Waking Up to Destruction
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for every life-saving treatment, for every next step, for every care in the world. Cleveland Clinic. It's Friday, September 27th, right now on CNN This Morning. This is undoubtedly the worst I've seen. Waking up to destruction, Helene, now a tropical storm after making landfall in Florida's Big Bend as the strongest hurricane there on record. Plus, rescues through the night, dozens of people saved from rising floodwaters. And this.

Hunker down, let this thing pass. Tropical Storm Helene's wrath not over yet. The monster storm weakening as it moves up through Georgia, but the destruction is mounting. And later, assessing the damage, former FEMA Administrator Brock Long joins me live to talk about what's next for these communities.

6 a.m. here in Washington, a live look at Atlanta, Georgia, where they are bracing for what is now Tropical Storm Helene. It is heading their way. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Devastation across Florida, a deadly tornado in Georgia, and historic flooding in the Carolinas. Tropical Storm Helene now moving north after making landfall late last night as a Category 4 hurricane. Here comes a big one. Here comes a big one.

With winds of 140 mph, Haleen was the strongest storm ever to hit Florida's Big Bend region. At least three people have died of storm-related injuries and officials fear that number will grow. Somehow we gotta get people to realize that these aren't just an interesting phenomenon. They're very, very deadly. We're probably going to lose a lot of lives in this setup with this much flooding potential.

We've got this video coming to us from Lee County, Florida, showing police venturing out into the floodwaters to rescue residents trapped by the life-threatening storm surge. And this from Steenhatchee, Florida. You see entire homes floating away in the water carried by that record-setting storm surge. Fortunately, the storm chaser who provided CNN with this video said those homes appear to have been previously evacuated.

In Florida alone, more than a million people are without power this morning. In other states, including Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, hundreds of thousands have lost power, that number only rising. The sheer power and size of this storm is difficult to comprehend, but plain to see in these images captured from the International Space Station.

This is the worst probably we've seen in our area in 100 years. I know I've been in Sarasota for 22 years and I've never seen anything like this. All right, CNN has team coverage throughout the morning as Helene moves up the East Coast. Our Ryan Young is in Atlanta, but let's begin with CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar. Allison, what is the latest?

Right, so I cannot emphasize enough to people just because this has made landfall does not mean this is over. In fact, the worst is yet to come for some of these communities, especially the areas where we're still going to see the bulk of this rain. It is a tropical storm, sustained winds of 70 mph that alone can do a significant amount of damage in terms of bringing trees and power lines down. But flooding is going to be the biggest concern, especially scope wise.

The green indicates a flood watch for flooding is potentially going to happen today. The red is where we have active ongoing flooding as we speak, and these three white little outlined areas. These are flash flood emergencies. We have three separate ones in Western North Carolina, one of which includes the city of Asheville, NC. This area has had over 11 inches of rain in just the last about

48 hours and again you also have some of these other areas too that have picked up about a foot of rain and a lot of that rain. You also have high terrain here, so a lot of that is flowing down. They've had reports of landslides. Excuse me, they've also had water rescues they've had to do and a lot of the roadways are just completely underwater. As we speak, the unfortunate part is the rain is not done. You have a lot more rain that is really surging into western North Carolina and will continue to do so for hours.

hours where they're going to continue to see more of that rain. And it's not just North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky. All of these areas are going to continue to see that rainfall for the next at least six hours. We also have tornado warning, several of them active as we speak across the state of South Carolina.

There is watches in effect for portions of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. It is very likely that will get expanded farther north to include northern North Carolina and even into portions of Virginia because this is where the threat area is going to be for today in terms of the potential for tornadoes. So again, Casey, we're talking tornadoes, but we're also talking the greater threat here of rain throughout the rest of the day today.

All right, Allison Chinchar for us this morning. Allison will be checking in with you throughout the morning. Thank you. And Tropical Storm Helene now charging through Georgia. These are live pictures in Atlanta of rescuers there at the

work as the state braces for widespread power outages. I think you can see a dog there in that picture as well. And CNN's Ryan Young joins us live now from Atlanta with the latest. Ryan, what else are you seeing out there?

Really, that's the real concern right now. All this extra water that we're getting, Casey, I can tell you for weeks, it's been very dry here. We've had rain for the last 48 hours. More than seven inches of rain have fallen in the metro Atlanta area. And like you said, there's those active water rescues that are happening right now. We're still trying to

get the numbers of how many people have been rescued. We know of several different apartment complexes that have been impacted. And of course, we haven't even gotten close to first light yet. And this rain continues to fall. Power outages throughout South Georgia have made things pretty difficult for people in terms of being home. But this storm is really impacting Georgia in a different way. It's not often that the city of Atlanta deals with a tropical storm warning.

So now we're seeing the impact of some gust of winds, power outages, and the heavy rainfall. And the real concern here is the large trees because they're all over this city. You don't want them falling on power lines or into homes. We know several trees are falling on the cars throughout the area. Hey, Ryan, let me just pause you for one second, Ryan, because we're looking live here at what appears to be the rescue of, I think, a dog here.

maybe a baby as well. We're gonna maybe re-rack that tape and take a look at it, but these again

are are live rescuers I in in Atlanta here I have you know boots on the ground in in these storm waters trying to help folks who are trapped there's the dog Mary is I'm very grateful to them and and Ryan I'm so sorry that I I interrupted you again I think it's important to tell our viewers that this is I this is ongoing this is just the beginning of this for Atlanta and we're already seeing this level I'll work out there

Well, if you think about it, infrastructure-wise, this is not like a coastal city. So it's not really built to handle heavy amounts of water like we're seeing right now, especially in a 48-hour period. So we're probably going to see more rescues just like this one. As somebody who's lived in this area for quite some time, we know there are several creeks that sort of overflow every time there's a heavy rain.

Well, then you have to triple that right now. And then you add on the fact that stormwater drains have to be cleared because there's always debris in that area. So the rescues, we've been told, have been ongoing. We know emergency management was ready and prepared for some of these areas. But right now, this is the active situation where they are trying to get some of those folks out of those apartments and some of the homes across the metro area.

Yeah, so Ryan, how long do we anticipate this to be ongoing for the Atlanta region? I mean, are people going to be looking at staying in their homes all day? Because I know the storm has been very fast moving. Well, that's the only good news so far is that storm is very fast moving. But we're wondering behind the storm, will there be more rainfall? So there have been some estimates by 12 o'clock this afternoon that we could see some clearing skies. They're already predicting a nice weekend here.

But you just never know. We know cancellations at the airport are already above 100. And it looks like maybe this afternoon things will start to clear up. But at this point, it would be interesting to see if that storm continues to move at the fast pace of over 40 miles per hour as it moves closer to north Georgia.

Yeah, all right. Ryan Youngforest, thank you. And of course, great to see those heroic rescue efforts, those people putting their lives on the line to save people. In this case, we think we see some pets being saved as well. So many Americans owe so much to all the first responders who are working on this storm.

throughout the night and into this morning. Ryan, thank you very much. We'll be back with you later on. And coming up here on CNN this morning, the New York City mayor accused of accepting bribes, the corruption charges that Eric Adams now faces as he maintains he's innocent. Plus, today, Vice President Harris heads to the border where she hopes to show toughness on immigration. We'll talk about that. And we will, of course, continue to track

Tropical Storm Helene as it moves northward with unsurvivable storm surges, Florida preparing for a daunting day ahead. The state is ready as soon as this storm passes and it's safe to do so to commence search and rescue operations.

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Today's indictment sends a powerful message to every elected official in this country. Public service is a profound responsibility and should be a noble calling. When that's perverted by greed and dishonesty, it robs us of our trust.

That was FBI Assistant Director James Dennehy discussing the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams is accused of accepting bribes from Turkish officials in exchange for pressuring the fire department to give a permit to the Turkish consulate, even though their building had failed to pass inspection. It's an unfortunate day and it's a painful day. But inside of all of that, it's a day when we will finally reveal

why for 10 months I have gone through this. And I look forward to defending myself and defending the people of this city as I've done throughout my entire professional career.

All right, according to the indictment, Adams planned a trip to Turkey in 2021 and allegedly directed his staff to coordinate with Turkish Airlines to get him a massive discount on two business class flights that should have cost more than $15,000. A manager for the airline told an Adams staffer this, quote, I am going to charge $50. The Adams staffer replied, no, the manager. That would work, wouldn't it? No, dear, the staffer replied, $50, what? Quote, $80.

quote, a proper price. The manager then asked, how much should I charge? And added a smiling emoji. The Adams staffer said this, quote, his every step is being watched right now. $1,000 or so. Let it be somewhat real. We don't want them to say he's flying for free. At the moment, the media's attention is on Eric.

Adams ended up paying $1,100 each for two tickets, both of which were immediately upgraded to business class. Our panelists here, Isaac Dover, CNN senior reporter, Sarah Longwell, executive director of the Republican Accountability Project, Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director, and Brad Todd, Republican strategist, partner at the public strategy firm On Message.

Welcome to all of you. Isaac Dover, you have known Eric Adams for decades. This is Grand Theft Ottoman. I was excited to see what the New York Post might do with this this morning. They didn't fail to deliver. We were talking in the break in language that, quite frankly, is not family-friendly, especially not great for six in the morning. But can you give us the family-friendly version of what is up with this? I mean, there has been...

a long history of Eric Adams having associations with people who have ended up in legal trouble. And he has, from when he was in the state senate, Brooklyn Borough President, Mayor, this has been just part of the story of Eric Adams, along with the rest of the story of Eric Adams, a police officer and a successful politician, obviously.

He has also been known as mayor for, and when he was running for mayor, for it not being clear where he lives, where he works, who he's dating, who he is having romantic relationships

liaisons beyond dating with, where he spends his evenings, all of this stuff, just all these questions about Adams, right? Whether he's a vegetarian or not, right? And you see in this indictment some of that behavior kind of slipping into

more illicit behavior, obviously, and what's charged here. The other thing that I think is clear from this indictment is that there is likely more coming. We knew earlier in the week that this is all about his relationship with Turkey and the Turkish government, but that there is reporting that it has expanded to five other countries that they're looking at, including South Korea and Israel and a number of others. This is not going away.

And Adams, his way of dealing with it, I would say to me the most notable part of the indictment is a moment where when, you might remember that last fall the FBI seized his phones. They stopped his motorcade and they went and they grabbed his phones. And what the indictment says happened is that a couple days before that, Adams changed the password on his iPhone to have a six-digit code instead of a four-digit code.

And he told the investigators that he did that so that none of his staff would go into his phone and delete any emails that might be pertinent to the investigation. And the FBI said, OK, so what's your code? He said, oh, I forgot it.

You forget your own iPhone code so that they can't open it is the point. Right, exactly. Right, yeah. Kate Bedingfield, this guy was like, you know, Democrats were thrilled when he got elected. They thought he was this rising star, you know, willing to sort of this more moderate way of going about things. Significant fall from grace. Is he going to have to resign?

Look, I think so. I don't think this. So it's kind of interesting because on the one hand, I guess some of the conversation around this this morning is about sort of how kind of relatively small this seems. We're talking about first class flights in exchange for, you know, clearing essentially a building for. Right. Like they wanted the Turkey president to come and be able to go to the consulate. So they're like, please, like open it.

- Right, right. In some ways it feels very small ball, but it's also, I mean, you know, you're talking about clearing a building with safety permits when it was not, we didn't deserve those permits. I mean, those are tangible things. Like think to the average person, you see that and like that is the definition of corruption. So,

Look, we'll see what happens in terms of the pressure mounting. Obviously, you've had prominent Democrats start to call for him to step down. I think he should. I don't know that there is a path forward here, especially if, as Isaac suggests, there may be more coming. I think once you lose the public's trust in this way...

it's very hard to continue to lead effectively so I think he should step down but we'll see. But he's running the Trump playbook right? Unless you're not Bob Menendez you stay in office after you've been accused of robbery and he shouldn't have. But ultimately he was convicted. One of the things that has been notable about this era is the asymmetry between

how Democrats treat their corrupt politicians and the way Republicans treat their corrupt politicians. Republicans celebrate their corrupt politicians. In fact, they renominate them for president after they tried to steal an election and lied about the fact that it was free and fairly held. Whereas Democrats, we see one after the other, as soon as they looks like they're corrupt, they cut bait.

- Well, we're still waiting on Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. - That's right. Well, I think there is something lost with Eric Adams once he steps off the stage, which he inevitably will. You know, he was a black cop who's willing to criticize the defund the police movement. He said AOC was endangering the lives of New Yorkers. He criticized the Biden administration's

policy of putting migrants in big cities like that. So Democrats need some people like Eric Adams who will go against their more extreme elements and we'll lose that something. Well, of course, the Biden administration stopped talking to Adams after a lot of that criticism. And AOC was one of the first people out there saying Adam should step down. It's all connected. All right. Straight ahead here on CNN this morning, an epic storm overwhelming Florida. Almost the entire island of Clearwater Beach was underwater.

The latest on the search and rescue operations after a direct hit from what was Hurricane Helene. Plus, how long will it take to recover from this devastating storm? A former head of FEMA joins us.

Alright, tropical storm Helene pounding Florida overnight with rain and winds of 150 mph or more. What was once a category 4 hurricane now moving inland. This video from just moments ago showing a family with a baby and two dogs being rescued in Atlanta. And then take a look at this video from Steenhatchee, FL. A house floating away. FEMA is urging people to take the storm's threat seriously, also assuring that they are prepared.

At the President's direction, we have over 1,100 personnel so far across the federal government supporting the preparedness efforts for this storm. We also have an additional 700 personnel from FEMA that are already in these states supporting other disasters that we can quickly pivot to support any of the response needs as needed. We are ready for this event.

All right, joining us now is former FEMA Administrator Brock Long. Sir, thank you so much for joining the program this morning. I mean, you have been in it. You have been the person at that podium. You have responded to these kinds of disasters. This one, the language that officials have been using is, frankly, apocalyptic in terms of the storm surge and other effects. What have you seen so far? And how do you think officials are going to be managing this response?

There's so much to learn from this storm, and I think it's a reminder that every storm is different. They're unique. They attack us in different ways.

A couple of things. I think the biggest reminder is that hurricanes are not just coastal events. I mean, here I am, you know, an hour north of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Hickory, North Carolina. I'm in Hickory, and we've been seeing rainfall and high winds since yesterday, flooding in the North Carolina mountains as Helene was well offshore. The other thing that really sticks out to me is that the Tampa Bay Clearwater area, St. Pete area, experienced the highest storm surge since 1993, if my facts are correct on that.

And this should be a real wake up call to that area. And we have to have serious conversations about the cultural preparedness within our citizenry, particularly on the Florida West Coast.

But, you know, right now FEMA has been well ahead of the storm. As Administrator Criswell, you know, has said earlier, they've been pre-deploying teams and equipment, personnel, and capability forward in advance of this storm. So most importantly what they do is, you know, they're putting urban search and rescue teams strategically located in areas ready to go for the response side.

And obviously the mission right now is search and rescue, but that mission will eventually transition over to stabilizing critical infrastructure and life sustainment. So, sir, when we look at these pictures and you mentioned the West Coast of Florida, what

What should residents there be thinking about as they are making decisions about their futures, especially if they have to rebuild? I mean, there seem to be serious questions around a changing climate that, I mean, insurance companies are seeing it, right? I mean, they're refusing to insure some places in these areas now. It's a real problem for residents across the state of Florida. Do we need to be rethinking how we rebuild in the wake of some of these storms?

I yes absolutely I think you know one of the problems with the disaster declaration process that congress needs to rethink is how do we build in incentives for states and communities that do the right thing and what I mean by that is states that are well advanced in land use planning you know implementing the the latest international code council building code standards uh properly ensuring their infrastructure if it's insurable

Those communities, in my opinion, should be rewarded for doing the right thing as we face a change in climate and future hazards.

unknown hazards in the future. We've really got to have that understanding with Congress and start to build in those incentives. I don't blame the insurance companies for moving out. We have to invite the insurance companies back to the table and figure out how to buy down risk in the future and figure out a model that works. Right now, one of the biggest problems with FEMA's ability to operate and fully execute its mission is that

they're constantly having to operate off of disaster supplementals into the Disaster Relief Fund. And so for three months, unfortunately, FEMA has been forced to implement what's called immediate needs funding, which means they can only really spend money on life safety missions. They can't actually execute long-term mitigation and long-term recovery missions. And so when you look back since 1992, FEMA, a third of FEMA's disaster relief funding has come in the form of disaster supplementals.

One, we've got to remove the politics away from FEMA and out of the disaster process. And we've got to come up with a more consistent funding process. And then again, one of the things that I'm most proud of, and you know, when I was in office is we passed the building resilient infrastructure and communities, you know, program. We were able to get that program up and running to really start, you know, having an honest conversation about what's gotta be mitigated in the future so that we don't see our infrastructure going down as easily.

All right. Brock Long for us this morning, former FEMA administrator. Sir, thanks very much for being on the program. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you, Casey. Thank you so much. All right. Still to come here after the break, Ukraine's President Zelensky preparing to meet with Donald Trump. I'll meet with President Zelensky and we'll see what happens. A growing divide among Democrats and Republicans over the war in Ukraine. Of course, a defining issue in the presidential race. Plus...

Tropical storm Helene wreaking havoc on the southeast United States. We're going to be live in North Carolina amid flooding that officials are calling catastrophic as rescues continue in Atlanta. So we've been doing water rescues all night and with this one the vehicle was traveling in through the water.

and the vehicle started to float and it floated off the roadway. They were able to get out of the vehicle and get on top of the vehicle. Once they got on top of the vehicle and we arrived, we were able to hook up a system to where we could lower the boat over to them because the current is very strong. It's the new Ghost Burger from Carl's Jr. It's a juicy char-boiled Angus beef burger.

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all right just hours from now donald trump and ukrainian president vladimir zelensky are set to meet at trump tower just a day after the ukrainian leader met with trump's presidential rival kamala harris zelensky visited the white house yesterday where he made an urgent plea to both harris and president joe biden for additional support in the war against russia harris defended ukraine as an ally and pledged to continue supporting the nation in its defense

against the Russia-launched war. It was a stark contrast to Trump's messaging ahead of his meeting with Zelensky today. -President Zelensky said that you do not understand what it takes to win this war. -Oh, then I should immediately cancel my appointment? No. He knows -- he knows I understand. Look, look, I hate to see the carnage. If I were president, it never would have happened. Russia would have never attacked Ukraine. Never, ever.

Okay, our panel is back with us. Zelensky has really stepped into U.S. politics in some interesting ways in recent days. I mean, Brad Todd, this is perhaps the sharp, I mean, it is one of the sharpest differences, right, between a Kamala Harris presidency and a second Donald Trump presidency is going to be on this issue of Ukraine. How do you think Zelensky is handling it?

Well, I think first off, he took a very big risk. He goes to a munitions plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That's home to Pennsylvania's eighth congressional district, a toss-up in a five-seat Congress. The Senate race may be the 52nd Senate seat in the Republican majority, and the presidency in that media market stepped right into that cauldron and criticized the ticket that might win. There's a 50-50 chance J.D. Vance and Donald Trump win, and he immediately criticized the people he's going to ask for help in January. It's a really, really risky political strategy by Zelensky.

well but from advance have been saying for months and months and months that they're not going to support the will lifeline to keep his country uh... able to push back against an autocrat who's coming in and taking their land so like let's be affair here i mean this is not so this is not the lindsay

initiating this conflict I mean Vance and Trump have said many many times if they take office they're going to well Trump I should say has been very clear that actually more specific I mean Vance has laid out a plan where they give the land to the Russians and create a demilitarized zone and that if anything ever signed off on my it's is said that that's why I forget the reason why he was impeached the first time which was about

giving aid to Ukraine and conditioning it on doing what he wanted politically. Trump's history on this is important, right? And I do think that Zelensky decided to make a pretty big statement, but he did not have to go to any factory. He decided to do it in Pennsylvania, as you say, in a pretty specific

place and with Josh Shapiro, a very high profile Democrat with him, of course the governor of the state, so it makes sense in that way. But it's-- - Let's go a way to say, Mike Johnson is what, the Speaker of the House got Zelensky the last tranche of aid. Only for Mike Johnson it doesn't happen.

Matt Cartwright's seat in northeast Pennsylvania is key to Mike Johnson being speaker. Going into that place was a big affront to Mike Johnson and a big mistake. Yeah, sure, but I mean, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump will very likely abandon Zelensky. And I mean, Donald Trump has made it very clear how much his allegiance lies with Vladimir Putin.

this is a real problem and a real flip for the republican party this isn't what it used to be like we were the where are your voters on this when you talk to the voters who have swung back and forth where do they come down in ukraine unfortunately they're not my voters they are the voters look this is the biggest thing that's happening with republican voters uh which is that it's about about half and half where uh donald trump has really influenced the republican party to be more isolationist they do not want to be involved in ukraine they absolutely

They basically don't want any money sent abroad, period. Like there's just this isolationism that has gripped the party. But then, of course, there's still that traditional part of the party that wants to see Ukraine supported because the Republican Party used to support our Democratic allies. But I will say, Zelensky making this move, the problem is Trump is such a vindictive

addictive and he takes these things so personally it's always about him and so this feels like for for trump he takes this as an affront to him personally zielinski going there and so zielinski probably does need to do some damage control with trump because he knows how petulant uh and yeah vindictive he is well of course

We're going to see him walk into Trump Tower today, which shows how he's understanding the situation. All right, still ahead here on CNN this morning, Vice President Kamala Harris going to the southern border today as she is trying to boost her numbers on immigration. Plus, Tropical Storm Helene impacting parts of North Carolina. We'll look at how residents are bracing for the worst flooding they've seen in a century. And with Helene's widespread damage across the southeast, how the Biden administration is preparing to respond to the storm.

We're expecting a catastrophic storm. Winds and flooding throughout the southeast, starting in Florida right now. Kamala and I have been briefed and spent many hours with FEMA.

All right, welcome back. This just in. Tropical storm Helene now to blame for a fourth fatality. A four-year-old child in North Carolina. The child died in a car crash last night as dangerous and historic flooding is now unfolding in western North Carolina. Rain already swelling rivers near Asheville well before Helene's rain even arrived. And now the area under a flash flood emergency almost a foot

of rain has fallen there just since Wednesday. CNN's Isabel Rosales is joining me now with the latest from Asheville. Isabel, good morning. What are you seeing?

Hey, Casey, good morning. Here in just the last 10 minutes, mandatory evacuation orders have been issued for residents living around the Suwananua River here in Asheville. Also happening just this morning, the power has seemingly gone out throughout the city of Asheville. As far as we can see, 71,000 customers are without electricity here throughout the state of North Carolina. Officials here are warning that catastrophic flooding is imminent.

The National Weather Service have been telling residents here to expect one of the most significant weather events in modern times for this region. And Casey, a big problem here is that the ground has already been so saturated. Flooding has been a concern recently.

way before Helene due to a totally different weather system. So let's talk about the rivers. You have the French Broad River and also the Swannanoa River. They're anticipated to crest tonight, overnight into Saturday. River levels have been around 10 feet, the level, and then expected another 10 feet. And then let's talk about the rainfall. They've had eight

inches of rain since Wednesday. Between that time and now, Helene, they're anticipating over 20 inches of rainfall. That's a very big problem. I spoke with the fire chief, Michael Hays, about what's keeping him up at night. Listen.

As a result of their foundations being undermined from the soil saturation and the other events that cause that and shifting of the ground, yes, we're absolutely very concerned about building collapses and landslides. We're talking a record-breaking storm, and we won't see this again in our lifetime. So our people here are going to live through some tough times tonight, the next days, and as we move forward.

The chief also tells me there is a FEMA team here on standby to potentially help out with any rescues that are needed. And he also talked to me about the specific nuances of the geography here in Asheville. You have the Blue Ridge Mountains. That's about 4,000 feet of elevation. And then Asheville, he says, is sort of a catch basin at the bottom. So all of this rainfall is just floating down into the bottom, into Asheville, and it has nowhere to go, Casey. The ground is too soaked, and this is really worrying him.

All right, Isabel Rosales for us this morning. Isabel, thanks very much for that. Stay safe. All right, let's turn out of this. Next week, vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz will face off on the debate stage with just a little over a month until Election Day. They're both, of course, under pressure to perform. Donald Trump's running mate giving a preview of what he hopes to convey on the stage.

And what I'm going to try to show is very simple, that the candidacy, the team of substance, the team that actually has a record that we're proud of instead of we're running away from, and the team that actually has a plan is the team of Trump vans. Meanwhile, Harris' running mate says he's been looking forward to this day since his first day on the ticket. Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires.

and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. Come on! That's not what middle America is. And I gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate the guy. All right, joining us now, CNN political commentator Michael Smirconish. He is also the host of CNN's Smirconish. Michael, it's Friday, which means it's great to see you. Thank you for being here. You've got something coming up on your show around this debate tomorrow. Talk to me a little bit about that and what you expect to see on the stage from Vance and Walls.

Nice to see you as well. And I love the clips that you just played. Tomorrow on my program, I have the last debate opponents for each of those individuals. In other words, Dr. Scott Jensen is the individual that ran against Tim Walz. Governor Walz was successful in defeating him. I'm going to take out my headset because I'm hearing feedback five seconds later.

So J.D. Vance ran against Tim Ryan. And Tim Ryan is my guest tomorrow. So too is Scott Jensen on my program tomorrow. They were the last opponents for each of these individuals. Casey, I've been looking at a lot of game tape. I watched all three of the debates between Governor Walz.

and Scott Jensen. I watched both debates between J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan, and I noted some things that I think will play out on Tuesday. They have different debate styles. As you just heard from the clips that you played, Governor Walz's style is much more folksy, much more middle America. J.D. Vance attempts to be much more intellectual in his approach. They are both very good on their feet. They're both very sharp in terms of the one-liners, and I think that

the debate could be very significant given the margin. I also think that what happens Tuesday may determine whether there really is a final presidential debate. Yeah, for sure. And it's so interesting that you will be

be talking to them and and and when you think about the different styles jd vance has sometimes struggled on the campaign trail in his interactions with especially these what we call them otr stops right you go to the local diner the local bakery or whatever there was one with a at a cheesesteak place in philadelphia that i don't know if you saw that it sort of raised my eyebrows i think he was trying to make fun of john kerry it didn't quite go the way he had planned

But he does seem like someone for whom the debate stage will feel like a more natural home. True. I think that the training that he received at the Yale Law School has put him in a position to be strong in that posture. But the styles are different. You know, it's interesting because I've already interviewed Tim Ryan. I've already interviewed Scott Jensen. They say the same thing about their opponents. Jensen says about Walls and Ryan says about Vance.

Each is very slippery. Each is very hard to pin down. Each is going to come across with a middle America type message, but it's hard to hold their feet to the fire. It's almost as if both, well, not almost as if it's as if they each have regrets about not doing something different in the debate opportunities that they had.

But listen, I woke up this morning to the latest polling data as you did. You look at that morning consult Bloomberg survey, among others. I think today you'd rather be Harris than Trump. And Tuesday night, given the closeness of this race, I think is really significant. And if I'm Donald Trump, despite what I've told the media so far about whether there'll be a future debate, I think I've got my eyes on how J.D. Vance performs. And if it doesn't go well for Vance,

I think it increases the odds that Trump desires to get back in the ring with the vice president. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, and Vance is going to be, let's be honest, performing for an audience of one, right, in Donald Trump. Michael Smirconish, thank you so much for being with us. Always love to have you. And of course, for our viewers, remember to tune in to Smirconish. It's tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN. See you next Friday. All right, we're going to turn now to this.

Do you have any plans to visit the border? I'm here in Guatemala today. At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We've been to the border. So this whole this whole this whole thing about the border, we've been to the border. We've been to the border. You haven't been to the border. And I haven't been to Europe. And I don't I don't understand the point that you're making.

So Kamala Harris is going to do that thing that has followed her for much of her term as vice president. Today, Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time as her party's presidential nominee. It's just her second border trip as vice president. The visit comes as polls consistently show voters trust Donald Trump and Republicans more to handle immigration. Trump criticizing Harris's trip yesterday. He called it a stunt that's too little, too late. Anything she says tomorrow, you know, is a fraud.

because she was the worst in history at protecting our country. So she'll try and make herself look a little bit better, but it's not possible. She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border. We would merely ask, why didn't she do it four years ago? It's a very simple question. All right, panel's back. Sarah Longwell, you're nodding.

Yeah, I mean, look, this is where Democrats are the most vulnerable. It's where she's the most vulnerable on immigration. And you hear immigration as one of the top issues after the economy from a lot of swing voters. But the other thing that's happening as I listen to voters in the focus groups is as

Kamala Harris continues to hammer on Trump about the fact that he scuttled the bipartisan deal that she and Joe Biden had worked on with some very conservative senators and come to a conclusion. Trump had, he wanted the issue to campaign on and so

He scuttled that deal and voters are hearing that. They heard that into the debate. It was for some of them, it was new information. I was going to ask you about that. I mean, did you pick that up that people had not heard about this before? Yeah, that's right. In fact, somebody said like, I found out for the first time listening to that debate that there was a border deal that Trump had gotten rid of. And so I think that if she continues to go on offense on that, I don't think

that she's going to eliminate the gap because immigration is such a central issue for Trump. It really is the thing that has made him, you know, it's the thing that built his campaign in 2016. But she's got to do something to mitigate the fact that she is seen as just having an open border policy because voters really don't like that.

Yes, so this is one thing. So I actually interviewed Harris back in 2018 on the border. She was a senator then, and we went and visited Otay Mesa, which is a border facility in California. She was, of course, senator of California at the time. Here's a clip of what she told me.

A lot of the signs at the rally you just held were people standing there saying, abolish ICE. Is that a position that you agree with? Listen, I think there's no question that we've got to critically reexamine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing. And we need to probably think about starting from scratch because there's a lot that is wrong with the way that it's conducting itself, and we need to deal with that.

So this, Kate, is of course a year before she launches her campaign for president. And a big part of, I think, why we've seen her kind of shift some of her positions is that she was trying to run a progressive campaign in a Democratic primary. And then all of a sudden she's found herself not having to do that. But she has struggled to find her footing on this issue. Yeah, look, I mean, I think you have to call it what it is. She's trying to navigate having been in what she believed was a dramatically different political place in 2019 than she is now. It is what it is.

uh... but i think the thing about this trip uh... now is that she does actually have a good story here in the story to tell here and and that's one

Illegal crossings have dropped dramatically since the executive order that she and President Biden put in place. So she can talk about the fact that these crossings have come down under her watch. And she can go on offense on this argument about Trump having scuttled the deal. And I think the other point that Sarah was making that is so important to remember here is she doesn't have to win this election on the issue of immigration. She has to mitigate

so donald trump's advantage and i think by going on offense today by being aggressive voters are you know we know they're tuned and we know that they heard some of this during the debate they're open to hearing more uh... you know by not being afraid to go on offense today even with some of these uh... you know quotes historically kind of our past

She's not just advocating the issue and that's smart. She doesn't have to win the race on the issue, she just has to draw the margins down a little bit. - The problem isn't that she hasn't visited the border, it's that they didn't secure the border. And Kamala Harris in 2019 told us what she believed. She believed we need to get rid of ICE or reimagine it or have you use her B-School buzzwords.

She has a vulnerability here because the job's been wrong. The voters are right. The Biden-Harris administration did not secure the border. It's the worst we've ever had. I think it's a big mistake to go right now because October's a lot about agenda control in a campaign. You want voters focused on issues that favor you. She's walking right into the issue that favors her. I know everybody wants the last word, but it is 7 a.m., so unfortunately, I'm going to have to cut this off.

Thank you guys very much for being here. Have a wonderful weekend. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now. From all over the world, people turn to Cleveland Clinic for our expertise and our compassionate care. As leaders in heart, neurology, and cancer, the future of specialty care is happening right now at Cleveland Clinic. For every life-saving treatment,

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