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Cassandra Jaramillo is Interviewed about Women Dying from Lack of Abortion Care; Economy Adds 12,000 Jobs; Betsy Young is Interviewed about Voting in Georgia; Witness in Combs Case; Election Math in the Polls; J. Michael Luttig is Interviewed about Trump's Comments about Cheney. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired November 01, 2024 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: I do want to ask you, we heard from a husband whose wife nearly died in Texas because of these severely restricted abortion care in that state. And he went online, he went viral talking about his wife and what she went through. And I want you to hear a little bit of it. His name is Ryan Hamilton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN HAMILTON, NEARLY LOST WIFE TO BOTCHED ABORTION CARE: She needed a procedure called a D and C. And the doctors refused that care and kept sending us back home. After multiple visits to multiple hospitals across Texas, they just kept sending us back home with a prescription for a drug called misoprostol. And the short version of that story is, my wife bled profusely for four days, and I found her unconscious in her own blood in our bathroom, and she had to be rushed to the hospital for life saving care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: She - she was saved. But does that sound familiar? Is that sort of what is happening, these sorts of cases?
CASSANDRA JARAMILLO, REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: It tragically is very familiar, Sara. I think what our reporting is finding is that hospitals are discharging patients rather than assuming liability in these cases. And - and they're documenting in real time the cardiac activity of these fetuses and patients are growing sicker, as the case of this husband who, you know, the clip you just ran, and in the case of Jocelyn Varnita (ph) and Nivia Crane (ph). They are two women who are no longer here and whose families are grieving them tremendously.
SIDNER: What can women and, frankly, families do in these cases? What should they know about what they might need to do if they're in a state that has extremely restrictive reproductive care?
JARAMILLO: Yes. So, at ProPublica, we have a lot of public information on, you know, what is to be expected in treatment. And we are also continuing this reporting on this project and hopefully bringing out some further reporting on solutions and helping with guidance for patients. And certainly one thing that with these families that was critical was them obtaining the medical records of their loved ones to be able to really see the timeline of how their care was handled.
SIDNER: So, it would be - the reporting difficult as well because you're not sure what exactly happened, how the person may have died, or been sickened?
JARAMILLO: Absolutely.
SIDNER: That's a difficult thing.
JARAMILLO: Yes.
SIDNER: Cassandra Jaramillo, thank you so much for bringing this story to us and showing us just what is happening with women in places like Texas. Appreciate you.
JARAMILLO: Thank you, Sara.
SIDNER: All right, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up for us, the final jobs report before Election Day, the new numbers coming in right now. Get - we'll be bringing it to you.
And also this. A Halloween party turned deadly overnight in Orlando. A gunman opening fire in front of police, killing at least two people. And you see the mayhem that kind of ensues. The quick response from officers all on camera.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:37:45]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
SIDNER: Breaking news just in. The jobs report just dropped. CNN business anchor Julia Chatterley is here to break it all down for us.
There is something in this report that has a lot to do with things that none of us can control.
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, "FIRST MOVE": We were expecting the unexpected, and that's exactly what we got. There is a drop in this number, 12,000 jobs added net for the month of October. Much worse than expected. But what the report says is, look, we know there was severe damage in the south east of the country. It was a lot of hurricane damage. Helene and Milton, of course, that's baked into the cake here. We've also got the strikes at Boeing. So, when you look at this number, you have to keep those things in mind.
It's a massive drop, of course, from what we saw in September. That number was also revised lower, down to 223,000 jobs. In fact, what we lost was over 110,000 jobs over August and September.
So, the jobs market we know is cooling. It was a little cooler than we expected. We've got to look through these numbers. That's the bottom line, Sara. What we were expecting is a hit for those two things, hurricanes and for Boeing strikes, of somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 jobs. If you add the best case back to this, we're talking around 112,000 jobs added. It's a lot less than the average that we've seen. I'm couching everything I'm saying here -
SIDNER: Right.
CHATTERLEY: Because we have 34 days until the next report, and I'd love to jump forward and look at that and tell you really what's going on.
SIDNER: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: In terms of the sectors, manufacturing. Obviously, the Boeing strikes, that took a big hit, down 46,000 jobs net. Temporary help and services also took a hit. Helping us, government jobs. You would expect that. Hiring people to help with hurricane damage up 40,000. Health, up 52,000.
Where does this leave us?
SIDNER: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: It leaves us four days out from a presidential election. And you know exactly what's going to happen. There are going to be people here leaping on this and saying the jobs market is collapsing. The jobs market is not collapsing. It's cooling. Keep that in mind.
Thirty-four days till the next report, and then we'll get a bit of clarity. But for now, for today, it's a weak number and we were expecting something pretty weak. It is weaker than we were expecting, but as the BLS is saying, there's a lot of noise in these numbers.
[08:40:00]
SIDNER: And believe me, that noise will probably come up in the campaign.
CHATTERLEY: It's going to be politicized.
SIDNER: Yes, it will.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, try to shut it out.
SIDNER: All right.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
SIDNER: Julia Chatterley, we will try.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
SIDNER: But I'm glad that you got the memo. At least we're in sync.
CHATTERLEY: Exactly. Purple queens. SIDNER: Appreciate it.
All right, over to you, John.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, I got a map of Georgia up from 2020. Why? Because today early voting officially ends there. And as of this morning, more than 3.6 million ballots have been cast. That's more than half of the states registered active voters. And Republicans are returning - their early votes are turning out in numbers we have not seen before.
Where? Well, I want to show you Towns County. Tiny, rural Towns County. You can see really only about 8,000 votes there four years ago. This time around, they are turning out at the highest rate of any county in the entire state. A heavily Donald Trump county four years ago, likely to be the same this time.
With us now, Betsy Young, the chair of the Republican Party in Towns County, Georgia.
Madam Chairwoman, thank you so much for being with us.
What percent turnout do you have at this point?
BETSY YOUNG, GOP CHAIR FOR TOWNS COUNTY, GEORGIA: At this time, we have 68.75.
BERMAN: That's pretty darn high.
YOUNG: Yes, it is.
BERMAN: Four years ago, how many did you turn out? How much did you turn out at the end of the day last time? What was turnout four years ago?
YOUNG: I believe that we had a 60 percent turnout last year - last - in 2020. So, we - our goal - my goal was -
BERMAN: Early. Sixty percent early, right?
YOUNG: Yes. Yes. And that does not encount (ph) our absentee ballots. This has just been incredible, the - the enthusiasm and - and welcome to God's country. Here we are in little Towns County, at the top of Georgia. And north Georgia is very Republican.
BERMAN: So, you say that four years ago you, Republicans in Georgia, were more reactive than proactive when it comes to early voting. So, what changed?
YOUNG: Well, I think that the message from Donald Trump was, please vote early. And we are Trump country here. And we - we listen to what he said.
And also I think with the 2020 election, what occurred made us look into why this occurred. And we used to just sort of sit back and relax. And I've been involved in the Republican Party for a long time. And the two things that we seem to do is procrastinate, not know how to give a message to the people, and I think that's changed this go round.
BERMAN: How much did Donald Trump casting doubt on early voting - and - and he did. He just did. He didn't like early voting. He didn't like mail-in voting. How much did him casting doubt on it hamper your efforts in previous elections?
YOUNG: Well, in previous elections, it probably did hamper. People did want to come to the polls on election day. Personally, I like just Election Day and having it a holiday and a paid day for people. It's been that way for many, many years and it seemed to work.
But the early voting and in so many different states it's a very different time frame. And I think that it - it kept some people, and they came in here in Towns County, we had a very good showing on election day in 2020. I can't remember what it was. But it was not as - it was more, I think, than our - our early voting. We were surprised.
BERMAN: You going to have anything left to do next Tuesday given how many people have already turned out early?
YOUNG: Well, we're still out there. We've got a big parade coming with six counties. And I think that's another reason we've been successful is that we've been very visible doing things in the community, doing things with other counties, which is very surprising because a lot of times it's, you know, it's my district and I want - I want it done my way. And we don't have that in the Ninth District. We're - we're very blessed to have a congressman, Andrew Clyde, who is amazing, who is always available and - and we just are thriving. And we're going to continue to do it. And we've got a watch party set for a terrific ending on Tuesday night.
BERMAN: I know you've been at this a while, and you plan to step away from politics. So, congratulations on what may be your final presidential election in power there.
Betsy Young, thank you so much for being with us.
Kate.
YOUNG: Thank you.
BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, one witness now saying that they have evidence showing Sean "Diddy" Combs allegedly victimizing celebrities. To be clear, this witness has not filed a lawsuit against Combs.
[08:45:03]
He is not claiming to be a victim of any of the alleged misconduct.
Combs is currently behind bars, you'll remember, awaiting trial after being hit with multiple felony charges, including racketeering and sex trafficking.
CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister has much more on this latest development.
Elizabeth, what are you learning?
ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: So, Kate, we know that Combs was indicted in September. And since then he has been held in custody in Brooklyn as he awaits his trial, which is set for next year.
But as he has been held in custody, this investigation, this federal investigation, has been ongoing. I have had sources telling me over the past month that witnesses have been regularly meeting with federal investigators. And now I have three sources who tell me that the grand jury has been regularly convening.
Now, yesterday, Kate, the grand jury heard from a male witness, as you said, who does not claim that he himself was abused by Combs, but he claims to have evidence, video footage, that he says contains footage of Combs allegedly victimizing celebrities.
Now, we do not know the celebrity's names, and it's unclear what exactly he testified about and what jurors have said. But his attorney tells me on the record that he did testify in front of the grand jury yesterday.
Now, this is the latest development in this ongoing saga, Kate. We know that Combs has at least two dozen civil suits against him. He denies all of these allegations. He says that he has never sexually assaulted anyone. And I reached out to his team yesterday. They did not respond to comment about grand jury proceedings. But in a recent filing, his team did say that they believe that attorneys and their accusers have been speaking to the media and telling false information to the media, which they say is going to limit their client from having a fair trial.
Now, one more piece of news for you, Kate. As we got this reporting about this grand jury testimony yesterday, the government this week in a filing also says that they have obtained 60 devices from Combs that they say has more evidence that they are looking into.
BOLDUAN: So, more to come. Wow. Elizabeth, thank you very much for your continued great reporting on this.
Sara.
SIDNER: All right, Donald Trump, out loud, imagining a scenario where his political rival, Liz Cheney, faces nine rifles pointed at her face. Her response this morning, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:51:12]
SIDNER: Can you believe it? We are just four days out from Election Day. But this morning, more than 62 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting.
CNN's senior data reporter - come on in, Harry Enten.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Here I go. Got my exercise in.
SIDNER: Good times. He's joining us now to look at where things stand in the battleground states according to polls.
I mean, we've been watching this. You have been talking about just how historic this could be because it's so tight.
ENTEN: Yes.
SINDER: What is - is there any shift, anything new that you're seeing out there?
ENTEN: I mean, look, it's just tight. I guess that we're familiar to a little bit more blue across these battleground states than we're seeing right now. But look, its historically tight, right? Arizona's the widest margin at plus three for Trump. Georgia, plus two. Plus one in North Carolina. A tie in Nevada.
You come over here. I think the biggest shift is we're used to seeing blue down here. Less than a point lead for Harris in Wisconsin. A point lead in Michigan.
But it's actually red. We got red in Pennsylvania. If you take the average of polls, again, it's so, so, so tight. But it's Trump by barely less than a point in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
But the bottom line is this. This has been a historically tight race. It continues to be an historically tight race. And I really have no real concept of who is going to win on Tuesday. If you, the viewer, do know, please give me a call at 718-Pollster and then you could tell me.
SIDNER: Don't believe it, Harry. I don't think anybody knows. But there is always this race to 270 to see who gets the electoral votes they need to win. What is that looking like?
ENTEN: Yes, so, you know, essentially I want to point out a few little things here. If we look right now, you know, sort of in the momentum that we're kind of seeing here. This, I think, kind of gets the point that I was trying to make. You know, a shift perhaps and a little bit of momentum here.
If you took an aggregate across the battlegrounds last month, a month ago in October - and I can't believe that was a month ago - it was Harris by less than a point. You'll look here now on November 1, it's Trump by less than a point across the battleground states.
But the key thing to keep in mind is that the average state polling miss (ph) is this, it's 3.4 points. So, when you see stuff like this and you're going from less than a point to less than a point, you could say maybe there's a slight hint of Trump momentum, but that is well within any margin of error, Sara. That's well within any margin of error.
SIDNER: This is just so, so tight. Nobody should be making any predictions is what you're saying?
ENTEN: Nobody should be making any predictions. But I'm going to just kind of show you what's going on here in terms of that map that you asked me. Look, Donald Trump, 281 electoral votes, right, if we take it across because he gets - here on the East Coast, right, he gets Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia. He gets Arizona. Nevada way too close to call. Gets to 281.
But what happens, Sara? What happens? I mentioned that 3.4 points.
SIDNER: Yes.
ENTEN: What if you get a polling miss that benefits Kamala Harris. Well, then she wins all of these states, all of these battlegrounds, here as well on the southwest. You have Kamala Harris to 319. But the polling miss could go the other way, right? And then Trump gets all these states, all these states, all these states, and you get Trump to 312 electoral votes.
So, the bottom line is this, Sara Sidner. I didn't know who was going to win on Monday. I don't know who's going to win on Friday. I'm not going to know until the votes are cast and the ballots are counted. This election is historically close. And again, if you know who's going to win, please, give me a call so I can actually inform the audience.
SIDNER: Come on, Harry. You've got the numbers. You stick with those.
ENTEN: Thank you.
SIDNER: Thank you for coming on.
ENTEN: Thank you.
SIDNER: Appreciate it.
Over to you, Kate.
BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys.
So, this morning, Liz Cheney is responding to these dangerous and reckless comments from Donald Trump last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK. Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:55:05]
BOLDUAN: Liz Cheney, this morning, saying this quote in response. "This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death."
These are comments like that, that repeated talk of the enemy within - from within that have marked Trump's entire presidency of late - candidacy of late. An NPR analysis found that Donald Trump has made more than 100 threats since 2022 to go after his perceived enemies.
It's also the focus of a "New York Times" opinion piece by prominent conservative legal scholar, retired federal appeals court judge, Michael Luttig. He says this in the opinion piece. "There could be no higher duty of American citizens than to decisively repudiate a man who betrayed the nation when he was previously entrusted with the highest office in the land and now threatens the persecution of American citizens who have crossed him. In the almost 250 years since the founding of the nation, no president before Donald Trump has ever so betrayed America."
Judge Michael Luttig joins us now.
Judge, thank you so much for being here.
What Donald Trump said about Liz -
J. MICHAEL LUTTIG, RETIRED FEDERAL JUDGE: Thank you for having me on this morning, Kate.
BOLDUAN: Thank you, Judge.
What Donald Trump said about Liz Cheney last night, his allies in the past have explained it away and likely will explain it away as he doesn't really mean what he's saying. What do you see as the danger when you hear him talk about his enemies like this?
LUTTIG: Kate, those despicable words spoken by the Republican nominee for the presidency, who Americans will either elect or reject as the next president of the United States of America in just five days, were reprehensible. They were unprecedented.
I cannot tell you how many emails and texts I received this morning that just said, oh, my God. And the only reply to those messages I could think of, Kate, was, yes., oh my God. Every citizen of the country, especially Republicans, has an obligation to themselves and to America to watch the video from last night, as I did before coming on this morning, and pondered those un-American words by Donald Trump before they cast their votes on Tuesday.
The nation is now on notice, if it was not already. If Americans return Donald Trump to the White House after those comments about our fellow American Liz Cheney, statements that Donald Trump would make about any one of his countless other enemies from within, those who voted for him will get what they deserve.
Apropos of his reprehensible words last night, of course, three nights ago Vice President Harris spoke the most powerful words that anyone running against Donald Trump could ever speak. She said, I will give those who disagree with me a seat at the table. Those, Kate, are the words of a president of the United States. Those are the words that Americans, especially Republicans and independents, need to hear and desperately want to hear from their next president.
BOLDUAN: You said in your opinion piece, Judge, that this is not a difficult decision for voters. Why is it then such a close race, do you think?
LUTTIG: It's beyond my comprehension at this point, Kate. I will say this. Long before last night's insidious comments, just talking about people - people, Kate, not politics, it has been beyond my comprehension how or why any woman in America would vote for Donald Trump, for all of the sordid reasons we all know all too well. By nominating Donald Trump as their standard bearer, I think the Republican Party has created the perfect storm for the election of the first woman president in America. And I fully expect that the women in America will elect Kamala Harris that first woman president this coming Tuesday.
And, Kate, if we ever needed a woman president, it is now. I know I would be proud and proud for America to have a woman president. A woman president in the person of the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris.
[09:00:05]
BOLDUAN: And, Judge, I mean, you have long been
