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Any Moment, Trump Speaks After Inflammatory New York City Rally; New, Trump Camp Worried New York City Rally Fallout Overshadows Message; Today, Harris Makes Speech at Trump's January 6 Rally Site. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 29, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. At any moment, Donald Trump will speak from Mar-a-Lago as his inner circle tries to do damage control after the inflammatory comments made at his Madison Square Garden rally. We will bring the former president's remarks to you live in just a few moments.

Plus, Vice President Kamala Harris will head to the site of Trump's infamous January 6th speech. What we are learning about her closing message just one week out from Election Day.

Good morning, you are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

All right, let's start the hour with CNN's Alayna Treene. She is live at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Alayna, what do we expect to hear from the former president? We can hear the music playing. He's not up yet, though.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: He's not. No, he's scheduled to come on at 10:00 A.M. But I think he'll be on soon enough.

Now, look, I think one of the big questions today is whether or not Donald Trump is going to address some of those racist, sexist, really derogatory remarks from other speakers at the Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday. So far, we have not heard Donald Trump address this head on.

Now this is dubbed, this event here at Mar a Lago is dubbed as Remarks to Press. It's very unclear if he's actually going to take questions, but if he does, you can expect that these will be some of the first questions he is asked.

Now, I do want to talk a little bit about what he's doing later today, because this all ties into it. So Donald Trump has a pair of events later today in Pennsylvania, one of which is a big rally in Allentown, which we know has a very large Puerto Rican population.

Of course, that matters a lot because some of the comments that are being the most focused on right now and receiving a lot of backlash from Republicans are those comments from the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, who had called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.

Now, we have some reporting that many of Donald Trump's allies and others have been calling up the Trump campaign, saying that Trump needs to disavow them, saying he needs to apologize for those comments to condemn them. Again, unclear if that's what he is going to do here today.

Now, Jim, when I talked to Donald Trump senior advisers, they told me that this event, which I should know, came together in less than 24 hours. This was not a previously. It was kind of a scramble to put this on. This was really designed, they said, one, to mark a week out from Election Day, but more specifically, really to serve as a prebuttal to Kamala Harris's remarks on The Ellipse and really to draw a contrast with that. As you mentioned, of course, Donald Trump had spoke there himself a couple years ago on January 6th, right before that Capitol attack.

Now, I do want to point your attention to some of what we heard Donald Trump himself say yesterday when he was in Georgia, because we, again, heard him try to defend himself from some of the criticism that he's been facing, and he really pushed back trying to say, I am the opposite of a Nazi. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The newest line from Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn't voting for her is a Nazi. We're Nazis.

He's Hitler, and then they say he's a Nazi. I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite of a Nazi. I don't know. But Kamala is labeling more than half of the country as the enemy combatants and she's calling them all fascists and Nazis, okay? But she's a fascist, okay? She's a fascist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, to be clear, Jim, first of all, Harris did call Donald Trump he -- she did say that she believed that Donald Trump was a fascist. She has not called him a Nazi, nor has she labeled his supporters that.

But, look, I think the big picture here on the bottom line is that we are now seven days out from Election Day, one week from Election Day. That event at Madison Square Garden on Sunday and every event now up until November 5th is supposed to be all about what final impression will Donald Trump leave with voters, what will be his closing argument.

That is what this event is about and what this next stretch is. But, of course, they do not want that closing argument to be focused on what was said on Sunday. And so I think we're going to see some more cleanup this week of those remarks. Jim?

ACOSTA: Yes. Alayna, the Republican chairman in Puerto Rico, the archbishop in Puerto Rico, have both called for Donald Trump to apologize directly for those comments coming out of Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

[10:05:08]

I mean, you know, Donald Trump has made disparaging remarks insulting remarks, offensive remarks about Latinos ever since he came down the golden escalator back in 2015. I mean, he has a high bar to clear here in terms of any kind of credibility, it seems. What about all that?

TREENE: No, it's a very good question. I also think, in the back of his mind, of Donald Trump's mind, as well as out of his campaign, is that he recognizes that the Latino community, the Puerto Rican community, the Hispanic community, they are so crucial to whichever campaign, to either candidate's campaign, whoever is going to win next week. They need them to vote for them, particularly an election that is supposed to be so close.

I do want to read for you some of the statement that we heard or we got from the archbishop of San Juan, because I think it was pretty telling. He wrote, quote, I enjoy a good joke. However, humor has its limits. It should not insult or denigrate the dignity and sacredness of people. Hinchcliffe's remarks do not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred. He went on to say that he calls upon Donald Trump, he said, I call upon you, Mr. Trump, to disavow these comments, as reflecting in any way your personal or political viewpoints. It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize.

So, clearly, the archbishop was referring to statement from the Trump campaign spokesperson, Daniel Alvarez, who said that they did not agree with those comments. However, we have not heard, like I said, Donald Trump address these head on. That's really the big question of whether or not he's going to get on that stage behind me and apologize for what was said at that rally.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, Alayna, I mean, I've covered Donald Trump a long time. He does not apologize. He usually doubles down. That's his, modus operandi. And, I mean, the, the other, the other thing that we should note in all of this is that after that so-called comedian told that joke on Sunday night, Donald Trump had time to get some remarks ready to apologize on behalf of his campaign for those remarks in that so-called committee. He did not do it and he went into his usual tirades on immigration and so on. So, I don't expect -- I mean, I expect what he is about to do here for the next 20 or so minutes is to just gobble up live T.V. time to spread more of the kind of rhetoric we've heard throughout the entirety of this campaign.

All right, Alayna Treene thank you very much. We're going to of course check back in on Mar-a-Lago when the former president appears.

So, let's check in with the Harris campaign, CNN's Priscilla Alvarez. Priscilla, how does this evening's speech on The Ellipse reflect her closing message? She's going to go right after Donald Trump on January 6th.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She is, but a source tells me that this is not a January 6th speech. This is a speech where she's going to also lay out her broader vision for U.S. Now, of course, senior advisers say that the intention here is to speak directly to undecided voters, to speak to those voters who may be tired of former President Donald Trump, or simply tired of the state of play in politics.

So, what that looks like in her remarks is, again, drawing that stark contrast with the former president again at a notable location where he delivered that fiery speech on January 6th, and noting the gravity of the election, but then also pivoting to her own policies and proposals.

Now, that's going to include multiple issues, the economy, reproductive rights, as well as immigration, another source describing this to me as a crystallization of what she began with of all of these different issues and explaining her proposals in each of those.

But she'll be doing it 500 yards from the Oval Office, from the office that she is trying to seek. And, again, if you think about the symbolism and the visual here, the campaign is trying to show to voters what could happen in November. It's either going to be her or it's going to be the former president and placing her in a place where they can visualize that.

And, again, this is going to be, as one adviser described, the kickoff to the home stretch of this election, where they are trying to peel off votes from the former president where they can. Recall, they have made a big push to disaffected Republicans. This is going to be part of that. Again, the vice president on the trail has often talked about country over party. You can expect that that's going to be part of her message tonight.

Now, according to the permits that CNN has obtained, they have been amended to accommodate for a crowd of about 40,000 people. That's up from 20, 000 people, unclear if they reach that. But, certainly, this is a big moment for the vice president, one of the last remaining opportunities to reach those voters in a big way.

ACOSTA: And, Priscilla, let's turn to that off-color comment made by a speaker, disgusting racist comments by that speaker at the Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.

[10:10:07]

The Harris campaign has a new ad campaign has a new ad on this. What can you tell us?

ALVAREZ: Yes, that's right. And this is yet another example of how they are seizing on those comments to draw the comparison between the vice president and the former president by using the remarks of that comedian and then pivoting to the vice president and her outline of her plans. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HINCHCLIFFE, COMEDIAN: A floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean. I think it's called Puerto Rico.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Puerto Rico.

HARRIS: I will never forget what Donald Trump did. He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults. Puerto Ricans deserve better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, Jim, campaign officials haven't only condemned this. They also see it as an opportunity. You were just talking to Alayna about Pennsylvania, in Allentown specifically. This is a state that has a sizable number of Puerto Ricans voting there. So, this is also a play to, bring those Puerto Ricans to support the vice president because that vote alone could certainly help boost her candidacy in such a crucial battleground state. So, this certainly a strategic move, as well as one that they have created.

ACOSTA: All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you very much. And, of course, we're watching and waiting for former President Donald Trump to speak. You can see the live pictures right now coming out of his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. We're monitoring this. Obviously, these things don't always start on time. It looks like you can see some folks starting to move into the room. We're going to monitor this. I'll bring you those remarks as soon as they start up. We'll talk in just a few moments. Be right back.

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[10:15:00]

ACOSTA: All right. While we wait for Donald Trump to speak there at Mar-a-Lago, I want to bring in my panel, Shermichael Singleton, Lulu Garcia-Navarro and Presidential Historian Tim Naftali.

Shermichael, let me start with you. CNN spoke to some Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania yesterday to get their reaction to that racist, anti-migrant, anti-Puerto Rican rhetoric that we heard Sunday night at Madison Square Garden. Let's listen to what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of (INAUDIBLE), they're mad. I'm disappointed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel disrespected because he doesn't know what we go through. You know, we've been through a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's my stuff, because that's my island, you know? I don't want any people talking like that, you know? This is not right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes, Shermichael, that gentleman right there, that's my island. I mean, that's tough stuff.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, look, I mean, we talked about this yesterday on your show. I'm a strategist. You know, people are going to opine from a lot of different perspectives, but I'm just going to give you a political assessment here because that's what I've done. And as I said yesterday, Jim, you're looking at a marginal race in Pennsylvania, where there are 465,000 Puerto Ricans in that state.

Now, the Harris campaign, from my perspective, I think, were trying to find their footing in the state. They were looking for something to continue to assist the vice president with bringing her message home with voters, particularly voters who they weren't necessarily sure if they were going to turn out. Well, you've just given them a reason. And that was my critique. You've given them a reason.

Now, if you're looking at the math, let's look at the math here of the state, President Biden won the state by, what, 80,000 votes, give or take. You take off 2, 3 percent of that 457,000 out of Pennsylvania of Puerto Ricans and those individuals turn out, the vice president is going to win that state with the other coalitions obviously added on to it.

So, you present a math problem, unfortunately, for yourself if you're on the Trump campaign. You cannot take these types of incalculable risk this close to Election Day. Jim, this is just something that, as a strategist, if you're going to put on an event like this, if I were part of the decision-making process, the first thing that I'm trying to absolutely avoid and eliminate, if at all possible, is anything that would be catastrophic to the campaign.

And here we are with, what, eight, seven days to go, the campaign is having to do damage control. Again, just as a strategist, I'm just looking at this. I'm analyzing this and I'm thinking to myself, I would not want to be a part of the team to try to turn this thing around because you've just given the Harris campaign an incredible opportunity to message this in a litany of ways. If I were the Harris campaign, Jim, I would run so many ads on this, on radio.

ACOSTA: Oh, yes, and they are.

SINGLETON: I would send the vice president sitting down with Puerto Rican journalists, community leaders, sending home this message to say, this is why you must turn out. Let me remind you of what we saw. This is just not the position you want to be in this close to an election.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Lulu, I mean, we were talking about this earlier. I mean, Donald Trump had every chance to, you know, condemn those remarks Sunday night. He spoke, he didn't, he continued on with his anti-immigrant, anti-Latino rhetoric. And Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, was asked yesterday in Wisconsin about that so- called joke referring to Puerto Rico as an island of floating garbage, and here's how J.D. Vance responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I haven't actually seen the joke that you mentioned. Maybe it's a stupid racist joke, as you said. Maybe it's not. I haven't seen it. I'm not going to comment on the specifics of the joke. But I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I'm just -- I'm so over it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I mean, Lulu, there were a lot of conservatives who were offended about jokes that were aimed at J.D. Vance, you know, about these false claims that, you know, he had some sort of, I don't know, predilection for furniture.

[10:20:11]

And, you know, there was a lot of remarks that that was just, you know, off the deep end, not fair, so on, and he makes that kind of comment there. What do you make of all that?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think J.D. Vance is trying to use the tried and true political tactic of what about something else. And so here the what about something else is cancel culture, you know, trying to be politically correct. It's a favorite topic on the right, but that's just not going to fly.

I mean, you have the archbishop of Puerto Rico, the Catholic archbishop, it's a very Catholic island, basically denouncing Donald Trump. You have Bad Bunny denouncing Donald Trump. This is a pretty broad coalition of people from the religious and political spheres to the entertainment spheres.

And the problem with this is it didn't happen in a vacuum, right? It's not just one joke from one comedian at Trump's rally. This was a rally that had many people saying many things that were deeply offensive and deeply xenophobic.

And so I think the way that this is a gift indeed, as Shermichael has said to the Harris campaign, is that they are taking it and run with it and it's breaking through. The thing about this that I think is deeply problematic for the Trump campaign is that, you know, there's been a lot of noise, there's been a lot of things that have been said. But, finally, we've talked about the sleeping giant in elections past about the Latino vote. It's a phrase I always hated, but I will say that this time, the giant seems to have woken up.

ACOSTA: Yes, absolutely. You heard it from those voters there. And, Tim Naftali, I mean, the other thing that we should note is that, you know, Donald Trump has been saying over the last 24 hours that he's the opposite of a Nazi. The former first lady, Melania Trump, was apparently on Fox this morning. She also said that her husband is not a Nazi. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE JONES, FOX NEWS HOST: They're still calling your husband a second Hitler. How does that make you feel? Because you know him better than anyone.

MELANIA TRUMP, FORMER U.S. FIRST LADY: Correct. It's terrible. He's not Hitler. And all of his supporters, they're standing behind him because they want to see the country successful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I mean, Tim, it's again, just another extraordinary moment in the 2024 campaign to hear a former first lady say that my husband is not Adolf Hitler.

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It's an extraordinary moment. If we think about past elections, when you have an incumbent president who is as unpopular as Joe Biden is now, and we can have a debate later about why he's unpopular and whether Joe Biden should be as unpopular as he is, but it's a reality, the winner is going to be the change agent.

And the challenge for the Trump campaign right now is that they're tripping on their own shoelaces. As a number of you mentioned, including you, Jim, the former president could have cleaned up the mess created by one of his followers yesterday, but he didn't because it's not his instinct, A, to clean up messes, and, two, I'm afraid, there's no evidence that he's actually that sympathetic towards those of Puerto Rican descent or from the island -- directly from the island itself.

Yes, there are 400,000 Puerto Ricans or of Puerto Rican descent in Pennsylvania. There are also 115,000 in North Carolina and there are 100,000 in Georgia. So, this is a big deal. And the Trump campaign is now getting caught up in its own rhetoric, and its challenge is that it now needs people of color to vote for Donald Trump.

In 2016, they thought they could win, and they did win, without appealing to people of color. They know they need them now. And the problem is their coalition has many people who are radiating disrespect for people of color and they've got to somehow distract from that.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Shermichael, I mean, you were making this point yesterday. And I think it's worth raising again, that it wasn't just one comedian who was making these awful remarks. I mean, you had Tucker Carlson mocking Kamala Harris' ethnicity. You had other people describing Hillary Clinton as a son of a B, other people describing Kamala Harris as the anti-Christ.

But one of the things I do want to get to is, you know, if Trump is going to get up there in about five or six minutes and say, I'm none of these things, it's not true when Kamala Harris calls me a fascist, it's not true when John Kelly says I meet the definition of a fast fascist, it's not true when the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley says, I'm a fascist to the core, he has used that kind of language in the past. That is something we've reported on here at CNN. I mean, here is Donald Trump talking about migrants coming into this country, poisoning the blood of this country.

[10:25:02]

I want to play this, because if Trump's going to get out and say, I'm not these things, it is important to note he has said these things in the past. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They're poisoning the blood of this country. That's what they've done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country. Nobody's even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I mean, Shermichael, we did report at the time, point out at the time, that that is the same kind of rhetoric that Adolf Hitler once used. Doesn't Donald Trump have sort of a high bar of credibility to clear here if he's going to come out and make this claim that that he doesn't use that kind of language, that he's not fascistic?

SINGLETON: I mean, so, look, Jim, in politics, you usually don't want a scandal lingering beyond 24 hours. And I've worked on three presidential campaigns, a ton of Senate campaigns, congressional campaigns, local mayoral campaigns, I can go down the list of campaigns I've worked on, and very seldom do you have an experience like this where you're trying to navigate a P.R. crisis, just to be quite frank.

And when such a crisis does occur, you usually want the candidate to get out there almost immediately in an effort, one, to address it. You want the public to understand, like, look, we recognize that this is a mistake. And then you want to explain what you're going to do differently. You want to distance yourself if it was something that was said from someone who has close proximity to the candidate. I think waiting today, too, it's Tuesday now this occurred Sunday, I probably would have advised the former president to get out yesterday.

I think the former president needs to figure out a way to shift the conversation back to where he's strong according to the polls, which is the economy and immigration. You got to figure out a way, Jim, and I'm just trying to --

ACOSTA: But do you expect him to walk it back? I mean, I guess --

SINGLETON: (INAUDIBLE) to think about this kind of stuff.

ACOSTA: Yes. I guess, Shermichael, do you expect him to walk it back? Is that who he is?

SINGLETON: Jim, it's not -- what I'm trying to explain is not about who he is. I'm just explaining, as a tactician, this is how you should typically think about this kind of stuff. When you're in a situation like this, you need to distance yourself. You want to try to ship -- Go ahead, Lulu, because (INAUDIBLE) going to be able to finish it. Just go ahead.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I do have a question about this, though, because you're saying he needs to go back to immigration, which is his strong suit. But so much of the rhetoric precisely around immigration is this very, very negative rhetoric demonizing migrants. You have, you know, people that are close to him, that the architects of his immigration policies coming out and using language that is reflective of the 1930s in Germany. I mean, this kind of stuff is problematic, not because, again, it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

So, if you're saying he needs to pivot to immigration, well, the problem with his immigration stance for people who are listening and might be sensitive to this is that it sounds like it is anti-migrant and it sounds like it is, you know, quote/unquote, fascistic.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, isn't it a bit much to say -- wait, Shermichael, isn't it a bit much to say, I'm offended about being called a fascist, I'm offended for being compared to Adolf Hitler, when you use that kind of language? I mean, that, I guess, is the crux of the issue here. It just doesn't pass the laugh test, does it?

SINGLETON: I take the point.

ACOSTA: Yes.

SINGLETON: No, I take the point. But the point that I'm trying to make here for the audience who don't work on political campaigns, you have no idea like if this happens, what do people like me think about trying to do with a candidate like a Trump, you look at the strengths based on the data and you're saying, okay, where is my candidate strong? How do I reposition my candidate back to their strengths in an effort to try to save what is clearly a very serious problem for their candidacy if you're trying to win a race.

Now, I'm not saying this is going to be an easy task for the Trump campaign. I'm just simply saying, Jim, you got to move back to those things if you're on that side.

ACOSTA: But, Tim, the echoes are clearly there, correct?

NAFTALI: Well, look, there is a moral consequence, too. When you use the term, vermin, and that's, as someone who knows something about the history of the 1930s, and also I'm very careful about drawing parallels where they could be exaggerations, there is no doubt that the president, former president, was using tropes, language, memes, that was reminiscent of the language used by authoritarians, including Nazis or fascists in the 30s. And he did it, and he kept doing it. It wasn't like once, he kept doing it, as if he wanted to provoke a reaction.

But there is a moral consequence to that because you open the door to others to not only use that language, but to act on it.

[10:30:06]