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Supreme Court Allows Virginia to Purge Voter Rolls; Interview With Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV); Interview With Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV); Kamala Harris Separates Herself From Controversial Biden Comments. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 30, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:01:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Good morning, everybody. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We are following the breaking news at this hour.

Vice President Kamala Harris is saying she disagrees with President Biden's comments calling Trump supporters -- quote -- "garbage." The president and the White House have put out statements saying the president was only referring to a joke from Donald Trump's rally in New York on Sunday when a comedian described Puerto Rico as garbage.

But here's what the vice president told reporters just a short while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think that first of all, he clarified his comments.

But let me be clear. I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for. It's -- you heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career.

I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And Eva McKend joins us now.

Eva, I thought it was very striking that the vice president would come out with all the trappings of the vice presidency behind her, Marine Two -- she's on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews -- to very publicly in front of the cameras say that she disagrees with what the president said with just six days to go before the election.

That is pretty extraordinary stuff. But will this be enough to put it to rest? What do you think? What can you tell us?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Jim, that certainly is the hope.

As someone who covers this campaign, I can tell you they run a very disciplined operation. Everything is intentional. She is on and off stage within 30 minutes. Unlike the former president, she's not up there for several hours weaving and vamping.

And her allies will tell you that that is by design, because they believe she would be judged differently if she were to meander in such a fashion, and so President Biden's comments very much not according to the plan. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."

Well, let me tell you something. I don't -- I don't know the Puerto Rican that I know -- or a Puerto Rico, where I'm -- in my home state of Delaware. They're good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's -- his -- his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And we should know that Biden later tried to clarify those comments, saying that he wasn't referencing Trump's supporters.

And it is uncharacteristic of Biden. We remember just several weeks ago when he put on that MAGA hat as a way to illustrate that he had this connection with Trump's supporters.

But, nonetheless, this is an unwelcome distraction for the Harris campaign, who runs a very disciplined operation, who argues on the campaign trail that it is the former president that is trying to divide the American people, and it is her who is concentrated on a new way forward and about bringing down costs for everyday Americans -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, Eva McKend at a very boisterous rally there getting set to go in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Eva, thank you so much.

Let's take a closer look at all of this.

Joining me now are Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky and Lance Trover. He's a former spokesperson for Republican Doug Burgum's 2024 presidential campaign.

Julie, let me start with you first. What did you make of what the vice president had to say?

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Look, it gave her an opportunity to distance herself from Joe Biden, which I think is probably something that she's been looking forward to doing in some capacity.

But I'm also going to say this. We have now spent the last 12 hours talking about whether Joe Biden meant a possessive noun or a plural noun. We have not spent much time talking about the fact that the economy grew 2.8 percent under this administration in the third quarter. We have not talked about the fact that Mike Johnson wants to repeal Obamacare.

[11:05:03]

Politico led with 16 paragraphs on Joe Biden's word salad this morning. Well, I have got good news for you. If you don't like what Joe Biden said, he's going to be out of here in three months.

But we have to talk about what the next four years are going to look like. And, to that end, Donald Trump can say the worst things on earth. He can call Democrats vermin. He can call them the enemy from within. And people say, well, that's just Trump being Trump and no big deal. Everybody moves on.

Why are we sitting here treating Joe Biden like he's Demosthenes, right? He clarified what he said. We're still not moving on. We continue to talk about this, as opposed to what matters to the American people, which is what the next four years and longer are going to look like, not what Joe Biden said in the sunset of his administration.

ACOSTA: Yes, Lance, what do you think?

LANCE TROVER, FORMER BURGUM PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: Yes, well, we're talking about possessives and all that stuff because the White House went out there and tried to gaslight people and change the entire script of what exactly happened, when millions of people could go on the video and see exactly what the sitting president of the United States said about half of this country and voters.

That's why we're having that discussion this morning, not because of whatever else is going on out there, because that's what the sitting president of the United States said.

And, look, the problem for Kamala Harris here is, and why this is so problematic, is she has spent 90 some days being unable to separate herself from the Biden administration. She's been asked time and again, what is the difference between you and Joe Biden? And when she's asked what she would have done differently over the last four years, she cannot think of a thing.

And that is why, today, and if you look at last night, she's on the stage telling people, look, I want to be a president for all Americans. And then uncle Joe comes out and says the quiet part out loud, beyond the fact that she's been tossing around the words Nazi and fascism and Hitler over the course of the last couple weeks.

So I think that is why it is such a big problem for her in the last six days of this race. ROGINSKY: I'm sorry, are you actually offended by what Joe Biden

said? Because if you are, are you offended that Donald Trump calls people like me vermin?

Are you going to -- or if you are offended by what Joe Biden said, congratulations, you don't have to vote for him. Kamala Harris just distanced herself from his comments. You said she wouldn't distance herself. She just did.

Now, are you going to sit here and use the same metric to apply to Donald Trump? Are you going to use the same metric to say that Donald Trump should not be calling people vermin, Donald Trump should not be calling people like me the enemy from within, he should not be calling the United States a garbage can?

Are you going to distance yourself from your candidate, the one who's running to be president for the next four years? Or do you want as well in Joe Biden, who you won't have to think about three months down the road?

TROVER: I'm saying -- and I have said this time and again. I said it on this show on Monday. I do not like any of the verbiage going back and forth by either party.

But the fact of the matter is, there is an over -- there's an overfocus on Donald Trump and the things he says.

ROGINSKY: Because he's running.

TROVER: The Harris campaign -- the Harris campaign has said time and again, tossed around the word Hitler. They have tossed around fascism for weeks and tossed around Nazis in comparing the event. And I'm just saying Joe Biden is the sitting president of the United States.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: Lance, I do want to jump in with a fact-check. I do think you guys can go back and forth. I'm totally fine with that.

But Kamala Harris is not called Donald Trump Hitler or a Nazi or anything like that. She has described him as fascist. And we just had an Anne Applebaum, who is an expert on this from "The Atlantic" on just a few moments ago, who said, when Donald Trump is using terms like the enemy from within to talk about political opponents in this country, that that is dangerous.

TROVER: What I was saying about Kamala Harris is that that campaign has been amplifying the very types of verbiage that they want to hate on Donald Trump for using.

I don't like any of that verbiage. I say it on here all the time, Jim, that I want Republicans to stick to the issues and that I wish that they would.

ACOSTA: Yes. TROVER: But the fact of the matter is Democrats have engaged in the same type of dark, demeaning type behaviors and using that type of verbiage for weeks on end here.

ROGINSKY: You know, it's actually not Democrats. You know who it is? It's the former president's former chief of staff.

It's the former president's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

TROVER: Yes.

Yes. And you guys just go out and amplify it and think that that's somehow -- that that's OK, that that's OK. We will the amplify it.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: It is Republicans who are sounding the alarm about the danger that Donald Trump poses.

And, by the way, when Donald Trump refers to people he doesn't agree with as a vermin, you know what that sounds like, as somebody who was born in the former Soviet Union? Very much like people who are autocrats, very much like people who don't believe in the rule of law, very much like people who want to do the worst possible things to people who are their political opponents, right?

(CROSSTALK)

ROGINSKY: Well, I don't know what you call that. That's not democracy, my friend.

(CROSSTALK)

TROVER: I get it. You guys are frustrated with where things stand right now, but the 70 percent of this country...

ROGINSKY: I'm not frustrated at all.

TROVER: It sure seems like it, because your -- because the sitting president of the United States called half the country...

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: Let me jump in and play a little bit of Kamala Harris' speech on the Ellipse last night. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: And to people who disagree with me, unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy.

He wants to put them in jail. I will give them a seat at the table.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP) [11:10:02]

ACOSTA: I mean, Lance isn't that a theme that should resonate with some wavering Republicans out there?

I mean, after all former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has just come out and endorsed Kamala Harris. He has said he does not like Donald Trump referring to America as a garbage can, and he likes the idea of bringing people together.

Wasn't that part of her message last night?

TROVER: I think the bigger -- I think the issue for Kamala Harris is what I was saying earlier, is that this is a campaign that's been based on prefacing her as somebody that she's not.

It's like she says she's a moderate, but we all know when we look at her record it's one of the most far left records in the Democratic Party. She says she wants to be a moderate and -- but, I mean, obviously she goes out there and says she can't -- or -- excuse me -- she says that she wants to turn the page from Joe Biden, but then goes out and says she can't figure out a way to distance himself from him.

So I think you look at this, it's the same thing. She can't distance herself from Joe Biden.

ACOSTA: But she did. She did distance herself.

ROGINSKY: She just did. Yes.

Julie, I will give you the last word.

ROGINSKY: You know, look, if you're not happy with the fact of the economy grew by 2.8 percent in the last quarter and 3 percent in the quarter before that, if you're not happy with the stock market being at record highs, if you're not happy with inflation being down, if you're not really happy with the record unemployment low unemployment, then I will say this to you.

I guess Kamala Harris is your kind of extremist, because that is exactly what Republicans have been promising all along, to give us a strong, prosperous economy. And that's what you're getting with Kamala Harris. I don't know what extremism you're talking about.

She's got a four-year record as vice president to lean back on. And, by the way, if you think that Democrats are nervous, you have got your own candidate out there talking about how the vote in Pennsylvania is being stolen. Why? He probably got some bad internals, and this is his way of setting the stage for why he's going to lose Pennsylvania.

So, quite honestly, I don't mind debating these issues. I just mind the hypocrisy were for some reason people are up in arms about Joe Biden's word salad, but can't bring to distance themselves from the fact that Donald Trump refers to people as vermin and the enemy from within and basically threatens to arrest people like General Milley and put them put them up on treason charges, people like that, because he's not happy with them being critical of him, right?

ACOSTA: All right.

ROGINSKY: If you don't think that's fascistic, if you don't think that's the kind of thing that autocrats the world over, as Anne Applebaum pointed out, do, then I don't know what kind of country you're looking for and what Republicans are looking for, because that's what we're sleepwalking into the minute you start equivocating Donald Trump and Joe Biden's rhetoric.

ACOSTA: All right, Julie and Lance, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

ROGINSKY: Yes.

ACOSTA: Yes, just ahead this hour: Nevada used to be reliably red, but Democrats have won the state the last three presidential races. With a higher unemployment rate that any other state, where is it leaning now? We will speak with the state's only Republican congressman.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:17:23]

ACOSTA: Nevada is a critical battleground state we will be watching closely on Election Day.

It has not voted Republicans since 2004, but this year could be different. Here's a look at the latest polling there. It is neck-and- neck, 48 percent for Trump, 47 percent for Harris.

And joining me now is Republican Congressman of Nevada Mark Amodei.

Congressman, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

How do you see things shaking out right now? It is as tight as it can possibly get. That often happens with Nevada. But in recent elections, the Democrat has been able to sort of break away at the end. What's your sense of it right now?

REP. MARK AMODEI (R-NV): Well, it all depends, Jim, on how those mail-in ballots turn out, because, in Nevada, you can count them up to four days after the election, as long as they're postmarked by the election.

And then, of course, we're finishing up our early voting. And Election Day is always the big thing. So I think both sides are trying to run through the end of the end zone, if you will, because it's all about turnout right now.

ACOSTA: And our John King spoke to voters in Nevada this week, including a Latino voter who says he was undecided, but not any more, and that he's going to vote for the vice president based on what took place at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFAEL CERROS JR., NEVADA VOTER: That alone flipped a lot of people that were going to go for Trump now saying, hey, maybe I'm not too sure. Maybe I'm going with Harris.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He says, oh, he doesn't know who allowed those speakers to speak at his rally.

CERROS: Oh, that's B.S.

KING: That's B.S.?

CERROS: That's B.S.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Congressman, what do you think? Do you think it's going to have an impact?

AMODEI: Well, I think at this stage, if you haven't voted, it's because you're waiting until the end to see what kind of pushes you.

ACOSTA: Yes.

AMODEI: So, yes, that can have an impact. And there are other things that will have an impact. So it's who shows up and who does a better job of messaging in the finishing up here.

ACOSTA: And I'm sure you have seen, just in the last hour or so, the former governor, Republican Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out and said he is going to endorse Kamala Harris for president.

And one of the reasons why, he says -- he takes issue with some of Trump's rhetoric. He says this: "To someone like me, who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, he goes on here, "calling America as a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic. It makes me furious."

He's referring there to a former President Trump referring to America as a garbage can. Are you worried that there are some wavering Republicans out there, some Republicans in the middle who may vote for you, quite frankly, but may say, you know what, they don't want to go with that kind of rhetoric from the former president and may ultimately vote for the vice president?

[11:20:08]

AMODEI: Well, that could happen, although, with all due respect to the former governor of California, there's not a lot of Nevada folks that look to California for direction on political leadership. So, I mean, good for Mr. Schwarzenegger and whatever, but I can tell

you that last time, in the 2020 election, Donald Trump left rural Nevada with a 75,000-vote lead. And so they're looking to do better than that, obviously, because there's a challenge in Clark County, Las Vegas.

You're going to be talking to my colleague Dina Titus here, I think, shortly. And so the big challenge is, how do you get that turnout going in terms of knowing that you're going to have a lead in rural Nevada, and then, when you go down to Clark County, how well did the culinary union do on turning out their folks by mail, in person, whatever?

So that's been the fight all along.

ACOSTA: And what about -- while we have you here, what about Trump referring to members of the opposition, political opposition, as the enemy from within? Do you agree with that?

AMODEI: Well, he's going to pick whatever words he wants.

I can tell you that, in terms of people talking mean about each other in this cycle, that's actually -- you have used one of the more tame things on either side. So, unfortunately, the consultants love this point in time.

ACOSTA: You think that's tame, to call somebody the enemy?

AMODEI: Pardon?

ACOSTA: You think that's tame, to refer to somebody as -- a fellow American as the enemy from within?

AMODEI: Well, compared to deplorables and trash and stuff like that, yes, I think tame's a little lower down on the list, Jim, than some of the stuff that's been flying around.

ACOSTA: And, ultimately, at the end of the day, why has Donald Trump had problems winning in Nevada? He didn't pull it off in 2016, didn't pull it off in 2020. What's he going to do this time around to make a difference?

(CROSSTALK)

AMODEI: He hasn't had problems winning in the part of Nevada that I represent. He's run into a pretty well-organized get-out-the-vote effort, which the culinary union is famous for in Clark County.

And so I think there's been a focus on that. When you look at -- when you track the early voting stuff, not that that's the whole ball game, but it's looking better this time than it ever has in the last few cycles in terms of Nevada being blue versus red versus purple.

So I think it's going to be a horse race down to the end here, and it's because they have concentrated on getting those Republicans who are maybe not inveterate voters, but infrequent voters, getting those folks turned out, and also telling people it's OK to vote early, vote by mail, vote early, whatever, so that they're not trying to pick up being behind with a large early vote hill to climb, if you will, on Election Day.

ACOSTA: All right, Republican Congressman Mark Amodei, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

AMODEI: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right.

And let's discuss now with a Democrat from the state, Congressman Dina Titus. She joins us now.

Congresswoman, thanks so much.

Why -- I will just start off the way I did with the congressman a few moments ago. Why is Nevada so tight? Why has Vice President Harris not been able to put some distance between herself and the former president?

REP. DINA TITUS (D-NV): Well, Nevada always comes down to the end. We knock every door, make every call, pull out every vote. And look how close the elections always are. Our Senate race last time was just within a couple of points.

So that's not that unusual for us. But we're not taking anything for granted. And we believe that, by the end of the day, because of the ground game that we have, that we will beat Trump for a third time.

ACOSTA: And I think the congressman was referring to the old Harry Reid political machine in Las Vegas a few moments ago where, I mean, it has been a proven turnout machine, able to get Democratic voters who may work in some of the hotels and restaurants in Las Vegas to vote there in Clark County.

Is that operation still up and running, still as effective as it was when Harry Reid was the Senate majority leader, and are you counting on that machine to turn out some votes this time around?

TITUS: Well, we certainly are as a ground game. But it's not just the old Harry Reid machine.

There's a real coalition at work now at the doors. You have got culinary, as Mark mentioned, but you have also got the carpenters, the building trades, environmental groups are on the doors, and women are out making phone calls and talking to voters, so all that put together.

Plus, the Harris campaign has 12 field offices just here in Southern Nevada. You don't see evidence of that from the Trump side.

[11:25:00]

ACOSTA: And I do want to ask you, Congresswoman, a little bit about some of the news that we have been following this morning. Vice President Kamala Harris has come out and publicly, in front of the cameras, said she disagrees with President Biden referring to Trump supporters as garbage.

Of course, the president, the White House put out a statement saying the president was only referring to a joke from Donald Trump's rally in New York on Sunday when a comedian described Puerto Rico as garbage.

But how -- are you worried about that overshadowing the vice president's campaign here on the closing stretch?

TITUS: I'm not. I worry about everything. You run scared or run unopposed.

But I believe she did what she needed to do. She set up a great contrast between what she stands for and her record compared to Donald Trump. She finished strong. Look how many people were there. That's a crowd. And she looked presidential. If anybody thought she wasn't up to the job, she convinced them last night that she was. And I think that's what people are going to focus on.

ACOSTA: And are you hearing from some wavering Republicans, centrist Republicans that perhaps they are listening to that message from the vice president, or is this really just about turning out the base and who can get out the base at the end here?

TITUS: Well, we certainly want all our Democrats to turn out. Nevada has a large number of nonpartisans, so our appeal is there.

But I do believe there are a number of Republicans who just aren't speaking out against Donald Trump, but when they go in the privacy of that voting booth, especially women, you will see some crossover, no doubt about it.

ACOSTA: All right, Congresswoman Dina Titus of Nevada, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

TITUS: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right, just days ahead of the election, the Supreme Court has issued a very big ruling, allowing Virginia to purge alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls.

CNN chief Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic joins me now.

Joan, I mean, this is remarkable on a couple of levels, one, just the substance of the case, but the Supreme Court to hand down this kind of a decision six days before the election, I have to think that is going to raise some eyebrows.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Yes, well, the Supreme Court is in it now, Jim, and they're looking as divided as ever, because the three dissenters from today's ruling are the three liberals.

You know that this court is controlled by a conservative supermajority. What the justices did just in the last hour, Jim, was clear the way for Virginia officials to purge certain people from their voting rolls.

Now, it will only involve an estimated 1,600 people at this point, but what it does is potentially compromise a federal law that says that there should be a 90-day so-called quiet period before an election where people can't be systematically removed from voting rolls because they might be suspected of being a noncitizen, potentially based on outdated state data.

So, here the Biden administration and immigrant rights groups, civil rights groups had challenged Virginia's sudden policy put in place in August by the governor there to do a broad-scale purge, rather than individual purge, of someone -- of people who might be suspected of not being U.S. citizens.

I wanted to state outright that, of course, only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections and state elections here, so it matters. Lower court judges had sided with the challengers, the Biden administration, and said, no, it's too close to an election, it's within this 90-day safety period, and -- but the Supreme Court today reversed it, and, as I said, only the three liberal dissenters.

Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, Jim.

ACOSTA: And, Joan, the Supreme Court is also expected to act soon in another case, one from the important swing state of Pennsylvania. What do we know about that?

BISKUPIC: Yes, and that one, Jim, could be even more important because that involves -- it's a dispute over provisional ballots there and who can cast them, particularly people who have tried to vote by mail, but there was some defect in their mail-in ballot, in particular that they didn't enclose that secrecy sleeve that is important under Pennsylvania law there.

And the question is whether people who have been notified of some problem, and essentially their mail-in ballot has been found to be void, whether they can separately cast a provisional ballot. Now, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had ruled that, yes, they can.

Pennsylvania Republicans, the Republican Party have come up to the Supreme Court asking them to intervene. And what they say, in particular, Jim, could have consequences for other disputes that could arise in the next six days.

The issue is whether -- how a state court is allowed to interpret state law, and what the challengers are saying is that the state of Pennsylvania's highest court went too far. And that's something that could play into this conservative Supreme Court wanting to maybe tamp down state court interpretations of their own law.

But we will have to see in that one. Jim, just so you know, we're going to see a filing come in this afternoon, and I expect that we will see a decision from the Supreme Court, either Thursday or Friday, that would affect, as you say, this big swing state of Pennsylvania and potentially other states as more disputes come up to the High Court.

ACOSTA: All right. Joan Biskupic, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)