A Political 'Rorschach Test'
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I'm Maria Bartiromo. I'm Greg Gutfeld. I'm Tammy Bruce. And this is the Fox News Rundown. Friday, October 18th, 2024. I'm Chris Foster. Early voting's breaking records in Georgia. Turnout is kind of everything, especially in a race this tight. We're speaking with Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream.

And Lisa Brady. Candidates at every level are running out of time to get out the vote. I think turnout is critical. I think everyone who wants to change the direction of this country needs to come out and vote and bring their friends and bring their family. And that's true in the presidential, and it's true also in my race in Texas. We speak with Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. And I'm Joe Concha. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown. ♪

Former President Donald Trump has retaken the lead in the latest Fox News poll ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, 50 to 48 percent. The best he's done against her so far in this poll, a four point swing from last month when she was ahead 50 to 48. Still all within the margin of error. So statistically, they've been tied all along.

Trump held town halls this week with Latino voters and an audience of all women on Fox News Channel. Do you think you can provide single parents, married parents, any kind of parent to just simply afford children in today's world with the way things are? I gave you the largest tax cuts in the history of our country, okay? Larger than the Reagan cuts. I understand exactly what you're saying.

We're going to readjust things so that it's fair to everybody, because it's really not fair to everybody. Harris did her first ever formal Fox News Channel interview with special reports. Brett Baer, he asked if Trump's so bad, why does he have all this support? It is not supposed to be a misguided the 50 percent stupid. What is it? I would never say that about the American people. And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he's the one who tends to demean and belittle and

There were some questions she didn't answer directly in times she struggled to get a word in edgewise. The Trump campaign calls it a train wreck. The Harris campaign says, Were you a fan of hers coming in or out of this? It probably didn't move you for or against her. Fox News Sunday and Living the Dream podcast host,

Shannon Bream. Her team is saying she gets the credit for going in there and standing up to him and she's tough and she's a prosecutor, you know, and other folks will on the other side will say, OK, yes, it was contentious back and forth. But did we learn anything new about her positions and her plans? She's been really good at talking in broad terms, as we've discussed, that people like, of course, people want prosperity. They want better unity. They want all of these things.

But the devil is always in the details. And I'm not sure that she ever coughed up much in the way of, you know, the real minutia of the plans. Yeah. And obviously she went on to try to court what she hopes are undecided or persuadable Republicans and independents. And there are an awful lot of both who watch Republicans.

Fox News channel. We'll see. I mean, if she gets, you know, if she did no harm, then she did good. Yeah. And listen, we do, as we like to remind people, have the broadest group of audience and viewership, you know, pretty evenly divided between Democrats, Republicans and independents. We have the biggest numbers of those people who are watching. So smart for her if she's trying to reach people that she thinks maybe haven't heard her message. But how she came off last night is, like you said, very much a Rorschach test. Yeah.

Talk about the challenges of interviews like this, because bread is being dinged in some quarters for being interruptee. Now, look, you only have so much time and you want to let people answer, but not filibuster to where you don't get to the things you want to get to. And you want to be respectful, but not let people just stick to talking points. It's a tough line to walk.

It is really tricky because you want to be able to get a clean answer from them. I mean, that's what we're trying to do as journalists is actually get to the details and get to the answer. But man, politicians are really good at filibustering. It's what they do. And if they have their talking points and their broader opinions,

you know, principles and ideas that they want to get to, you really do have to interrupt, especially when that clock is ticking. The minute Brett sits down, it started later than they had planned, not because we weren't ready, but because the vice president's team, I think, was running a little bit late. So there's just so much pressure in that situation. You know, you walk into interviews like this knowing like, OK, I got to just drown out the noise because there'll be people on both sides who are unhappy. Yeah.

The new Fox polls are out. Yes. An exact reversal of last month. You got President Trump up 50 to 48. Last month is the opposite. The month before, which is the first time we polled with Harris as a candidate, it was, I think, 50 to 49. So this is the best he's done so far. I mean, with numbers this tight all along, it might mean nothing, but it does seem to be a minor trend looking at all the polls that he's that he's on the upswing.

Exactly. And that's what you want as, you know, whoever your candidate is, you want them trending in the right direction come election day. And we know dozens of states have already been voting some of them for weeks. And so, you know, if you're really ardent about one or the other, you've probably already gone out there and voted. We talk about these persuadables. Where are they? Who are they? We want to talk to you. Are they still making up their minds? Yeah.

And if he's trending in the right direction, good for his team this close to the election. But there are millions of cast votes that have already been cast. So do you peak at the right time or does the vice president, did she have such a good wave coming into this that she picked up a lot of people? We know that just percentage wise, more Democrats vote early. So she's probably banked more votes. And we'll just see how that trickles out now that Republicans are really

pushing their folks to go against what they had talked about years ago. Get out there, early vote, absentee, whatever you can do, bank those votes and don't wait till Election Day. Yeah. Early voting records in Georgia, at least, are just obliterating records the first few days. Again, it's unclear what that means necessarily because, like you said, Democrats do tend to vote earlier more often, but maybe more Republicans are doing it this time, too. No matter what it says, there's a lot of enthusiasm there.

Yeah, it does, because that's what counts is your people getting out and voting for your candidate. They can be excited and, you know, have a bumper sticker, do whatever. But if they don't get out and they don't get other people to get off the couch and vote and do their thing, it doesn't really matter. I mean, turnout is kind of everything, especially in a race this tight. You know, you mentioned Georgia. That is a place where there's a lot of litigation going on, too. I mean, there's litigation all over the country, but some really

you know, potentially substantive decisions that have come out from these state courts the last couple of days about, you know, these hand counts. There was, you know, the state election board, which does favor Republicans 3-2, passed a bunch of new stuff. And one of the things was, you know, hand counting of all the ballots in every county, not totals, you know,

President Trump gets 5,000. President, you know, Vice President Harris gets 5,001. Just the number of ballots, right? Just to see if they match up with what went through the machine. So, okay, 10,000 ballots went through the machine. We have 10,000 hand counted. That matches. And that's been struck down now by two judges in Georgia. So there's a lot of litigation that may actually impact races that are this tight too. Yeah. Some local election boards were like, look, come on,

don't be changing rules. There's no point. There's no, don't be changing things this close to the election. It's confusing for the poll workers, et cetera. I mean, like you said, I don't know how hard it is to just, you know, one, two, three, four, five. Although I guess there is a potential for error there. If you're, you know, if you skip one, then you're going to, you're going to start over if the, if the, if the counts don't match.

Right. And and, you know, then you ask the question, is the machine in error or is the human counting in error? Right. And it does unlock a lot of headaches for everybody who's trying to get those things certified. Well, speaking of certified, this judge also ruled that you that local elections officials can't.

can't decertify or can't refuse to certify by the date prescribed in law. Right. Just if they have personal doubts about fraud or errors, they're like, look, you know, let that stuff play out and investigate it and figure it out. But by a certain date...

whatever the count is, you got to sign off on it by law. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting because they're saying, listen, this is what the statute says. This is what the law says is that by 5 PM Monday, the Monday after the election, you have to turn in your totals. Now, if you see something potentially fraudulent or that doesn't line up, you refer that to the relevant district attorney. They investigated, but in the meantime, you do have to certify the vote. So you listen, if people think there are really odd things that are going on, um,

You know, those can be investigated. But if the votes are already certified, you know, a lot of folks think, well, if there are potential shenanigans there, that kind of closes the door on going anywhere with it. Would it be too late if there was a finding by a district attorney or another investigator afterwards? No, what you certified was actually not legit. But the court says that's what the law says. You know, and often that's the thing. You'll hear that from the Supreme Court, too. Like, listen, if you don't like the law, you got to go change it in the legislature. Yeah. And the judge also saying, like, look, this

keep doing it the new way means that one particularly Republican elections person could say, I don't know, this feels fishy to me and without, without any real particular proof and could hold things up. Um, another, uh, ruling when against what most Republicans wanted, uh, in Nebraska, uh, felons can indeed vote that right was, was restored. Um,

And, you know, it could potentially make a difference. Nebraska splits its electoral votes and, you know, maybe that one could maybe swing things.

Yeah. And I mean, this is one of those battles, too. Like I said, there's litigation in nearly every state over something related to the election. And Nebraska had a longer process, longer term process for felons when they could get their rights back. And it was, you know, after every potential part of your sentence has been served, not just if you serve time behind bars when you get out, but like through all of your parole and probation and everything else.

And the legislature there apparently had passed something that said, nope, once you've served your time, you can be about the business of getting your vote back.

And this court said, yeah, you know, that's what we're going to what the legislature has moved on this. And that's where we're going to go with this. So it shortens the amount of time that a convicted felon would have to wait to get those voting rights back. And it is weird that this falls on a party line kind of thing. Democrats think it's to their advantage. Republicans are not thrilled about it. Just one of the hundreds of cases literally pending right now. Looking back at the poll, just skimming through it, it looks like the vice president is ahead. Yeah.

By six points, if you just look at voters in what we're considering seven battleground states, and that's really that's what matters. I mean,

As we've seen in several elections, you can win the most votes and lose the election. And in fact, there are scenarios in this case where Vice President Harris can barely win the popular vote and barely lose the election. Right. I mean, it is so fascinating to me because you mentioned earlier the top line national number has flipped. But the battleground number is a flip for us, too, because that had been where President Trump had had more strength. And that's really critical. We're talking about giant prizes like Pennsylvania now.

We know that there are like six to eight states that really, really matter. What I think Trump team will take out of some of these poll numbers, our latest ones, are places where he's really closed a gap with places like, you know, Hispanic voters. He's still down. But if you look at the results we had in 2020, Democrats were plus 28 with Hispanic voters. Now it looks like plus five.

So everywhere that they can close these gaps, it's sort of like what the Democrats are saying about they're going into more rural areas that they don't think they'll win outright. But they want to, quote, lose by less. That's the same thing that the Trump team is trying to do with black voters, Hispanic voters. You know you're still going to lose these groups, but you want to lose by less. And that's going to matter in –

some places in Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan. In some places, though, it's not. Those gains with minority voters, if you're getting them in New York or California or Chicago,

Chicago, good for you. That helps your national number, but it's not going to help you get elected. Exactly. And, you know, there have been some questions about why is President Trump going to places like Madison Square Gardens in New York? Why is he in Coachella in California? Why is he doing this? But I think that there are a lot of reasons for that and partially, too, because some of these House races.

and very specific districts. President Trump is trying to pull some Republicans across the line in these really tough House races where he knows he's not going to win the state, but he can maybe help in specific districts. Have you looked? I haven't looked very closely lately about what's going on down ballot. Are there interesting races where people are running way ahead or way behind the person at the top of the ticket?

Yeah, I think there's some interesting ones. There's been a lot of attention in the Rust Belt states, you know, these Wisconsin, you know, other races that kind of fall into that category where it's interesting to me to look like there are Democrats who are pulling way ahead of where Harris is or Republicans who are pulling better than President Trump. So, yeah,

Can the top of the ticket pull people across the aisle or across the finish line? But the question is also, can those Senate candidates help the top of the ticket? Because some of these Senate races are so heated and, of course, control of the Senate is.

is critical. Whoever wins, they would love to have the Senate in their favor, but there's very real possibility we end up with a split there that one party controls the Senate and House and somebody else controls the White House. Voters like that kind of thing. They will vote for divided government, not giving everybody too much power into one party. Shannon Bream, host of Fox News Sunday and the Living the Bream podcast. Shannon, I suppose we'll do this at least one or two more times before Election Day. Let's do it, Chris.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcast.com.

I'm Dana Perino, and this week on Perino on Politics, I'm joined by Republican strategist Matt Gorman and Democratic strategist Antoine C. Wright as we examine what the candidates' best case scenarios look like for election night. Available now on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. This is Joe Concha with your Fox News commentary coming up.

The presidential race isn't the only one going down to the wire in 2024. In Texas, three-term Democratic Congressman Colin Allred is giving Republican Senator Ted Cruz a strong challenge. This is not, this is a pattern. He talks tough.

But he never shows up. We have a phrase for this in Texas, all hat and no cattle. That's what Senator Cruz is. During their only scheduled debate hosted by WFAA in Dallas on October 15th, Allred accused Cruz of trying to distract from key issues and taking his past comments on border security out of context, each accusing the other of holding extreme positions. And understand at home,

Colin Allred is Kamala Harris. Their records are the same. I've served with both of them. In a University of Houston poll, Cruz leads Allred by 4% among likely voters surveyed, with former President Trump leading Vice President Harris by less than 6% in Texas. We are at a crossroads in our country.

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz is seeking a third term. I'm optimistic. I hope and believe that Donald Trump will be reelected. But I think the country is divided. We've got seven swing states across the country, and the polling in all seven of them appears to be in the low single digits. And so the next few weeks are critical. I think turnout is critical. I think everyone...

who wants to change the direction of this country needs to come out and vote and bring their friends and bring their family. And that's true in the presidential, and it's true also in my race in Texas.

Vice President Kamala Harris describes former President Trump as increasingly unhinged and unstable. Do you think that he is doing enough to counter that with voters? Well, I think Vice President Harris is panicking right now. If you look at the polling a month ago, she was in a much stronger position. Her polling has dropped about five points nationwide. And listen,

Listen, a month ago, Kamala Harris was hiding in Joe Biden's basement, was unwilling to do media interviews, was unwilling to answer questions. You know, she's now on Fox News. That's an illustration of just how scared they are because the basement strategy wasn't working. And the risk she faces every time she answers a question is it doesn't go well for her. And the reason is simple.

Historically, presidential elections have been decided more than anything else by one question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? And unless you happen to be a Mexican drug lord, the answer's no. You are a senior citizen on a fixed income. The cost of everything's gone through the roof, and it's harder and harder to make ends meet. If you are a working family,

struggling and you're not sure how you're going to pay for your daughter's braces next month. If you're a young couple coming out of school and you're buying your first home and you're discovering right now that a 7% mortgage is very, very different than a 2.5% mortgage and you get about half as much house as you would have gotten when Trump was president.

All of that is very real. And then you put on top of that the changes in safety and security. We have seen utter chaos at our southern border. Kamala Harris and my opponent Colin Allred have

have been open border radicals and we've seen nearly 12 million illegal immigrants come into this country under Kamala Harris and Colin Allred. And the result is every American family is less safe. And I think those are the issues that are going to be decisive on Election Day. Your opponent has pressed you in the very tight Senate race that you guys are having on a number of issues, though, including abortion.

He has said also that you're, you know, the least productive senator for Texas. You know, how do you counter those things? Well, you know, there's an old saying that you're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. And the facts are straightforward. We just had our debate this week and our debate was a clear contrast. And I think this election should be a battle between my record and Colin Allred's record.

My record has been a record for 12 years of fighting for 30 million Texans, fighting for jobs, fighting for freedom, fighting for security and delivering real results.

Senator Cruz says he's authored and passed more than 100 pieces of legislation, including bipartisan work with Democratic senators from Georgia and New Mexico to connect more areas with the interstate highway system. He says those extensions bring thousands of jobs to Texas while helping farmers and ranchers get products to market faster.

Cruz also highlights legislation praised by the Texas Association of Business to expedite permitting for new bridges from South Texas to Mexico. In contrast, Colin Allred is a hard left Democrat. His voting record, his first four years in the House, he voted with Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time. He literally did not deviate on a single vote. He voted with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their first two years. Why?

One hundred percent of the time he's voted repeatedly in favor of open borders. Colin Allred and Kamala Harris are directly responsible for this invasion at the southern border. Texans don't want this. He has also voted repeatedly for higher taxes, for trillions in spending, trillions in debt. That's a record that is out of step with the people of Texas.

Are you concerned about the former president's potential impact, good or bad, on down ballot races?

I'm actually very encouraged by the impact of Donald Trump down ballot. He's going to win Texas. I think the people of Texas recognize that life was a lot better when Donald Trump was president than it has been under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I will say it was striking at the debate we had this week that Colin Allred was running away from Kamala Harris desperately, trying to disassociate himself with her as much as possible. But let's be clear, as I said at the debate, Colin Allred,

is Kamala Harris. Their records are identical, both of them. Let me give you an example. So Colin Allred, like Kamala Harris, has voted in favor of open borders over and over and over again. When it comes to the border wall, he's voted against the border wall three separate times, and he refers to the border wall as, quote, that racist border wall. He says, if you think border security matters, you are a racist.

And he is pledged to personally tear down, quote, that racist border wall. Here's the amazing thing. He is right now spending millions of dollars running TV ads with images of him standing in front of that thing he calls that racist border wall. It's fundamentally deceptive. Kamala Harris is doing the same thing. She's spending millions of dollars of ads with video aerial footage of Trump's border wall.

I don't think the voters are stupid. Both of them are trying to pretend their record isn't what it is. I think elections should come down to the candidates' record and their vision for the country. That's certainly what this race in Texas is going to come down to. I want to just slip in a foreign policy question for you, something that doesn't always get as much attention in an election year as it is now, especially because of the fighting in the Middle East.

the Israeli prime minister under increasing pressure again from the U.S. to increase humanitarian aid in Gaza and also now to use more caution in Lebanon. There have also been reports that Israel could face a Palestinian effort to suspend its membership in the U.N. General Assembly. Do you think that there's something the Biden administration should be doing differently?

Of course there is. This has been the most anti-Israel White House we have ever seen in this country. When I was elected to the Senate 12 years ago, I pledged then to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate. And I've worked hard every day since then to do exactly that.

October 7th was horrific. And I don't think there are shades of gray when it comes to October 7th. It is a battle between good and evil. It is a battle between civilization and barbarism. I believe the United States should stand unequivocally with Israel. And sadly, the Biden White House and Colin Allred have repeatedly chosen to side against Israel and to undermine Israel. As for the United Nations...

If we actually had a commander-in-chief

who could stand up and defend America and defend our allies, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would say what Ronald Reagan said when this same effort was tried. And Ronald Reagan said, if Israel leads the United Nations, America will lead the United Nations that same day. That's what a strong commander-in-chief says. Of course, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not going to say that because, tragically,

There is a real and growing pro-Hamas contingent within the Democrat Party. And part of the reason why Colin Allred consistently undermines Israel is he's tried to get the votes of the radicals, of the anti-Semitic protesters on college campuses, of the radical left that is becoming more and more an important part of the Democrat coalition. What would you say to anyone who's concerned about

about a peaceful transfer of power in the U.S. President Biden has said he's confident elections will be free and fair, but he's not so sure about the potential for violence after this election. Well, I will say I just watched yesterday Mark Halperin, who used to be the political director of ABC News, say that he was very concerned about violence from the left if Trump wins. And I think we are seeing many on the left who are unhinged.

I also think when it comes to free and fair elections, it was very disappointing to see Democrats, including Colin Allred, just a few weeks ago, vote against the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act was simple legislation that required proof of citizenship to register to vote. And Colin Allred and other Democrats voted against it. They are unwilling to do anything meaningful to protect election integrity. And I will say, in terms of my Texas Senate race,

The biggest challenge, frankly, is complacency. That people say, look, it's Texas, you're a Republican, it's a re-elect, this is easy.

I think that's objectively false. Chuck Schumer has been explicit that I'm his number one target in the country. Schumer and George Soros are flooding over $100 million into the state of Texas. I'm being massively outspent. There have been a dozen or more polls that show this as a one-point race, a two-point race, or a three-point race. And so I want to say to your listeners, please come to the website, TedCruz.org, give $25, $50, $100, $100.

This race will come down to a binary question. If we raise enough money by your going to Ted Cruz dot org that we can communicate my record and Colin Allred's record to the voters of Texas, we'll win. Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. And now some good news with Tanya J. Powers.

A Florida couple has found a treasured piece of jewelry that had been lost for almost 10 years, all because of Hurricane Milton. Laura Yorio and her husband Basil had evacuated their Palm Coast home when Milton hit, and when they returned, they found something quite unexpected in their backyard. Laura had stepped outside the house with their dog and noticed a glint amid the grass and soil. And I looked down, and I saw like a silver ring there.

and I thought it was like a key ring. - It was her husband's wedding ring, which had been lost nearly a decade earlier. - We had a construction project about nine years ago and it just disappeared. - We've been here a thousand times over the last nine years. I have a landscaper who comes once a week, every week for nine years.

Nothing. They'd looked repeatedly over the years, but never had any luck. After a rough couple of days, it was a really happy ending. Laura believes the heavy rains from the hurricane helped unearth the sentimental treasure. We're very mindful that a lot of people are going through terrible, terrible things, and I feel almost a little guilty feeling happy about all this, but it was something good. Tonya J. Powers, Fox News.

I'm Emily Campagno, host of the Fox True Crime Podcast. This week, I'm joined by trial attorney Joshua Ritter to discuss the gruesome murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez and the controversial, shocking trial of their sons. Available now on FoxNewsPodcast.com. Subscribe to this podcast at FoxNewsPodcast.com.

It's time for your Fox News commentary. Joe Concha. What's on your mind? The Kamala campaign is now in serious trouble because think about it. From a media perspective, she was doing interview after interview trying to court black voters, particularly young black men.

With less than three weeks to go, if you, as the black Democratic presidential nominee, still haven't closed the deal with the types of numbers you need to win in places like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, if you still don't have 85, 90 percent of black voters, boy, that's a big problem considering how small the margins were for Joe Biden in 2020. She's also struggling, by the way, with Hispanic voters.

voters, where she has half the support that Hillary Clinton had in 2016 against Donald Trump. And oh yeah, Hillary lost that race. And as the Democratic presidential candidate, if you don't have the backing of rank and file support of unions like the Teamsters in Pennsylvania or steel workers in Pennsylvania or auto workers in Michigan or restaurant and service workers out in Nevada, your campaign is basically the Cleveland Browns.

You're never winning the Super Bowl that is the presidency. Kamala Harris is now pulling ads out of Wisconsin. She's redirecting them to Pennsylvania. What does that tell us? They are flailing right now, Team Kamala is. While the Trump campaign has a gale force wind at its back, if you simply look at the

polling averages and the betting markets where we now see Donald Trump has a 24 point advantage in terms of his chances of winning in poly market and he's ahead in every swing state except Wisconsin and that's about to fall in terms of the polling averages in those seven key swing states. So Kamala Harris.

Tim Walz, they are in serious trouble, and it's hard to see how they're going to turn it around. Donald Trump may well be your 47th president. It's his race to lose. I'm Joe Concha.

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