Israel: 'Do Not Return'
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It's Wednesday, September 25th, right now on CNN This Morning. I've named it an opportunity economy. We're going to rebuild our manufacturing. The fight for the working class. Harris and Trump both trying to pitch a better future. But new polling suggests they really have their work cut out for them. And this. Do not return. Israel warning displaced residents in southern Lebanon not to come back as Hezbollah launches a missile dangerously close to Tel Aviv. And later.

We do anticipate that it will intensify before it makes landfall. A life-threatening storm, Florida's entire west coast bracing for a direct hit from what could be a major hurricane. And a damming report. Boeing workers say they were pressured to put speed over quality when they were building the planes that we all fly in every day.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at New York City on this Wednesday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. We are now just 41 days away from Election Day, less than six weeks until November 5th. New polling data released just this morning shows a decline in Americans' optimism about the future. CNN's latest poll finding 59 percent of registered voters say America's best days are still ahead of us.

Five years ago, before the pandemic and the 2020 election, almost three-quarters of voters agreed that it was ahead of us. Today, 76% of voters say the federal government isn't doing enough to help the working class. That response was higher by 20 points than for any other group of Americans our poll asked about.

No surprise then that working class voters are the group that both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are focused on. Today, Kamala Harris is heading once again to the must-win state of Pennsylvania. The vice president will focus on American manufacturing at a speech in Pittsburgh where she's planning to draw a sharp contrast with Donald Trump. She'll say, quote, for Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers, not those who build them, not those who wire them, not those who mop the floors.

On this issue, Harris still has a lot of ground to make up. By 11 points, likely voters trust Trump more than they trust her to handle the economy. And even some Democrats admit the party needs to communicate better. Here was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

I think we all need to do a better job of making that argument. And when families look around and say, "Who's going to fight for me?" They can either go for the billionaire who's out there telling people he wants to give more tax cuts to the billionaire, or they can go for someone like Kamala Harris, who literally has spent her entire adult life fighting for families so they will have just a chance to build some security in their lives.

Harris remarks likely to stand in contrast to Trump's vision for how to revitalize American manufacturing. Here's what he told supporters at a rally in Georgia on Tuesday. This new American...

Industrialism will create millions and millions of jobs, massively raise wages for American workers, and make the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse like it used to be many years ago. This horrific nightmare for American workers ends the day I take the oath of office, January 20th.

All right. Our panels here, Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor. Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post and author of the new book, Fools on the Hill, The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House. We're going to talk about that later. Plus, Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director, and Matt Gorman, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you guys for being here on this Wednesday. Kate Bedingfield, this...

The economy is this kind of persistent thing for Democrats, right? Harris is in Pittsburgh to make this speech. The question is always how is she separating herself or not from the current president who a lot of Americans blame for the state

of the economy what kind of job is she doing on you know i mean it's a tough little thread it because she's a sitting vice president how is it going so far yes it is a tough little thread i do think she's making progress i mean i think you know if you look at that and the aggregate of polling since she went to the top of the ticket you see she is making progress in terms of closing that gap

on this question of who do you trust more in the economy, Trump or Harris. So, you know, I think she's been smart about talking about it in terms of, they actually heard Senator Warren, I think, articulate quite effectively what I think Kamala Harris needs to do, which is, you know, continue to make clear, I'm fighting for you, he's not. In many ways, it's not about the, you know, the

battle of one policy versus another. In some ways, it's really just about being able to communicate, I care about you, I'm fighting for you. He's not. And I think the other overlay here is, you know, don't forget, obviously, Donald Trump is also an incumbent. Donald Trump has a four-year record. I mean, you know, he promised all sorts of manufacturing jobs when he was president four years ago, you know, asked people of Wisconsin about the Foxconn factory, which he promised that never, you know, that never materialized.

So her other task here, I think, is to not only articulate her path forward and that she is fighting for working class, middle class people,

But to really paint him as somebody who had a shot at this, didn't do it effectively, is more of the same. So that's the other kind of overlay here for her. Matt Gorman, I want to read you this first line from the lead Wall Street Journal editorial, which is headlined, "A deer in Trump's headlights, D-E-E-R-E. Hard to believe, but Donald Trump is giving US companies a reason to think Kamala Harris might be better for

for their business this was of course the c at a campaign event threatened to slap tariffs on john deere yeah by and of course mitch mcconnell yesterday well that's like a bad that plan we don't agree with with tariffs

in some ways, Harris and Trump are more on the same page than ever on the economy. Well, I mean, at least in China, like in tariffs, there is more continuity on that issue among those two parties and more consistency coming in on January 20, 2025 than probably any other issue. But what struck me as you're playing the clips, close your eyes, you could play each of those quotes from Harris and Elizabeth Warren in

October or September of 2012 about Mitt Romney, right? These are very, they feel very generic and they don't feel very specialized to Trump. And I think that's the issue here. It's a little bit of a paint by numbers message when it comes to the economy on this stuff. And I think the difference also is that

people feel better about the four years of the Trump presidency than they do about the four years of the Biden presidency. And that's one of the things that the Harris campaign has been trying to contend with, that comparison is not good for Democrats, it's not good for the Harris campaign. And so with 41 days left, it's a tough education process. You know, Casey, the John Deere example you point out is a really interesting one.

looking at how Trump's economic policies are also landing. There was really interesting polling and reporting that Axios put out yesterday that said that, you know, of the people they polled, 47% of voters from the survey thought that this tariff idea was a good idea. Okay, fine. It lands with people. Guess how many economists did?

Zero. Because of the fact that the significant cost that could come from the kinds of tariffs that he's talking about slapping on American companies like John Deere, when you actually unpack some of these policies, they don't really make a lot of sense. To that end, it's really incumbent on Harris and her campaign to, one, make it just about personalities. Like, do you like Donald Trump? And I don't know if people necessarily, Matt,

universally feel that things were better under the Trump presidency. Certainly their checkbooks might have felt better. - The polling shows that. - But the chaos and the madness is also-- - Economically though, by far. - It seems like there's a case of mass amnesia. I can't believe every time Trump or others in his campaign say, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Well the answer is obviously no.

The economy was in a free fall. Everything had collapsed. And Trump has the worst job creation record, I think, since Herbert Hoover. So to the extent there's some malpractice on the Democratic side, it's not. Why aren't they the ones asking, are you better off than you were four years ago? Now, sometimes they'll switch this a bit and say, weren't you better off in 2019? Which is a little bit of an awkward question.

Yeah. Well, this is what I mean about this is her task to paint him as the incumbent, to saddle him with this, to not give him free reign, to just sort of, you know, use a paintbrush to say, you know, here's my plan for the new American industrialism. You had your crack at this. It didn't go well. That's part of her task.

I think people get though, when they talk about the presidency, they're not going to the exact day. Okay, after COVID, like the exact thing, it's the general feeling of the four years of the Trump presidency with the jobs over the course of the four years, not the exact date of the four years on the date of COVID. Absolutely, but if you were to, if people really to get,

to get their heads around. How did you feel in the year 2020 when cities were burning? Horrible. When you were locked at home with your kids and not able to get out. And again, whether this is about Donald Trump, that's for people to decide. But on the central question, what was it like for you four years ago? It was pretty bad. I think most people

would say to be fair a lot of the locked in policy word democratic data i'm just i'm just saying it's like those who will allow you so they're more democratic so i don't have a broad sentiment how did you feel in twenty twenty course people are thinking about inflation now and holding that against harris as well as by inflation as actually right back down at where the fed at the fed target wanted it to be i think it's a question of

Does that filter in over the next six weeks or so to a greater extent? Wait, interest rates are coming down. It's only costing me three bucks a gallon. I think there's a little bit of a delayed effect on that, too. And I don't know whether Democrats are benefiting from that. All right.

So on next Tuesday, Tim Walz and J.D. Vance will meet for their first and only face-to-face debate. It's a CNN special event, the Vice Presidential Debate Simulcast, hosted by CBS News. But it's going to air live Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. And coming up next here on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump calling out Ukraine's president. Every time Zelensky comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion.

why he's questioning if Ukraine can win its fight against Russia. Plus, a new report out this morning highlights extreme lapses from the Secret Service on the day that Donald Trump was shot. We'll dig into that. And later, Florida preparing for a direct hit from the first major hurricane of the year. There's still some uncertainty, but I think the fact that this would be forecasted as a major at this point without formation shows that this has a potential to be a really, really significant storm.

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Biden says, we will not leave until we win. What happens if they win? That's what they do is they fight wars. As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. That's what they do.

Donald Trump questioning whether Ukraine can win its fight against Russia's invasion. The Biden administration is set to announce billions of dollars in new aid for Ukraine in the coming days. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing the UN Security Council on Tuesday, insisting Russian President Vladimir Putin has no interest in negotiating a peace agreement. Putin has broken so many international norms and rules that he

One stop on his own. Russia can only be forced into peace. And that is exactly what's needed, forcing Russia into peace at the sole aggressor in this war, the sole violator of the UN Charter.

So Dana Milbank, that's Donald Trump talking about the Russians, right? They beat Hitler. They beat Napoleon. That's what they do. They're going to win. Yeah, no, no. I think it's great that he's talking about the Napoleonic Wars a couple of centuries later. Look, in this election, I don't think there's anything that would change as starkly. Like if Donald Trump wins the presidency, it's pretty much curtains for Ukraine. You know, you've already got in the Congress a Republican majority vote.

opposed to bringing any more aid to Ukraine. And so I mean, of all the issues we look at across the waterfront, this is the one that I think would change most significantly. And Donald Trump has his own autocratic tendencies, but it really seems like he has sort of a little bit of a mind meld going on. Yeah, well, with Putin, but lesser autocrats like Orban,

Modi and others. It just seems like we can all carve up the world as we see fit. - And tying into the economy question we were talking about in the last segment before the break, this idea of now he gave the number, was it $100 billion every time

unverified number however it lands with people at a time when the country is dealing with some economic uncertainty that basically why are we getting money here not recognizing that the spread of Russia is bad for everyone right but I actually I disagree with this little bit because I I think actually the way people absorb this this is a defeatist message and this is a message that says America is now willing to roll over for autocrats for dictators for somebody who

murders and imprisons his own people uh... i think people across the board is there is there some exhaustion about the notion that we're sending money yes there is now look if you look at the scope of the federal budget is a sale line item dot but you know fine

But I actually, I think this is a losing argument for Trump. I think this goes to one of the things people dislike about him the most, this sense that he is constantly ragging on America, the idea that he has this weird affinity for autocrats. People are not, there are some things that Americans hold really fundamentally as a core value. And one of them is that we stand up for democracy and that we don't get pushed around on the world stage. And I think

this is a message that actually makes Trump look weak and makes him, you know, I think it really goes to this question of whether he is fit to be president of the United States. You know, look, I would say when it comes to Congress, a majority of Republicans in the Senate actually do want some sort of Ukraine funding independent. Eighty one of the Republicans in the House, that was kind of the truest test when the government funding was up. They really just wanted to zero out Ukraine. So it is it's a majority when it comes to the House.

I would say one thing, I'm backing it up. I mean, a lot of this was spurred by Zelensky kind of bashing Vance, saying he was too radical, saying he's a study of World War II. Yeah, well, so I wanted to bring that up in this New Yorker article. Zelensky was asked about Vance. He said he's too radical, and he seemed well aware of the interview that Vance had given where he said that Ukraine should hand over territory they've lost, there should be a demilitarized zone, and that they shouldn't be allowed to join NATO. Continue. I would caution Zelensky. Look, I certainly give him grace. This country's under attack.

Absolutely. I would caution to be strategic about what's being seen to be injecting himself into a presidential race with 41 days out. There is no sure way to get Republicans, that number creeping up against you, then suddenly injecting yourself in, seemingly bashing Vance, and also the photo op of Shapiro. Even if it doesn't mean it, even who's paying for what, it doesn't look good. The appearance makes it seem like a campaign thing. All right. Still ahead here on CNN this morning, Florida bracing for impact.

So you just deal with it and take it, you know, like everything else one day at a time. People on the Gulf Coast rushing to get ready for Tropical Storm Helene. Plus, in our morning roundup, speed over quality troubling new revelations from the floor of Boeing's airline factories.

All right, going live to Tampa, Florida as Tropical Storm Helene is now tracking north after swiping Mexico's coast this morning. Mandatory evacuations being ordered in several counties around Florida's Big Bend as some 7 million people along Florida's coast are now under a storm surge warning. Storm surge flooding could reach up to 10 feet in some places. Let's get to our meteorologist Allison Chinchar with the latest. Allison, what are we looking at today?

All right. Yeah. So we take a look at where the storm is now. And you can see it's just off to the east of Cancun, Mexico. Sustained winds of 65 miles per hour. But those winds are expected to go up as the system begins to spread into the Gulf of Mexico. The water there is extremely warm. That is fuel for these types of systems. So we expect it to strengthen more as we go throughout the day today, becoming a hurricane at some point today and then gradually making its way up to major hurricane strength by the time we get to Thursday. And then late

Thursday, that's when we finally start to see the system get really close to land, making landfall and then spreading all of those impacts inland, even as far north as Tennessee and Kentucky. Storm surge is going to be a big problem. You'll notice we have some level of storm surge pretty much up and down the entire western coast of the Florida Peninsula. The strongest is going to be right through here in the Big Bend region where 10 to 15

15 feet of storm surge is possible. West over towards Apalachicola could be 5 to 10 feet. Even once you start spreading south of Spring Hill, looking at 6 to 10 feet. Even Tampa, St. Pete, Sarasota, looking at at least 5 feet of storm surge. The winds are also expected to be quite strong, obviously near landfall, but this system is going to move relatively quickly, which means it's going to spread a lot of those really strong winds, even as far north as places like Atlanta, Georgia.

All right, Allison Chinchar for us this morning. Allison, thanks very much for that. All right, 25 minutes past the hour. Here are five things you have to see this morning. Whoa, that's dash cam footage of a high-speed police chase in Miami Beach that ended with the suspects crashing into trees on I-95. The chase reached speeds of 130 miles per hour. Three people were arrested. One other suspect died trying to escape into a waterway.

A massive wildfire ripping through Ecuador's capital. Authorities working to get the blaze under control, but a historic drought is not helping. No deaths or injuries have been reported so far.

Another house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina has collapsed into the ocean. This is now the third home to collapse since Friday. This area of the Outer Banks has been dealing with extreme erosion since 2020. Ten unoccupied homes have crashed into the water over that time.

Rescue crews helping bring a trapped deer to safety. Firefighters responded to a report of a deer stuck upside down between a house and a garage. The crews used rope to pull the deer right side up and eventually to safety. Oh dear. And this. This is up and just about anybody can make this play and at the end nobody really does.

Oh dear, the Chicago White Sox did overcome that boneheaded play with a late inning rally to defeat the LA Angels last night and avoid losing their 121st game of the season. They still have five games to go to break the all-time record for losses in a season that was set by the New York Mets.

in 1962. Oh, that's like a clip and save moment. Really so bad, although I have to say, I have to say, I've got a household of Orioles fans and Mets fans, so you know what, White Sox fans, I have been there. It is no fun, so, you know.

Eventually, hopefully it'll turn around for you. Coming up next here on CNN This Morning, Israel intercepts a ballistic missile targeting Tel Aviv. And now Israel's prime minister is delaying his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Plus, Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss joins us live next to talk about that escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. Plus, Donald Trump, the protector, his promises to women to keep them safe.

There's no better way to start a first date than by saying, Diane, I am your protector. I want to be your protector. You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. I'll be with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, looking at you. It's the new Ghost Burger from Carl's Jr. It's a juicy, char-boiled Angus beef burger. Yeah.

This week on The Assignment with me, Audie 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. Hezbollah, unprovoked.

During the October 7 attack, launching rockets into Israel. Almost a year later, too many on each side of the Israeli-Lebanon border remained displaced. Full-scale war is not in anyone's interest. In his farewell address to the United Nations yesterday, President Biden urging restraint as Israel and Hezbollah remain on the brink.

Earlier this morning, Israel intercepting a Hezbollah rocket fired from Lebanon, the first time a Hezbollah missile came this close to Tel Aviv. And this comes after Israeli strikes killed more than 500 people yesterday, the deadliest day in Lebanon in nearly two decades. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not ruling out a ground offensive in Lebanon, delivering this message to the people who live there. Israel's war is not with you. It's with Hezbollah.

For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage. Those rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities, directly at our citizens. To defend our people against Hezbollah strikes, we must take out those weapons.

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts. Congressman, good morning to you. Thank you for being here. Good morning. How concerned are you about an escalation here? And what do you think U.S. posture should be towards Israel as they navigate this?

I'm concerned because the Middle East is violent and volatile right now. The U.S. posture should be to support Israel as it seeks to protect itself. The core problem that Israel has is, Hizballah has more than 100,000 precision-guided munitions, which can overwhelm Iron Dome, which is the air defense system that Israel uses to protect its major cities.

So Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot promise the Israeli people that they can live peaceably, not just in the north of Israel, which had to be depopulated, but actually in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as well. And no leader of any democratic nation would ever allow that position to be sustained. They have to remove that capability from southern Lebanon. Now, if the United Nations had done its job and preserved the 2006 accord, this would not have been necessary, but the UN peacekeepers failed to prevent Hezbollah from encroaching upon Israeli territory.

So now Israel is going to need to respond. How much goodwill do you think is left for Israel and how much of a potential challenge, considering the war in Gaza, the way it sparked international backlash, now they're opening this additional front. How much support do they need from Western nations and do you think it's going to be there if this continues?

If Israel had taken lectures from the United Nations in '48 or '67 or '73, it wouldn't exist as a nation. Israel is going to have to pursue its own security and self-interest here. And these politicians at the United Nations need to remember that they only have jobs because ultimately the United States was willing to fight for civilization when words failed during World War II. And Israel now similarly will fight for civilization against

terrorists like Senwar and this role I who hold no value to human life

Let's talk about Ukraine for a moment because Vladimir Zelensky has been here in the U.S. trying to advocate for his country because obviously a lot on the line for him in the presidential election. And he actually seemed to weigh in a little bit on the presidential election. He was asked about J.D. Vance in an interview with The New Yorker. And Zelensky said that Vance is too radical. The interviewer was asking about

an interview Vance gave where he outlined a plan that would give some of this territory that Russia has forcibly taken to Russia, create a demilitarized zone. Zelensky seemed to be well aware of it and critical of Vance here. What do you make of what Zelensky has said here? And what are the stakes for Ukraine right now? I have much less polite things to say about J.D. Vance than that.

President Biden gave a fine speech at the United Nations, but he needs to now follow up those words with actions today in his meeting with Zelensky. And what that means is authorizing Ukraine to strike inside Russian territory with U.S.-made weapons, the F-16s, the Atacoms, hit those Russian oil refining sites, hit troop staging sites, hit missile launching sites. And then to complement those strikes, tighten up the sanctions on Russian oil exports.

I don't know what's inside the victory plan, but I can almost guarantee you that strikes and sanctions are a critical part of preparing Ukraine for success. And unlike the Middle East, Casey, President Biden has a tremendous amount of agency to get this done. He doesn't need congressional approval. He doesn't need allies buy-in. With his own pen, he can set up Ukraine to win this war.

Finally, I also want to ask you, as a member of Congress and as we head into the final six weeks of this election, there has been this kind of broad escalation in threats, rhetoric. We've obviously seen two assassination attempts against Republicans.

Donald Trump. Members of Congress, like yourselves, facing additional security challenges. Mike Gallagher, a prominent conservative who is very well respected, leaving Congress after in no small part we learned from a David Ignatius column because his family home was swatted, putting his family in danger. And Mitt Romney spoke with his biographer, McKay Coppins, recently about whether he would be a target for retribution if Donald Trump

were to get re-elected and he said, well, he's got 25 grandchildren, he's wondering how am I going to protect 25 grandkids, two great grandkids, I've got five sons, five daughters-in-law, we're a big group. And he says of Trump, I think he's shown by his prior actions you could take him at his word, he told me, so I would take him at his word. I mean there's a couple things in here, one of them is the potential for retribution from a Trump administration or a Donald Trump presidency against Mitt Romney himself.

Another about security considerations for family members from the political discourse that we have. What do you make of it and are you concerned about Trump taking out retribution on his political adversaries? I am concerned because as Romney said, when he says something, believe it. And he has called for military tribunals to execute his rivals. He has said that if he loses, it's the Jews' fault.

and scapegoating Jews is a time-honored tactic of totalitarians. And we know that mentally ill people will follow through on those threats. So the political, the prospects for political violence in this country, unfortunately,

are heightened and it's entirely due to Donald Trump and his enablers like J.D. Vance which is why this election is so critical and why it's also so critical that we pass gun safety legislation that takes these weapons of war out of the hands of those who should not have them. You know, we were able to vote for more secret service protection for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris which I was happy to do but

Third grade teachers and their students don't get Secret Service protection, and there are madmen out there who want to walk into those classrooms and shoot them up. And we are putting those weapons in their hands with a complete lax gun safety policy in this country. All right, Congressman Jay Gawken-Klaus, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time today. Thanks for having me on. All right, straight ahead here on CNN this morning, a potential government shutdown just five days away. We're going to talk about the chaos in Congress with Dana Milbank, who's the author of the new book, Fools on the Hill Plus.

Do you want fries with that? Donald Trump's fixation on Mickey D's leading to a job? I'm going to a McDonald's over the next two weeks and I'm gonna stand over the french fries. All right, welcome back. We're gonna turn out of this controversial comments from Bernie Moreno. He is the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio running against Sherrod Brown. Sadly, by the way, there's a lot of suburban women

A lot of suburban women are like, "Listen, abortion's it. If I can't have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else." Okay, a little crazy by the way, but especially for women that are past 50, I'm thinking to myself, "It's an issue for you."

"Especially for women who are past 50, I don't think it's an issue for you," he says. That was Moreno questioning suburban women and accusing them of being single-issue voters on abortion. His spokesperson defended the remarks in a statement, quote, "Bernie was clearly making a tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the left-wing media like to pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion." Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley reacted simply this way: "Are you trying to lose the election?" Asking for a friend.

Donald Trump has been backing Moreno. These comments come as Trump, of course, tries to win over women and close the considerable gender gap in polling. I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had a problem. But the fake news keeps saying women don't like me. I don't believe it. You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared.

you will no longer be in danger. You will be protected and I will be your protector. Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.

Our panel has returned. Kate Bedingfield. Yes. Where would you like to start? Oh, my God. There are so many places. Okay, first of all, I think Trump has no understanding of why he has a problem with women. First of all, this is, like, creepy, like,

bizarre messaging, but he's talking at women, not to them, which is a problem that I think Republicans have across the board. It's like they think of women as this sort of other entity. That's not a message to women. That's talking at women, which I actually think this is a message for men.

not for women i think what trump is doing here is saying what he thinks men want to hear it's the you know he's trying to like double down this idea of like alpha strength so i actually think this is not intended to be a message for women i think you know that trump campaign is made clear that

uh you know winning men is a huge piece of huge pillar of their strategy and i think that's actually who this message is for i can't imagine a world where women hear that and say this is a guy who understands things that i'm going through and would be a president with empathy for me so i

I think that's him like tripling down on trying to win men. And that's the point about the Bernie Moreno quote that we played at the top. It's actually not that controversial when you consider that that's largely the messaging that has come out of J.D. Vance and Donald Trump in some ways. Now, Moreno used coarser language and claimed it was a joke, but there's nothing remarkable at this point about how they are bungling their approach to talk. Well, I don't think

- I think we've heard regularly that if you're over 50, 'cause you're done with having babies, that you shouldn't care about abortion. - Sure, sure. - I mean, that was the piece of that that really-- - Yeah, no, no, and we've seen this in focus groups. There are women who are well over 50 saying, "I don't want the government telling me what to do with my body." Why is that such an unusual or extraordinary thing to say? It seems to me that, I mean, it's almost like this is an experiment, right, to see,

how large we can make this gender gap. In both directions, by the way. I think so, and I agree with Kay. It's not clear to me that they're picking up any male votes either because who wants to, you know, there are only a certain type of men. Well, the polling shows that men are breaking for Trump in a big way. Right, but only a certain type of men really wants to see that sort of patronizing speech there. There's a lot of men that want to see that patronizing speech. Yeah, no, no, no, but guess what? It's working. He's probably already got those voters. Right.

I will say, the gender gaps is going to be the story of this election. We've talked about it kind of endlessly. Obviously, Republicans struggle with women, Democrats struggle with men. And what I've kind of found is some of the most off-brand

things on both sides are when each side tries to appeal to that. So you have lines like that, you have the Harrison walls doing camo hats. It's very like, what can we do to close this gap on each side? Because I think both know that I'll speak for Republican. If we lose women by more than by, by more than we win men, we lose. And the same is true for Democrats on the other side. So you're, they're trying to climb out of this hole and doing it and

just odd ways yet that more a no thing do you think that is going to impact their race and I think it's also worth noting that when abortions on the ballot Ohio was a it was a majority fifty percent voted to protect you're right look at it we haven't seen at least the correlation directly a one-to-one where it is abortion referendum on the ballot it brings up the Democratic candidate or anti-republican to that exact level people rubble is outrun this to a certain extent

I think Moreno gets over the line. Certainly it's not as good a shape, say, as Montana, where Republicans feel really optimistic about that Senate race. I think Republicans feel more optimistic than they have in the last month about Ohio. Interesting. It is part and parcel, though, kind of to Elliot's point, of a message that comes from Vance, comes from Trump, comes from other Republicans, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders, by the way, that

women who are either past childbearing age or don't have children are somehow less per lesson the participant in society and so yes it is about abortion which obviously has been a huge motivator for uh... uh... for independence for democrats for moderate republicans in these races but this is also for women across the board they're painting a picture of this idea that uh... you know a huge chunk of the the female population is somehow

It's so personal. And it is, it's personal. And that is a problem. Yeah. All right.

50 minutes past the hour, here is your morning roundup. New this morning, a damning report from the FAA. Boeing factory workers saying they felt pressured to put speed over quality. In the run-up to January's door plug blowout, other workers saying that they felt inadequately trained to do their jobs properly. In just a few hours, the FAA administrator will testify about Boeing at a Senate committee hearing.

A Democratic campaign office in Arizona littered with bullet holes. When staffers showed up to work yesterday morning, they noticed the holes in the windows of the building. Police are investigating. This is the second time that this has happened in Tempe in a week. Police believe the other office was shot by a BB or pellet gun. And this. It's too late for me because I've recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

This is also a cause here. NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre announcing he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The 54 year old confirmed the news while testifying before Congress. Favre played for 20 years, winning one Super Bowl, two MVP awards, but also suffering dozens of head injuries over the course of his career. His diagnosis raising new concerns about the long term effects of repeated head injuries in football. We wish him the best. Alright, let's turn out of this.

Got elbowed in the back, and it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. And I turned back, and there was Kevin. Stand your butt up, then. You stand your butt up. Oh, hold on. Oh, stop it. I think your fake eyelashes are messing up with your ring. No, ain't nothing. Hold on, hold on. Sue me for having a life.

Since Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, their majority has brought us those memorable moments, among others. And now with Congress back in session as House Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to wrangle his party's support for a short term funding bill, all the drama's back.

That Hunter Biden is going to be sentenced on December 16. Hunter Biden's not the president. And I bet you money. You need to take your medication and leave. I'll go to prison. Why not now? Because I'm not part of this theater. It's all ****. So, just not part of it.

One of our panelists, Dana Milbank, has just written a new book about all of this. It is called Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House. Dana has, of course, been on our panel all morning. Dana, tell us about the book, why you wrote it. I think hopefully we set you up well.

With some examples of perhaps why this book sold. But what do you dig into? What should we be paying attention to? - Right, I was joking with Manu Raju, who was in a couple of those clips yesterday. Basically my job was to follow him around Capitol Hill for a year and a half. - It's smart, you wanna go where the action is, just attach yourself to Manu. - Watch all of this stuff happen.

You know, I mean, we've all seen the zany moments, you know, the 15 ballots to get McCarthy in the 22 day shutdown of the House after they kicked out McCarthy, the ludicrous attempt to impeach Biden and then all of the day to day silliness.

But what I've tried to do is make sort of a compendium of all the crazy just so you really get everything in here from the fist fights in the basement to the investigations of space aliens running our government.

What it all amounts to is this Congress is on course to be the least productive since 1860. That's when the union was actually unraveling and falling apart. Now, so that is extraordinary and it's historic.

I mean, it's funny in the sense that we can't even pass on a basic thing. It took a six-week summer break, came back to fund the government. Well, they couldn't quite do that, so couldn't get their plan through. They had to bring on Democratic votes, which presumably they will do today, only to punt it for another six months so they can go on vacation again, and now we can have a showdown in September.

But it's not just a joke because this is actually our government. And there's all, you know, I mean, they have been, you know, pretty good about, you know, down the line voting to keep Confederate names on military bases, abolish the Department of Education,

uh you know nationwide abortion men all the stuff you hear about in project 2025 it's actually happening in the house yeah well you're talking about the conservative priorities since they control it and in fairness i mean we get so-called messaging bills depending on who's controlling the congress when government is split they don't end up becoming law but dana the one thing that i think i keep coming back to i mean i i covered congress for over a decade um it's a place i've actually come to really love like i i think it's uh you know it should be um

really represent the best of our democracy. I think the challenge is how much it seems to have changed in the time that I've covered it. I mean, when I was first up there, I mean, there were giants, especially in the Senate. I mean, you had Ted Kennedy and John Warner and John McCain, right? All these people that had led, in many cases, great storied American lives. And coming to Congress was something that was treated as a great honor. Sometimes after all of these years of

of service and we've seen it become harder and harder for good people to convince themselves to come up and serve. I mean, how did you find that dynamic as you were reporting out this book? I think what's it, there've been, you know, it's iterative, right? Every two years we seem to get more and more of what I'd call the crazies in there. And it's not just me calling them crazy. Like Tom Massey, one of the house Republicans said,

the way it just seems to work in Republican primaries is they're voting for the craziest SOB in the race, which he identified himself with being. But there is no longer a John Boehner. There's no longer even a Paul Ryan. There used to be sort of a nucleus of grownups there. And it really feels like

It's now in a situation where the lunatics are running the asylum. There's nobody to push back against them. Whenever we hear that American politics is at its worst now, it's at its craziest and so on, if you look at American history, you realize it's kind of been crazy for a long time. 1856, a guy literally got caned on the floor. And now we're back to that. Right. So my question is, how much crazier is it now than it's been before? Or is this really...

the time well the civil war was bad yeah uh... are not to say we've been quickly in our daily viewers period we've had a lot we've we've we've had our moments in the past before yeah i mean you can't it it's hard to make a historical argument but

You know, other than, I mean, we can conclusively say now this is the least productive in 165 years. So it gives you some perspective, but just the sheer array of characters. I mean, this was the Congress of George Santos, let's not forget. And I mean, he was delightfully entertaining, you know, running down the hall carrying some unidentified baby or going over to sing karaoke.

uh at a restaurant now he's tweeting obscene tweets at desposito with the latest uh scandal in the house and that was just one character but you know the leadership actually had to stick with him because they've only got three four or five vote majority and okay so he's a fabulous who's made up everything in his whole life but we need his vote he's our fabulous he can't lose him right that's what you get when you get such a narrow majority all right don't forget to get your copy of fools on the hill by dana milbank we're grateful to have him today

All right, let's turn out of this. In college, I worked at McDonald's to earn spending money. So apparently one in eight Americans have worked at McDonald's. That is according to the fast food giant, Count Kamala Harris among them. Although Donald Trump doesn't believe she actually flipped burgers and served up those golden fries. I'm going to McDonald's over the next two weeks and I'm going to stand over the French fries because I want to see what her job really wasn't like because she never...

I stood over the french fries and that was tough. It was hot outside and it was hot over. She never worked there. The former president is of course known for his love of fast food. Just remember the time he honored Clemson's national championship football team in the White House in 2019. We have pizzas, we have 300 hamburgers, many, many french fries.

all of our favorite foods. I think we're going to serve McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King's with some pizza. I really mean it. It'll be interesting. And I would think that's their favorite food.

I mean, don't come at Trump when it comes to McDonald's. He is very personal. He loves McDonald's more than anybody else. I think it's a hit at home for him. He does seem to be a little personally triggered by this, but also, okay, don't forget everything with Trump is about projection, right? Like the guy accuses other people of lying because he's an inveterate.

liar. So to me, that's what's happening here. And it's also, what do you gain from attacking someone's high school or college job? No, I'm dead serious, though. Every one of us who's been a waiter or worked in fast food, and I think many Americans know, you learn a lot in those jobs and gain incredibly valuable experience. Mine was at Staples, by the way.

was a waiter and you take it through the rest of your life. It's an immensely valuable experience. It is a conspiracy theory for everything, but probably one guy who didn't have a job like this was Donald Trump. And I love the Tim Walz line about Trump trying to work the McFlurry machine. That's a great image. Okay. No one can work the McFlurry machine. I couldn't work the McFlurry machine. I will definitely acknowledge that. All right. We're over the top of 7 a.m. here, guys. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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