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8 Days Left on Campaign Trail; Dark Rhetoric and Fear Mongering Focus of Trump Rally; Harris Courts Young Voters in Battleground Pennsylvania; Gaza Hostage and Ceasefire Talks Begin in Doha. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired October 28, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Kamala you're fired.

MELANIA TRUMP, FORMER FIRST LADY: New York City and America needs their magic back.

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA MOTORS AND TRUMP SUPPORTER: Vote early this is important. Vote early, vote now.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Is Gen Z in the house? You are rightly impatient for change. From now until Election Day we are going to get out the vote here in Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the U.S. and all around the world. I'm Max Foster.

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christina Macfarlane. It's Monday October 28, 8 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. in Atlanta where Trump will be campaigning later today as Kamala Harris heads to Michigan. Just eight days remain for U.S. presidential candidates to try to convince undecided voters they're the right person for the job.

FOSTER: CNN's latest national polling average shows a little or no daylight really between Harris and Trump so the two will spend the remaining time barnstorming across the handful of battleground states experts say will decide the election. On Sunday Trump held a massive rally in New York's Madison Square Garden. He was joined by more than a dozen of his most loyal supporters who set a dark tone with a slew of insults and nativist language.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SID ROSENBERG, RADIO HOST: You got homeless and veterans, Americans, Americans sleeping on their own feces on a bench in Central Park. But the f***ing illegals they get whatever they want don't they?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Elon Musk took to the stage and urged voters to cast their ballots as soon as possible. A change in tune from 2020 when Trump falsely claimed early voting was rife with fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA MOTORS AND TRUMP SUPPORTER: Make the margin of victory so big that you know what can't happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Then Trump took to the podium introduced by his wife Melania in a rare campaign appearance and continued spewing ugly rhetoric and untruths.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Over the past four years Kamala Harris has orchestrated the most egregious betrayal that any leader in American history has ever inflicted upon our people. She has violated her oath, eradicated our sovereign border and unleashed an army of migrant gangs who are waging a campaign of violence and terror against our citizens. There has never been anything like it anywhere in the world for any country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Amidst the doom and gloom Trump unveiled a new proposal for family caregivers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And I'm announcing a new policy today that I will support a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or a loved one. It's about time that they will recognize, right? They add so much to our country and are never spoken of ever, ever, ever but they're going to be spoken of now.

Thank you all very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Kamala Harris herself took more of a grassroots approach to campaigning on Sunday. She spent the day in the battleground state of Pennsylvania visiting several Philadelphia neighborhoods and pitching her message to Gen Z voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Is Gen Z in the house? You who have only known the climate crisis, you are leaders in what we need to do to protect our planet. You who grew up with active shooter drills, you know what we have to do to fight for safety in our schools.

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: You who right now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers understand the importance of fighting for the right of a woman to make decisions about her own body.

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: And not ever government tell her what to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:05:00]

MACFARLANE: Well we have much ahead from both campaigns but let's begin with Kristen Holmes who's been following the Trump campaign in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Former President Donald Trump spoke to a packed house at Madison Square Garden in New York giving what was his traditional campaign speech filled with quite a few falsehoods particularly when it came to immigration. Just to go over a few of the things that he said.

He talked about the fact that criminal migrants were pouring in across the border from prisons and insane asylums -- just to be clear that's something CNN has fact-checked on a number of occasions and found that even the campaign couldn't give any examples of that happening. He talked about how Venezuelan gangs were taking over all of America and in particular Aurora, Colorado.

I will say as somebody who was with him in that rally in Aurora, Colorado there was an incident at an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado. We have spoken to a number of state and local officials who have said that it was completely blown out of proportion. Actually the rhetoric around it was creating more problems for the community.

He also talked about immigration in general in Springfield, Illinois saying that a load of illegal immigrants were dropped into Springfield, Ohio. One thing we can say that we know is that most of the people who are on the ground in Springfield are here legally through a specific program, the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to that he talked about the hurricane response to Helene something that he's talked about a lot. Saying that there were no federal officials on the ground that no one could be seen, nobody was helping.

That we know not to be true for both Republicans and Democrats on the ground who have described it as a helpful response, particularly the federal response. He also said that FEMA didn't have enough money to help with disaster response. They do because they had moved all of their money to help with migrant housing.

That is not true. FEMA has multiple pots of money. One of them is for disaster relief, another is for migrant housing. But it's a congressional allotment, meaning that money from migrant housing cannot be taken and used for disaster relief and vice versa.

The other thing that he talked about was foreign policy. He said without any evidence or proof that neither Russia would have invaded Ukraine was he in office, or the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel. They said that both of those things would have never happened if he was in office.

But all in all, it was his traditional campaign speech. And I will say that despite using this dark, fear-based rhetoric on immigration, the crowd here, a full house at Madison Square Garden, was incredibly receptive to this rhetoric.

It's unsurprising that we learned that Donald Trump, who believes that this kind of rhetoric helped propel him to the White House in 2016, is also of the belief that it could help him again in 2024. And if you base it just on this crowd tonight, he might have a point. People were standing up, they were using applause lines for several of these various points, particularly the darkest points when it came to immigration.

Now one thing I do just want to quickly point out is what happened before the rally, because as somebody who has attended dozens of these Trump rallies, the pre-show rhetoric before Donald Trump took the stage was some of the darkest rhetoric I've ever heard at one of these rallies. They were name-calling. I just want to point out some of the things that we heard from these speakers ahead of time.

One person called Kamala Harris the anti-Christ and the devil. Another person referred to Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage, something that has received massive backlash from both Democrats and Republicans. Another person referred to illegal immigrants as effing illegals.

Someone else said Hillary Clinton was a, quote, sick bastard. And that is just the actual specifics. We also heard a lot of nativist rhetoric talking about how America is for Americans only and that type of thing.

It is clear that this is the tone that Donald Trump's team, Donald Trump's campaign, is setting. Just keep in mind what this event was. This was the kickoff of the final week of the campaign before voters head to the polls on November 5th.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, New York.

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FOSTER: Well, that comment about Puerto Rico really has to be seen to be believed, so here it is. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HINCHCLIFFE, COMEDIAN: 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. Yes. I think it's called Puerto Rico.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Well, the Trump campaign is trying to distance itself from the remark. A spokesperson told CNN in a statement, quote, this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign. The inflammatory comment is drawing backlash from high-profile Puerto Ricans, as you can imagine, like New York Congressman Richie Torres.

He states on social media: As a Puerto Rican I'm tempted to call Hinchcliffe racist garbage, but doing so would be an insult to garbage.

FOSTER: Meanwhile, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny is now signaling his support for Kamala Harris, who, like Trump, is vying for the Puerto Rican vote. The singer shared a clip of the vice president's newly announced economic plan for the island to his more than 45 million Instagram followers. Several other Puerto Rican celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, voiced support for Harris as well.

[04:10:00]

Harris and running mate Tim Walz will spend the week following the campaign trail from Pennsylvania to Michigan and Arizona.

MACFARLANE: On Tuesday, they'll stop in Washington, D.C., where the vice president will deliver her closing argument on the ellipse. The same spot Donald Trump delivered his January 6th speech just before the Capitol riots. Priscilla Alvarez looks at the message Harris spread on Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday visiting battleground, Pennsylvania as she tries to mobilize voters in the final push to election day. The vice president blitzing around the Philadelphia area over the course of the day, starting with a church service for a predominantly Black church, then a barbershop, followed by a bookstore, and then a Puerto Rican restaurant. All of that intended to court Black and Latino voters as her team tries to lock in her coalition.

But similarly, they are trying to fortify the blue wall, which includes Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. What her team sees as the most favorable path to 270 electoral votes. And here at a community center in Philadelphia, the vice president stressing the stakes of the election, saying it is, quote, one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime.

And then also talking about some of the broader themes of her campaign around unity, saying that her team has been trying to build a broad coalition to unify Americans. Now the vice president also speaking directly to young voters and young leaders, and then urging those in the crowd to vote and encourage those around them to do the same. Noting that Pennsylvania holds extra significance and is the path to victory.

HARRIS: I'm very excited about the reports that we're getting about enthusiasm here in Philadelphia. And to your point, Philadelphia is a very important part of our path to victory. And it is the reason I'm spending time here, have been spending time here.

But I'm feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm that is here and the commitment that folks of every background have to vote and to really invest in the future of our country.

ALVAREZ: Now Sunday's stop in Pennsylvania, or multiple stops in Pennsylvania, will kick off a blitz over the course of the week as ahead of election day, as her and her team try to hit all the battleground states and shore up support.

Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Former U.S. President Barack Obama joined a virtual roundtable on Sunday in a final push to mobilize Black men for Kamala Harris, as a growing number of polls show she's losing their support relative to exit polls from the 2020 election.

FOSTER: In a recent CBS News poll, a majority of Black voters said they would vote for Harris, but 14 percent said they would back Trump. While speaking at a Win With Black Men meeting, Obama thanked the organizers and urged them to keep campaigning for Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To see the concrete work that is being done at the grassroots level, to educate folks on the issues, to raise money, to register people, I could not be prouder. And it is a testament not only to your skills and your commitment to making sure that our democracy works for us and our communities and our people, but it's also a testament to the fact that there are a lot of brothers out there who want to get involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Thomas Gift, the director of the Center on U.S. Politics for University College London, joins us. Thank you so much for joining us, Thomas. First of all, those warm-up speakers at the Trump rally, I mean, they said extraordinary things.

Trump is distancing himself from some of them, but not all of them. It does sort of say a lot about the divisiveness of the nation.

THOMAS GIFT, DIRECTOR, CENTER ON U.S. POLITICS AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Well, thanks so much for having me, Max. It's great to be with you.

I absolutely agree. It was just insulting comment after racist comment after disparaging comment. And that darkness is very symptomatic of MAGA having as its leader an individual who regularly traffics in these kinds of remarks. You know, it's not new.

Trump's talked about immigrants from insert expletive countries and called many Mexican immigrants racist. He's regularly used dehumanizing language. He once called Baltimore a rat and rodent infested mess.

This is very much in line with the remarks that were here last night. It's really what represents the darker side of Make America Great Again.

MACFARLANE: Thomas, just talking about strategy here, we know Trump and his team are leaning into immigration in the final days leading up to the election. But how much can they actually risk losing the Latino, the Puerto Rican vote at this time? We were saying that there's been a strong reaction from very high profile Puerto Ricans, Bad Bunny, J-Lo, Ricky Martin. I mean, is that the right strategy?

[04:15:00]

GIFT: It's absolutely not the right strategy. I think any time you are criticizing voters that you need, it's not the right strategy. But Trump's appeal to the GOP base is his willingness to use off color language and not apologize for it.

When it comes to the Latino community, obviously they're not a monolithic group and there's a lot heterogeneity among Latinos, especially in terms of source countries and different states. Latinos are also not single issue voters when it comes to immigration.

But I really think that in states like Arizona, in states like Texas even, where there are some down ballot races that are competitive, insulting Latinos, insulting immigrants generally, is just a horrible strategy. And Trump needs to distance himself as quickly as possible as he can.

FOSTER: We showed Barack Obama appealing to Black male voters. An extraordinary number of them actually are supporting Trump at this point. Can you explain why that is? When, you know, a majority of Black people in America are certainly behind Harris, according to the polls.

GIFT: Well, as you pointed out in that CBS poll, it's important to stipulate that Harris will win Black voters, but it's really the margin that matters. And the data are really striking. A recent New York Times/Siena poll was even more discouraging, I think, for Harris than the CBS poll.

It found that 78 percent of Black voters support Harris. That's down significantly from about 85 percent who voted Biden in 2020. And when you break the divides down by gender, it's even starker. 20 percent of Black men want Trump elected compared to about 12 percent of Black women. I think it is hard to know exactly what's driving Harris' shortfalls with this demographic. I think part of the issue is just perceptions of the economy.

Trump claimed correctly that he had the lowest Black unemployment rate and the lowest Black poverty rate during his administration. Both of those numbers improved even more during the Biden administration. But still, the polling shows that about 75 percent of Black Americans now rate the economy as either fair or poor.

I think that's likely due to cost-of-living increases that have eroded wages in real terms. That affects Americans generally, but I think it's disproportionately affected the Black community.

MACFARLANE: It was curious, Thomas, to see Donald Trump choosing in these final days to perform to his base in New York whilst Kamala Harris obviously campaigning in a battleground state of Pennsylvania, I think for even the third time in the last week.

I mean, as we enter this final stretch, how important -- how much of a difference will it make to both candidates to be barnstorming in these swing states, as they call it?

GIFT: Well it's interesting that Trump did choose to have this event at Madison Square Garden. I think that's partly about his ego. You know, Trump never discounts the role of narcissism. He's a New Yorker and Madison Square Garden is this huge venue.

We also saw him go to California and Colorado as well, two states in which he's unlikely to win. I think he was at Madison Square Garden because it gives him a platform to depict New York City as kind of a microcosm of the broader problems that he says afflict America. Skyrocketing cost of living, rampant inflation, overregulation, high crime, etc.

But I think when we get into this last week, it is going to be all about barnstorming these swing states. It's going to be about throwing huge amounts of money at advertisements.

I spoke to my family in Pennsylvania. They received nine brochures in a single day from both candidates combined. So it's going to be all about Pennsylvania, in my view, Michigan and Wisconsin.

FOSTER: That's going to be interesting. Just over a week, isn't it? Thomas Gift, thank you so much.

MACFARLANE: Yes, thanks Thomas.

FOSTER: Long-stalled Gaza ceasefire talks resuming meanwhile. Ahead, a look at what Egypt is proposing as negotiators meet in Doha.

MACFARLANE: And later, Japan's new prime minister says he won't step down after a snap election delivers bitter results for his ruling party. We'll have more on how Shigeru Ishiba is reacting.

FOSTER: Plus, risking at all for baseball's top trophy. Why Dodger a superstar Shohei Ohtani could play in tonight's World Series game despite a shoulder injury. We'll have that story next.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: CNN has learned that a new round of Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release talks has begun in Doha. This marks the first high- level talks in more than two months.

MACFARLANE: Top negotiators from the U.S., Israel and Qatar will be working to reach a deal. Egypt, which has long played a key role as mediator in these talks, is proposing an initial two-day ceasefire.

FOSTER: But for now, there's no end in sight for the war in Gaza. On Sunday, Israel's military claimed it targeted Hamas in an airstrike on a school near Gaza City. Gaza's civil defense says several people were killed in a place where hundreds of displaced families are sheltering.

Paula Hancocks following developments. How hopeful are you? Any progress, Paula?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, unfortunately, there's very little expectation in this region that anything significant will come from these talks in Doha. We know that it's the first time in more than two months that such a high-level meeting has happened. So that in itself is something positive. But that's really where it ends.

And the reality is that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for one, is unlikely to make any significant decisions before the U.S. election. U.S. officials believe that he will wait to see who he'll be dealing with after the election takes place.

And that it's very unlikely there will be any breakthroughs when it comes to these talks in Doha. We do know, though, that there has been this almost a counter-offer from the Egyptian president. He said in a press conference on Sunday that they could have a two-day ceasefire to start with.

He suggested that maybe four Israeli hostages are released in return for a number of Palestinian prisoners. There was no specific number given for how many Palestinian prisoners should be released.

[04:25:00]

And then if the two days of ceasefire hold, then they could look at another 10 days to try and hammer out the final deals for a permanent ceasefire to allow aid to get into the Gaza Strip and for the rest of the hostages to be released.

I mean, we don't know at this point if this is being considered seriously. We haven't heard from the other players within this whether or not that could be a possibility. But what it does show is that there needs to be more creativity in trying to figure out how to get both Hamas and Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

The hostage ceasefire deal that's on the table at this point is a three-phase deal. It is very comprehensive. It deals with the hostages, with Palestinian prisoners, with getting aid into the Gaza Strip and then onto this permanent ceasefire and the rebuilding of Gaza.

Now, it has stalled a number of times. As I say, it's been more than two months since we saw such a high-level meeting. You've got the intelligence chiefs of both the U.S. and Israel talking in Qatar, where Qatar and Egypt are the two key mediators really to try and get Hamas on board as well.

We do know that last week though, an Egyptian security delegation did speak to a Hamas delegation in Cairo. It's unclear if this two-day ceasefire proposal was suggested at that point. But the talks are ongoing.

But yes, unfortunately, there is very little optimism. There's very little expectation there will be a significant breakthrough, even from U.S. officials that have spoken to CNN, certainly this side of the U.S. election -- Max, Christina.

MACFARLANE: Thank you, Paula. And this obviously coming amidst the Israeli retaliatory strikes on Iran, which happened on Saturday. Thanks, Paula.

Now, Iraq is also accusing the Israeli military of violating its airspace when it carried out strikes on Iran over the weekend, as we were saying, and has sent a letter of protest to the U.N. over the alleged breach.

Meantime, Iran says it does not seek a war with Israel, but it is vowing an appropriate response to the Israeli strikes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country severely damaged Iran's defense capabilities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The attack in Iran was precise and powerful and achieved all of its objectives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Israeli military operations have also targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's most important proxy in the region, and Israel says the capabilities of both Hamas and Hezbollah have been severely degraded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOAV GALLANT, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): These two organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, that were prepared for years as a long arm against the state of Israel, are no longer an effective tool as a proxy of Iran in the arena.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOSTER: Well, that comment as the Israeli strikes in Lebanon continue. The health ministry there says at least eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike in the south.

MACFARLANE: Now, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are crisscrossing battleground states in the final stretch of the U.S. election. We'll have the latest from the campaign trail next.

FOSTER: Plus, the president of Georgia is calling for protests amid an election dispute. Why, she alleges, Russia is involved next.