphia's district attorney asking a judge to shut down the billionaire's controversial $1 million giveaway to register voters in battleground states.

Plus, the quarter pounder back on the menu. But McDonald's CEO is apologizing after a recent E. coli outbreak led to 75 illnesses and one death.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: It is the top of the hour, and we are hearing two very different and distinct closing messages in the final days of this presidential campaign. Right now, Vice President Kamala Harris is in the battleground state of Michigan, where she's focused on laying out her economic vision for the country. She was in Saginaw last hour touring a semiconductor factory. Tomorrow, she's going to deliver her closing argument at The Ellipse in the nation's Capitol, the site of Donald Trump's January 6th speech that later turned into a riot.

KEILAR: Her political rival, former President Trump, is in the swing state of Georgia. And in the next hour, he'll speak at a faith summit before holding a rally tonight in Atlanta. That campaign stop is coming as Trump team is trying to contain the fallout from his rally at Madison Square Garden last night. That's an event that featured a parade of MAGA stalwarts as speakers, and their closing message was menacing, vulgar, misogynistic and also racist.

We have a team of correspondents covering today's developments. Kristen Holmes is in Atlanta following the Trump campaign. But let's begin with Eva McKend, who is following the Vice President in Michigan.

Eva, Harris just spoke at a campaign event. What did she say?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, she applauded what she describes as the extraordinary work of the workers there. Union jobs, she's celebrating meeting with workers on the assembly line and touting the benefits, as she describes it, of the CHIPS and Science Act passed under the Biden-Harris administration, which they argue fortified these types of manufacturing jobs.

Later on, she'll be in Macomb County speaking at a labor union training facility. And these spaces gives her the opportunity to talk about what she describes as the opportunity economy and the different planks of that that include provisions for manufacturing jobs, like improving apprenticeships programs, as well as tax credits for American manufacturers.

And this comes at a time when Democrats, more broadly, are saying that the Vice President needs to be doing just this, focusing on her vision for the country and why she wants to be vice president, not so much on the former president, because there are limitations to this argument and that most Americans essentially already know who he is and what he's about.

She spoke to the "Club Shay Shay" podcast about her policy vision. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So part of my policy is to, one, create a fund so that we will give a $25,000 down payment to first time homeowners.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

HARRIS: To just help people get in the door. We will deal with the rent issue because part of what we're seeing in Atlanta, in places across our country is these corporations are buying up all these properties, which means then that they don't have to deal with competition between the properties and they're jacking up rent costs. So it's about also going after that corporate gouging.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And the Vice President will end her day here in Ann Arbor at a big rally here. Maggie Rogers will perform and it will be a rare opportunity to see the Vice President with her running mate on stage at the same time. Gov. Walz will campaign at the rally as well. Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Eva McKend live for us in Ann Arbor. Thank you so much.

Let's take you to Atlanta now with CNN's Kristen Holmes, where Donald Trump is holding two events today in the swing state of Georgia. Kristen, what are you hearing from his campaign about all the stuff we heard last night?

[15:05:05]

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris and Brianna, they've been clearly in cleanup mode. We know that they have put out a statement. I do want to quickly read it to you because it really is one of the only times we've seen them distance themselves from remarks that were given at a Trump rally. They wrote: "This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign."

Now, there they're specifically referring to the comedian, the opener of yesterday's Madison Square Garden rally. And the joke in particular was about Puerto Ricans saying essentially that Puerto Rico is a floating island of garbage. That received massive backlash, not just from Democrats, but also from Republicans. It could also be very politically silly to make those kind of remarks at a Donald Trump rally, given the fact that Puerto Ricans make up a large swath of voters in swing states, including critical state of Pennsylvania, where there are more than 400,000 Puerto Ricans who are going to head to the polls.

And I've heard a lot of finger pointing from some of the Trump campaign, from some allies who said they couldn't believe that this speech wasn't vetted ahead of time. They couldn't believe that these jokes were approved, that they got out on the stage.

Now I talked to one campaign advisor who said that this speech was not vetted entirely. Another one said that, yes, they did go through a speech and go through some of the jokes, but these jokes, particularly the one about Puerto Rico, was never actually in any paper that they had looked at, that this comedian was speaking off the cuff.

But really the anger among these various allies is that they believe it overshadowed Donald Trump appearing at Madison Square Garden. He had a full house. He filled every single seat. There were standing ovations when it came to Donald Trump's messaging around immigration and crime. But all of that, of course, has been overshadowed by the coverage of the fact that there were so many vile, racist and sexist remarks leading up to Donald Trump speaking.

Now, I am told that there's no formal plan right now for the former president to address any of these remarks in the pre-program. They're going to let this campaign statement speak for itself, not today in Georgia or tomorrow when he's actually in Pennsylvania. Of course, we'll be keeping an eye on whether or not that changes as Donald Trump takes the stage.

KEILAR: All right. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for that report on the trail.

And with us now is former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek, thank you for taking some time with us this afternoon.

The Trump campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Fox earlier saying the joke doesn't reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign, specifically talking about the Puerto Rico joke. But also, she said the crowd, they didn't mind.

You were there. Did you mind?

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, (R) FORMER 2024 PRESIDENT CANDIDATE: Look, the fact of the matter is, I wasn't in the room when that joke was made, but I got to say, we got to take a step back and look at the double standards here, Brianna. Let's be really honest.

George Lopez made a joke at Kamala Harris' rally over the weekend about all Mexicans being thieves. Are we attributing that comment to Kamala Harris or querying all of her proxies who are at that rally? No, we're not. So I think we need to all get off our high horses and acknowledge that a bad joke was told. It was bad because it wasn't very funny. The audience didn't find it funny. The guys told other funny jokes in other places. This wasn't one of them.

But the media manufacturing of outrage out of this is really just a double standard when you look at the exact kind of jokes being told at the Kamala Harris rally over the weekend. And the fact is, if George Lopez had said that at the Donald Trump rally ...

KEILAR: Well, you've seen a comedy show before ...

RAMASWAMY: ... if I may finish ...

KEILAR: ... you've seen a comedy show before?

RAMASWAMY: ... if I may finish, just to finish making the point, if the George Lopez joke had been told at the Donald Trump rally, you and I both know we'd be talking about that. But because it was at a Kamala Harris rally, we're not saying a word about it and I think that that's just hypocritical.

KEILAR: I think that if your comedian were Mexican-American, it might be different. I mean, you're familiar with - I'm assuming you've been to a comedy show - you're familiar ...

RAMASWAMY: Yes.

KEILAR: ... with these things. If someone is of South Asian descent or they're Mexican-American and they tell a joke about the group from which they come from, things can land a little differently. And we heard these jokes. There is a group certainly that the comedian belongs to and he didn't really joke about them that much. So I think that's something to note as well.

RAMASWAMY: Well, the funny and most remarkable part about this is the audience didn't love the joke. They actually booed. And it says a lot about the audience's response to a bad joke. On the end, this is a comedian who roasted Tom Brady famously as well. So everybody knew he was a comedian.

Let's also take a step back and ask what else was going on during this same rally or focused on this early warm up speakers. Frankly, most people didn't even know he was going to speak early on in the rally. The whole time Tim Walz is doing a live stream calling the people in Madison Square Garden Nazis, where's the apology for that?

I was in the room. I was there the entire time. There were multiple Israel flags held up in the audience, not exactly the material of a Nazi rally. And I just think that this media game isn't healthy for the country where we airlift some comment, this time that didn't even come from Donald Trump. Not even when Donald Trump was in the building. But a warm up speaker at his rally makes one joke, but a comedian at Kamala Harris' rally makes at least one that's even more offensive in the other direction and we're not talking about it, I think that we have to be able to ...

KEILAR: Well ...

RAMASWAMY: ... really take seriously ...

KEILAR: ... just to be clear as we've discussed ...

RAMASWAMY: ... what Donald Trump and Kamala Harris say ...

KEILAR: ... he made it in ...

RAMASWAMY: ... versus jokes (INAUDIBLE) ...

KEILAR: ... he made it in his own direction.

[15:10:08]

But I will tell you that the comedian certainly overshadowed a lot of people making statements. And that included yours. You were there. You said this, this was part of your message last night and I want to discuss it with you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAMASWAMY: What does it mean to be American? It means we have elections we can trust and believe in. And that means single day voting on Election Day as a national holiday with paper ballots and government-issued ID to match the voter file. That's how we save the country after we win at this time by voting early.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So voting early is okay to use to win for your guy, but then you want to get rid of it?

RAMASWAMY: I think you've got to play by the rules you have in order to change them to what they should be. Just like people should pay taxes as required by the tax code who may otherwise favor changing the tax code. The same applies to the way we conduct elections.

And if I may for a second, you brought up Puerto Rico before. I actually love Puerto Rico. I've spent a lot of time there. One of the things I've done in my studies of the island meeting with leaders there is understand how they conduct elections in Puerto Rico. And I think we have a lot to learn from them where they do have single voting on - single day voting on election day as a holiday for the island. They use paper ballots and other election security measures that we don't use in the United States.

So for our part, speaking to Puerto Ricans, what I want to say is we have a lot to learn from Puerto Rico, including the way they run elections. But yes, we have to win this election in order to get there. And so play by the rules we have legally to the fullest extent allowed. And then, yes, I think it could be civic and unifying in civic unity for the country to say there's one day we take apart from our daily drudgery of our day to say we're doing our duty to our country and more united as a consequence. But that's not happening in this election, we need to win this election and that's why I do think it is not only okay, I would encourage people this election so we can win to vote early to change the rules to what they should be.

KEILAR: Even on national holidays, some people will still work. We see them working. We see them. If you're so concerned ...

RAMASWAMY: And, of course, we have exceptions for that.

KEILAR: ... if you're so ...

RAMASWAMY: Of course, we have exceptions for people who are working, like emergency workers or otherwise. But the basic premise, as Puerto Rico does it, if Puerto Rico can do it, we can do it (INAUDIBLE) ...

KEILAR: If you're so concerned about - Vivek, if you're so concerned about paper trails, are you aware who has the biggest lack of them?

RAMASWAMY: I don't follow the premise of the question, Brianna, I have to confess.

KEILAR: If you're so worried about paper trails.

RAMASWAMY: Yes.

KEILAR: Like, are you - is this just - is this like an issue that you're talking about or are you aware that it's a few counties in Texas ...

RAMASWAMY: Look, I believe ...

KEILAR: ... and it's all of Louisiana? I mean, are you are you talking to those folks? Have you talked to the leadership in those localities, those states where there is no paper trail at all, let alone paper ballots and said, hey, guys, maybe fix it.

RAMASWAMY: So, look, here's something you and I can, I think, agree on. I think you and I would agree on this. The crisis of public trust in our elections is a real problem. And if we can shore up that trust in a way that says we're done, nobody wants to be complaining. Certainly I don't want to be complaining or anyone on my side to be complaining about stolen elections or election integrity.

The easiest way to move it forward is to do it the way that Puerto Rico does it today. And I think that many countries do it this way. We've done it this way in the past with respect to paper ballots in our country. I don't think government-issued ID should be controversial, but the fact that many people ...

KEILAR: But, you know, most people have paper ballots.

RAMASWAMY: ... if I may finish, if I may finish, Brianna, the fact that many people find government-issued ID requirements to be controversial is actually what breeds that mistrust about election integrity in the first place.

KEILAR: Okay, I do just want to be clear ...

RAMASWAMY: The fact that those voter IDs are themselves controversial and reveal as a real issue.

KEILAR: ... that most people have - most people - there is a paper ballot and there is a paper trail that the process by which they're doing it generates a paper ballot, a paper trail to show how they have voted. So this idea that like a bunch of people are voting and it just kind of goes off into the ether, that doesn't happen. We're talking about the vast majority ...

RAMASWAMY: Brianna, (INAUDIBLE) didn't even say that.

KEILAR: I didn't interrupt you, sir.

RAMASWAMY: I didn't even say that.

KEILAR: The vast majority of people, so it's sort of - I'm just curious because it seems like also to the point of the ID, this idea of like noncitizen voting, it's already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections with threat of prosecution and deportation as a deterrent, which may be why it just doesn't happen in any meaningful number, including in your home state.

I just wonder, in both of these cases, are you promoting a solution to ...

RAMASWAMY: Yes.

KEILAR: ... solve problems that don't exist?

RAMASWAMY: I'm promoting a solution to address a problem that does exist, which is the loss of public confidence in elections against the backdrop of voter fraud that is real. Nobody's denied the existence ...

KEILAR: Well, why do you think there's a loss in confidence?

RAMASWAMY: Nobody - whoa, you see, you just said you weren't interrupting me and then you're interrupting me, Brianna.

KEILAR: Well, now I am. Yes, yes.

RAMASWAMY: If I may finish answering the question? If I may finish answering the question?

KEILAR: Because we're running out of time. RAMASWAMY: If I may - I'm going to answer the question you ask.

KEILAR: Why do you think there's a loss in confidence?

RAMASWAMY: I think that - I think there's a loss in confidence because there are unknown numbers of illegal migrants in this country. And I think there's a big loss of confidence because people object to the idea of using voter IDs, the same IDs you're required to drive a car, why is it an objectionable to use that to actually be a requirement to vote?

[15:15:08]

The fact that people call that racist to shut down debate? Yes, I do think that breeds public mistrust. So here's what I want ...

KEILAR: I do. I'm going to interrupt you because ...

RAMASWAMY: I do not - I want to be clear about my view - my views.

KEILAR: ... best practices ...

RAMASWAMY: I don't want complaints about election integrity. I don't want us fighting over stolen elections.

KEILAR: ... best practices for voting include cross-referencing ...

RAMASWAMY: I think we can restore trust.

KEILAR: ... votes with the DMV and Social Security to make sure that that doesn't happen. I do just want to be clear. You're talking about ...

RAMASWAMY: Sure.

KEILAR: ... this idea of like all of these imaginary illegal immigrants who are voting, it's just not true. Texas, there was this point where they had thousands of people they identified as non- citizens, turned out they had become citizens. They actually had to settle because of what they did there. Georgia, the Republican secretary of state, they identified 20 non-citizens who was - who had registered to vote out of 8.2 million ...

RAMASWAMY: Those are fine examples, Brianna.

KEILAR: ... nine of them had voted. All of them were sent to law enforcement. And in Ohio, your state, out of 8 million people, law enforcement is reviewing ...

RAMASWAMY: Brianna ...

KEILAR: ... 138 people who cast a ballot for possibly, that hasn't even been confirmed. I get what you're saying, but these numbers are not meaningful.

RAMASWAMY: I know the chapters and verses you're citing from, I've heard these cases.

KEILAR: You spend a lot of time ...

RAMASWAMY: And that we - excuse me, Brianna.

KEILAR: ... talking about a problem that is so minuscule, it doesn't affect outcomes.

RAMASWAMY: I actually don't - the challenge I would give you and anybody who shares your view is explain why voter ID laws are controversial. Why is it racist to have a voter ID law? And the fact that people are using racist allegations against the simple premise of having a driver's license to vote is what is breeding public mistrust in our elections.

And I'll make a pledge to everybody in this country, Republican or Democrat. If we get to voter ID laws that match the voter file and have single day voting on Election Day as a national holiday, I'm done and anybody else in the Republican Party should be done as well. And the Democratic Party, too, in complaining about election integrity, do it the way Puerto Rico does it. And if they do it in Puerto Rico, we can do it in the rest of the United States and turn this page so that we're not talking about this issue.

But the fact that voter ID laws are themselves controversial with the left reveals that there is a real issue here, that if a voter ID law is deemed racist and you're not even allowed to talk about advocating for that without undergoing this kind of grilling, that reveals a real issue and loss of public trust that I do believe we need to fix to unite this country. That's my hope. And I do think a solid victory, which we are not debating on November 6th for either candidate, I hope it's Donald Trump, is something that will unite this country and that's what I'm rooting for.

KEILAR: Well, I think it's because the consequence that I certainly hope from your perspective is inadvertent, is that it discourages some people who have the right to vote from voting in numbers that far eclipse what you're talking about solving with this nonexistent problem. But Vivek Ramaswamy ...

RAMASWAMY: I respectfully disagree with that, just as it doesn't deter them from driving. But I think that that's a reasonable discussion for us to have in good faith rather than dismissing voter ID laws as racist. At least that's a constructive step in the debate.

KEILAR: I don't know - I didn't say it was racist.

RAMASWAMY: (INAUDIBLE), Brianna.

KEILAR: So I understand maybe you're having a conversation with someone else about this, but it's not me. Vivek ...

RAMASWAMY: In Georgia, countless leftists have, yes.

KEILAR: Vivek Ramaswamy, thank you for being with us.

RAMASWAMY: Thank you. Appreciate it.

KEILAR: Still to come, Philadelphia's district attorney filing a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk controversial million dollar giveaway to voters in election battleground states.

SANCHEZ: Plus, an unprecedented number of pre-election lawsuits from the Republican Party. What they're challenging and how it could set the stage to cast doubts on the election results?

And later ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DWYANE WADE: That's crazy. I can't believe it. Who is that guy?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Who is that guy? Former Miami Heat superstar, Dwyane Wade, has his very own statue outside the Kaseya Center in Miami. But you've got to take a closer look because something may seem a bit off.

KEILAR: Hmm.

SANCHEZ: That and much more ...

KEILAR: Who is that guy, really?

SANCHEZ: That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:23:02]

SANCHEZ: New today, a legal move designed to halt Elon Musk's $1 million daily giveaways to voters in election battleground states.

KEILAR: Yes, the Philadelphia district attorney filed a lawsuit earlier today asking a judge to shut down what he calls an illegal lottery scheme. Named in the lawsuit, Musk, and his pro-Trump group, called America PAC. CNN's Marshall Cohen is with us.

Marshall, what is the Philly DA saying about why he thinks Musk's sweepstakes are illegal?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Well, he says it's an illegal lottery in the state of Pennsylvania. Lotteries are highly regulated, as is common in most states. And in the eyes of the Philadelphia DA, this is operating totally outside of the law without that regulation that's required to run a sweepstake like this in Pennsylvania.

So this is a liberal, progressive prosecutor who filed this lawsuit. So that's where he's coming from, obviously no fan of Musk. But in his eyes, this is unlawful and needs to be shut down to maintain the integrity of the election.

Let me read for you a little bit from the lawsuit filed this morning, quote, "Running an illegal lottery and violating consumer protections is ample basis for an injunction and concluding that America PAC and Musk must be stopped, immediately, before the upcoming election." Went on to say that America PAC and Musk hatched their illegal lottery scheme to influence voters in the election.

So their plea to this judge is to shut this down ASAP before it can continue to influence voters. Musk and his team have not responded in court yet. Obviously, they don't think they're doing anything wrong because we asked them for comments and their response was a tweet, which was the announcement of the latest million dollar winner announced this morning in Michigan.

SANCHEZ: Quite a response. Marshall Cohen, thank you so much for that.

So this election cycle has been filled with these lawsuits brought by Republicans, an unprecedented number of lawsuits setting the stage to preemptively cast doubt on the election results.

[15:25:04]

KEILAR: This goes lockstep with former President Trump's election doubt strategy. And Democrats are pushing back on this. We have CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent, Paula Reid, here with more on this.

What are Republican lawyers trying to achieve with this legal strategy?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you ask them, as I have, they'll say, look, we want the rules to be clear both for voters and for election workers before folks go to the polls. But of course, their detractors say this is all part of an effort to sow doubts about the outcome of the election and put on maybe a more sophisticated version of the challenges that we saw back in 2020.

But look, it's indisputable that GOP has taken a very litigious approach to the 2024 campaign. They've been challenging pretty much every aspect of elections, including rules for mail-in ballots. We've talked about that here, including overseas ballots. Historically, others were predominantly military ballots. Now, actually, civilian expats outnumber military ballots, and that is a concern for some members of the GOP. They've gone after election certification rules.

Now, this is something they, of course, tried to exploit back in 2020. They've also focused a lot on noncitizen voting. Just today, we saw the Virginia case go all the way up to the Supreme Court, unclear if the justices will weigh in. They've also taken aim at poll workers.

They've gone after pretty much any aspect of the election you can imagine. But overall, they've had some successes, but mostly either they've had losses or cases that were just stalled. And if we look at the totality, there really hasn't been a lot of change to how elections are run.

SANCHEZ: How likely is it that this election gets decided in the courts? REID: It's fascinating because I've been talking to lawyers for both sides for months now, and I will say on the Trump side of things, in recent weeks, whatever polls they're seeing internally, they've been a lot less focused, right, on the possibility of a legal challenge. Now, I don't know if that's just them projecting optimism, trying to just get through the stress of an election season, but the polling that they're seeing, they feel optimistic this will not have to go to the Supreme Court, that the Electoral College will give their candidate a win.

But I think it's important that we need to remember, even if lawsuits, these challenges appear that they were either dismissed or they were settled, there is a theory that there are a lot of, quote, "zombie cases" out there, that if things don't go your way for - I know it sounds terrible, but it's interesting, right?

You file a lawsuit, maybe you don't pursue it, but if things don't go the way you hope for your candidate after November 5th, you can go back and try to resurrect that and challenge either ballots that were counted or were not counted or rules. So when we talk about over 130 cases where the RNC has intervened in one way or another, even if they haven't won or lost, all of these cases could potentially be resurrected to try to challenge the outcomes of the election.

SANCHEZ: Spooky season ...

KEILAR: Mm-hmm.

REID: Halloween.

SANCHEZ: ... in more ways than (INAUDIBLE), yes.

REID: Halloween (INAUDIBLE) here.

KEILAR: I was going to say, tis the season indeed.

Paula Reid, thank you so much.

Coming up, Israel retaliating for Iran's missile barrage, but the regime in Tehran now says this won't be the end, while suggesting it does not want escalation. The latest from the region, including new ceasefire talks, next.

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