Trump, Harris Make Their Closing Arguments
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Follow every moment of the election with CNN. More stories, more insights, and more exclusive election tools, like the Road to 270 interactive map. Subscribe for less than $1 a week at cnn.com slash subscription. It's Tuesday, October 22nd, right now on CNN This Morning. They spent their money on illegal migrants. They didn't have any money left for North Carolina. Donald Trump is an unserious man.

Two weeks to go, two very different closing arguments from Donald Trump and Kamala Harris+. It's not about party. It's about right and wrong. Unlikely allies? Kamala Harris taps Liz Cheney in her push to win over Republicans in blue-wall states. And then... She's letting vicious gangs take over whole communities.

Courting the Latino vote, we'll speak live with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. How is Donald Trump's messaging resonating there? And in just moments, a high stakes meeting in the Middle East hopes for peace hanging the balance after the death of a top Hamas leader. All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast, a live look at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It's really the epicenter of this presidential race that has just two weeks to go. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Two more Tuesdays, two weeks until Election Day. In 14 days, we could know who will be the next president of the United States. Might take a couple more days than that. At this point, early or mail-in voting is underway in most states, and over 14 million ballots have already been cast. The race now, it's a cliche, but it's true, all about driving up turnout in swing states, places like North Carolina. If you didn't get the proper support from this administration...

They spent their money on illegal migrants. They spent their money. They didn't have any money left for North Carolina. Every day, Kamala Harris is bringing in illegal aliens who are raping and murdering women and children. You see them all the time. You see them all the time.

The former president, again, repeating false claims about the federal government's response to Hurricane Helene, using those claims to attack Kamala Harris on his favorite issue, immigration. Harris blitzing through blue wall states yesterday. The vice president joined there. You see her by Republican Liz Cheney. What would have seemed a couple of years ago as a very unlikely duo, now, of course, not necessarily so unlikely. They are explicitly reaching out to current and former members of the Republican Party who've had enough of Trump.

And his rhetoric, like accusing migrants of eating pets or telling vulgar, shall we say, stories about golf club showers. There are things that he says that will be the subject of skits and laughter and jokes. But words have meaning coming from someone who aspires to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.

cruelty is the same cruelty that we see when he lies about the federal government's disaster response, when he puts people's lives at risk because he won't tell the truth.

All right. Our panelists here, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Jonah Goldberg, CNN political commentator, also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director, and Brad Todd, Republican strategist and a partner at public strategy firm OnMessage. Welcome to all of you. Two weeks out.

Here we go. Brad Todd, I actually want to start with you because you're doing so much work in Pennsylvania. It's still really the epicenter of the thing. And the Harris team has decided, and you see it in their strategy, that these...

The people they want to talk to are women, perhaps, who voted for Nikki Haley in the primary, in the suburbs of these places that they have a chance with them. What did you make of how Harris was executing this strategy on the trail in Pennsylvania and elsewhere yesterday? And do you think that they have it right? Now, I realize you're the Republican, but when you've got to run against them, you've got to spend a lot of time

thinking about i watch the whole town hall they did in michigan and you know i i think there's a they're they're off key because if kamala harris wants to win over republicans the first obstacle there's a surface tension right there's like it's like ice the thing she has the ice she has to break is that she was way too liberal for way too long she didn't address that at all and there was a chaldean woman chaldean american woman in detroit who said i'm a traditional catholic

tell me how I can be comfortable, someone conservative can be comfortable voting for you. She started talking about home health care. I don't think Kamala Harris is yet brave enough to sort of walk back boldly the sort of her California viewpoints. If she's going to win over Republicans, Nikki Haley voters, they're conservatives. She's going to have to do that. Kate, what do you think?

I think this is where Liz Cheney helps. I mean, somebody who herself is very, very conservative on abortion, standing next to Kamala Harris and basically trying to give some of those Republicans a permission structure to vote for her. So I do think that helps. I also, I'm not sure I totally agree that voters have really absorbed her 2019 record. It's been a quick campaign. It's been less than 100 days.

you know one of the problems I think Donald Trump has as a messenger is that because he lies about every other thing that comes out of his mouth I think sometimes attacks that might otherwise land effectively from another Republican messenger don't really land because people say well you know I'm not sure he's really telling the truth so I'm not sure I agree that the 2019 baggage if you want to call it that for Republican voters is going to prevent them from being there but I think you know what she was trying to do obviously in having Liz Cheney next to her was

assuage some of those people and I think Cheney's pretty effective at that. - Liz Cheney could have helped her more though if she had said, "I disagree with you on this." Liz Cheney didn't provide near enough of a contrast to show me, Liz Cheney was saying Democratic talking points. I mean, she could have very easily been a Democrat member of Congress. - Yes, I tend to agree with Brad. When, in part because, and I think it's really stupid, but it's a reality, a political reality today,

we've turned partisan affiliation and ideological positioning to be synonymous terms. To say someone's a Republican is to say they're a conservative and vice versa. But in reality, they're different things. And so if you want to get conservatives who don't like Trump

to vote for Harris, you actually have to turn two keys, right? You have to give people permission to betray their party and their ideological principles. And I think, look,

The caveat, they must be seeing something in the data to be doing what they're doing. So they may be right and smart. We'll find out in two weeks. That said, for a lot of my friends, a lot of my circle who are very anti-Trump, but also very conservative, it would be more effective to hear Liz Cheney, who I respect enormously, say stuff like, look,

I think on a bunch of issues, she's going to be really bad. You should still vote for her because Trump is so unfit. I think that gives people permission to say, I'm a conservative, but screw the Republican Party for putting me in this position. I'm voting anti-Trump, not pro-Harris. And that messaging is completely muddled.

Well, he's articulating what I've been hearing, which is two weeks out, Republicans are more confident, Democrats feel more anxiety. Now, that could be hubris on the part of Republicans. It could just be normal sort of Democratic bedwetting is usually the term. But the fact is that there is some, you know,

I mean, Kamala Harris has been changing things up the last two or three weeks. She has changed up the message to go back to sort of what Joe Biden's message was, which is instead of sort of dismissing Trump as a joke, she is now talking to talking about him as a deep threat. She's also changing up the sort of events she's doing. The town hall was not a mistake. Right. I mean, she was usually just doing rallies. Now she's doing more intimate settings.

And I have to say, some Democrats are also worried about her schedule. She is not going to do any public events today. She's doing two TV interviews in the afternoon, but she's not on the trail. And as of so far, she's not going to be on the trail tomorrow either until a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania in prime time. So with two weeks left, I think there are some Democrats that are worried about that too. There's one more thing that caught my eye yesterday. They mentioned at every stop, you don't have to tell anyone that you're going to vote for Harris.

So they're counting on this shy Harris voter. Now, eight years ago, there was a lot of talk about the shy Trump voter. If you're banking on

asking people to do something that they're just gonna be embarrassing, you're probably asking too much. - Well, Jonah referenced data. I mean, obviously I'm not privy to the Harris campaign's current data, but I can certainly tell you from my time in the Biden White House, the election denialism piece is incredibly motivating with these independent voters. I mean, there's a lot of discussion, rightly so, about should she be more focused on the economy? Should she be talking about January 6th? Does anybody really care anymore?

I will tell you from the data that we were working with when I was there, people do care. They do. And so I think that, you know, in a moment in the kind of final push here where you're trying to, you know, really like put a board in the breach, that it does do that. There's evidence that does that. And so I imagine that that's part of what the Harris campaign is doing is leaning into

where they see sunlight, which is with really emphasizing that Donald Trump did refuse and presumably would refuse to say that he lost the election. -Brad, is your sense still that the sort of indicators are moving in Trump's direction at this writing? -Well, let's talk about a few things on data. Yesterday, voter registration closed in Pennsylvania.

Four years ago, that gap between Democrats and Republicans was seven points. Now it's three and a half points. Yesterday in Nevada, for the first time ever, Republicans took a lead on early and mail voting. In North Carolina, Republicans normally ought to be down 18 points on early and mail voting. They're down two. So the early data of what's happening in the actual ballot boxes right now, Republicans find very encouraging.

Two weeks to go, there's a long time out. But I don't think, I think we don't have to just rely on polls now. We can now start looking at actual numbers. - That data though is so skewed because of 2020 and COVID, right? Democrats were much more often gonna vote by mail and early than Republicans. - For sure, but registration data is real. Registration is actually real. In North Carolina, for instance, Democrats had a six point edge in registration. They now have a one point edge in registration. That's not a tactic differential. That's actual bodies moving.

All right. Still ahead here on CNN this morning, Donald Trump using religion to try to step up his attacks against Kamala Harris. What he's telling Christian voters about a potential Harris administration ahead of Election Day. Plus, as we just discussed, Liz Cheney on the campaign trail with Harris. Is there a shy Republican group out there who could help the vice president beat Trump? And both campaigns looking to Latino voters. We're going to talk to Miami's mayor about what messages are resonating with them.

Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members. They make our criminals look like really nice people. We've had a broken immigration system transcending, by the way, Donald Trump's administration even before. Let's all be honest about that.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. It's October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer does not run in my family, and yet here I am with stage three breast cancer. That's anchor and senior national correspondent Sarah Seidner. She revealed her diagnosis on air to the world this past January. It is hard to say out loud. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

If you want to know what is at stake for Christians in this race, just listen to what Kamala Harris had to say last week. At a campaign stop, she heard shouting from the background, Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. And Kamala Harris ridiculed them, mocked them, and told them they were, quote, you're at the wrong rally. Get the... She basically said, get out.

Donald Trump now claiming that Kamala Harris went after hecklers at her event last week because of their religion. Trump made those comments during a faith leaders gathering in North Carolina on Monday night. Here's the moment from the Harris rally in Wisconsin again, so you can listen for yourself. Donald Trump hand selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v Wade and they did as he intended. You guys are at the wrong rally.

No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street. Trump went on to paint a dark picture of a Harris administration to the evangelical Christian crowd at his event. If Kamala Harris gets four more years, the radical left is not going to leave Christians alone. It's going to get worse and worse. You're going to suffer greatly. They will come after Christians all over the country.

All right, our panel's back. Jonah Goldberg, the sort of appeal to religious voters, you know, clearly Donald Trump has had evangelical voters basically locked down for a long time. But there is also discussion of Catholic voters in particular in places like Pennsylvania. What do you make of kind of what he's doing there, why he's doing it, and whether it's relevant at the moment? Yeah, so first of all, there's...

- There's a danger in ever trying to think that what Trump is doing is the result of keen-eyed intelligence and sophisticated strategy, right? - Well, his campaign team putting him in front of that audience at this time was a decision that was probably made with some strategy. - I also think we are at a point in the campaign now where we should stop looking at a lot of the things that either of them say.

that are bombastic and all that kind of stuff about trying to move persuadable voters and it's more about get out the vote. And I think that this is the kind of thing that for evangelical voters who are already all in on Trump, this is the kind of thing that gets their juices going. On the merits, I think it's stupid. I also think Kamala Harris talking about

Donald Trump's hand-picked Supreme Court justices, he nominated Supreme Court justices. By that definition, every single president hand-picks their Supreme Court justices. I mean, it's one of those weird things that I can't stand. Voters are sorting in this race this way. I wrote a piece for Real Clear Politics with Celine DiZito back in the spring, and it's held up all year.

The one group by religion that Kamala Harris continues to lead with are people who have no religion or who are atheist or agnostic. Donald Trump's going to win Catholics by 20-something points. He's going to win evangelicals by 30-something points. And he might break even with mainline Christians, Episcopals, Methodists, people who are pretty liberal, mostly assumed. So there is a religious demarcation in our politics today. Donald Trump didn't cause that. Kamala Harris didn't cause that. But that is the way things are sorting. Which way are Unitarians breaking?

- Too small to measure, Jonah. - I mean, one really descriptive Kamala Harris has focused on that Donald Trump is probably going to lose, there's certainly black churches. And she began calling black pastors on day one when she got into this race.

Also, Donald Trump yesterday, one of the things that he mentioned that I thought was interesting, because I haven't heard him talk about as much on the trail, was the influence of Norman Vincent Peale on him. Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking. He also officiated Trump's first wedding. And I think often it has been this huge influence on his life, because when he is lying, often in his mind he is like manifesting. That's what the whole thing of The Power of Positive Thinking is.

This is fascinating, Alex. I have to say, I had not focused on that book, but it's a really interesting point. All right, coming up here on CNN This Morning, we are officially two weeks from Election Day. Liz Cheney looking to rally Republican voters for Harris. Ahead, how that unlikely duo is tackling that group, it's swing state by swing state. Plus, another key demographic both candidates are looking at, Latino voters. We're going to speak to the mayor of Miami on why he's already made up his mind.

All right, welcome back. Secretary of State Antony Blinken touching down in Tel Aviv overnight. He is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The secretary hoping to revive peace talks and move toward an agreement on a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza and an end to the fighting in Lebanon.

The Israeli military pounding Hezbollah targets in Beirut overnight. 13 people, including a child, killed by an airstrike near the main government hospital in southern Beirut. Let's go live to Jerusalem where we find CNN's chief global affairs correspondent, Matthew Chance. Matthew, this of course...

It comes after Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, was killed. Potentially, some thought providing an opening to renew this push for a ceasefire deal. What can you tell us about whether that is even a remotely possible expectation at this point?

Well, Casey, you're right. I mean, following the death of Yehya Sinwar, the Hamas leader last week, he was killed by Israeli forces inside the Gaza Strip. There were a lot of people in Israel, in the United States, amongst Israel's allies elsewhere as well, talking about how this could be a window of opportunity for a ceasefire for hostages. There are 101 Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza to be brought out and for a broader sort of settlement, broader sort of ceasefire to be introduced in the region.

But I mean, that is not what's happened in reality. In fact, Hamas is still leaderless. It hasn't got anyone to negotiate with right now. And once that person is identified by the movement, it's not clear what their negotiating position would be. In the meantime, the Israeli government is pressing ahead with its strikes inside Gaza, killing what was it?

27 people over the course of today according to Palestinian health officials. It's also expanded its military operations into neighboring Lebanon where it's been conducting airstrikes as well and it's poised of course to carry out a strike on Iran which the Israeli government has threatened to do as well for the past couple of weeks. And so it doesn't seem at this stage any side

in this conflict is prepared to back down or prepared to ease off the fighting. And so that's the challenge Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, is facing as he comes for, I think, what will be his 11th trip to the region since the war in Gaza, since the October 7th attacks. An enormous challenge indeed. And of course, shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we are, in fact, two weeks from the election here in the US, which certainly is something Benjamin Netanyahu is extraordinarily aware of. Matthew Chance for us this morning. Matthew, thank you. I really appreciate it.

All right, let's turn back now to the final two weeks of the campaign.

Flashback to when Jon Stewart first really made it. He remembers Dick Cheney perhaps better than many voters now. Once unlikely allies Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney joined forces yesterday as part of a swing state tour of Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit suburbs. And of course, the goal was to use Cheney, a former Republican lawmaker, former lawmaker, still a Republican with true conservative bona fides,

to reach out to disenchanted GOP voters, especially women who may be open to voting for the Democratic ticket this time around. Cheney predicted there are many more Republicans who are willing to do so than you might think. If people are uncertain, if people are thinking, well, you know, I'm a conservative, I don't know that I can support Vice President Harris, I would say, I don't know if anybody's more conservative than I am.

And you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody. And there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th.

All right, the panel is back. We've touched on this earlier in our conversation, but I think it's kind of one of the most interesting things that's playing out on the trail right now. This question of, are there these voters who silently feel embarrassed, I think was the word you used, Brad, about saying that they don't want to vote for Trump for whatever reason and that they are interested in voting for Harris. Is it real?

I don't see the evidence of it in polling. Mostly these suburban college educated voters, they would like

gladly tell anyone who they're voting for. They think their opinions need to be broadcast. And so I don't see that as a pool of last minute undecided voters. I understand, I guess, why the Harris campaign is doing it because they're behind and they have to in these swing states and they have to peel some people back who are currently voting for Trump. But that's, I don't know that I see it. Well, I think there's also this question if you look at the gender gap in the race and overlay the gender gap and

Are they actually trying to talk to women in MAGA households who don't want to go against, not just go against their husband in like a very sort of like Old Testament kind of way, but don't want to go against their community. Don't want to, I mean, you know, our politics has gotten so personal and there's so much vitriol. So tribal, cultural. So tribal and people don't,

want to spend a bunch of time having to defend to their family and friends why they're voting the way we're voting. So I think given the dramatic gender gap we see in the race, it is possible that there is a universe of people who need to be reminded that their vote is private. You know, one thing that might be there is there's a marriage gap. And married women are going to probably vote for Trump right now. Single women are voting for Harris by like 75 points. So that may be the root of what they're trying to do. Yeah.

I have to think they're spending a lot of money on data. If they don't see anything and they're doing this anyway, then the game's over, right? So there must be some reason for it. At the same time, I really don't like doing anecdotes. Data is not the plural of anecdote, but in my world,

I know lots of people who-- - I was gonna say, I like some good anecdata every once in a while, Jonah. Don't feel guilty about it. - I don't wanna be like Pauline Kael, but I know lots of people who feel very conflicted about this and are not gonna vote for Trump because they just can't, but they don't, in their circles, this is one of the things you get from the big sort, is people live in communities that are all on one side or another side of things. And so whether or not they are a statistically relevant number of people, I have no idea.

I mean, Trump is going on basically every bro podcast known to man and basically doing the inverse of what Kamala Harris is doing right now. And that's why she's also doing it, because and this is why the gender gap is probably going to be the biggest in maybe American history. It's because not only is there a real division on the issues, particularly abortion rights, but both sides are actually driving the wedge even further. And you would rather have women. Women are more, I think, are more conscientious voters than bros.

Especially young bros. Young bros don't show up to vote. That's true, but it's a math problem. The gender gap, there's not a value to it. It's just how you work the math. But let's talk a little bit about one of the most interesting things I thought that came out of some of these events was how Liz Cheney was talking about the Dobbs decision and abortion rights. Let's play a little bit of how she talked about this. Again, Liz Cheney, she identifies as pro-life. She was on the side of...

of wanting Roe to fall. Here was a little bit of how she answered questions about this with voters, again, women voters in the suburbs yesterday. I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life, but who have watched what's going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures

put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need. In places like Texas, for example, the Attorney General is talking about suing, is suing, to get access to women's medical records. That's not sustainable for us as a country.

I mean, Kate, I just think it's fascinating to listen to her talk about this. It is. I mean, she's kind of giving voice to the dog that caught the car issue that Republicans have had on this. I mean, they've been hard charging, trying to overturn Roe for decades. And then they did. And all of these consequences, which I guess maybe they would argue are unforeseen, although I don't know how you could reasonably argue that, you know, are now having an impact on people's lives and also, by the way, costing them electorally.

So, you know, to hear her, to hear Liz Cheney, of all people, kind of give voice to that really tells you where this issue has moved in the two years since the Dobbs decision. I mean, Jonah, I think,

For me, I think the question is, is there space here for, I mean, is that something that might resonate with otherwise conservative voters? People who say, yes, I think an elective abortion would be morally wrong. I'm opposed to that. But if I'm having a miscarriage and I go to the hospital and I need something, it sort of makes sense to me that they should take care of me. Is there space for that? I think, look, I think so. I think that there is, I mean, Kate-

refer to the dog that catches the car thing, that has been a huge issue on the right, is that the right, the pro-life movement,

had not really thought about day one post-pro very much and they had not developed their arguments very well and all of a sudden the edge cases which were on the pro-life side about partial birth abortion and late-term abortion no matter how rare they do it it does happen the stuff in minnesota all of a sudden the edge cases flip the emotional edge cases flip to being on the pro-choice side and

Very few people had any idea how to argue about that, how to defend the new environment. And I think this is part of the shakeout. Well, a lot of women have been the collateral damage of that lack of foresight from that movement. And that's also why so many women are, you know, especially with so many abortion rights ballot amendments on the ballots in key swing states that could end up being the deciding factor in the race. Can I just say that the fringe cases that you say, I mean, there are a lot more

of them in this construction than there are, you know, the number of partial birth abortions in the country is very, you know, late term abortion is very low. The number of women who get pregnant every year and have something bad happen is very high. Yes.

You don't hear, when you go to the rallies for Kamala Harris, you don't hear that in every state you have emergency medical care. Her rallies are not fact-checked on this subject. And I also, I hated to watch Liz Cheney. But you don't in places like, I mean, there are. I hated to watch Liz Cheney, who signed the amicus brief on the Dobbs case, who said, let's push this back to the states, who said, who's made a career. She was rated A by all the pro-life groups when she was in Congress.

And she's now so all in for the Democratic ticket that she's willing to sell out all her principles before. I thought that was a bad look for her. I don't hear anything that means she sold out all her principles. We had a huge fight about this on Twitter, a lot of friends of mine.

last night. And everyone, the waves was originally broke on Twitter, which is, again, a bad place to be at night. Your friends are making some interesting appearances here today at the table. That she came out against overturning Roe, that she came out against Dobbs. There's nothing in what she said there that says she came out against Dobbs. She said that some of the stuff, some of the consequences in some state legislatures have, have,

gone to the point where women are getting the medical care they need you have a problem that you know from the met political messaging about I don't think it's fair to say she sold out all over okay worthless cheney campaign for republicans for the US Senate where she campaign for a public to control the house I don't see you're doing any that if that's not all the principles have different strategy in politics I push back on the idea that commoners as well as are not fact checked on this I mean she's talking about the cases of women who have lost their lives in Georgia you the woman in Texas has been very prominent a spokesperson on this because of

Her experience with Kate Cox where, you know, she lost her baby and then was nearly rendered infertile because she couldn't get medical care. I mean, these are facts. These are stories. These are happening because of the fact that these protections have been rolled back. That's just true. I mean, there is, that's not, you know, you can argue about whether you agree with that decision, but those are facts. That's what's happening to women in this country because we no longer have the protections of Roe v. Wade.

There's a middle ground where we can work to make sure everyone has the medical care they need. Well, I think that's the ground she was trying to stake out there. She's not saying we need to put Roe versus Wade back. She is saying that these laws that are resulting from the fall of Roe are unsustainable. I mean, that was the word that she used. All right, straight ahead here on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump's call for deportations under a law more than 200 years old and how the former president's messaging on immigration is landing with Latino voters. We're going to speak live with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Plus...

Kamala Harris using Trump's visit to McDonald's to try to highlight a key economic issue for blue-collar workers. I just saw something across this. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to see. I absolutely believe we must raise minimum wage and that hardworking Americans, whether they're working at McDonald's or anywhere else, should have at least the ability to be able to take care of their family.

This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. He has this power to be able to take very vulnerable people and he exploits it for profit. I'm talking to Robbie Parker about the death of his daughter at Sandy Hook. He exploited me and my daughter for profit and he exploits his listeners for the same thing. How he helped sue Alex Jones' Infowars and won. And what he thinks of election year gun politics.

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app. I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 180 of 1798. Think of that. 1798. That's when we had real politicians that said we're not going to play games. We have to go back to 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil. We're going to knock the hell out of them.

All right, Donald Trump calling for the return of a more than 200-year-old law that allows the president to deport non-citizens considered enemies during wartime. This is his latest hardline rhetoric on immigration. Trump is set to participate in a roundtable discussion with Latino business leaders later this morning as part of his effort to court Hispanic voters. Immigration is a top three priority for the group. While Harris is also reaching out to Latino voters with a Telemundo interview today, polls show an opportunity remains there for the former president.

I see people on social media, Hispanics, sharing that post that I'm not with her. I'm like, whoa, even people that I know that they don't have a legal status in this country are doing that. All right, joining us now, Republican mayor of Miami, the mayor, Francis Suarez. He has endorsed Trump for president. Mr. Mayor, thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Let me just start with what we saw Trump say there about this 1798 law. Historically, it's only been used during wartime. It was used in World War II as a pretext for interning Japanese Americans. Do you think what we're seeing at the border meets the standard for invoking that law?

I think Hispanics very much care about the border. In fact, I saw a recent poll that showed that over 80% of Hispanics are worried about border security and that impacts their quality of life as a mayor. And as we've seen, even Democratic mayors have criticized the current administration's border policy and the porousness of the border policy.

We know that under Biden, as of I think February of this year, over 7 million people have entered illegally into the United States. That's more than the population of, I think, 36 states. That's something that tremendously concerns Hispanics that live in border communities. You're talking about, you know, tens of thousands of people that have died from fentanyl overdoses, which is the equivalent of a 747 crashing every single day.

That's something that concerns Hispanics that live in border communities. And frankly, a lot of cities have become border communities. You know, a city like Miami has had to really expand its public school network offering because of how many people have come. And that puts a strain on the system. So I do think that Hispanics care about border security. I think that they care about abiding by the laws of this country.

They want to have sort of an equal playing field. They want to be prosperous. And they've seen, in terms of this election, that this is a record versus rhetoric election, where under Trump's leadership, under former President Trump's leadership, you had record low unemployment, record high home ownership, and record low poverty among the Hispanic community. And those are going to be sort of the indexes that Hispanics are going to use to determine who they vote for.

So are you saying that there is more concern about the border and border security than there is about what the mass deportations that Trump has promised might look like?

What I'm saying is that Hispanics, law-abiding Hispanics, care more about having a prosperous future for themselves and their children than they do about people who are in this country illegally. And so I think there's a misperception that all they care about is immigration. And I think that's something that is, frankly, somewhat racist.

You know, I think Hispanics care more about making sure that they have an opportunity to succeed, making sure that inflation doesn't crush them every single day as it's done under this administration. And there are law abiding people like my parents are who came to this country at 12 and 7 from Cuba, which is a communist country and has only produced misery and poverty for its people. And they see a lot of the same rhetoric being unfortunately espoused by the Democratic Party. And that's something that concerns them.

So, sir, I want to make sure that we acknowledge that the Latino vote across the country means so many different things in so many different places. People come from different communities. Obviously, Miami, you have so many Cuban-Americans, et cetera. But I am still interested in your assessment of...

why Latinos as a voting bloc, and we're seeing this with black voters as well, voters of color, that are not necessarily seeming to be as inclined toward the Democratic Party this time around as they have been in past election cycles. It's part of why we're seeing numbers, especially across the Sun Belt, seem to look better for Donald Trump. And you touched on some of these issues in terms of the border, but I'm curious why you think that is and how much of it has to do specifically with culture,

I think it has to do a lot with culture. I think it has to do with the fact that the Democrats have had four years under this administration and Hispanics don't see a record of success. They see inflation eating their paychecks, and then they see rhetoric that does not motivate them. Under President Trump, he was tough on Latin American dictators like Fidel Castro's regime, Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canal.

and also in Venezuela as well. And that resonated with the Cuban and Venezuelan communities. I saw a statistic once where he got 75% of new arrival Cubans voted for the former president in the 2020 or the 2016 election. I can't remember which one. At the same time, you had Democrats monolithically branding Hispanics as Latinx, something that doesn't resonate with the Hispanic community, or saying that they're as unique as San Antonio tacos, which is something that

uh you know the the first lady said in one of her uh speeches in i believe san antonio so you know those are things that you know hispanics just feel disconnected from the democratic party uh they feel that the democratic party has not listened to them has not made their lives better and so they're looking for an alternative and i think that's part of what you see and then i also think that the former president has listened he's listened better to the hispanic community and he's tailored his policies

specifically to meet the needs as you said i think very correctly of the diverse hispanic communities they're not monolithic they're not the same every community needs a different approach uh has different priorities and they have to be met on an individual basis all right mayor francis suarez of miami sir thanks very much for coming on with your perspective i really appreciate it

Thank you so much. Can't wait to vote for President Trump today. All right. Thank you, sir. I actually want to just take a beat before we talk about this next story, because, Brad, I mean, why? And Kate, I'm honestly interested in all of your perspective as to why this is moving the way that it is. And like in Pennsylvania, for example, Redding, Pennsylvania, is a place. It's a city with a lot of Latinos who are living there. I talked to the mayor of that city is a

It's a different kind of story, but there is an undercurrent of potentially pro-Trump influences there in a way that I think might surprise some people. What do you see going on with this? I think Democrats approach the Latino community wrong. They have an identity politics approach, and I think a lot of immigrants in this country don't want that. They want to be treated as Americans, not something hyphen Americans.

And I think when you look at their individual concerns, you know, it's inflation, it's crime. Wait a minute, the border is the same as everybody else. Donald Trump is going to get more Hispanic votes and Republicans down ballot are going to get more Hispanic votes this year than they ever have before.

Some of its culture, you know, we mentioned earlier that Trump currently leads among Catholics by 22 points. That's a factor. But it's definitely a big movement, and I think four years from now, Republicans will carry this banner vote. - I also think some Democratic strategists for a long time, mostly white Democratic strategists, to be honest,

basically thought that Latino vote equaled immigration policy. And that's just not true. - Yes, there's a huge gap, as there are with frankly most advocacy groups working in Washington and real voters, excuse me. There's a huge gap between the professional advocacy class representing people who are trying to make progress on immigration laws and in some cases doing very good work, I'm not impugning them,

But there's a huge difference and there's a big gap. And voters largely, I agree with Brad and with the mayor, voters of all stripes largely care about the economy. They care about crime. They care about safety. They care about being the same thing that all voters care about. Yeah, so Sean Trenning made this point a decade ago that Hispanics voted disproportionately Democratic not because of identity politics reasons, but because they were disproportionately poor.

And as Hispanics move up the socioeconomic ladder, they become indistinguishable from the median voter. It is this normal story of American immigration, of American ethnic groups. They just become Americans. And so therefore, you would expect their distribution between the parties would look more normal. Well, but it's interesting because a lot of Hispanics that are moving towards Trump are not middle or not necessarily middle class or upper class Hispanics. It's a lot of people that are just high school educated. Right.

Right, but a lot of those people are also coming. There's also an enormous amount of diversity in the Hispanic community. So it's one of the problems with the D.C. consulting class that's thought of as a monolith. But the ones that are coming from places that have seen the ravages of communism

They're very susceptible to the arguments against communism in the United States. And that means they're going to skew more. I mean, like Venezuela, all that kind of stuff. They're going to skew more Republican and fit more with the Cuban model than, say, the California Mexican-American model. Well, this is also part of Kamala Harris' problem, because as Kate remembers during the 2020 primary, Joe Biden resisted some of these calls to just go way far to the left, you know, decriminalizing the border, everything else. And Kamala Harris didn't resist a lot of those calls. And that's really hurting her right now.

Yeah, I mean, Kate, should Democrats drop the Latinx framing? Well, I feel like as a white person, it's not my call to say. I think, you know, it has always felt a little, at least what we would hear, I could say in the Biden campaign in 2020, what we would hear from voters on the ground is it didn't necessarily resonate with them. It felt a lot more like language that people who were, again, professional political class was using. So,

Again, I feel like it's not my call to say. It's a white urban liberal phrase. It's an academic phrase. It didn't feel like it was resonating with Latin American voters. There's been an enormous amount of polling on this, which I'm sort of obsessed with this.

among Latinos, going back the last five years, who've heard the phrase, because most of them have never heard the phrase, first of all, good frickin' luck de-gendering the Spanish language. I mean, that's a... It is a lot more than just one X on one word. That is a lift, right? But most Hispanics who heard it didn't like it. They felt they were being condescended to by, like, sort of Harvard Yard academics.

There were a whole bunch of progressive polling firms that were basically shouting, please stop using this because you're losing more Hispanic voters than you're gaining when you use it. It's a flashing red light if you're conservative and Catholic and Hispanic that this party is way left of you on every cultural issue. It's one letter that tells you everything. Fascinating. All right, guys, thanks so much for a great conversation today. Two weeks out. All right. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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