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It's Wednesday, October 16th, right now on CNN This Morning. It's tight. I'm going to win. I'm going to win. We have to win, win, win. We've got to win, win, win. Crunch time. Just 20 days to go. New polls out this morning show a race that is still virtually tied. Plus... It was easy. Five minutes in and out, everything was peaceful and streamlined. Shattering the record, more than 300,000 people in the all-important state of Georgia show up on day one of early voting. And then...

The script versus the weave. Both candidates brushing off criticism of their styles during the end run here. And the ground game. We take a look at one very influential grassroots group that hopes to move voters in Trump's direction.

All right. 6 a.m. 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 20 days away from Election Day, less than three weeks. A new poll out this morning finding, you guessed it, a race that is truly tied. Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, both with 50 percent of voters behind them when third parties are excluded.

Nationwide, more than 5 million people have already cast their votes by mail or in person. Those that haven't apparently eager to do so, 84% of likely voters said they're enthusiastic about voting this year. And that excitement was on display in Georgia yesterday, where more than 300,000 people cast their ballots on the first day of early voting, more than doubling the record set in 2020.

Because last time I waited, line going around the block, around the corner. Now I'm getting my vote in today. This election affects the whole country and also the world. So get up and go get out there and vote. That turnout apparently not lost on Trump, who's now encouraging early and mail-in voting after spending years criticizing it and claiming without evidence that it was responsible for, quote, massive electoral fraud.

So if you have a ballot, return it immediately. If not, go tomorrow as soon as you can. Go to the polls and vote. Early voting is underway. Get everyone out. Get everyone you know. Just get them all out to vote. Go tomorrow. After all we have been through together, we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in the history of our country.

Harris continued her media outreach yesterday, appearing on The Breakfast Club for a town hall discussion, the vice president going further than she has before in her criticism of Trump, following a question from host Charlamagne Tha God. It's two very different visions for our nation. One mind that is about taking us forward and progress and investing in the American people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with their challenges. And the other, Donald Trump, is about taking us backward. The other is about fascism.

Why can't we just say it? Yes, we can say that.

all right our panels here isaac de vere cnn senior reporter kate benningfield cnn political commentator former biden white house communications director matt gorman former senior advisor to tim scott's presidential campaign welcome to all of you uh 20 days away um how do the approaches here and you know isaac harris had to be kind of pushed into saying this is fascist in that clip there um trump's campaign responded saying well this is why donald people tried to assassinate donald trump

twice. But of course, questions looming about a peaceful transfer of power. I'm going to play that clip in a second. But what did you make of her answer there in her interview? I don't think she had to be pushed into saying it. She responded right away. It was not where she started. I do think that Trump

saying that this is different in character from what he said maybe over the weekend when there's an enemy within that might need the military, the National Guard to deal with it. It's not like he's just talking about peaceful roses and happy times.

every day. No, the opposite. Right, and so the rhetoric is high and the Trump campaign does seize on every time that whether it was Joe Biden or Kamala Harris talking about him being a threat to democracy, he is talking in these pretty stark terms too and I think it reflects where

A lot of people supporting each of these candidates feel that this election is, that this is an existential moment for the country. Well, and we do know also, we don't have the video of it yet. It's going to air on Fox at 11 a.m. today, I believe, Eastern Time. But let's put up on the screen what Trump has apparently said about these enemy within comments, because when he was pressed...

about this. He actually doubled down. So he's asked here again, who is the enemy within? And he says this, you know what they are? They're a party of soundbites. He's talking about Democrats. They are very different and it is the enemy from within and they're very dangerous.

And he goes on, they're dangerous for our country. We have China, we have Russia, we have all these smart, if you have a smart president, they can all be handled. And the more difficult they are, you know, the Pelosi's, these people, they're sick and they're so evil. Again, talking about Americans, right?

it's it's to what Isaac said I mean dark yes it dark and a new one of the favorite talking points in republicans right now is that somehow democratic rhetoric is is what has ramped up the temperature in this country or what is put Donald Trump I you know in in harm's way a couple times but I mean that's you know he's talking about Americans he's comparing them to Russia to China I think they're the enemy with any talked about mobilizing the military against them I mean that is divisive dark language so I think

Harris being willing to call it what it is in that interview, I think, first of all, is just recognizing, unfortunately, the brutality of the moment that we're in. But remember also, part of her task here in this final push is to motivate people who otherwise feel apathetic about the

process, who might otherwise stay home. And so, you know, part of her task is to help people understand that this is a moment where staying on the couch and not voting is not an option. And so I think that's also what she was trying to do by leaning in there. A couple of things, right? The clips there reminded me that

It's the friendly interviews that often get you into trouble as a candidate. And as a comms person, you often worry about them more, right? Go back last week, Kamala Harris in The View. You have Trump on Fox News for both this weekend and obviously yesterday. Sometimes when you're comfortable, you're more likely to make mistakes. When you're comfortable, that's when you let things slip. Sure, absolutely. And so I think that is kind of what you always worry about. I think stepping back here, too, this moment reminds me a little bit of early July.

Where if you remember, we were coming off kind of the Biden post-debate kind of just troubles, if you will. And there was a kind of a really a need by Democrats to please like Donald Trump, inject yourself into the story, distract a little bit. And I think that's what you're seeing. You talked a little bit about it with Brian Stelter at the last part of the last hour, where I think the Trump team is being very careful and judicious about what media they're doing.

While I think the Harris team realizes the momentum is not on their side and they need to get out there and be on offense a little more. So speaking of Trump doing interviews, he got pretty testy in this exchange with John McEvoy of Bloomberg News. Said he thought about actually not doing the interview. But one exchange that really stood out to me was when he was asked,

if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he loses the election, or a peaceful transfer of power, period, from President Biden to whoever may get elected next. This was his answer. Watch. Well, you had a peaceful transfer of power. You had a peaceful transfer of power. You had a peaceful transfer of power.

Come on, President Trump. You had a peaceful transfer of power compared with Venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power for a long time. It was love and peace. And some people went to the capital. And a lot of strange things happened there. I left. I left the morning that I was supposed to leave. I went to Florida. And you had a very peaceful transfer.

So let's just remind everyone what actually happened at the Capitol that day. If we could, the crowds that we saw there, the broken windows, the fights with the police. Again, Isaac, I think that...

You know, this day has been on my mind as we head towards this next election because you have heard Donald Trump say things that already are raising questions about the results of an election that we have not actually held yet, that we were in the process of holding. And this is, you know, if he's going to define this as peaceful,

that I think again underscores the way that he uses language and frankly rewrites history for his supporters. - I think the rewriting history is actually the key part of it. Look, and what he said about himself, he said, "I left the morning that I was supposed to," as if there is some prize for a president following the Constitution, that his term was up. But to call that peaceful, forget about that it is clearly him making

no promises to accept this election and one might think implying that he won't if he loses. It is what you see from Trump constantly of

either disconnect from reality or an active effort to rewrite what happened. And that's true about January 6th. It's true about other things. In that interview yesterday, he talked about tariffs in a way where he is insisting that he knows how tariffs will work better than every economist who has looked at this, basically.

This is not, and I think as people go forward into these next weeks of the election, think about what he would be as president, it is worth considering that he does not talk about things as they occurred, either because he doesn't realize that they occurred a different way or because he is trying to twist it

always in his favor of how that is and what that means for what a return to the White House would be for him. That's what he's put in front of the American people on January 6th, on tariffs, on every issue. He said last night at that Fox Down Hall, I'm the father of IVF.

I mean, it is hard to reconcile that at all with reality. I was thinking this morning of some quippy line that I could come up with. But I don't know what it would be. If you were the father of short red ties, it makes... Maybe there's a plausible argument for that. Look, I...

I have to say, I mean, we're sitting at this table, right? I mean, Kate, you've worked, you've dedicated your career to electing Democrats to the White House. Matt, you've done the same for Republicans. We're able to sit here and have a conversation about what's going to happen to try to do it in a civil way where we're operating kind of in the same world. But increasingly, Matt, I'm really interested in your perspective on this. Like,

What happened with FEMA in the mountains of North Carolina this week really, for me, crystallized the degree to which people are living in alternate information universes, where you have federal officials going in, trying to help, trying to give people money that they are entitled to as Americans who are the victims of this kind of a disaster. And they can't do it because there are people out there who think that FEMA is dangerous and a threat and are going after them, you know, militia types.

It just really kind of underscored to me the degree to which we are not two separate groups of people in America are living in two different worlds. Oh, there's no better example than this in COVID, right? I mean, imagine if you were like, let's say, an investment banker living in Florida during COVID or a waitress in San Francisco. You'd live two very different existences for the better part of two years.

And that would shape how you would probably view that event. I mean, it's broader. It's broader than purely media. It's broader than where you live. It's broader than how you consume information from whether it's media, online, or just the people you live around and talk to. We live in one country but can have vastly different experiences. But there's an agency here, though.

though, that Donald Trump is, he's not the only reason why this exists. Diversification of media, people paying attention to different things, living different experiences in their lives. But the reason why this began with the hurricane disinformation about FEMA and everything is because Donald Trump was talking

They had a congressman from North Carolina who last week, a Republican congressman, had to put a long statement on his website that began, the first thing was, no one controls the weather. That's where we are in 2024. Yeah, and this is why Trump's continued erosion of people's faith in institutions is so dangerous. I mean, this is why his continued erosion of faith in the media is so dangerous. Because if there is not an independent arbiter of the facts,

before you get to arguing about how to present them or your feelings about them or your opinion about them, if there's not an independent arbiter of the facts, people cannot start from a place of...

We can't function as a society. I mean, that sounds dramatic, but I think that that's true. And I think that the role that Trump has played in exacerbating and furthering this erosion of faith in institutions is really scary. And he wields an enormous amount of power. I mean, half the country feels incredibly passionately about him and about his leadership. And he uses that to...

make it so that people in a hurricane ravaged area don't trust that they can go get the help that they need. That's an awful thing. Trump might have gotten to the front of the parade on this, but this was happening for the last 30 years. I agree with that. It might have accelerated it, but no question. No question, but he accelerated it, absolutely. Well, it's just a reminder that 20 days ago we were hurtling toward something, toward an unknown that has, you know, it's...

It has the potential to be a really significant and potentially difficult chapter in our history. All right, straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, the legal battle over ballots in Georgia. What a judge has now ruled about hand counting on election day. Plus, critics call it rambling. We'll talk about what Donald Trump calls the weave. And the influential group spending millions to turn out religious voters for Trump. We're going to speak exclusively with the chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Ralph Reed will be here.

This time there aren't going to need to be any lawsuits. We're not going to have to go to court and we're not going to have to wait until 2.30 in the morning for Donald Trump to declare victory. He's going to do it at 9 o'clock at night. That's an American value. And so I think that's very important that that is affirmed in the judicial system. And we'll make sure that we follow the law and follow the Constitution in everything we do.

As Georgia voters head to the polls in record numbers for early voting, new voting rules from the state's election board now being put on hold. On Tuesday, a Georgia judge paused new rules passed by the Republican Majority Board, which would have mandated hand counting the number of ballots cast at each polling place. This could have significantly slowed down the vote counting process on election night.

In his order tossing out the rule, Judge Robert McBurney writing this, quote, this election season is fraught. Memories of January 6th have not faded away, regardless of one's view of that day's fame or infamy. Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process deserves the public.

Another rule, which would have allowed local election officials to not certify the election, was also set aside. Georgia's Secretary of State opposed the election board's new rules and welcomed the judge's ruling. Not enough monitors. There wasn't enough processes put around this. It's just, it's a bad idea to ever change rules this close to an election, especially on something that can open up the chain of custody like that, which we think is really against the law. All right, panelists back. Again, this...

We are 20 days out, and sometimes with polling and horse races, it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. But the emerging forest is one where there are potential challenges across the map to the way that these votes are being counted, to the way that they are being certified and these electors are being sent to the U.S. Capitol. As that judge noted, Isaac, memories of January 6th are relevant.

And I think it's worth noting that the state elected officials in Georgia are Republicans. And while this election board has Republicans on it, it's not as though it's Democrats who are trying to do one thing or the other. These are Republicans who are saying we can't change the rules this late in the game. Yeah. Some of this reminds me of I remember in August of 2020, a source of mine called me up and said, what do you know about the Electoral Count Act of 1887? And I said, what are you talking about?

I was just reading about it last night. Now, I ended up reading a bunch about it then and writing an article. Many of us have had to get refreshed on that, yes? But the difference of now versus then is that there have been some changes to the Electoral Count Act, but also everybody is aware of what happens on January 6th and that there is this certification thing. Of course, it's not like there had not been previous challenges to things like that.

Things in in the 2004 election. Yes, but what happened on January 6th as we were just discussing is different the question that is now in front of people is what else can be done given the changes and the attention to January 6 and the weaker points in the chain of Certifying the election are the local county boards and the state capitals and that's what you see happening here and there is a clear attempt by

Trump supporting officials and whether they're these people on the Georgia board or Republican members of Congress in Pennsylvania who have pushed for changing the way overseas and military votes would be counted to change the rules in the final weeks here.

And in a way that does seem intended to have there be a result on election night that they can point to as Donald Trump on election night 2020 said, I won, even though there were still votes being counted. And then have that sow some doubts, at least, about where things are.

if Harris takes the lead later in that week. - I think it's also worth noting the Trump team has been very public about the fact that they have built a lot of their infrastructure, a lot of their legal infrastructure on their campaign and in their affiliated groups.

around challenging election results. I mean, they've been clear that a lot of their resources, rather than putting them toward the kind of more traditional get out the vote, rather than dedicating them to efforts to legitimately win the election, they are spending a lot of time both hiring people to contest the results of these elections, of the election,

And also talking very publicly about how that is a big piece of their legal strategy. So that should give everybody some concern. Look, I'll just say also, we spent the last several years saying that Georgia was instituting Jim Crow 2.0 laws. It was done by Democrats, the media. Yeah, MLB all started getting pulled out over these laws. And what we're seeing is 300,000 people on day one, 123% more than the biggest record day in 2020. I think it's a very sensitive area for Republicans because we heard this kind

lie parroted over and over again. And it's easier for people to vote, not harder in Georgia. All right. Straight ahead here on CNN this morning, 20 days to go until Election Day, just 87 days into Kamala Harris's whirlwind presidential campaign. If you can believe that, we'll go behind the scenes. Plus, Donald Trump hoping support among evangelicals will help propel him to victory. We're going to speak live with the chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Ralph Reed.

Harris pulls well against Trump, so I think she has a real shot at winning. Relieved and hopeful, I feel like I can breathe again. What does this even mean for us? What is about to happen here? Like I said, I'm still trying to process this cuz I'm literally just like, damn, wow.

The news that President Joe Biden was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the new Democratic nominee met by voters on July 21st with a mix of skepticism, confusion, and as you saw there, excitement. Harris's quick ascension to the top of the ticket gave way to an equally quick campaign. She had just over 100 days to convince voters that she was the right person to lead the country.

As The New Yorker's Evan Osnos writes in his new piece, quote, Harris's sudden arrival at the forefront of American politics summoned the prospect that, as John F. Kennedy put it in 1961, the torch has been passed to a new generation. But it also evoked a less often cited part of Kennedy's formulation, his description of Americans as tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and

and bitter peace. And joining our panel now is the author of that story, CNN contributor, and staff writer for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos. Evan, good morning. Thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. This is, as we were discussing, a very long story about the, you know, 100-ish days that Harris has had to run here. It's unlike anything, any of us, that I've covered.

in modern presidential political history. Take us inside kind of what you have learned about the campaign as you're reporting this out. I mean, I think it's worth noting you were Joe Biden's, are Joe Biden's biographer. And this was an incredibly remarkable moment for him, but it has moved on now. Yeah, well, there was this extraordinary thing that happened.

in American political history, which was 100 days, more or less, before the election, you had a complete change at the top of the ticket. And you remember, there was nothing preordained. There was nothing guaranteed that it was going to be Kamala Harris as the nominee. In fact, the day that that happened, there were a lot of stories at the time, people who would be generally friendly to Democrats who said, "We're not sure this is a good idea."

There was this behind-the-scenes drama going on, and the way to understand it is that Kamala Harris basically said, if people want to have town halls, they want to have an open convention, sure, I'll join that process, but I'm not waiting around for that to happen. In effect, she said, good luck with your town halls. And she was locking down these delegates, making phone calls. And the reason why that's important is that within 24 hours, she had this nailed. And the thing that what that reveals to us is,

She is not a casual political player. You know, she has spent her whole life, more or less, rising rapidly through political offices. She lost the 2019 primary. It's the only time she's ever really lost a race. She then went on and became VP. She is fairly, I would say, fairly fierce when it comes to making political progress, making political progress.

achievements and she's done it for herself, but it's also at the core of her political mission. It's ambition. I would say it's an ambition to widen the perimeter of political power to people who are at this point outsiders who she thinks should be insiders and she includes herself in that process. But that means a lot of people who are otherwise overlooked by politics and those are the people who feel seen by her

sudden ascent to the top of American politics. How did she manage to pull off locking all of this down? She clearly was doing a lot of work behind the scenes that we didn't know about at the time at a very sensitive moment where she was Biden's number two. How did she go about doing that? Yeah, it's really an interesting story that is

At the center of it is the Dobbs decision, the decision to overturn Roe. It sort of clarified her vice presidency. Going into that up until the spring of 2022, it wasn't really clear to her what it is that she could be doing, should be doing, and what was her distinct value add.

After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it was suddenly clear that she could do something Joe Biden could not. He was a conflicted Catholic president who couldn't talk about abortion in a way that would feel authentic to people. She went out on the road. She started convening people in all kinds of states and not just abortion rights advocates, but people working on democracy issues in other ways and saying to them the same thing over and over. You all should be coordinating and cooperating. And that became this substructure of support that on July 21st,

became the people who pushed her over the line. - Yeah, as somebody who was there in the White House at that time, I think that is exactly right. She sort of post-Dobbs, excuse me, I think really did find her footing and you could see even internally as you're making decisions in a White House about where the president's going, where the vice president's going, who's speaking to what,

she really was aggressive in kind of grabbing the ring and saying, you know, I wanna help be the standard bearer on this argument about Roe. So it, absolutely, I can say your reporting bears out what I certainly experienced. And I think it did kind of open up for her the idea of, you know, this is where she could really make a huge difference. - The other thing that was going on is that she,

coming off of the Dobbs decision, started to look at the 2028 primaries and thinking that's where this is going to play out. And to elbow people out of the challenging her in 2028, she did not expect to be running in 2024. And there was a lot that was going on as she built up these networks, taught who would

have reporters in, never me I should say, for Off the Record. - She did that when she first came to Washington too. I did it with her when she was a senator. - She had these sessions with black men. The focus that she's gotten these last couple weeks is something that she was doing a year ago.

Really, they had lists of people that would be potential delegates to a Democratic convention, that she was flying on Air Force Two with her. All these things, which was meant to do, like, three years from now, what she did over the course of about 30 hours in July. So, Evan, one of the other things that you write here, too, and this goes to, I mean...

President Biden had been saying part of why he didn't drop out earlier was that he didn't think she could win. And then he started to turn and ask, well, can Kamala Harris win? You write this about Democrats who are concerned about what's going to happen. Quote, if Trump returns to the White House, and especially if he does so after losing the popular vote again, the voters who were thrilled to Harris's sudden assent will be profoundly demoralized. Already, according to the University of Chicago poll, 58% of young people say that American democracy isn't working.

Ben Rhodes, former Obama aide, told me, quote, I think the Democratic Party would have an internal reckoning of a kind that we haven't had in my memory. The stakes, very high. I mean, look, Democrats have won the popular vote in presidential elections seven out of the last eight times. And twice on those occasions, in 2000 and 2016, the presidency went to the other side. And I think there is a generation of young people who are looking at this moment and saying, hold on a second.

We're doing what you asked of us. We're going to turn out to vote. And if, in fact, they manage to win the popular vote and they don't get the electoral college, there's going to be a real crisis of legitimacy for American democracy that I think is something we have to prepare for. I think that Tim Wall's position will suddenly become mainstream in the Democratic Party about abolishing electoral college, number one. But I think one of the things that you talked about, I think, was very interesting, how when she was making the calls of Shapiro and Whitmer and

Mark Kelly, it was immediate that they offered their supporter, at least somewhat immediate. It seems there's a calculation there where, here you go, Kamala, have your fun. This is your shot in 24. God bless you. You better win. Otherwise, we'll be there in 28. It seemed like they were willing to give her a shot this time. I think there is a recognition this is a tough year, but her career...

has been about these accelerated timelines. You know, she got to Washington, she was elected in 2016 thinking she'd be serving with Hillary Clinton as president. Instead, all of a sudden, she's instantly a contender for president in 2019. All of a sudden, she had this accelerated timeline again this year. And what we saw this time was that she was a lot more prepared this time than she was last year. And it's really been a story of

whether i mean because you could see this when she came to the senate learning the lay of the land sometimes making a couple mistakes pulling back a little bit figuring it out and then going forward and taking the next step ahead evan osnos love the piece highly recommend it thank you so much for coming in i really appreciate it

All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump defending their disparate personal styles. Trump reframing his sometimes long and winding answers as the weave, while Harris pushes back against a radio host who called her answers scripted. Plus, Donald Trump's based with support with evangelical Christians. I'm going to talk to Ralph Reed, the founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and ask him about how Trump speaks to religious communities. I'm not going to call this as a prediction, but

In my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss. Hiya, it's Kush Jumbo here. The next guest on my podcast, Origins, is Dame Anna Winter. She is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, a champion of the arts and the last word in fashion. We talk behind the scenes at the Met Gala, the type of people she simply can't stand, and find out what her own daughter Bea has to say about her. Well, that's lovely.

Listen to Origins with Kush Jumbo wherever you get your podcasts. November 5th is going to be called something else. You know, it's going to be called Christian Visibility Day when Christians turn out in numbers that nobody has ever seen before. Let's call it Christian Visibility Day.

Donald Trump has long courted the votes of America's over 200 million Christians, despite the fact that only 14% of American adults say that the word Christian describes Trump either extremely or very well.

He has earned the support of one influential evangelical organization that's worked particularly hard to buoy Trump's ground campaign this cycle. The Faith and Freedom Coalition has already knocked on three million doors in battleground states on Trump's behalf and plans to spend more money than ever to mobilize religious voters. Here was Trump speaking to that group in June.

Christians cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. If Joe Biden gets back in, Christianity will not be safe in a nation with no borders, no laws, no freedom, no future. They're not going to be safe. You're not going to be safe as a person. And your religion certainly will be, I think, in tatters. We answer to God in heaven. You're not even allowed to say that anymore. Today, if you say that, they want to arrest you.

joining us now exclusively is ralph reed the founder and chairman of the faith and freedom coalition uh sir thank you so much for being on the program i appreciate you being here sure casey good to be with you so i'd like to ask you uh this time around obviously when donald trump ran first ran for president in 2016 there was a lot of skepticism from evangelical voters especially on where he would stand on the issue of abortion because he had uh

said things in the past when he's, of course, a New Yorker. He had seemed to be pro-choice in some instances. He put out that list of people that he would appoint to the Supreme Court. It seems to mollify a lot of fears. He obviously put a number of those justices on the court, has since bragged about overturning Roe versus Wade. This time around, though, there's been some back and forth because with the fall of Roe and the return of abortion to becoming a really central issue, especially for Democrats,

There have been questions about where Trump stands. For example, would he veto a national abortion ban if he becomes president again? The answer to that seems to be that yes, he would veto that. Are you comfortable with where he is now? And are evangelical voters still willing to trust him considering how this specific issue has evolved in recent years?

Well, I think it's a great question, Casey. And for me personally, I know the president personally. I've talked with him about this issue for years, frankly. And I have no reservations at all.

I know that he's pro-life personally. I know that he is the most pro-life president in American history. He defunded Planned Parenthood. He appointed not one, not two, but three Supreme Court justices that made it possible for Roe v. Wade to be overturned after over a half century of social struggle on behalf of the pro-life movement and

and many conservative Bible believing evangelicals. So I'm very comfortable with where he is. And I would just add one other thing. He's running on a platform that asserts that the unborn child has a right to life that cannot be infringed without due process of law already under the U.S. Constitution, under the 14th Amendment's due process clause. So he asserts and the party asserts

that the unborn child is a person who has a right to life and liberty that can't be infringed without due process. That language in one form or another has been in the platform since Ronald Reagan in 1984. And in terms of the national abortion law, we certainly favor that, and we would wish that any president would sign it.

But the reality is you need 60 votes in the Senate and that's not likely to happen in the short term. And behind door number two is Kamala Harris running on the most radical and extreme pro-abortion agenda of any candidate in history, pledging to pass a law that would codify into federal law, not Roe v. Wade, but what would go beyond Roe v. Wade,

what would provide taxpayer funding of abortion, elective abortion under Medicaid for the first time since the Hyde Amendment became law in 1978 and would allow abortion at any stage of pregnancy in all 50 states

it would immediately repeal many of the common sense restrictions on abortion that had been passed in recent decades by the state. So I think for these voters of faith, Casey, the contrast could not be sharper, could not be more dramatic, and that's why I think they're coming and they're gonna come in record numbers. - What do you hear when former President Trump says when he talks about abortion that Republicans have to win elections? What does that say to you?

Look, I think what he's doing is recognizing the political reality. You know, and it reminds me of that very famous Time magazine cover, I think from 1993, as I recall, which was then the anniversary of Roe. And they said feminists won an historic victory with Roe v. Wade. And the sub headline was they'd been losing ever since.

And my concern is that that not be said about our movement in 30 or 40 years. We won a huge victory with Dobbs.

But that then led to a counter reaction by the pro-choice and the pro-abortion forces. And we're in a real fight right now. And he's just simply making the point that, look, I gave it back to the states. The court gave it back to the states. That's where it had been throughout American history prior to Roe. That's where it belongs. Family law has historically always been the domain of the states.

And let's not let them mischaracterize our views on this issue. And let's not let them tell lies about our stands. And they're doing that right now in many of these states. It's really, Casey, the only issue they've got. They can't run on the economy. They can't run on inflation. They can't run on crime. They can't run on immigration or the border.

You know, they got one arrow in their quiver and that's all they're firing. So that's really all he's saying. Sir, we have a little bit of news from the president. We don't have the video of this quite yet. It was taped in a Fox News town hall yesterday. We're going to be able to see it on the air here in a couple hours or so. Donald Trump called himself, quote,

the father of IVF. And he, of course, he says, he goes on to say, we are really the party for IVF. We want fertilization. It's all the way. The Democrats tried to attack us on it. And we're out there on IVF even more than them. Are you comfortable with Donald Trump calling himself the father of IVF? And are you completely morally comfortable with IVF?

I personally am and our organization is. I mean obviously there are moral and ethical concerns when you're fertilizing embryos, when you're dealing with a fertility situation in terms of how many are fertilized and how they're dealt with. Are they discarded? Is it done willy-nilly? Is there no concern at all for moral, ethical and religious concerns? I think we can work through those issues.

But Casey, we're pro-life and this is about couples that are struggling to have a child, to bring a life into the world. I don't see how we could say we're pro-life and say that we don't want to help struggling couples have children. We want more people to bring lives, unborn children, to fruition and to life. And so I don't have any issue with it at all.

All right, Ralph Reed for us this morning. Sir, grateful to have your perspective on the program. Thanks very much for coming by. You bet. Good to be with you. All right, still come here on CNN this morning. Just like the candidates themselves, how Donald Trump and Kamala Harris approaches to public appearances could not be more different.

Until someone has heard the same thing at least three times, it just doesn't stay with you. So repetition is important. You can't go that quickly. You've gone from the dollar to the macro. So let me just tell you. So I said, no, I'm just telling you basic. It's called the weave. It's all these different things happening. All right, let's turn out of this. Two very different candidates, you may have noticed. Two very different personas. Watch.

Go and vote. Let me hear that music, please. Everyone, let's thank President Trump. Nice and loud. So play YMCA. Go ahead. Let's go. Nice and loud. That was Trump this week at an event in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. It started as a town hall. It turned into an impromptu 30-minute dance party. He is, of course, known for his unpredictability, off-the-cuff remarks. An exchange between Trump and Bloomberg News yesterday maybe best describes how he seems to approach interviews.

All these different things happening. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, responded to criticism that she's too on-message.

One thing they've been saying, a lot of your press hits get criticized. You know, folks say you come off as very scripted. They say you like to stick to your talking points. And some media says you have. That would be called discipline. Oh, OK. What do you say to people who say you stay on the talking points? I would say you're welcome. I would say you're welcome. I mean, Kate, I will say. As a communications staffer.

I'm like, yeah. Yes. You're welcome to stream. You're welcome indeed. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice President. But, I mean, there is this sort of change in our kind of way of consuming all sorts of media. But the way we... I mean...

somebody showing up on your device like right here is a very personal way of being in someone's life it's the way many young people are used to experiencing politicians and this is part where the criticism of her is coming from that she is scripted and on these talking points

I will say her strategy has been to put herself into new and different situations in the last week because they seem to recognize she potentially needs to do that. But what are voters demanding from their politicians in this regard right now?

Look, authenticity is always the coin of the realm. I mean, that's for politicians. You want to feel authentic. You want people to feel like they're getting the real you. And there is sometimes a fine line you have to walk because you also have to hit a message repeatedly in order for people to hear it, especially in a fractured media environment where people are no longer tuning in just to broadcast news at the end of the day to see what happened and reading the paper in the morning. So there is... We still read the paper.

Here we do. Here we do. Here we do. But I take your point. Absolutely. So there is often a fine line. I think, you know, the problem for Trump, I mean, yeah, there are elements of his sort of wackiness that people connect with. I would concede that. Absolutely. But

But when somebody is weaving off message, it also matters what they're saying when they weave. And when he weaves and says things like, you know, that we're going to use the military to attack the enemy within, you know, he is showing you his authentic self. And that...

I hope, is a problem for voters. Well, in some ways it's what's different between Trump now and Trump in 2016 when the weaving and all over the place, it looked more like the dance party. There were more funny moments. There was less of this sort of darkness. You're entertaining, absolutely. And Kate's right on authenticity entirely. I think as a communicator, regardless of party, you don't really want either.

Because the reason I say it is this. Let's say this. If you don't want to answer a question, you want to make it as seamless as possible that you're not actually answering the question. And you also want to make the thing that you've said 10 times

and feel as if you're saying it for the first time. So if the criticism of your candidate or you is that you're too scripted or that you weave all over the place, neither is good. You want to make it effortlessly that you're avoiding the question or effortlessly that you're staying on message. I think that's a fine line to hew.

I mean, we can talk about the theatrics and optics or whatever. I do think those two interviews yesterday that Trump did in Chicago with the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News and that Harris did with Charlamagne Tha God are actually, that they happen to be on the same day, three weeks after the election,

Is convenient because they are both really good portraits of who these candidates are and what they're talking about Both of them were meeting interviews They the way that Trump and Harris each responded to ask being asked to talk about specifics what they said about some of the specifics the way that both of them responded to being challenged and how the there was a combativeness from Trump and Not not in the same way from Harris it

It really, for people who haven't watched or listened to either of them, I think it's a good idea to play them side by side. And I think one of the best things she did in that interview was, you know, she was really forceful about rejecting kind of the premise of his question. I mean, you heard it in that exchange. She said, you know, I call that discipline. And he said, ooh. And that, you know, showing that you're not cowed by a potentially critical question. Really very interesting moment. Thank you, guys. We're over 7 o'clock. I really appreciate it.

Thanks to our panel. Thanks to you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now. 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.