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Harris Focuses on Economic Vision During Stop in Battleground Michigan; Iran Vows Response to Israeli Strike but Says It Does Not Seek War; Ballot Boxes Set on Fire in Washington, Oregon; Tight Races Could Decide Control of Congress. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 28, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Moments ago, Vice President Harris spoke at a semiconductor plant in Saginaw, Michigan. She tried to contrast her economic vision with that of former President Trump. Here's a bit of it.

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Look, we are eight days out from an election, so I just got to also talk about the contrast. Because my opponent spends full time talking about just kind of diminishing who we are as America. And talking down at people.

Talking about, I don't know, that we're the garbage can of the world. We're not. Just recently did a radio talk show and talked about how he'd get rid of the CHIPS Act.

That was billions of dollars investing in just the kind of work that's happening here. And you know how we did it? We created tax credits to create the incentive for the private sector to do this work. That's good work.

When he was President, he sold advanced chips to China. That helped them with their agenda to modernize their military.

That's not about what's in the best interest of America's security and prosperity. Which should be two of the highest priorities for President of the United States. So I say all that to say that there is a choice that the American public, a very serious choice, presented in the next eight days.

And as much as anything, it is a question about what is the direction and the future that we want for our country.

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KEILAR: Harris has two more stops in Michigan today. She's on her way now to Maycomb County. And then she has one more stop in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Pivoting our focus to the Middle East now. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealing today what some of his goals are for Israel after the war in Gaza. Speaking to the Israeli Parliament, Netanyahu said it is his intention to create a lasting peace in the region by pursuing new deals with Arab nations.

At the same time, Netanyahu is apparently open to Egypt's proposal for a two-day ceasefire in Gaza. That's what a member of his own political party told CNN after a closed-door meeting. This comes fewer than two days after Israel launched retaliatory strikes on Iran. An assault that Iran now warns it will respond to appropriately.

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Let's discuss with former Defense Secretary and CNN Global Affairs analyst Mark Esper. He serves on the board or as a strategic advisor for a handful of aerospace and defense-related companies.

Secretary, a pleasure to have you as always. Thanks for joining us. What stood out to you first about Israel's retaliatory strikes over the weekend? And how do you anticipate this appropriate response that Tehran is describing will look like?

MARK ESPER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, good afternoon, Boris. I think first on the Israeli assault, I was very impressed by it. They employed, what, over 100 aircraft flying 1,000 miles to attack 20 targets and basically stripped away Iran's top-tier air defenses and went after its ballistic missile production nodes and drone nodes.

So they basically interrupted ballistic missile production, which will not only harm Iran, but it will also help with Hezbollah, who also gets ballistic missiles from Iran, and also Ukraine, I'm sorry, Russia, that gets ballistic missiles from Iran to use against Ukraine. So I think that's a good thing. But the message they sent by stripping away their air defenses is that if you act up, Iran, if you strike back, we can come back, the doors are open, and we'll go after different sites.

And as I said a few weeks ago when this came up, they had the choice between leadership targets, military targets and economic targets, and, of course, the nuclear targets. And they chose the military targets. But next time, who knows, we'll be beyond an election likely, and maybe Netanyahu thinks his hand is freer to do whatever he wants.

Now, with regard to the counterattack, I think for those same reasons, Iran is going to be very hesitant to come back and do anything to respond. You see it in the language of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who is speaking very moderately. I suspect they're not going to respond at this point in time because they know that they're in a very, very weak position.

SANCHEZ: Secretary, I'm also curious to get your thoughts about the hostage release and ceasefire talks resuming in Doha. What do you think would need to happen for us to see a breakthrough? And you mentioned how the U.S. election might play a role in the broader picture. Specifically with these talks, how does the election potentially alter the conversation? ESPER: Well, look, I think it's good that they're talking, but my understanding is that Hamas is not there, number one. Number two, Hamas is still saying that the preconditions are a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and that's not going to happen.

And number three, it's not clear -- I haven't heard that they've appointed a new political leader yet. So we don't know who's going to be running Hamas making these decisions. Will it be another hardliner like Yahya Sinwar was, or will it be a moderate who's living outside of Gaza?

So on the Palestinian side and Gaza, those are important factors. On the Israeli side, of course, there is an imperative to bring back the hostages. An overwhelming majority of Israelis want that.

But on the other hand, Bibi Netanyahu is in a much, much stronger position right now in terms of vis-a-vis the Palestinians in Gaza. He doesn't have to worry as much about Hezbollah to the north and certainly not as much about Iran to the east. So he's in a much stronger position.

I don't suspect he's in a position to kind of concede too much. So I'm still not optimistic about talks at this point, Boris.

SANCHEZ: How optimistic would you say you are for the supposed peace deals that Netanyahu is talking about brokering after the war with Hamas?

ESPER: Well, they certainly need a peace deal. This is going to end up in some type of negotiated agreement, a settlement. But what we need to know is what's the near-term settlement for Gaza, right?

They're certainly not going to allow Hamas to come back and govern. So who's going to go in there? Is it going to be Israeli troops eventually succeeded by a pan-Arab force or an Arab-European force?

Ultimately, at the end of the day, will it be West Bank, the PLO? I'm sorry, not the PLO, but Abu Mazen, who leads the Palestinians in West Bank in charge of Gaza? We don't know.

That's what we need to see is the interim step before we see the broader strategic deal that encapsulates the region based on the foundation of the Abraham Accords. That's what we're looking for in the long term. But we need that short-term plan right now.

SANCHEZ: Secretary Mark Esper, appreciate the analysis. Thanks for joining us.

ESPER: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Ahead, officials are investigating after ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington, just about 15 miles apart, were set on fire with Election Day just eight days away. Stay with us.

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KEILAR: Federal authorities are investigating fires at two ballot boxes earlier today, just miles apart in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, and those areas.

SANCHEZ: CNN's Sara Murray joins us now. Sara, what are you hearing about these incidents?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously this is a very concerning development to election officials, to the citizens. We don't know what the motivations are, but these are two instances that happened early this morning. One in Washington State, one in Portland, Oregon, where there were incendiary devices put into these drop boxes.

And so authorities are investigating. In Washington State, they've said there are some ballots that are damaged. Essentially, if you dropped your ballot off at this drop box after mid-morning on Saturday, you should go online, you should check the status of your ballot.

You know, you can request a replacement ballot. And then in Oregon, they said that there were just three ballots that were impacted, and they're reaching out to those people to try to remedy this situation. But again, you know, this is a concerning development.

And as we head into Election Day, we have seen warnings from the Department of Homeland Security saying that there is social media chatter online about how to destroy these ballot drop boxes, which have been huge targets for misinformation.

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We've seen, you know, on the right, a lot of talk about these being sort of havens for, you know, voter fraud, for ballot fraud. Again, no evidence of that.

We still don't know the motivation behind this. But, you know, this is one of the things that we're going to be monitoring. We want everyone to be able to safely cast their ballot, and if their ballot was impacted, of course, to be able to cast a new ballot.

KEILAR: There's social media chatter online.

MURRAY: Yes, so this is, again, one of the things that DHS sends these periodic warnings about. One of their warnings has included the note that there was sort of social media conversation about how to destroy ballot boxes.

And the reason they put out these warnings is to say, here are some steps you should take to make sure that your ballot box is safe and secure. Consider having a camera monitoring it. Here are ways to secure, you know, the slot where you put your ballot in. Here are the ways to make sure it's secured to the ground so that it can't be removed.

And so there are a number of steps like that. Again, we have all these federal partners who are working with the state and county election offices to try to make sure that their systems are as safe and secure as they possibly can be.

SANCHEZ: Yes, important information to get out there. And hopefully this was just an isolated incident or incidents and we don't see more of that.

MURRAY: Right, absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Sara Murray, thank you so much.

KEILAR: And now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

A British lawmaker is now claiming he felt threatened after video surfaced that appeared to show him repeatedly punching a man in the street last week. Police are investigating Mike Amesbury, who is an independent member of the British Parliament.

The governing Labour Party suspended Amesbury pending the results of the police investigation. Amesbury is pledging to cooperate with that inquiry.

SANCHEZ: Also, a dramatic rescue to share with you in the waters off Hawaii. The U.S. Coast Guard pulling a man and his two children out of danger after their boat capsized. The kids were just 8 and 12 years old and they were not wearing life jackets. The Coast Guard spotted them clinging to that sinking boat. Fortunately, no injuries reported there.

And McDonald's is putting its quarter pounder back on the menu this week following a deadly E. coli outbreak. The burger's return comes after beef patties tested negative for the bacteria. The outbreak was linked to one death, 75 others who were sickened across 13 states. While no E. coli was found in the samples of the beef, federal inspectors say onion is likely the source of the contamination. So this week, McDonald's will begin serving quarter pounders again sans the onions. No onion.

KEILAR: No onion. All right. Well, so when we come back, a look at the races that could decide who controls the House of Representatives and the two incumbent Democrats most at risk of losing their seats.

Stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: The 2024 race is not only a nail-biter when it comes to who will win the White House next week. There are several close races that could determine who will win control of both chambers of Congress.

KEILAR: CNN Capitol Hill reporter Annie Grayer is here. And Annie, on Friday you looked at who the most vulnerable Republicans are. So let's go across the aisle now and talk about which Congressional Democrats are most at risk of losing their seats.

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Well, Brianna, there are five House Democrats who actually represent districts that Donald Trump carried in 2020. And two of those Democrats are Congressman Jaren Golden of Maine and Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State. And they are in very, very tough re-election campaigns. And their method here is really to try and distance themselves from the National Democratic Party branch.

Neither of them have formally endorsed Kamala Harris for president. They have both voted against key parts of the Biden-Harris administration's agenda. And they've also voted with Republicans a number of times, including on the border and immigration, which is such a polarizing topic this election. And there were a couple of votes where they voted with Republicans on a bill that was going to go nowhere in a Democratic-controlled Senate and was certainly not supported by the Biden administration.

They also joined this non-binding symbolic resolution that was led by Republicans back in July that was criticizing the Biden-Harris administration's handling of the border.

And as two Democratic lawmakers to sign onto that, to put your names on that publicly and stand up against your own party's administration on this issue, that's a big message. And, you know, we're going to talk about more this week, the map across the country and the opportunities that Democrats have to flip the House because there are a lot of them. None of that really matters if they can't hold on to their own incumbents.

So these two are part of a group that Democrats are on defense on, that Republicans know are top pickups for them. You know, when we think about just broadly the Democratic Party in rural areas, these are both Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez represent very rural parts of the country in districts that are more favored to Trump. So how these Democrats are running those races really gives us a window into kind of these final days, what their message is.

SANCHEZ: And what the next administration, no matter who wins, might be able to do and who may wind up becoming the speaker. I mean, there's a lot of intrigue here at multiple levels.

GRAYER: What happens on election day? And, you know, we should remind people that it's going to take us a while to figure out who is not only going to win the presidency, but who's going to control the balance of power in the House and the Senate. But these races for who -- for which party gains control has huge implications of who's going to become the next speaker. Yes.

KEILAR: And she's up against Joe Kent, who I think is a really interesting. He's a veteran. He's also a Gold Star husband as well. Right.

GRAYER: And he's very much embraced Trump in his race. So you have one Republican who in this race was very much sided with the party. And then you have the Democrat running away a little bit from hers. KEILAR: It's really interesting. Annie Grayer, thank you so much.

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Up next, it is the first statue of a Miami Heat player outside the team's arena. Boris has particular interest in this. He seems to be saying this is a little bit mid. OK, but former NBA star Dwayne Wade's figure is going viral, including here for the figure is going viral, including here for the wrong reasons. We'll take a look.

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SANCHEZ: Brianna, do you know what Lawrence Fishburne, Mr. Clean, and Thanos all have in common? Besides the obvious, of course.

KEILAR: Which is what? I don't know. No, I have no idea.

SANCHEZ: Those are all the people who have a closer resemblance to the newly unveiled statue of Dwayne Wade than Dwayne Wade himself.

The Miami Heat franchise, very, very close to my heart, unveiled this tribute, honoring the Hall of Fame guard over the weekend. It's supposed to be Wade in a moment of celebration from a wild game in 2009. He hit a three-pointer in triple overtime to crush the Chicago Bulls. But it doesn't really look like him.

KEILAR: Looks kind of like you a little bit. None the less, others are drawing comparisons to the infamous bust of Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer superstar that was unveiled back in 2017. Also doesn't look like him.

Wade appeared in awe of the statue, though he was actually consulted in the making of it.

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And Boris, just so you know, I suspect sabotage because the artist behind the statue is apparently named John Berman? Just kidding. Just kidding. Maybe it looks more like him from below.

SANCHEZ: Dwayne Wade approved it. Dwayne Wade approved it. I've seen pictures of it at night where it looks a lot more like him when it's dark when it's very dark around the statue. So congrats to Dwayne Wade. I look forward to taking pictures in front of this thing.

Don't go anywhere. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

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