Debate Day in America
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for every life-saving treatment, for every next step, for every care in the world. Cleveland Clinic. It's Tuesday, September 10th, right now on CNN This Morning. I think he's gonna lie. If I destroy her in the debate, they'll say, Trump suffered a humiliating defeat tonight.

Debate day in America. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in their final hours of preparation. Can either candidate move the needle? Plus, dueling reports on the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as both parties try to blame the other. And this. I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors. Donald Trump's new running mate trying to differentiate himself from Trump's old running mate. What J.D. Vance says Mike Pence should have done on January 6th. Plus this.

A trailblazing trek for civilians just launched into Earth's orbit to chase history. All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast, a live look at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. That's where we're going to see tonight's historic presidential debate go down in just a few hours. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

In just hours, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will meet on that Philadelphia stage for what might be their only presidential debate of the 2024 election. Debate host ABC News shared this first look at the stage. Harris and Trump will stand behind podiums just a few feet apart. Their microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak. Tonight will be the first time that the candidates meet each other in person.

Trump didn't attend Biden and Harris's inauguration after he refused to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election. This one night presents Harris with the opportunity to introduce herself to millions of Americans and to voters who polls show say that they need to learn more about her. The vice president has been preparing intensely for tonight and for an opponent unlike any she has debated before. He plays from this really old and tired playbook, right? Where he, there's no floor for him in terms of

Trump's own preparations, characteristically informal, his advisers calling them policy sessions. The former president likely to try to define Harris on his terms, one potential line of attack previewed yesterday by campaign senior adviser Jason Miller.

It's very clear that Kamala Harris is the one who's been running the country the entire time. Another opening that I do want to point out here that Harris has clearly created with all the flip-flops, but then the ill-fated interview with Dana Bash is Kamala said that her values haven't changed.

After June's CNN debate, it is nearly impossible to argue that debates never matter. So you do have to wonder what might happen tonight that we'll remember long after this campaign is done. They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull, lipstick. Will you shut up, man? There you go again. But can you get things done?

America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we're going to put food on their table. You're likable enough. Thank you, sir. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

All right. Our panels here on this historic day, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Mark McKinnon, former advisor to George W. Bush and the man you just saw there, John McCain, Karen Finney, CNN political commentator, former advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaigns, and Brad Todd, Republican strategist and partner, the public strategy firm on message. Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here, Mark. Big day. Uh,

Debates, how much do they matter? How much does this one matter? What are you looking for tonight? Tension city, baby, as George H.W. Bush used to say. There's so much on the line, particularly for Harris. I mean, it doesn't matter what Trump's going to do. He's not going to move the needle with one vote tonight, I doubt.

But Harris has a real opportunity. 30% of voters feel like they don't know enough about her yet. So this is all about her opportunity to define herself and also Trump's opportunity to do the same about her. So that's what I look for. And the key here, I say, and I wrote in my Vanity Fair piece this week, is it's all about confidence. If you've ever done debate training, the key to a candidate getting out there is, I mean...

In a sense, this is kind of Game of Thrones. She's Sansa Stark. He's Hodor. You've got to get him, baby. Both internally and externally, she's got to show strength, confidence, and go just kick some ass. Well, and her team has raised the stakes for the debate by the virtue of the fact that she's done very few spontaneous moments since she basically entered this race on July 21st. As a result, voters...

That statistic you cited from the New York Times poll was 30% of people don't feel like they know her. So she has raised the stakes of this debate, and that's also why you've seen her really hold up in Pittsburgh. You know, the one anxiety I hear from a lot of Democrats, both Biden administration officials, Harris officials, former and current, is like, is this new Kamala or old Kamala? Right? Like, is this the new, very confident person we've seen on the stump these last seven weeks? Or is it the old Kamala from 2019 that basically never made it to the Iowa caucus?

So I'm going to disagree slightly in that I think the stakes are

for the former president are pretty high as well. And that is because he will be facing two black women at the same time, and he does not do well with black women. You could ask Yamiche Alcindor, our own Abby Phillip. You can ask April Mellon, or April, you can ask the NABJ. - Rachel Scott, yes. - Rachel Scott. He does not do well with serious questions being posed by black women.

I think that is why his team overrode his idea to like, let's go free for all. Let's all have the microphones on. Nope. They were like, no hot mics because they know that is a real danger to this president and how he behaves.

For him, I mean, if he does exactly what he did during the debate with Joe Biden, we will come away saying, yeah, that guy, he's old. He's real old because we focused so much on Biden the last time. He got away with a lot. I disagree. I think the most important moment in that debate is when Donald Trump said, you know, I don't know what he said and I don't think he knew what he said.

He actually is a pretty good game-time player, but I agree with Karen that this is a very important debate night for him. It's one of the few times Kamala Harris is going to be under pressure. We've seen that effectively she's running a basement campaign. He can put her under pressure, and he can hold her accountable for what she said in 2020, which was a platform that was further left than any Democrat who's ever run for president. He's got to do that. Can I push you a little bit on...

to Karen's point about how he has interacted, she mentioned black women specifically, but women in general, right? We were just showing that moment with Hillary Clinton where he kind of, knowing Donald Trump, I think he's basically trying to put himself in the camera frame when he's kind of behind her like that, right? He knows where the camera is, that's what he's trying to do. But the effect was kind of threatening and something that didn't, I don't think, appeal to women. Obviously, he won this election in the long run. But what are the pitfalls for him? Oh, look, he's insulted women.

Plenty of people of all genders, parties, and persuasions had plenty of times in live television. There's a real danger for him coming across like a jerk. That's always the thing that Donald Trump has. In many ways, these two people are misfits. Donald Trump's not as nice as most people would like their president to be. Kamala Harris is not near as centrist as they'd like their president to be. That's what the battle is tonight. You know, here's a strategic question for you, Bruce, that...

The line of attack that Trump is obviously taking is that Harris is flip-flopping. But the more effective line is that she's liberal, right? So why go on the flip-flopper line? Because then you're saying she's becoming a centrist. Just skip the flip-flop. I think he likes flip-flop because it's weak. And to him, strength weaknesses the ideology. Well, the most important perception of a candidate running for president is the perception of strength. But hold up. So...

Lyndon Johnson was not for the 1965 Civil Rights Act when he was vice president. He did pass it when he was president. That's not a bad flip-flop. Hold on. I'll take that flip-flop because we want leaders who can learn new information, take the input, and say, you know what? The country's changed.

I've learned new information and I too am going to change with it. She hasn't said that though Karen. Yes she has. She has not. She has. She sends written statements out by spokesman. She doesn't say, she needs to explain I was wrong. She never says I was wrong in 2020. She doesn't. She says, oh, I have learned experiences.

that's different than saying you were wrong why was she to what is she change or other Democrats wrong to talk about why she were changed real good I will I will say the one thing that's been consistent about all these changes as they've all gone from the left to the center which again suggest that this is more about a political move than a sincere change of ideology now of course maybe it is sincere but the fact is say that Alex you can say that it may look like that on the surface but you know her heart

You know what's in her heart. You don't believe she's been doing it. You're just saying she's alive. I've said my values have not changed. And on the other hand, we do have a series of policy positions that have evolved all in the same direction. I

I completely agree. I don't know what's in her heart. I'm only pointing out that it is consistent that all these positions have gone from the left to the center. And the fact is that she has not been really toughly questioned in interviews about why. She needs to tell us, are there Democrats wrong to be for defund the police? Are they wrong to want to decriminalize illegal crossings? Are they wrong to ban fracking? Like,

Gus Sear chastised the far left. I don't think she needs to chastise anyone. Final thought from Mark. We've got to go. This one criticism I have of Harris on this is that I think she's too defensive about it. And rather than sort of go to this, you know, you're attacking my record and my values haven't changed, just say...

Yeah, you know, I used to be against fracking when we didn't have as much information. We've learned a lot. We now know it's a lot safer. We know it's a better alternative to have gas than oil. But that's basically what she said. She said, my values haven't changed. What I've learned now is that there is a way to have a clean energy economy without having fracking be a part, without banning fracking. I think the ultimate reality here is that there are a lot of voters who still don't fully understand this argument that you guys are having right here. We're going to see a lot. We're going to learn a lot tonight.

from her and obviously our panel is going to be back in just moments. To watch Vice President Harris and former President Trump on the debate stage tonight, tune in to the ABC News Presidential Debate Simulcast. It's tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. You can watch it right here on CNN. I'm going to be live in Philadelphia for CNN's special coverage and analysis before the debate.

And coming up next here on CNN This Morning, a catastrophic failure of epic proportions. That is how Republicans are describing the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan in a scathing new report. Plus, the civilian astronauts streaking through space as we speak, how they hope to make history. And could tonight's debate produce another moment that could change the whole race?

I think Mr. Nixon is an effective leader of his party. I hope he would grant me the same. The question before us is, which point of view and which party do we want to lead the United States in?

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We should have started mass evacuation sooner. And couldn't this have been done in a more orderly manner? I respectfully disagree. I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit.

13 American servicemen lost their lives during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 30th, 2021. House Republicans and Democrats releasing dueling reports on Monday, casting blame for the botched exit on each other. The Republican report highly critical of the Biden administration, claiming the president and Vice President Harris lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal. It's a historic document. It's not a political document.

It was a document designed to get to the truth. This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions. Some say Saigon was the worst. I say this was.

That was House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul. He's now threatening to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt if he refuses to testify about the withdrawal. Mark McKinnon, this was obviously a really, really difficult moment in American history, period, what happened at Abbey Gate. Obviously, it's become a major political focal point of this campaign, and it also speaks to the bigger...

issue that the Trump campaign is dealing with as they try to tie Kamala Harris to President Biden. Because one of the things this report did was kind of talk more about Harris's role than it likely would have were she not at the top of the ticket. How should she be addressing this issue? It's obviously become an issue as well with what happened at Arlington Cemetery. Well, I mean, wars are hell. I mean, how long were we in Afghanistan? Decades. And, you know, have we ever withdrawn from a war easily or casually or without casualties?

I don't think so. The loss of any American life is never acceptable, and it should certainly be a worthy investigation to find out what went wrong and what could have been done better. But I don't get a sense that American voters are sitting here today going, oh, we really screwed up in Afghanistan, and it's Biden's fault. I mean, Trump's the one that planned the exit, and Biden got it done, which was an incredibly hard thing to do.

Well, I will say, like, I do think some Republicans do think it's effective, which is why they're doing this report now. I mean, Chairman McCaul may say that this is not political. I don't know what's in his heart. Timing is a little tough for sure. But let's be honest. Republicans want to use this as a political cudgel against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

by proxy because Joe Biden, you look at the chart of Joe Biden's approval rating. Basically is this the first nine months and then goes like that right after Afghanistan. And the reason is because it's it's not. And I understand Mark's point. I don't think voters are going to vote on Afghanistan, but it was a sign of competence or incompetence to a lot of voters. And a lot of voters felt that it was a failure in the way they withdrew. Yeah, it definitely feels like a turning

Joe Biden's career ended on that debate stage, but the beginning of the end was Afghanistan. And Kamala Harris, that's when she told us I was the last one in the room. Well, we don't know what she said, being the last one in the room. At the same time, there's plenty of blame to go around with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I do think it'll probably be a topic of discussion tonight, and both sides will have to discuss it.

talk about, you know, for Trump, why did you leave it? So, you know, if you were opposed and for Kamala, what was the conversation you had? I'm actually interested to hear what she has to say about it. All right. Coming up here on CNN this morning, final preparations underway for tonight's Harris-Trump debate, how the vice president plans to handle the former president if he starts attacking her personally, plus... He's joking and I could tell people weren't responding.

New Hampshire's governor, Chris Sununu, springing into action to save a choking contestant in a lobster roll eating contest. That's going to be one of the five things you have to see this morning. All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning.

We watched it live last hour right here on CNN's SpaceX successfully launching their Polaris Dawn mission from Kennedy Space Center. It's a bold and risky trip into Earth's Van Allen radiation belts from a four-person crew of civilians hoping to conduct the first commercial spacewalk. And...

A drone attack hitting nine regions in Russia overnight, including near the capital of Moscow. Russia claimed it downed 140 drones that were launched by Ukraine. At least one person was killed, three others injured by the attack near Moscow. Dramatic video out of Vietnam showing a bridge collapse during a strong typhoon. At least 10 vehicles were on the bridge when it collapsed. Eight people were killed.

Now a happier story, Governor Chris Sununu being hailed as a hero after saving a contestant choking at a lobster roll eating competition. The governor gave the person the Heimlich before first responders took over. There he is. Look at that. Eventually, the stuck piece of lobster was freed.

And you don't see this on the road every day. A herd of horses fleeing the smoke from the Davis Fire in South Reno, where hundreds of residents have been forced to evacuate. The fire burning nearly 7000 acres since Saturday. Very glad those horses got out.

All right, time now for weather tropical storm Francine is on track to become a hurricane. Both Texas and Louisiana coasts on alert. The storm is expected to deliver heavy rains and gusty winds. Let's get to our meteorologist, the weatherman Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning. What are you seeing?

Good morning, Casey. It's almost as if the mother nature knew that it was the peak of the hurricane season. And right on cue, we have a looming tropical storm and soon to be hurricane threat right along the Gulf Coast states. 65 mile per hour winds with tropical storm Francine still just located off the Texas, South Texas coastline. You can see the swirl in the latest radar, some sort of an

semblance of an eye trying to form. There are some outer rain bands reaching the US mainland. This would be extreme southern Texas, but it's really where it's going to go from here. You can see the hurricane warnings that are in place across the Texas, rather from Texas border through Louisiana.

National Hurricane Center still has this intensifying to a category two, making landfall sometime midday to late evening on Wednesday. So that's for the day tomorrow. Timing this out, you can see tropical storm force winds enter into the equation by about noon. And then we really pick up an intensity from Houma into New Orleans and the Baton Rouge region could experience tropical storm force winds. This could knock down some

trees and take down power as well. On top of that, storm surge threat 5 to 10 feet in some of the greatest hit areas. That's above dry ground. There will be a flash flood component along with the potential for isolated tornadoes as this soon-to-be hurricane moves on shore tomorrow afternoon. Casey.

All right, Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thank you. All right. Still to come here on CNN this morning, how J.D. Vance says he would have handled certifying the 2020 election and what he says Mike Pence should have done. Plus, joining me live, Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore, ahead of Kamala Harris meeting Donald Trump on the debate stage tonight in Philadelphia. What more memorable moments may come? I would do away with the education crisis.

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Shop blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. We can make more housing. Like, it's not alchemy. Sonia Trouse and her organization, Yimby Law, sued a town in Ventura County in Southern California, not far from where we're sitting down for this interview. We don't have to just accept limits and fight with people. The language of that movement has spread to the presidential campaigns.

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.

Paris has been doing highly choreographed rehearsals with a stage and replica TV lighting and an advisor in full Lee Strasberg method acting mode playing the part of Donald Trump. Is she trying to win an election or a Tony Award here? Because how can you possibly prepare to debate Donald Trump? This is a man who, if he doesn't like the direction a hurricane is going, just draws a new hurricane on the map. You can't debate that.

Paging Philippe Reines. He is actually really good at getting into character. As she, Kamala Harris, gets ready for one of the most important nights of her short campaign, Kamala Harris expects to defend herself from personal attacks from a man that until tonight she has never actually met before. In a new interview, Harris says she's preparing for a debate against Donald Trump that could turn ugly. He plays from this really old and tired playbook, right? Where he, there's no floor for him in terms of

how low he will go. And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth.

Joining me now to discuss, Maryland's Democratic Governor, Wes Moore, who is, of course, supporting the Harris-Walls campaign. Governor, as someone with an O's mug on the desk every morning, I'm very grateful to have you in a nonpartisan way representing the state of Maryland. Go O's, as we head towards the postseason. Go O's. But look, I want to start with what has become a tough question for Kamala Harris, which we've learned from this New York Times poll

30 percent of Americans say we want to learn more about her. We don't know enough. So my question for you is, is Kamala Harris a progressive or a centrist? I think Kamala Harris is someone who knows how to get things done. You know, and I have to tell you, I have a better chance to get progressive or centrist things done.

Well, I think if you look at the work and the product that she has not only accomplished as the vice president for the Biden-Harris campaign, but also the things that she has said that she wants to be able to get done, you know, talking about a $6,000 child tax credit, that could have one of the largest impacts on child

poverty that our country has ever seen. You know, when she's talking about things like being able to increase liquidity and capital to small businesses and being able to increase the number of minority owned businesses and women owned businesses and getting our economy going when she's talking about actually not giving away tax breaks and tax giveaways to billionaires, but also but actually giving a middle class

tax cut. She's talking about practical things that actually have data behind them to show that it actually creates economic momentum. And I think that's the kind of future that she wants to lead us towards. Let me show you something that Bernie Sanders, who of course is a very progressive senator from Vermont, had to say over the weekend. I meet the press. Let's watch what Sanders said. No, I don't think she's abandoning her ideals. I think she's trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.

My own view is slightly different. Do you still consider Vice President Kamala Harris to be progressive, Senator? I do. Her views are not mine, but I do consider her progressive. So Bernie Sanders says he does consider her a progressive. Is that helpful and do you agree? You know, I don't think that it's helpful to put her or any person into a box.

as to where they are. I mean, when I ran for governor, I'd never run for office before in my life. And people said, well, are you a progressive? Are you with this? And I said, I'm a person who believes that we need to have accountability and supports when it comes to public safety. And I'm a person who believes that we need to give second chances. And I signed the largest pardon, 175,000 pardons in the history of this country for cannabis convictions.

You know, I don't know how putting her into a box or a classification is useful. I think she is someone who believes in getting big things done, being able to build the right kind of coalitions in order to do it, and actually building an economy that serves everybody and not just some.

Governor, what do you see as the reason behind why, in particular, young African-American men and also Hispanic men seem to be supporting Donald Trump in bigger numbers than or supporting the Republican candidate in bigger numbers than they have in past elections? And what do you think Harris needs to do tonight to speak to them?

Well, I think the skepticism that you see amongst many young African-American men and many Latino men as well, it's not something unique to this moment. Frankly, I think it's a long term skepticism.

that people have about a larger system. And actually, I don't see this larger infuse that's going towards Donald Trump. I think the biggest question is, are we going to get people mobilized to vote in the first place? Are we going to get them engaged in a way where they feel like they are part of a larger solution and not just simply a problem that people are trying to solve

And I think the only way that you do that is you have to be able to engage. You have to actually be able to go where people are and you have to be able to present a future that they are seen in that future, creating pathways for work and wages and wealth for them and their families, creating pathways where you're, where you're creating real economic opportunities for people. That's the way you're going to engage, uh,

African American voters. It's where you're going to engage African American men. It's where you're going to engage men of color. But you're not going to do it by making trite statements like, well, I'm a felon, so therefore you wonder, I understand your pain. That's not the way you're going to move people. But we've got to get people from going from the sidelines to actually saying we want to be actively engaged in this election process.

All right, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, so grateful to have you on the show. I hope you'll come back and I hope to see you at Camden Yards. I will, Casey. Ideally in October. You know you will in the World Series. That's right. All right. Thanks very much, Governor. I appreciate it. All right. Our panel is going to turn out of this. Republican Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance appearing on the show.

the All In podcast arguing that former Vice President Mike Pence could have done more to address what he said were "problems" with the 2020 election. Asked multiple times whether he would have certified the election results, Vance went on to say this: I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we have in these important states. You wouldn't have certified?

That is an incredible moment right there from J.D. Vance. Mark McKinnon. Here's the problem with J.D. Vance. Yes, in the last couple of days, he's been echoing and touting the story about immigrants eating pets. Yes, we have a whole segment on that coming up. Okay, well. To be fair, black immigrants eat pets. But my point about it is that

He is echoing what they said in the 2020 election, which is instead of getting to the truth, they said, oh, we hear it from people, so that's why I'm saying it. I'm hearing it from constituents. Your job as a leader is not to report what you're hearing from constituents. It's to tell constituents what the facts are. And that's what Mike Pence did. It's like, where did those constituents hear it?

And this is why Trump picked J.D. Vance. That clip right there is exactly why he is now at the top of the ticket, because Trump, who is not over 2020, who really, if you really listen to him, does not believe he lost that election and believes that Mike Pence is part of the reason he did lose the election. He wants someone like J.D. Vance who will do his bidding. Now, one underappreciated accomplishment of the Biden administration is that they did reform the Electoral Count Act, which is the loophole that Trump

the Trump team was trying to use, probably unconstitutionally, but that has been reformed to avoid that scenario next time. I want to show you, this is out this morning from the Lincoln Project, first here, that it's a new ad that they're putting out. They're obviously very focused on this specific issue as it relates to the election. And here's how they compare vice presidents in this ad, watch.

In 2020, they met in a historic debate. Please welcome California Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence. But today, for the first time in history, the two participants of a vice presidential debate agree on one basic fact. I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign. Mike Pence joins another Republican vice president, Dick Cheney.

and saying he cannot support Donald Trump. It's time to put country first, America. I mean, Brad Todd, it is a remarkable confluence to have the current vice presidential Republican nominee saying that he would have let Congress consider two, including one, fraudulent slate of electors, and you have Dick Cheney, Mike Pence on the same page against Donald Trump.

This is a big trap for Donald Trump tonight. Every candidate has a blind spot and they have a trap, electoral trap, that they just cannot let go of that hurts them in the election. If Donald Trump is looking in the rearview mirror at 2020, he's going to lose. He has to confront Kamala Harris on her leftism. She's been left her entire career. He has to make that the entire focus of the debate tonight. And I think that's one of the big questions for him. All right.

Coming up next here on CNN This Morning, we just mentioned this claim that is flying around about immigrants eating pets. We're going to dig into how disinformation took off online somehow became an issue in the campaign. Plus, I will speak with Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, ahead of the one and only debate, we think, maybe, between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, a night almost certain to feature contentious moments.

You talked about Ronald Reagan being a transformative political leader. I did not mention his name. Your husband did. Well, I'm here. He's not. Okay, well, I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes. I just won two club championships, not even senior. Two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn't do it. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?

That's the biggest lie that he's a six handicap of all. I was eight handicap. Yeah. Eight. I've seen you swing, I know you swing. Okay, that was how Donald Trump responded when he was asked about his capabilities to serve another term back in June. But without an 81 year old Joe Biden to face off against, Trump's age could be in the spotlight tonight. He is the oldest candidate on the stage by

By 19 years, he will be tasked with not only demonstrating his own fitness, but also appealing to younger voters, a group that Harris has made some gains with. Joining me now to discuss how the former president is preparing for tonight's debate is Laura Trump. She is the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, also Donald Trump's daughter-in-law. Laura, good morning. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks, Casey. Great to be back with you. So let's start with how the former president is preparing, especially considering there is a very significant contrast here in the age of these two candidates. And they've never actually met in person. Should we expect some of the personal attacks we have seen him make online show up in person on the stage tonight?

Well, I think Donald Trump is very focused on this debate tonight. He knows how important it is. He doesn't take anything for granted. He has been preparing for this debate. He's done traditional debate prep, but he also, Casey, has been out talking with the media, whether that's in town halls. He did a town hall last year here on CNN, whether it's in press conferences where he fields questions publicly.

from every reporter or whether it's in the podcast or sit down interviews that he continues to do, he wants to engage more with the public, not less. And it is a stark contrast, of course, to what we've seen from Kamala Harris. So she has really upped the stakes for herself in this debate. I think that many people already know

who Donald Trump is, and they can harken back to how their life felt when he was in office. And so he's prepared for this debate. He's ready for tonight. And he's ready to talk about why your life was better when he was in office. And why would you want to vote for four more years of what we're in right now, which is what you're going to get with Kamala Harris.

So speaking of how people's lives could be better, the former president was asked when he was giving a speech earlier this month about child care. I want to play the answer that he gave there, and then I'll ask you about it on the other side. Let's watch.

I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I'm talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about. We're going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it's relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in.

So there seem to be a lot of Americans who are confused by what he said there. What would Donald Trump do to make childcare more affordable? Yeah, there's no doubt that the cost of everything, Casey, has skyrocketed. Life is 20% more expensive right now for people than it was when Kamala Harris and Joe Biden took office. And you go back to Donald Trump's days in office, when he left the White House, 1.4% was the inflation rate. He wants to make sure that wage growth is meeting inflation and that we bring inflation down.

If you recall, when he was in office, he doubled the child tax credit. He advocated for and passed paid family leave. These are important factors for working families out there. And he does not discount for a second how expensive life has become. We all as parents, I have two young kids

want to know that we can make this life in America a life for our kids that is better than the ones we are in right now. And for many people, it doesn't feel that way. That is very antithetical to the human spirit and human nature. He wants to afford people life again. And whether that's child care, whether it's going to buy groceries, whether it's filling up your gas tank, he wants to make sure every American can do that.

Laura, I also want to ask you about something he posted recently on Truth Social, where he actually called on the RNC, the organization you're a co-chair of, to activate now. And this was around mail-in voting. He said he was quoting Tucker Carlson here with an election expert that 20 percent of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent ballots.

Here we go again. Where is the Attorney General, the FBI to investigate? Where is the Republican Party in Pennsylvania? The RNC must activate now. Now, in August, the RNC, your RNC, and the Trump campaign launched a get-out-to-vote tool where Pennsylvania voters can request a mail-in ballot directly. Is the former president saying that Republicans in Pennsylvania should not ask for these ballots?

I know quite the opposite. Donald Trump wants every voter, no matter if you're voting Republican, Democrat or third party candidate to feel comfortable that you can vote. 20% of them are fraudulent. He's specifically referencing information from the 2020 election. What we're talking about right now is making sure that every vote matters and every vote counts.

very hard. What information do we have? What evidence is there that 20% of the mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania in 2020 were fraudulent? I didn't see that report, so I'd have to go back and look at it. So I can't directly speak to that. But what I can tell you is we've worked very hard on the ground at the RNC to make sure every voter in this country feels like when you cast a ballot, whether it's via mail, whether it's early voting in person,

or whether it's on election day in an election office around the country, your vote matters and your vote counts. And Donald Trump very much wants every Republican voter to vote however they feel most comfortable and every voter in this country to vote however they feel most comfortable. So I would have to go back and look at that. I have not studied that. All right. Laura Trump, I do very much appreciate your time. Thank you very much for being here on a very historic day in this campaign. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, 52 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup. Today, an appeals court is set to rule on Trump's effort to pause his criminal hush money case. A federal court will decide whether to stay the case from proceeding in state court. Last week, the judge in the case delayed both his decision on Trump's motion to overturn his conviction and Trump's sentencing. And this. Get off! Get off! Get off!

Dramatic, newly released body camera footage showing the moment when Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill was pinned to the ground by police. The reality of it is, it's the truth. If I wasn't Tyreek Hill, worst case scenario, we would have had a different article, you know? Tyreek Hill

Hill was just outside the stadium on his way to play against the Jaguars when he was pulled over for a moving violation. Really difficult stuff here. Also, this.

Welcome to Wheel of Fortune. I am your host, Ryan Seacrest. Look at that. Ryan Seacrest making his hosting debut on Wheel of Fortune last night. He was joined by the singular longtime co-host, Vanna White. Seacrest took over the gig after Pat Sajak retired.

That's really, it's amazing how much this show is part of our collective American experience. Seeing a different face walk out there than Pat. Right, the pride of North Myrtle Beach, Vanilla Island. Love it. I'm more of a Jeopardy person. I love Jeopardy too. To be contrary. But I was just watching both of them as a kid. Anyway, all right, let's turn now to this, a viral, we touched on this earlier in the show, a viral but fake claim involving Haitian immigrants in America

Eating household pets. The hoax centers on the city of Springfield, Ohio. It started as a rumor that was posted on a Facebook page, and to be clear, it was later debunked by local officials, but not before the lie had already taken off, promoted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by Trump allies, including Elon Musk, Senator Ted Cruz, and even his running mate, J.D. Vance. The rumor making it all the way to the halls of Congress.

Can we add in that there's Haitian illegal migrants taking over towns, eating people's pets, but yet there's not a government show of force against that? However, it is against these people that protested the election. Well, they're not as dangerous. Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to interject that.

Okay, Mark McKinnon, you were the one who raised this earlier. Now that we have laid out exactly what is going on here, I think when I first signed up to be a political journalist, I didn't quite realize this is where we were going to be, but here we are. Well, I think the greatest casualty in politics over the last decade or so has been truth. I mean, we used to debate, but there were facts, facts that you'd agree on. Then suddenly we have the notion of alternative facts. But now when you have candidates out there promoting absolute unverifiable falsehoods

and then say, well, you know, I just heard it from our constituents. Your job is to tell the constituents what the facts are. To you, madam. But it is also, let's be honest, as Donald Trump has done consistently, trafficking in racist othering of immigrants, because it wasn't just that these were immigrants, Haitian immigrants. It was about fear mongering.

It was about, in the same way that we've heard, you know, Trump goes on these just vicious screeds about poisoning the blood, which is actually based on the Nazis got it from Jim Crow, because if you had one drop of black blood, guess what? Then you were poisoning the blood of white people.

So, you know, this screed that he goes on over and over and over again about they're sending these dangerous, violent people when guess what? Our economy runs in part on immigrant labor in this country. And there are plenty of immigrants in this country who are law abiding citizens, who love this country, who deserve to be here. But when you traffic in this kind of

just screed, all it does is make people fearful of each other and just deepen racism. - Well, hang on a second. The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, which is a city of 60,000 people, his name is Rob Brew, he says the Katz story's untrue. But what is true is that the Biden-Harris administration has put 15 to 20,000 immigrants in Springfield without asking or telling them. He says the city's overwhelmed, it's saturated, they would have hired 25 more cops, 25 more firefighters had they known,

And this is not the only place. During this administration, we've had 9.5 million people cross the border illegally, and they've moved them all over the country. But if that's not true, why let it get lost in this? Marjorie Taylor Greene's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, but J.D. Vance is the vice presidential nominee, which is echoing those laws. But the other thing that's also true is that the bill that the Republicans killed would have provided more funds and resources to cities that are dealing with the overflow of migrants to this country. And the Republicans walked away from it. So that

mayor would have had resources. Because it would have guaranteed 5,000 people crossing illegally before it triggered. No, no, no. Republicans walked away from it because Donald Trump told them it was not good for him politically. That would have provided resources to that city. If we could secure the border, we would. If Biden wanted to, he could. Actually, crossings are down. I hate to cut this off, but I really do not want to miss the opportunity to memorialize the person that I want to talk about here next. So, we will leave you with this.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard. Rebuilt and erased... Hollywood. Millions of adoring fans, me included, mourning the death of the iconic actor James Earl Jones. Fathers and sons and mothers and daughters everywhere bond over their love of baseball, thanks in part to his stirring portrayal. He played Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams. And there was this, too.

I am your father. I mean, who can forget it? The list of credits was so long. It was, of course, James Earl Jones who brought that sinister malevolence to Darth Vader in the Star Wars films. You are my son and the one true king. Remember.

That was also Jones with elegant gravitas to parenting as brave Mufasa in Disney's 1994 animated classic The Lion King and its 2019 remake. And of course, all of us here at CNN have an incredible special place in our heart for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Eagott award-winning actor because he is, after all, the voice of CNN. This is CNN.

James Earl Jones was 93. He passed peacefully on Monday with his family by his side. And we here will never forget him. Thanks to all of you for being here. Thanks to you for joining us. 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.