Trash Talk on the Campaign Trail
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It's Thursday, October 31st, right now on CNN This Morning. How do you like my garbage truck? Taking out the garbage, why both campaigns are talking trash in the closing days of the race, and... Everybody has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking. Protests push back the vice president handling hecklers on the campaign trail, plus... Make me the vice president, I'll come back to Wisconsin all the time. And we need you to vote early, Wisconsin.

Winning Wisconsin in our Battleground Beat, we zero in on the Badger State and how third-party candidates might impact Wisconsin voters. And this. This might be the best day of my life! A historic comeback, the Dodgers now celebrating one of the biggest comeback victories in the playoffs to win the World Series.

All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast, a wide look at Las Vegas, Nevada, where it's 3 a.m. Both campaigns heading to that Sunbelt swing state today. Kamala Harris and Trump will both hold rallies there. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Happy Halloween to all who celebrate. Garbage in, garbage out. We are five days from Election Day in an incredibly tight race where anything could make a difference.

Donald Trump climbing into a garbage truck. A, shall we say, striking visual designed to capitalize on President Biden's remark that Trump supporters are garbage. How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden. Trump even went on stage at his rally in that bright orange vest. And they said it would be unbelievable if you could wear it on stage. I said,

There's no way I'm wearing it on stage. They said, oh, OK, sir. I said, get me my jacket. But if you did, you know, it actually makes you look thinner. I said, and they got me. I said, I want to wear it on stage. Biden, of course, has said that he was only referring to a single Trump supporter who called Puerto Rico garbage in a joke. But the remarks still recalled moments like these. There are 47 percent of the people who have voted for the president no matter what.

To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?

The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. So that was both Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton insulting millions of voters just days before an election. Both, of course, went on to lose. Biden, the contrast here, of course, no longer on the ballot.

First of all, he clarified his comments, but let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for. I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.

So this garbage truck thing is not the first time that Donald Trump, a former president but also former reality TV star, has produced events to drive a message in a way that's hard to look away from. That's the point, right? But here's the thing. These events are also designed to get us to look away from what we shouldn't ignore, to distract from what Trump is saying about what happens after polls close on Tuesday.

Could you imagine any circumstances under which you would be defeated but not say that the election was stolen? If it was a corrupt election, that could happen. But so far, we're doing pretty well. They found a lot of...

smaller things in Pennsylvania, as you know, and I think they've been corrupted and taken care of. They were corrupt. They were corrupted, but I think it's been taken care of. Either way, will you accept the results of the election? Yeah, sure, if it's a fair election. If it's a fair election, he says. So, does he think it's going to be a fair election? What worries you the most? Cheating. Which one, though? Which state?

All of them. I mean, they cheat. All of them. All of them, he says. All of them. So when you're out on the trail covering a political campaign, I've done a number of them, the job is to report what the campaign is doing. Sure. That's the part that they want you to see.

But it's also to make sure you're reporting what they don't want you to cover or pay attention to, not to miss the forest for the trees. And five days out, the campaigning is frenetic. But we may look back and say that this

was the calm before the storm. Joining us now to discuss Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Stephen Collinson, CNN politics senior reporter, Brad Woodhouse, senior advisor to the Democratic National Committee, and Matt Gorman, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Wonderful to have you this morning. Stephen Collinson, you often paint these sort of big sweeping pictures for us every day. I still don't totally know how you do it, but I

All of our readers very much enjoy it. When you look at this, I mean, I think the moments that really stood out to me in both this event he did at McDonald's and this garbage truck show that there is still this question and this persistent situation where he is calling the election results into question. Obviously, the campaign wants to focus on what Biden had said. But as we are barreling toward this election, how do you see these five days in this context?

I think you put your finger on it right there. The narrative that was developing about this week was all about the darkest closing argument of any modern presidential campaign, that wild rally. Whatever the president meant, he gave Trump a huge break. That photo op allowed Trump to walk from his personal Boeing 757 to a garbage truck, take up all the oxygen. That's a contrast. And nobody is talking about

That rally, which was hurting Trump among Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania, now we seem to be moving inexorably to the stage where now in our elections we have the pre-vote, we have election day, and now it seems we have this prolonged period after questioning the validity of the election. Trump seems to be laying the groundwork rhetorically for what looks like a pretty sophisticated legal effort under the hood here.

to challenge this election, if necessary? First of all, I was kind of looking at Brad during the Mitt Romney thing because we both worked in 2012. When the Biden garbage comments broke, it was a little text chain among a couple of Romney folks. And they're like, you remember that night? Oh, yeah. I remember. I wrote the lead for the AP. Exactly. And we're all sitting around being like,

What's the context? Can we spin that? There's no real way. Can we rewind it? There is no good answer. And, you know, the White House tried. It might. And look, you know, Stephen has a point. I think we were barely into this week with Trump and the Trump campaign on defense. And then quickly the Biden came in, gave him something to go on offense. And I think more acutely, instead of just rhetoric, what they've done really well is they've been funny and creative with things that can get them visually back on offense. And I'll step back for a minute, too.

I think this is one of the things also where if Kamala Harris doesn't win, I think it's a little bit more indicative of her campaign where she has been less likely to be that, do that funnier, creative, or even slightly risky move, right? If she worked at McDonald's, she should have beaten Trump to the McDonald's a month ago, right? On that sort of thing. And I think also, do the Rogan thing. Do those little things that can extend you out there just a bit,

crystallize something visually in their mind, get people talking about it. - Well, look, I don't think the McDonald's thing did anything for Donald Trump, and I don't think riding around in a garbage truck does anything for Donald Trump, or wearing an orange vest on stage that is only supplanted by the orange on his face.

But let me say this. So I do think that the Biden faux controversy just points out what you were saying, which is we need to focus on what is going on in this campaign. The Harris campaign has a GOTV effort. And this is a margin-bearer race. We believe it'll be a margin-of-effort race, turning out the vote in every single state.

The Trump campaign and Trump's allies have a voter suppression strategy, and that is to go into every court. They're doing it in Pennsylvania. They were successful with this effort. Republicans were successful with this effort in Virginia. They're trying to knock out votes, not turn out votes. That is their strategy in this election.

Well, look, I think at this point, people understand that sowing doubt about elections is just something Donald Trump does. And it's not based on anything true or real or substantive or anything that's actually happening. It's something he's going to say no matter what is out there. And the same thing with these lawsuits. Many of them are not based on anything actually happening. They are just an attempt

to seed this narrative. And so hopefully after three successive elections in which he has made these false claims, people understand that it is a rhetorical strategy, not a real phenomenon, not something based in fact. But even if it is a rhetorical strategy, I mean, we've seen in the polling that it has made people

less likely to trust our elections. I mean, don't our elections fall apart in the absence of trust? Absolutely. And it's a real problem for that reason. And a lot of Republicans do believe it. Now, the majority of Americans believe accurately that our elections are secure. But it is a real problem. I think in terms of the photo ops and the stunts, you see that these campaigns have a different theory about who the undecided voters are at this point.

Right. The Trump camp's theory is that the voters they need to reach are the ones who are marginally interested in politics and will only pay attention if something funny or weird happens. So they see Donald Trump on a garbage truck and it's like, oh, that's kind of cool. The Harris campaign's theory is different. Their theory is that the undecided voters who are still out there are conservative, leaning, college educated suburbanites who want the president to be a serious figure.

So she's not doing these kind of stunts because she wants to be seen as a serious figure. She wants to convince people that she's presidential. She wants to do things like the speech that I attended on the Ellipse earlier this week, where she is trying to strike that tone and have that stature and that gravitas because the undecided voters they are trying to reach and get off the fence at this point are the ones who want to see a president behaving in that traditional presidential manner. It's a really interesting way to think about it. Molly, you also had...

your most recent story was a couple days ago now for the journal. The headline is America is having a panic attack over the election. I have to say the anecdata in my own family and friends really does actually support this thesis. But what are you saying? Oh, look at this. There are not enough gummies I can take to soothe the angst. What kind of gummies are we talking about here?

I think you know. And it was interesting. You know, there's data to support this. It's not just anecdotal. In our Wall Street Journal poll that was released last week, 87% of voters, so this is across the spectrum, said that they believe the country will sustain serious

damage if their candidate loses. Only 10% said no to that question. So people really do profoundly feel the stakes of this election sort of weighing on them. And I asked a lot of people attending political events, but also just rank and file voters at an early voting center outside Atlanta.

how are you going to deal with this angst that you're feeling? How are you going to get through the next couple of weeks, particularly if you've already voted and there's nothing else you can do? A consistent answer that I repeatedly got was drugs or alcohol. So I'm just reporting here, but that is the answer that I got from numerous voters. Scotch, marijuana,

Gummies. Maybe we should have Bloody Marys instead of coffee. Happy Halloween, everybody. Happy Halloween. Oh, man. All right. Still ahead here on CNN this morning. Concepts of a plan? House Speaker Mike Johnson hints at once again going after Obamacare if Republicans take control in Washington. Plus, the Dodgers shutting out the Yankees with an epic comeback to clinch the World Series. And...

A seat at the table, Kamala Harris sticks to her vow to listen to all sides as protesters crash two of her rallies. It should be emphasized, unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy from within.

I'm CNN's John King. Join me for the podcast All Over the Map, where I'm traveling across the country to find out what American voters think. The energy is different. It's a lot different from when we were here last time. Eric Jones is an entrepreneur in Milwaukee. We're in the final days here now. It's a cliche, but every vote does count, especially in the battleground states. And the math is really complicated, the most complicated in the 10 times I've covered presidential elections.

Listen to All Over the Map wherever you get your podcasts. I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them. Let me be clear. We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing U.S. policy

with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing extremist ally.

That was progressive Senator Bernie Sanders this week issuing a call for democratic unity behind Kamala Harris as the war in Gaza remains a divisive issue on the left. The divide was put on display during two rallies on Wednesday when two different sets of protesters interrupted the vice president. One group unfurling a sign that said no funding for war crimes. Another interruption called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Here was how Harris responded.

Cease fire now! Cease fire now! Cease fire now! You know what? Listen, we all want the war in Gaza to end and get the hostages out as soon as possible. I will do everything in my power to make it heard and known. And everyone has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking.

Brad Woodhouse, what do you make of how she's handled that? I think she's handled the protest extremely, extremely well. She's good on her feet. I mean, probably, you know, from being a senator, being a prosecutor, from being in public life. But I think the key here is what they're calling for, right there, ceasefire. She has been for a ceasefire. President Biden has been for a ceasefire. It's reported that she's been very tough in private on Benjamin Netanyahu.

And I just think about those protesters. What do they think they're going to get out of Donald Trump?

What do they think they're going to get out of Donald Trump and his approach to Israel, to Netanyahu, and to the war in Gaza? That was where Bernie Sanders' video is so interesting, because he was making that pragmatic case. The problem is this issue is so existential for many of these voters, Arab Americans, progressives, that it is a one-issue election, and that's where it's going to hurt the vice president. The irony of this situation is that

She is going to potentially play a political price in Michigan, a key swing state. But the person who has the more pro-Netanyahu policy could benefit, and that is Trump. And that's a conundrum that she's not really been able to wriggle out of.

All right, really interesting to continue to watch this. Coming up here on CNN This Morning, election hubs on alert ahead, the measures that officials are taking to make sure poll workers and voters are safe on election day. Plus, Speaker Mike Johnson forced to clean up remarks about the future of Obamacare under a possible second Trump term.

All right, it's a particularly important day for weather because, of course, we have trick-or-treating and the Northeastern United States will experience one of the warmest Halloweens on record. Let's get straight to our meteorologist, the weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning. What can folks expect?

Good morning, Casey. Scary weather Halloween forecast for people here today because it's going to be so warm. I mean, quite frankly, if we take Boston, for instance, if it reaches 80 degrees, could be one of their warmest Halloween's on record. D. C. More the same could potentially tie their third highest temperature on Halloween Day. Overall, we've got over 75 locations across the Northeast and mid Atlantic that could send

these record high temperatures for the afternoon. Of course, that's not indicative of what it will be like once the sunset and all the trick or treaters head outdoors. But you could see temperatures here today ranging from the upper seventies to the lower eighties. That's more like end of August into mid September type weather. So here is the most important forecast in talking about the temperature as you head out the door this morning with all the trick or treaters. It looks like it will reach the lower seventies. So along the East Coast mild

those costumes will be re terms of it being a warm, forecast. But the cool we eastward and we'll finall from this warmth heading of the weekend. So hopefo Casey, a warm trick or tr news you can use Derek Van

All right, still to come on CNN This Morning, an epic comeback, the Dodgers take the World Series over the Yankees, plus a look at Wisconsin in our Battleground Beat, where third-party candidates could prove to be spoilers. Wisconsin's red. Wisconsin's been red. If it wasn't for all the cheating that happened back in 2020, he would have won it. First and foremost, are there any Packer fans in the house? Yes!

Trump bringing out the ultimate hometown hero for the people of Green Bay. She says went crazy for Brett Favre as he opened up for the former president. Thank you, Brett. What a great honor. What a great champion. And I'm a little upset because I think he got bigger applause than me and I'm not happy.

Trump was donning his sanitation suit in Green Bay. Harris also spent her Wednesday in Wisconsin, making her eighth visit to the state during her campaign. New polling from Marquette University shows an essentially tied race between Harris and Trump, with third-party candidates earning a combined 9% of the vote.

an amount that could surely tip the scales come election day. A GOP-linked super PAC has been making robocalls to Wisconsin voters, urging them to back Green Party candidate Jill Stein over Harris.

Kamala Harris will never stop the genocide in Gaza. Do not vote for Kamala Harris. You have a better choice. Jill Stein for president. There is only one candidate for president who will fight for our planet, support a real Green New Deal, and ban fracking. And it's not Kamala Harris. It's Jill Stein.

All right, joining us now, Ben Wickler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Ben, good morning. Wonderful to see you. Let's talk about this third party phenomenon because I was just looking back to 2016 where in Wisconsin, Trump's margin over Hillary Clinton was 22,000 votes approximately, while Jill Stein won 31,000 votes.

And clearly you can see in our polling that there's some discontent among people in Wisconsin. How concerned are you that a third party candidate could throw this election away from your candidate? - Well, the biggest third party factor in Wisconsin

- He's soon to try to get off, but the law is the law here. And we know that there are a lot of Republican voters who do not want to vote for Trump. We saw them voting in greater numbers for Nikki Haley in the primary than were uncommitted votes in the Democratic primary.

in the spring elections here. In the final stretch, I think there's a lot of Republicans deciding, do they vote for RFK? Do they vote for Harris? Do they vote at all? We know that there are also people who disagree with Vice President Harris over a number of policies.

but absolutely want to stop Trump. And our message to them is that if you want to ensure that Trump can't come into the office, write an absolutely blank check to Netanyahu, which would be bad for both Israel and for Palestinians, if you want to make sure that we don't wind up with a dictatorship on day one using U.S. troops to crush dissent in the United States,

that Harris is your candidate. But when you include the third party voters in the electorate, as the Marquette University Law School did, it finds that Harris' lead in Wisconsin grows. The third party factor is worse for Trump. And I think that could be a major factor as we go into the final stretch.

Interesting. Ben, one of the things that we've seen that I think is a really interesting indicator for the presidential race is the tightening of the Senate race, which shows that Tammy Baldwin, the Democratic incumbent, is at higher risk than many expected of losing to her Republican challenger. And she's now airing ads that honestly seem to hug Donald Trump a little bit. Let's watch that and then I'll ask you about it on the other side. Take a look.

We can't let China steal Wisconsin jobs. So I wrote a law to require American infrastructure projects, use American iron and steel. Tammy Baldwin got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill. She's invoking President Trump's name. What does that tell you about where the electorate is in Wisconsin? Well, listen to what the person said and how they said it. This is about her Buy American provisions, which she has been championing for years.

And as the person said in the ad, she even got President Trump to sign it. She's able to move both parties towards pro-United States economy positions. She's a champion for Wisconsin workers. She stands up to special interests. What we can see in the polling is that the Republican campaigning has been focused on getting Trump voters to support Eric Hovde, the Republican candidate for Senate. Now,

Eric Hovey has some serious problems. Adam Schiff, the Senate candidate in California, released a video last night saying to Eric Hovey, please come home. California needs you. I want your vote. You're one of our most influential bankers. Sure. That message is also important in the state of Wisconsin. I'm tracking. But my point is, Tammy Baldwin is not out there saying Donald Trump is a fascist. That's that's not her message. So I'm curious. Just I mean, that does seem to mean that Donald Trump, you know, is onto something in Wisconsin.

Well, she's running her own race. But let me say this. There's not a single poll that I've seen that shows Baldwin behind Harris. That means that Harris voters are supporting Baldwin, and she can go on offense into Republican territory to get additional votes and increase the margin of victory.

All polls right now find Baldwin ahead. Often, you know, it's by a couple of points. It's not a big margin. And Harris in the polling averages is tied in slightly ahead if you look across most of the polling averages in our state. That means this could be a narrow, classic Wisconsin nail-biter election. But it's an election where we have a chance to elect both Harris and Baldwin in the final stretch. And I will also note Harris is also reaching out to Republican voters

We're on their turf at this point, making the case for Republicans to cross over. And even if they voted for Trump in the past, vote for Harrison Baldwin this time. All right, we shall see. It was, of course, the closest margin last time around in Wisconsin. Right now, everyone seems to expect that's Pennsylvania, but I got, I don't know, I got my eye on Wisconsin. Ben Wickler, thank you. I'm very grateful for your time this morning. Thanks so much. All right, let's turn out of this.

The health care reform is going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we're going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things on the table. No Obamacare? No Obamacare.

House Speaker Mike Johnson suggesting Republicans have plans for a major overhaul of the landmark health care law, Obamacare, if Donald Trump wins the White House. Kamala Harris has warned that if Trump is elected, he would look to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, while Trump says he would improve the law. Johnson later put out this statement clarifying his comments, quote, The audio and transcript make clear that I offered no such promise to end Obamacare and in fact acknowledge the policy is deeply ingrained in our health care system.

Harris' running mate Tim Walz seizing on Johnson's comments during a rally in Battleground, North Carolina.

Now that's weird because a couple weeks ago I was in a debate and Senator Vance was standing right here and said, Donald Trump is the champion of the ACA. Donald Trump loves the ACA. And I responded, well, why did he run on getting rid of it? Why did he sign an executive order getting rid of it? Why did he sign on to a lawsuit getting rid of it? And why did he try 60 times to overturn it? It was only the courage of John McCain who said no.

All right, our panel is back. Matt Gorman, is it useful for Speaker Johnson? I mean, he clearly felt he needed to clean this up rather fast. Yeah, real quick also, one thing to watch in Wisconsin. I promise I'll- Yeah, let's talk about Wisconsin for a second. I'm into it too. Really quick. One thing to watch there is the third party, RFK is still on the ballot. They cannot get him off. There is a scenario, I know Republicans are watching, where Hovde could win and yet Donald Trump could, the share of the vote could be different because some of those voters could go to RFK on the presidential. One thing to watch there.

I also think when it comes to the ACA stuff, I feel like I'm having flashbacks to all the campaigns I've worked on. You had Romney before, and now with the NRC in 18, I think the Trump campaign and Trump himself recognize what happened when

he started as president in office early 2017 going after Obamacare. I don't think they would do that the same way. Again, I think if you talk to people close to Trump, they wish they had gone infrastructure or tax reform rather than going through Obamacare. Because again, as someone who dealt with House campaigns in 18, that was the crystallizing issue through line through the election. And so look, we'll see what happens, of course, but I think that's very acute still for the Trump team.

Let's be clear. If they had a trifecta, they would try to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Donald Trump said in the Republican primary this cycle that he wanted to terminate the Affordable Care Act. It's known as Obamacare.

What does Donald Trump hate? He hates Barack Obama. He has a thing about Obamacare. He has a thing about the Affordable Care Act. He couldn't on the debate stage say that he would preserve it. He said he had concepts of a plan. And the transcript is clear. Mike Johnson said, no more Obamacare. This is a gift.

Health care has been a top issue in election after election after election. And this is going to be exploited in the final days. Yeah. Let's talk. Can we return to the Wisconsin conversation for a second? Because I also was kind of interested to hear in hearing what Wickler had to say there. And Stephen, I mean, this third party question, Wisconsin was so vulnerable.

so close in both 2016 and 2020 that the third party vote could very much throw this one way or the other. And it does seem to me that in Matt's scenario where you have a Republican Senate candidate winning, but Donald Trump potentially losing, that does, I mean,

I think you would see a lot of Republicans, Trump certainly raising questions about it in a way that's a little tricky to think about. Certainly. They're going to look at any scenario they can to bolster this, frankly, not true

campaign to say that the election isn't fair. To your point about the numbers in 2016, Biden, I think, only won by about 20,000 in 2020. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So Jill Stein's number from 2016 is well above that. My question would be whether people are voting for RFK because they want to cast a protest vote, or they're still a little confused about what exactly is on the ballot. So the whole thing could be a real mess.

Yeah, I mean, it's generally the case that that third party vote share is higher in the polls than it is in the final vote because at the end of the day, most people decide that they don't want to throw their vote away. But I think that the scenario that Matt raises is important because, you know,

I've spoken to a lot of RFK voters who struggle with him endorsing Trump, who are not necessarily on board with getting behind Trump, even though RFK has. And so the fact that he's still on the ballot gives them somewhere else to go instead of getting behind Trump. And so that is a potential third party vote that hurts Trump instead of hurting Harris. So you have this going in both directions. And I don't think we can say which way that factor is going to cut. And look, going in another way, Huggies weren't a very good race.

He's turned this race around where it really wasn't as competitive if you asked him three months ago. He's gotten an offense against Tammy Baldwin. And look, there is a very real scenario where he could be that third Republican pickup very, very easily on election day where, again, three months ago, never would have thought that. There's no legitimate poll that has shown Tammy Baldwin running

behind Hubby in Wisconsin. It's a close race. - But I'm calling you very slowly. - It's a close race. - Watch their actions, don't watch the polls, right? If you're invoking Trump in an ad, that tells me that it is at least tied in your internals. Watch their actions. - If you have a Republican super PAC trying to turn out voters for Jill Stein, it tells me something different about what Republicans think is going on in Wisconsin. - I'm talking about the Senate race. We can kind of go back and forth, but like, again,

Who else did that? Casey, toss-up race, very, very tight race. You're not doing it by accident. Well, there's nothing novel about that. Kamala Harris is reaching out to Republicans.

Kamala Harris is reaching out to Trump supporters. Well, it's not when you have the top of the ticket calling her opponent a fascist. I mean, like, the disparity is normal. Let's remember, Kamala Harris is not running a single ad in this country calling Donald Trump a fascist. She was asked a question on, you know, on a news program. And, of course, he's a fascist. Sure, but, you know, she's calling Trump dangerous. I mean, the closing message ad, it may not use the word fascist, but... I mean, January 6th case, don't you think Donald Trump is dangerous? I'm not, that's not the point that I'm making, Brad. The point that I'm making...

But no one's running a campaign calling Donald Trump. Tammy Baldwin is saying nice things about Donald Trump while the top of the ticket is saying he's dangerous for the reasons that you outlined. She did not say anything nice about Donald Trump. But she put his name in her ad in a positive way. The ad said that he signed her bill.

well and that's that's a that's a compliment to her not to him well and i can bring this full circle because i was on the campaign trail with tammy baldwin in 2018 and she was talking about working with donald trump and she was going out to those rural communities and talking to dairy farmers and she was talking about by american and she was talking about health care and she has always put a relentless focus on these bread and butter issues and on this idea of bipartisanship so that there was

the Wisconsin electorate doesn't see her as a lesbian from Madison they see her as someone who is focused on their practical concerns and that's why she won that race by double digits and if she's going to pull out this race which is tight which is in a presidential year it's going to be because she has throughout her career relentlessly focused on those issues very interesting alright coming up here on CNN this morning claiming fraud before the votes are counted how Donald Trump appears poised to challenge the election outcome if things don't go his way plus

Why former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he's voting for Kamala Harris. I'll be back. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast.

Laura Schmidt is a leading expert in the field of sugar studies. And what she's going to teach us is that the truth about how much sugar we should eat and when we should eat it is far more complicated than you might think. If you're already struggling with craving and addiction, turning it into a big boogeyman probably isn't the greatest idea. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm very pleased with the decision out of the Supreme Court this morning that provides a stay on the injunction to put 1,600 people back on the voter rolls who did self-identify as non-citizens. And of course, that just provides further comfort across the Commonwealth that this election will be secure, it will be accurate.

All right, a divided Supreme Court ruling that Virginia can continue its program, which Republicans say is aimed at purging suspected non-citizens from its voter registration rolls. And in states across the country, officials are bracing for an onslaught of similar election lawsuits.

Some claims of voter fraud already spawning vicious online conspiracy theories and of course contributing to a tense election environment, forcing some election hubs to install bulletproof glass and provide wearable panic buttons for poll workers. What world do we live in that poll workers need mobile panic buttons just in case?

Well, obviously it's the world we live in, but they're doing work that I just imagine if you showed up, there wasn't a poll worker. How would we vote? So what they do is public service at its finest. And they're your neighbors. They're people you meet at church, out there at the ball field or at the grocery store. Just good people, just like everyone else, you know, trying to give back to their community.

All right, joining us now, Jessica Huseman. She's the editorial director of Vote Beat. Jessica, good morning to you. Let's talk about this Supreme Court ruling and the lawsuits that are popping up that may be similar.

In this case, it's focused on non-citizens voting, which is, of course, something that many Republicans have focused on. But we do know there are instances where these are simply mistakes, like the case of a woman in, in this case, Ohio. A mother of two in Columbus got a notice that she could face a potential felony charge if she voted. Although she's a registered voter, documents at the state's motor vehicle department indicated she was not a U.S. citizen.

But Hilario, who immigrated from the Philippines, was naturalized in 2022. She just did not renew her driver's license since 2021. What are the potential issues here?

- You know, these databases are not perfect. VoteMeet has covered the case of a couple of people in Texas who were given notifications that they were potentially non-citizens in the mail. How often do you check your mail? Probably not often. These people missed the letters and so were marked as non-citizens. We just profiled a Trump voter in Texas who was removed from the polls, from the rolls for being a non-citizen, even though she was born in the United States

and raised here. And that was because she didn't respond to a mailer. So this is all human activity. These databases are maintained by humans. The checking that happens to make sure that the databases are correct, also done by humans. They make mistakes. When we're talking about a number that's so small, in the entire state of Virginia, 1,600 people, that's actually not a huge number at all.

and hundreds of those people are likely to be legitimate citizens. So the question, of course, for a lot of this comes down to trust and the trust that voters have or don't have in our election system. And we're picking up a significant amount of distrust. Let's listen a little bit to some of our reporters who have obviously been out talking to voters across the country here in the final days of the race. Let's watch what some of them had to say. Why are you voting early?

I want to make sure it counts. You want to make sure it counts? Yes, sir. I don't trust the system, especially after last time. It shakes you, right? I mean, to now have to be concerned and worry about the safety of your vote if you really want your vote to be tallied and counted. So clearly, many people are becoming more concerned about their votes being counted. What impact does that have?

I think that it has a really big impact. I think that, you know, the Republican Party for a long time has been saying that the system is insecure, that your votes don't count as intended. You can only say that so many times before people start to believe you and act accordingly. So fortunately, you found somebody who is satisfied with voting early. There are going to be a lot of people that choose not to vote at all because they don't believe that the system is secure.

And I think one of the most unfortunate things that we've seen is that people tend to trust their elections, but they don't trust the elections elsewhere. So if you ask somebody why they think the elections are insecure, they're gonna say, because they're insecure in Philly, because they're insecure in Detroit. But they believe that their local elections are doing just fine. And so I think it's distrust of the system as a whole that is really leading to this environment.

All right, Jessica Huseman for us this morning. Jessica, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, now this. He's back, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a message for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Hasta la vista, baby.

The former governor of California joining a growing list of Republicans who are now backing Kamala Harris. Schwarzenegger writes this, quote, my Republicans have forgotten the beauty of the free market, driven up deficits and rejected election results. I will always be an American before I'm a Republican. And that's why this week,

"I am voting for Kamala Harris." Schwarzenegger went on to say that if Trump wins, the country will just be, quote, "angrier and angrier, more divided and more hateful." Our panel is back. I mean, look, Molly, no single endorsement is gonna

is gonna move the needle in a significant way necessarily. But it is a statement about certainly where Schwarzenegger himself is, but where a swath of these more moderate Republicans are here.

Absolutely. And if you go to Kamala Harris's rallies, if you watch her events, at every single one of them, she has got Republicans introducing her, Republicans or former Republicans who are getting up there and talking about her candidacy as something that Republicans can support.

So this is a major part of the campaign's message. Now, Trump also has Democrats and former Democrats supporting him. And so that's a part of his message as well, the RFKs and Tulsi Gabbards of the world. But, you know, so much of the point of the Harris campaign has been about this message to Republicans

Republicans, former Republicans, conservative-leaning independents, that she is a leader who will represent them, will bring the country together, will work in a bipartisan way in an effort to, you know, rebut the accusation from the Trump camp that she's a far-left

liberal or a communist, as he's called her, and trying to position herself more in the center. And she needs that, frankly, in order to win. She needs some of that crossover vote. And this is the erosion that the Republican Party has experienced since Donald Trump has been the nominee. Since 2016, we have seen more and more of, again, these particularly upper-income, college-educated suburbanites

leaving the Republican Party and increasingly voted for Democrats and what you see with the Trump campaign strategy of aiming at you know disaffected politically disenchanted young men is that they've largely given up on that vote they know it's not coming back and they're looking elsewhere for the votes that will put them over the top

Yeah, the question I have is, do we have so far evidence that it's actually working for Harris in terms of early vote, their anecdotal stuff early on? I mean, it would only take, what, a few thousand Haley supporters in each state to potentially make a big difference?

But I don't think we've really seen yet how successful, for example, Liz Cheney is. She's still an important force in getting those Republican voters. We're going to know in Georgia very early election night, in my opinion, right? Because to go back in full circle of what you talked about earlier in the show, we have low-pensy voters, black and Hispanic men predominantly that we're targeting our campaign. Obviously, those suburbanites, Bucks County in Georgia. It's going to be the test...

of really those two theories at once, right? And so if Harris is really close in Georgia, tough night could be for our side. If Trump is overperforming or doing okay, we're gonna live to plan and talk about that blue wall when the next round kind of comes in. We're gonna know very early on.

One thing we're seeing in the early vote is a big, big gender gap. And I don't think it's not exclusive to Democratic women that are going out to vote, but also also Republican women. So I do think that, look, you know, I don't know if we're going to get a bunch of the of the male Republican base that is traditionally supported Trump. But I believe that we're going to see a surge of women that are Democratic.

suburban Republican women that are going to break with their husbands in support of Kamala Harris. Fair enough. It is interesting that you say that, I agree with you, if Harris is overperforming in Georgia and North Carolina, it's something to really keep an eye on early on election night.

All right, I'm going to leave you with this. On this Halloween, it is just before 7 a.m. here in Washington. The White House is still dark at this hour. We're, of course, just five days away from finding out who's going to move into the executive mansion next. Here's the question, though. Will the winner be moving into a haunted house? The Bush twins seem to think so.

Dozing off, falling asleep, and then all of a sudden there is 1920s jazz music coming out of the fireplace. Piano. Piano. Scares the hell out of us. You're not supposed to say that. Scares us. Dreadfully. Dreadfully scares us.

According to the White House Historical Association, ghost sightings at the executive mansion are not uncommon. President Ronald Reagan reportedly told dinner guests that his dog Rex would go into any room in the White House except for the Lincoln bedroom. Rex would bark frantically at the door, and Reagan believed it was Lincoln's presence frightening his dog.

Honest Abe, a common sighting going back decades in the White House following his assassination in 1865. One of the more humorous tales belongs to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was staying in the Lincoln bedroom while visiting Franklin Roosevelt. According to an account retold in the Washington Post, Churchill had just stepped out of a hot bath in the Lincoln bedroom and was wearing nothing but a cigar when he encountered Lincoln by the fireplace.

"Good evening, Mr. President," Churchill reportedly said. "You seem to have me at a disadvantage." What do we think? Is the White House haunted? - Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're knowing Churchill, it's probably like noon when you step out of the bath. So it's really not, Lincoln should have been there. It's noon, you know?

The question is, what was the ghost of Lincoln wearing? Definitely a top hat. And nothing else? Molly to leave us on that note. Do ghosts wear clothes? Happy Halloween. Thanks to our panel. 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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