Presidential Race a Dead Heat
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for every life-saving treatment, for every next step, for every care in the world. Cleveland Clinic. It's Monday, September 9th, right now on CNN This Morning. A new major poll showing Donald Trump with a slim one-point lead within the margin of error heading into the first debate. It's a statistical dead heat and... We're run by stupid people and we're going to find it out again on Tuesday night.

Only one day away from the highly anticipated showdown, it may be the only time the two candidates meet on the debate stage. And the former president threatening election officials with criminal prosecution, potentially if he winds up victorious in November. And... I think it really feeds into a sense that this is something they're using as a political football.

Any reports out of Congress on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as Donald Trump makes it a central issue on the campaign trail? All right. 6 a.m. on the East Coast, a live look at the nation's capital on this Monday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us tomorrow. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will face off in Philadelphia for their one and only presidential debate. Stop me if you've heard this before.

the stakes could not be higher. There are just 57 days until election day. Does that feel like not much time? Well, consider where we were 57 days ago. It was July 14th. It was a Sunday. Donald Trump had just held a rally the night before in Butler, Pennsylvania. Take a look at what happened.

There you see him shouting fight. Trump had narrowly avoided death. His life was spared by mere inches. Days later, the RNC kicked off in Milwaukee. Trump received a hero's welcome. For a week, defiant Republicans celebrated Trump, and there's really no other way to say it, Trump was winning the election. But less than a week later, President Biden stepped aside, and Democrats rallied around Harris with lightning speed, their joy fully on display at their week-long convention. 11 seconds.

The last 57 days have shown us that everything can change in mere moments. And Trump and Harris have just 57 more days to change American minds. And just one day until what could be their really last opportunity for a big moment on the debate stage in Philadelphia Tuesday night.

This weekend, new polling from the New York Times and Siena College found Donald Trump with a one-point lead over Kamala Harris among likely voters. This is a national poll, well within the margin of error, no clear leader, but potentially showing the electorate drifting back in Donald Trump's direction after a month of Harris riding high.

Is that what's happening? And what do Harrison Trump need to do on stage in Philly tomorrow night? Joining us now to discuss Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Dana Bash, CNN chief political correspondent, co-host of State of the Union, Megan Hayes, former director of message planning for the Biden White House, and Matt Gorman, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Hello. Just 57 days. It's head spinning to think of where we were 57 days ago to

to where we are now. Our thanks to crack producer Jimmy Carr, who did the math and figured that out. Dana Bash, I am interested in this New York Times poll. It's obviously one poll. We don't want to put too much stock in it. But it is something that's got at least my Democratic sources chattering about, hey, is this sort of high that Harris has been on kind of coming back to earth? Are we seeing where this race really stands, which is extraordinarily neck and neck? What are you hearing?

Same, same. And what I'm hearing isn't, you know, panic that she's dipping. It's plateau. It's that the rise, the surge, as so many people have said, the sugar high perhaps from Joe Biden dropping out, her getting in and everything that has happened since could be kind of leveling out.

I'm sure you're going to get to a lot of the numbers inside the poll, but there are larger concerns. Maybe concern is too strong. Targets for her inside the poll with regard to people who are not yet decided, why they're not decided, and the fact that they still don't know

a lot about her policies, which is one of the many reasons why tomorrow night is so crucial. Yeah. Alex Thompson, speaking of that question, okay, people are saying we're not sure that we know a lot about her policy. That actually has been a Republican message. I'm kind of curious what your take is and what you're hearing from your sources about

How is this race to define Kamala Harris going for her right now? Well, the poll highlights really why this debate is so important. Now, the debate, it will be impossible to up the impact of Dana's debate. Well, I don't know, Dana. Yours is... It's tough not to follow.

It's a tough act to follow. So tough news for ABC. But I do think what the poll does show is that this is high risk, high reward for Kamala Harris. And they know that. That's why she's been down all week doing debate prep because people, you know, people

really know what they think about Donald Trump at this point. And the polls show that there is openness to rejecting Donald Trump, to not going back, as Kamala Harris would put it. But there's also a lot of ambiguity, and they don't know if she's up to this. And that's why this debate is going to be so important. And she's also built this up into a bigger moment because she, with the exception of Dana's interview,

has not really been accessible to reporters. So she has also made this into a bigger moment because of that. Interesting. So obviously, Meghan Hayes, both sides, Trump, well, Trump less so. Harris has been hunkered down, right, doing very traditional classic debate prep in Pittsburgh. She's been working with a friend of the show, Philippe Reines, who played Donald Trump in prep for Hillary Clinton.

He's now doing it for Harris. He was on the show a couple months ago. I was desperately trying to get him to explain what it's like because I remember when I was covering Hillary Clinton's campaign, him getting into the back of a car. We were going out to dinner. We were having a source meeting, and he's literally wearing the Trump cufflinks and the shoes looking the part. Here's what Philippe said about what it's like to play Trump on this show a couple weeks ago. Watch.

I mean, Trump would be like, no, I'm not, I'm not much better. But he's going to do a thing with the mic. He's going to be like, why is my mic off? They gag me. They want to put me in jail. They turn off my mic. This is why. Even when he's supposed to do what he does. He knows damn well. He knows damn well. He's big on, you know, why they're playing with the teleprompter, why they're playing with the mic. He will play dumb as part of his, you know, they're out to get me.

What do you make of that? And what do you think Harris, how do you think Harris is going to, needs to interact with all that? Yeah. I mean, I think he's going to do whatever he can to blame the rest, right? That's like kind of what he does. That's his shtick. Everyone's out to get him. He's the victim. I think she needs to continue to do what she's doing and being out there. But to your, to their point, you know, it's,

She needs to introduce herself. She's still people are still getting to know her. And if there is room to move, this is a really great opportunity. You're not going to get 10 million plus viewers ever again in the next 57 days. So she needs to take that opportunity and let Donald Trump be Donald Trump and let him play the victim and do all the things. And she should focus on her and focus on getting her voice out there. Matt Gorman, The New York Times reported over the weekend in terms of Harris, a strategy that, quote, Ms. Harris has ditched

Mrs. Clinton's unsuccessful strategy of denouncing Mr. Trump as a racist and a misogynist. The vice president's aides believe it's a waste of time to tell voters what a terrible person Mr. Trump is, given how hard it is to find a voter who does not already have a fixed view of his character, good or bad.

That clip was before that first debate. I think that would be a mistake for the Harris team to base their Trump kind of impression or characterization based on the 2020 debate and less so on this last one we had with Dana, where he was practiced. He knew to let Joe Biden go and talk and interject, but do so on his own time.

If you remember, I don't know what he just said. I don't think he does either. He wasn't boorish. He wasn't interrupting. I think it's... I would caution them to be very, very careful of which Donald Trump they choose to have go against her. I think that's a very interesting point. You have to want... Sorry, go ahead. He also...

felt that he could take his foot off the gas there when he saw what was happening on the other side of the aisle. I think you're right, but I think one of the underrated things about that last debate, which I just got lost in the whole stuff with Joe Biden afterwards, was he prepped and practiced far more than people gave him credit for. He was ready for it in a way where the advisors, I think,

It didn't let it know. I mean, you're seeing both sides basically try to downplay expectations. Oh, Trump hasn't prepped at all. Oh, and Harris, now that they don't have the mute or now that they have the muted mics, she can't do it. They're they're they're tossing out the new playbook. The one stat in that that really highlights what we're talking about with Kamala Harris in that poll was 31 percent of people said they needed more information about Harris before they made up their mind of that. Thirty one percent. Sixty seven percent said policy was the one thing they wanted to know more.

Yeah, we will see. All right, ahead here on CNN this morning, surprising presidential endorsements continue to roll in. A former Republican vice president, not just any former Republican vice president, announcing he's switching sides and supporting Kamala Harris. Plus, Republicans and Democrats set to release dueling reports today on the deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. We'll dig into that. And the former president...

on social media already trying to sow doubt about the 2024 election results. Do you think that it is appropriate to be threatening election workers in this way before the election? I think what President Trump is saying, we're going to have, if we have free and fair elections, everybody's got to follow the rules.

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I haven't seen what's in the report coming out tomorrow, but I do have a question about what they're doing over there. If they've had three years to assess what happened, why are they delivering a report after Labor Day in a presidential election year? I think it really feeds into a sense that this is something they're using as a political football.

All right. House Republicans and Democrats releasing dueling documents today on the August 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The chaotic exit led left 13 American service members dead and abandoned thousands of Afghans who had worked with the United States. Donald Trump's campaign trying to make this a key issue ahead of the November election. Megan Hayes,

I will say there are some damning details in the Republican version of this report. Obviously, 13 Americans were left dead at Abbey Gate after that horrific attack. This is going to be something that Harris is going to have to answer for on the debate stage. How do you think she needs to do it? I mean, I think that day was tragic. I remember being in the White House was awful and horrible for all of us and for the president and the vice president. And I think

the one way people people need to be reminded of the sequence of how this all came about and how we ended up where we were and i think that you know the vice president has said it was a courageous thing to to withdraw from the world from our country's longest war but i also think she needs to remind people that donald trump had four years to also also withdraw she he also cut a deal with the taliban that freed 5 000 prisoners so i mean there's a lot of facts here it's very nuanced and i think that she needs to find a succinct way to remind folks of how this all came about and how we got to the place we were at

Yeah. Matt, I mean, this is clearly tricky territory. I mean, the Harris campaign is releasing a letter from a 10, we had one of the generals who signed the letter on earlier in the program. They clearly understand that this is a vulnerability. Huge vulnerability. I mean, this was Joe Biden's really first, and I would say permanent polling swoon in August of 2021. His numbers never recovered to the extent they were at before then. And look, I

I think what you're also going to hear is not just about the conditions-based withdrawal that the Trump team had and the Biden team tore up, but also how they did it, right? Closing Bagram Air Force Base forced a bottleneck into Kabul. It's like trying to get people out of New York City, but closing LaGuardia and Kennedy and having everyone go through Newark. And so it forced a bottleneck that made Kabul obviously a massive target, as we saw. So look, I think the Trump team absolutely feels like this will be on offense. And I expect to hear a lot about this during the debate, this

thing by the Harris campaign, obviously since did both pre-butt it, but maybe inoculate a little bit somewhat too. - All right, still to come here on CNN this morning, the first and probably only opportunity for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to face off ahead of the November election, how each is preparing for tomorrow night's must-see debate, plus an NFL star handcuffed and detained, now a Miami-Dade police officer's on leave. It's one of the five things you have to see this morning.

22 minutes past the hour, five things you have to see this morning. The star receiver for the Miami Dolphins, Tyreek Hill, handcuffed and lying on the ground just hours before Sunday's game. Miami-Dade police are investigating why Hill was detained following a traffic stop. One officer has been placed on leave. Hill was released in time to play and later celebrated an 80-yard touchdown by pretending to be handcuffed once more. Wow. Okay, now there's this.

The skyline of Lake Charles, Louisiana changed as a 22-story skyscraper tumbles down. It was a planned demolition this weekend. The Capital One Tower was badly damaged after back-to-back hurricanes. All of a sudden I had a premonition. I'm telling you. It was like, uh-oh.

Uh-oh, an 84-year-old Florida woman injured after a gator attack in North Fort Myers. It happened while she was walking her dog. The gator bit her legs and fingers. She is expected to recover. I also hope that the dog is okay, considering that the woman is going to be okay.

All right, world number one, Yannick Sinner of Italy capturing his second Grand Slam singles title, defeating American Taylor Fritz in straight sets to win the US Open. Fritz was trying to become the first American man to win a Grand Slam singles title in 21 years. And California experiencing excessive heat causing wildfires to spread in parts of the state. Evacuation orders in effect for thousands of residents in San Bernardino County. More than 17,000 acres have burned.

And that brings us to weather as those wildfires spread in California, parts of southern Texas now under a tropical storm watch. Let's get to our meteorologist, the weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning. Good morning, Casey. We are just a couple of days away from the statistical forecast.

peak of the hurricane season here in the Atlantic. So we are right on cue to see development now over the western Gulf of Mexico, and that is where our focus is, potential tropical cyclone six likely to become Francine later this morning. As you mentioned, there are tropical storm watches for extreme southern Texas coastline. This will likely be expanded through the course of the day today into Louisiana. The reason we have tropical storm watches is

is because the outer wind field from soon-to-be Francine could likely clip into southern Texas through the course of the day today. But we're really focused in near the border of Texas and Louisiana, where we could experience tropical storm force to low-end Category 1 hurricane conditions as the storm is forecast to strengthen as it approaches the Gulf Coast.

and the mainland of the U.S. Lots of rain associated with this system, flash flood potential as we head into the middle parts of the work week across the Gulf Coast states from Texas to Louisiana. Bringing to the other side of the country, this is California. Of course, we've been keeping a close eye on many of the fires that are ongoing. The Line Fire right now, 20,000 acres burned with 0% containment. This is all being fueled by record high temperatures.

and strong winds that will continue through the day today. Casey. All right, Derek Van Dam Forest. Derek, thank you so much for that. See you tomorrow. Coming up here on CNN this morning, Donald Trump once again casting doubt and making threats about the upcoming election. We're going to show you what he's promising to do if he wins another term. Plus, with the debate coming up tomorrow, each candidate getting ready in their own way.

I think every day is debate prep for Donald Trump. He'll go in game time ready, just as he does for every interview, every rally that he does. This is not something that is a heavy lift for him.

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All right, welcome back. Donald Trump not only continuing to make false claims about the 2020 election, he's now threatening to prosecute election officials if he wins in November. Trump posted this on social media over the weekend. Quote, the 2024 election where voters have just, votes have just started being cast

will be under the closest professional scrutiny. And when I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, adding those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught and prosecuted at levels unfortunately never seen before in our country. The former president has long sought to sow distrust in the electoral process. It's a political attack against me by comrade Kamala Harris and Sleepy Joe.

and other radical left opponents for the purpose of election interference. I ran for president. I won. Then I won a second time, did much better the second time. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. We won the election easily. There's no way Joe Biden got 80 million votes.

It was, of course, this kind of messaging that ultimately led to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The panel is back. And Dana Bashman, watching that, I have to say, I was thinking back to as Donald Trump was out there in public saying these things after the 2020 election, the Republicans who I was on the phone with, who were always arguing to me, just let him get it out of his system, you know,

Fair enough. They had court challenges, you know, give him the time to do the court challenges. OK. But then the excuses kept coming, kept coming. It results in January 6th. And now we are seeing him. There really was a shift after Biden dropped out of the race. You are now seeing more rhetoric like what we saw at Trump post over the weekend. He seems to be laying the groundwork for this again.

in a big way. I was thinking that when he started talking about the attempted coup and things like that, which have no basis, in fact, with regard to Joe Biden getting out of the race, that that was going to be kind of his avenue for rigged election. It doesn't it's not fair if Harris wins that she came in late and they they changed the system. We certainly may see that come back, but yes. But there's no basis in any fact for that. First of all, there's

They don't even mention parties in the Constitution. Like, the parties can do whatever they want, really, legally. I mean, not whatever they want, but you get my drift. This is dangerous. And he knows it's dangerous. He knows what he's doing. He has a complete understanding of the impact, even though he calls January 6th the people who are in prison and convicted for crimes.

being part of a violent insurrection to stop the peaceful, and they did stop the peaceful transfer of power for a bit. Beautiful people, and he wants to pardon them and all the things. There's no other way to say this, that this is dangerous. And the kind of thing that you would say to your Republican sources, and I know that you did in public back then, we need to be very, very clear about this right now that

The kind of rhetoric that we are seeing come from Donald Trump is consequential, and we should not have amnesia about that.

Alex, yeah, go ahead. You know, it's Republicans out on the stump are often complaining about law fairs, what they call, which they basically are saying that Biden has politicized the DOJ. But now you have Trump going out there actually promising that that's what he's going to do, that he's going to politicize the Justice Department. I can tell you, you know, there are some people involved in the Harris campaign that actually...

You know, there is almost an existential element to their personal lives on the basis of this election, because they feel like even if there isn't, you know, an indictment, there could be grand juries. Like, in fact, being involved in this campaign could mean a year of legal fights for them on a personal level. Yeah. I mean, Matt Gorman, this is this is something that his I will say his campaign advisers have mostly tried to get him to steer clear of.

But for all the talk of his advisors saying, well, we have to deal with Trump himself, like this is how he is, we're just gonna have to put up with the things that he says, this is clearly an obsession for him. It is something that he has used to convince millions of Americans to distrust

And I mean, to Alex's point, I mean, how would you answer that? I mean, he is basically saying, OK, I'm going to politicize the system and use it to go after my political enemies. What I'm watching very closely is if it comes up tomorrow night, I would hope it doesn't. I would recommend it doesn't. You mean from Trump? From Trump tomorrow night. As opposed to the moderator.

I guess. Yeah, no, no, no, no. I mean, like, look, if they ask about it, we'll see. But, like, if he brings this up on his own, I think Republicans, whether it's Kevin McCarthy, have said that kind of put it pretty well. You're talking more about your own problems than the American people. That is a problem in and of itself. I think...

I'd be very interested to see whether it comes up. I hope it doesn't. I recommend it doesn't from Trump proactively. And I think this is one of the other interesting things, whether if this was Joe Biden on the other side of the stage tomorrow night, who felt a lot more comfortable going on the attack on this issue on democracy, so to speak, maybe it's a different paradigm. We haven't heard that as much

from the Harris campaign, so maybe they're less likely to draw him out. I mean, Megan, what is the sort of calculus there for the Harris team? I mean, obviously they have tried to embrace joy and turning the page, which would put all of this stuff in the rearview mirror. But at the same time, this is something that Donald Trump is putting front and center. And actually, let's play a little bit of what Liz Cheney had to say over the weekend about Donald Trump, because this is all, of course, what has animated her so aggressively against Donald Trump. Watch.

Well, I would say, you know, given the closeness of this election, particularly if you're going to find yourself voting in a swing state, you've got to take the extra step. If you really do recognize the threat that Donald Trump poses, then it's not enough to simply say, I'm not going to vote for him. I would also remind them, you know what, it's a secret ballot.

Why are we seeing Harris lean less into this than we saw President Biden? I think because the polling numbers are saying that people don't know who she is and she needs to talk about her policy. So talking about someone else's grievances and talking about Donald Trump playing the victim doesn't do her any favors. You're just adding, you're bringing more attention to that. So she needs to focus on her policies and let surrogates be out here talking about Donald Trump and his grievances and let, you know, the Cheneys. That's very telling that people like the Cheneys are now going to be voting for Kamala Harris. I mean, who would have thought that

some of the most conservative people in our country would be voting for someone who Donald Trump is trying to promote as the most leftist person ever. So... Not me. I've been in the White House for many years, traveled the world with him, spent time with him. He is, as you said, one of the most conservative, high-profile people in this country. And the fact that he is voting for a Democrat, I mean,

I mean, you could push me over with a feather. I still cannot believe it. Just one quick thing when you asked about the fact that she's not leaning into sort of the democracy thing. She might not be, but she's coming at the same issue from a different angle, which is law and order. And I would not be surprised if she didn't talk about this, what

what you described and Donald Trump said over the weekend. - Him threatening to jail election officials. - Yes, through like, through the prism of her experience and how people should really look at the laws and evidence-based and not maybe do it as

we need to save our democracy. - Yeah, is that your sense too, Alex? - Yeah, well, I'd also say there is a bit of a fundamental disagreement between the Biden team and the Harris team on the salience of January 6th in particular, and focusing on that. I completely agree with Dana that she is going at it, but in a different way. And that's just because the Harris team doesn't believe that Americans are going to be thinking first and foremost about January 6th come this November. The Biden team did.

Matt, is that the sharp way to look at it in your view? - Yes. - Okay. - Yeah, no, I think that's, I have always been dubious on the pure democracy argument. We see it pop in polls. I think it's more of an amalgam of a bunch of different things construed as democracy. I don't think people are wondering about, you know, a specific esoteric form of government. I think it's, I'm very concerned about abortion

or this, and it kind of comes up and bubbles up in that way. But to put it succinctly, I think Alex is probably the best way to put it, yeah. And people have short memories, right? So they're not going to remember January 6th as much as they'll remember Donald Trump talking all this crazy talk about jailing people who are against him. So I just think that

focusing on January 6th like the Biden team was doing doesn't help Kamala Harris. Interesting. All right. As we have been discussing tomorrow, Harris and Trump will share the debate stage. We've all been waiting for it. Follow CNN for complete coverage, exclusive analysis before and after the debate. The ABC News presidential debate simulcast tomorrow night, 9 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

And coming up here on CNN this morning, America's deadliest election. That is the title of Dana Bash's new book. And of course, she is here. She could tell us all about it coming up next. And more Republicans switching sides to Kamala Harris. Do their endorsements really matter? Well, it was a remarkable time in politics. You have Dick Cheney endorsing a Democrat and you have a Kennedy endorsing a Republican. I think what it tells us is that there's a lot of ferment in American politics.

Now it's we who face unprecedented moment in the history of the union. We're in a moment, obviously an extraordinary moment, unprecedented in my lifetime. The time of great crisis across America. A time of unprecedented challenges. We live in unprecedented times.

It is, of course, a common refrain to describe our moment in time as unprecedented. And while, of course, the 2024 election has already bitterly divided many Americans, even turning violent this past summer, a look back at our own history reminds us that we have been in places like this before. In a new book, CNN's own Dana Bash examines how the little-known Louisiana gubernatorial election of 1872

almost pushed American democracy to the breaking point. This is of course set in the Reconstruction era. It's America's deadliest election, the cautionary tale of the most violent election in American history. And it tells a story of attempted coups, assassinations, and eerie parallels to today's political landscape.

providing useful lessons for understanding this moment. And Dana is, of course, back with us now. Dana, I have started reading the book. I have not finished it yet. But it's fascinating kind of what you dig into here, especially considering the conversation we were just having about our moment today. Yeah, it definitely animates me in a way. And I wish that I... Well, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. And I will say that

when people look at the title, they say America's Deadliest Election. Oh, she's a political reporter. She's doing a book about 2020. And as you just said, it is not. It goes way, way back to Reconstruction. And the...

As we were talking about what Donald Trump is saying again in a very robust way, I have such a different appreciation for that now. And I wish that I knew these stories. And I'm embarrassed that I don't know about you guys, but I did not learn about this. I didn't. In school. I went to a great public school in New Jersey and I didn't learn really anything about it. We learned about Reconstruction and then it was kind of a bridge to the rest of American history.

And shame on us, because this period in time when the country was trying to

after the Civil War, there was a moment, there was a moment where things could have gone radically differently in a good way for racial reconciliation when the slaves were freed. And it didn't happen. And in part, it didn't happen because of this deadly election in 1872 in Louisiana, which was all about racism, all about then, remember, the parties were flipped. So there was the Southern Democrats who were segregationists

who were trying to hold on to their way of life. And what happened was a real deadly election and real corruption. I mean, there were massacres of black men who were just trying to vote. And

the corruption that we saw in order for people to hold on to power, the language that you were just talking about that Donald Trump used, that has been used before in an aggressive and successful way that has created some strife that it was hard to get over. And it wasn't just ultimately limited to Louisiana.

spread out all across the South and impacted America for forever. - How is the rhetoric that we saw in this moment? Are there echoes of it today? - Yes, yes. I mean, there were, okay, I'll give you one example. During one of the,

protests in the streets. It was like basically an insurrection. People were in the streets of New Orleans screaming for the government to be overturned. And they were actually saying, hang him, hang him about the governor.

There was a, I'll just fast forward to 1876, in which the problems, and I will say back in 1872, they were so bad that nobody could figure out who actually won. There were two governors sworn in, two legislatures sworn in, and this chaos continued for a very long time. That spread to other states by the

1876 election, and multiple slates of electors were sent to Congress because they couldn't figure out who actually won. There was a debate

During the certification process about how much power the vice president should have, whether it's ceremonial or whether he could pick one of the slates of electors and they decided it was only ceremonial. So these are instances that that we saw four years ago that did have precedent that changed things and and real violence that happened.

changed the course of America. This election, to make a very long story short, ushered in the Jim Crow laws of the South for a century because the

There was so much violence, it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said, "It's up to the states to determine civil rights." And the southern states said, "Terrific, we'll do that. Let me give you Jim Crow." And it took 100 years to get rid of him. - Alex Thompson, I mean, the match that we came in with of all of these politicians saying, "We live in unprecedented times. This is," I will say,

Every election I've covered, the candidates in question will say, this is the most important election of our lifetimes. The most is at stake. I have to say when Mitt Romney was running against Barack Obama, I think objectively when you consider the stakes of that election compared to the stakes that we face now, there has been a dramatic shift in terms of...

the division in the country, the way, frankly, the differences between the candidates and the way they view our systems, the way they talk about our systems. How do you see what Dana is writing about here in our current moment? Well, and I bought the book last week because, no, no, no, I didn't, but because I was really... Because you thought it was about 2020. No, no, no.

Because as a history nerd, I've been really interested in this period of history, you know, Reconstruction, because when you start seeing all this rhetoric, which is, some of it is true, but some of it, the fact that this idea is it's unprecedented. No, America has been messy and America has been violent in its politics throughout history. Now, it ebbs and flows, but this era of history, I think, shows that America has been violent

at similar points before. And it could actually even sometimes get worse. But those actually sort of relieve my anxiety that there are some parallels in the past. And we lived through it. Yeah.

Right. That's why it would be anxiety relieving. We all say it's the most unprecedented election of our lifetime. None of us was around in 1872, so that is true. That is fair. All right. The new book is America's Deadliest Election. It is available to purchase now. Highly recommend it. Dana, thank you. Congratulations on the book. With David Fisher, who's amazing. With David Fisher. Yes, of course. All right.

51 minutes past the hour. Let's do a quick morning roundup. A manhunt is underway for a suspect after five people were injured in a shooting near a Kentucky interstate. Right now, all five victims are in stable condition. Police identifying 32-year-old Joseph Couch as a person of interest. They consider him armed and dangerous.

Intense pressure for Apple ahead of the unveiling of the new iPhone 16 today. It's set to include embedded artificial intelligence. Apple's promotional tease line, it's glow time. No word yet on how much they are going to charge for it.

There was a different kind of love on the tennis courts at the US Open this weekend. Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift were serving couple goals at the star-studded tournament. The pair seen walking into the New York stadium holding hands, rooting on the players with Kelsey's teammate Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany.

You'll love to see it. We covered the breakup rumors last week on this show. But Dana, can we talk about Travis's hat for a second? And also mustaches are back. Yeah. I'm into the mustache. I like a good mustache. So my dad was wearing a mustache my entire life. It came out of the 1970s. I'm not sure I thought I was going to live to see it come back around. It's back, man. It's back. I like it. The bucket hat is a choice. It's a good one. It's a good one.

I mean, I'm totally down for a bucket hat. I'm not sure. That's like really, you know, I'm wearing Gucci, which is probably why I'm wearing it. That's what I'm reacting to also. Gucci on the hat, Gucci on the collar. Can you imagine a more influential influencer than Travis Kelsey right now? Right. I was going to say, I'm sure that product placement was worth whatever. What are we talking about right now? All right. Let's get back to politics now and turn to this.

I've never voted for a Democrat. Wow. And it tells you, I think, the stakes in this election. You know, Donald Trump presents a challenge and a threat fundamentally to the republic.

Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney warning and urging her fellow conservatives not to support Donald Trump this fall. Cheney taking issue, of course, with one Republican in particular, former presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who endorsed Trump after dropping out of the GOP primary earlier this year.

I can't understand her position on this in any kind of a principled way. I think that, you know, the things that she said that she made clear when she was running in the primary, those things are true. And again, you know, we are...

Those of us who are conservative, those of us who believe in fidelity to the Constitution, have a responsibility and have a duty to recognize this is not about partisan politics. And the country is going to need to rebuild a conservative, true conservative movement when we're through this election cycle. Haley defending her support of the former president this weekend.

I've always said, look, if I thought Biden or Trump were great candidates, I wouldn't have run for president. I ran because I thought I could do a better job. You don't think he's a good candidate? I think he is the Republican nominee. The reality is she has a record. The administration has a record. Trump has a record. And so neither are perfect. Neither are ideal. So let's talk about the policies then.

So, Dana, we touched briefly on Dick Cheney, and I want to dig into that as well, because in some ways, him saying he's going to vote for Kamala Harris is

Certainly, we knew Liz Cheney was not going to vote for Donald Trump. But this back and forth between Haley and Cheney, I mean, Cheney obviously made a decision to make this something that was so central to her that she couldn't possibly remain part of the party. And she's looking at what Nikki Haley did. And Haley clearly has made a different calculation for her own political future. Exactly.

How do you see this? Exactly what you just said. Liz Cheney, there's I mean, you can tell me if I'm wrong. There's no future for Liz Cheney in this Republican Party anymore, which, again, is just stunning to me that I could say that about a Cheney covering politics in this town for as long as I have.

Nikki Haley is a young woman. She is somebody who does hope that there is a future for her. She did better than any other opponent of Donald Trump in the Republican primary this year. And she wants to keep her her sort of toe in Trump world to the point that

Well, toe in Trump's role is probably the wrong way to say it. She wants to keep her options open. And if she doesn't endorse Donald Trump, then the people who are completely blindly loyal to him, when he's gone and he's exited the stage, they might think twice about supporting her if she wants their vote again. That's not where Liz Cheney is right now.

Matt Gorman, how do you look at this? I mean, a couple things. I kind of separate them. I don't think people are waiting the world over to see what finally Liz Cheney is going to say about this and have their vote kind of correspond to that, number one. I think with Nikki Haley, it's always been a dance with her. It's

always been very, she sometimes even played a little bit too cute. And I keep flashing back to this moment during the Republican convention where she said, you know, President Trump asked me to speak tonight and then he leans over and who knows what the real truth is, but he's like, she asked to speak. And so there's always been this little weird back and forth where she's tried to have it all too cute with Trump. And it's almost the point where if you love Trump, Nikki Haley will never be an option for you.

But, you know, there might be a small slice that would still vote for her in the presidential primary. You know, it's interesting. If there could be anyone maybe swayed by Liz Cheney, maybe it'd be a few Nikki Haley voters. And the fact is that Nikki Haley has not been on the campaign trail. And she said in that interview, well, he hasn't asked me.

And so she's waiting for him to call to ask. And it's like this game of like, well, are you going to call me first? Are you going to call me first? And as a result, she's kept her completely off the trail. She wasn't really in the mix for VP, not because a lot of Republicans didn't see advantage there, but because Trump personally wanted her to sort of submit and do this loyalty set. But don't you think that's also saying Donald Trump is saying to her voters, like, you're not that important?

to me i don't need to call you so these independent people that he actually needs to win he is saying you're not that important to me i don't actually need to call you there are no nikki haley voters that's the other thing like they're not her voters like she was a vessel through which voters who were unhappy with the time of voting for trump in a presidential primary but the idea that they are like a buchanan voters will only come out i'm not this isn't a critique of you no no no but like but like it i always like kind of left that notion like she was a vessel she she

encapsulated them well, but she rented them. She doesn't own them. But do you think it would be helpful to have her on the trail? I want to know is who are the Nikki Haley voters that could be swayed? I mean, send her to Chester County, Pennsylvania. Again, but like who are the people that will be swayed by Nikki Haley specifically going there, right? Like I think that is like the thing. She didn't own those voters. She rented them.

But there are the independent women who didn't want to vote for Joe Biden and don't want to vote for Donald Trump. And so Nikki Haley gives them permission, just like in the way that Cheney's are giving Republicans permission to vote for Kamala Harris. She would give people, be like, okay, we can vote for Donald Trump. Like this person who we support also supports him. I think the reason that also Nikki Haley isn't

interesting to go out there is because she knows that those people are now going to tar, they don't want to vote for Trump anyway. And so by her going out there and advocating to vote for Trump, she's hurting her own name for no actual political end. Well, then she's miscalculating because he's going to hurt her in the process of not even having her out there. So what was the point of endorsing then? Well, I'll tell you.

We can go around her. - If it wasn't for him, that was for her. - But like, I mean. - Don't you think she would be a better messenger on abortion rights though, I feel like, than Trump and Vance have been so far? - I think, well, I will say this, we go back to the debate. She gave Trump the template for his answer. Go back and his answer on abortion during the debate you had, I thought was very similar to Nikki Haley in a good way from the presidential primaries.

Yeah, really interesting conversation. Guys, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now. From all over the world, people turn to Cleveland Clinic for our expertise and our compassionate care. As leaders in heart, neurology, and cancer, the future of specialty care is happening right now at Cleveland Clinic.

For every life-saving treatment. For every next step. For every care in the world. Cleveland Clinic. Don't let CNN's John King have all the fun. Experience the CNN Magic Wall on your mobile device. Get live results, expert insights, and an immersive election experience. Find it at cnn.com slash magic wall or the CNN app today.