Trump, Harris Ramp Up Attacks
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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 Monday, October 21st, right now on CNN This Morning. He's becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged. You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired.

Fifteen days to go, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris ramping up attacks as the race for the White House enters its final two weeks plus. She never worked at McDonald's. In other words, she's lying Kamala. He's loving it. Trump takes a step behind the McDonald's fry counter to baselessly cast doubt on whether Harris ever worked there. And… You're just signing something you already believe and you can win a million dollars. That's awesome.

Giveaway, Elon Musk's latest strategy to boost support for Trump sparks calls for an investigation. And then. Things are really bad right now. Battleground beat, campaigns collide in the Great Lakes state of Michigan. We're going to speak live with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast, a live look at New York City on this Monday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. Election Day is two weeks from tomorrow, just 15 days away. More than 13 million ballots have already been cast across 45 states. Early voting begins today in Florida. And of course, it's a sprint to the finish for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Harris plans to appear with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney in the suburbs in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin today. As the Wall Street Journal reports, her campaign has zeroed in on a group of undecided voters they've identified to be, quote, soft GOP-leaning voters and moderate independents, including voters who backed former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley over Trump in the GOP primaries. Her name for them sounds like this.

He's becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged, and it requires that response. I think the American people are seeing it, witnessing it in real time. And we must take note of the fact that this is an individual who wants to be president of the United States. And I think the American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable. Trump campaigns in North Carolina today, was in Pennsylvania over the weekend. His strategy in the final days?

Unconventional, sometimes funny, often crude. There was the former president wearing an apron working a deep fryer at McDonald's. This is fun, I could do this all day. I wouldn't mind this job. Then there's the rally that Trump kicked off by telling a crass story about the late Arnold Palmer's genitals. When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, oh my God, that's unbelievable.

And then there was this attack against Harris, which New York Times described as Trump descending, quote, to new levels of vulgarity. So you have to tell Kamala Harris that you've had enough, that you just can't take it anymore. We can't stand you. You're a vice president. The worst. You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired. Get the hell out of here. You're fired. Get out of here.

All right, joining us now to discuss all of this and more, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator, Republican pollster and strategist, and Megan Hayes, former director of message planning for the Biden White House. Welcome to all of you on this Monday morning. There

There is so much to talk about. But let's start with, honestly, we have gotten a bit inured to the way Trump has brought vulgarities into our politics in ways that are not historically prohibited. But I think it's worth kind of stopping, Kristen, on what he said and did at this rally, because

The Times put it in context this way. Mr. Trump has always enjoyed shocking people, and in addition to cursing volubly, he enjoys talking about sex and men's and women's looks. But in the

But in the past, he has refrained for the most part from being overtly crude publicly as a candidate or as president. Now, however, as he makes his third run for the White House and has become visibly angrier since Ms. Harris joined the race, there has been a notable uptick in such behavior, especially in the campaign's final weeks and days, and at that rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania,

He actually kind of explained some of this because he had said, and he often tells a story about a letter he got from Franklin Graham, the notable conservative religious figure who said, you need to stop swearing. He sort of explicitly said, well, I'm not doing that today. Let's watch that part too. I'm in big trouble tonight. You know why? Franklin Graham wrote me. You heard this. Like two months ago, he said, President, we love your stories. We love your speaking. But sir...

Please, please don't use any bad language, bad words. I wrote it back. I said, I'm going to try and do that, but actually the stories won't be as good because you can't put the same emphasis on. So tonight I broke my rule. I've done it for weeks, but tonight I just said, look, I'm in Pennsylvania. What the hell? He's in Pennsylvania. What the hell? Does...

How do you view what he is doing here in these final days and whether it matters? I think he is somebody who enjoys being out on the campaign trail. He treats his rallies like entertainment, like it's pro wrestling. I mean, that's very much what you're seeing out there. And I think for these voters that he's trying to win who are on the bubble,

It depends which type of swing voter you're talking about. If you're talking about the kind of Republican who has found Trump's influence on the party to be noxious, you look at this and you go, see, I can't vote for that guy. I can't do this. But at the same time, is there somebody who doesn't care at all about politics but sees these clips and is like, ha-ha, that is kind of funny. I mean, those voters really do exist, as much as you may want to think that they don't. They really do exist, and they are a part of Trump's coalition.

And they find him entertaining. They find this entertaining. I mean, in many ways it explains MAGA, right? I mean, Megan Hayes, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think he's an entertainment person. He knows how to entertain people. I think that he's talking to his base, which is men. This is locker room talk. This is how you discuss things in locker rooms, I would assume. I haven't been in a men's locker room.

I think that these undecided voters are like, this is not presidential. You don't want someone out there talking like this. You're going to go talk to world leaders like this. We don't want you on the world stage. And I just think he's becoming more and more like an entertainment figure and not an actual serious presidential candidate.

I mean, the question to me, Alex, seems to be whether what he is doing here is exciting the people that already like him enough, you know, more to get out to vote versus, I mean, these are conversations

come here is is basically out there making the argument that when he does that this is awful and suburban women who clearly are not likely predisposed to like this should go out and vote because they don't like it what you see this for the reason we're seeing a historic gender gap and why come a Harris is really trying to drive turnout in those cyber said and the suburbs poll show actually that

while she is weaker than Joe Biden in some areas, talking about like black men, she's actually much stronger with white women than Joe Biden. And this is part of the reason. But this has been always the critique of Donald Trump is that he's always run a base strategy and not a strategy to the middle. And to Kristen's point,

this is not a a bug but a feature for a lot of hit other people that love Donald Trump is that he'll like go and he'll just be a little inappropriate he'll be a little entertaining and I'll say stuff that you're not supposed to say well we're gonna talk a lot about the various things because we we just have a little taste there at the top we haven't really I considered what he had to say about on a palm yet I'm it feels a little early for it but we gotta do it straight ahead here on CNN this morning a more direct line of attack

He's nearly 80 years old. He's not up to this anymore, folks. How the Harris campaign is trying to sharpen their case against Donald Trump. Plus, nearly 1 million votes have been cast in Michigan. We're going to speak live with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson about how she hopes to combat election misinformation. And Elon Musk's latest attempt to drum up support for Donald Trump, raising significant questions. Every day from now until the election,

We're giving out a million dollar prize and all you have to do is sign a petition in support of the Constitution. When you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions.

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.

And you know, Elon came up. Elon Musk gave us his total endorsement. How good is that, right? Elon endorsed me. He's in another part of the Commonwealth, and he's campaigning now.

Elon Musk literally putting his money where his mouth is, using a new tactic to boost Donald Trump with his billions of dollars. During an appearance in Pennsylvania, Musk making a new pledge to give away $1 million a day to registered swing state voters and then gave away the first giant check. The next thing we'd like to do is to announce today's winner of the million dollar prize. So it's Christine Fischel. Would you like to come up?

As the winner made her way onto the stage, Musk explained how you could be the next one. Every day from now until the election, we're giving out a million-dollar prize. And all you have to do is sign a petition in support of the Constitution. It's very straightforward. You don't even have to vote.

Giveaway, though, now raising questions about whether it is even legal, since federal law makes it a crime for anybody to, quote, pay or offer to pay or accept payment for registration to vote or for voting.

I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning. But when you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions that folks may want to take a look at.

So, Kristen, clearly, you know, bribing people to register to vote or to vote is illegal. I don't think any of us are campaign finance experts. If you are, correct me if I'm wrong. But what do you make of what Musk is doing here? It does seem to be

I mean, not that there's any real teeth in the penalties that could push back against him here, but he clearly has put a new twist, shall we say, on supporting a candidate. Sure. I mean, what were we saying earlier about the strange kind of leaning into the entertainment factor? That is also what's going on here. Although it's

Easy for me to imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and you had some sort of prominent progressive billionaire who was handing out million-dollar checks, it's not hard to imagine Trump really seizing on that, being like, see, you have to pay people to support you. It sounds like here he's saying it's just a petition, not actually registering to vote. But you do have to be registered to vote to sign the petition, apparently. So legally, I don't know what lines this crosses, but I feel like it's just trying to feed more of that entertainment factor. Exactly.

and it is a game show the next cell on the area and it's so offensive to people think this is the person who's running to like have the nuclear codes to be the commander in chief chief of our military like this is so offensive to people and voters should be horrified that this is where our politics have come to that we are now paying people a million dollars to sign a petition and you are not just out there just like giving them money like i would be interested to check staff that'd be my first question but

I mean, it's just like, this is so offensive to me. And so this is a game show. And like the president of the United States should not be a game show contestant. Well, and-

Elon is approaching well over $100 million investment in this late stage of the campaign. And it is an investment, because if Donald Trump wins, his companies are set to make billions of dollars. Starlink requires FCC sort of tweaks, SpaceX, Tesla and electric vehicles. The fact is that Elon is set to be part of this administration in a way, the government efficiency role that Donald Trump has talked about. And that can make $100 million investment mean billions.

Yeah, no, it's a good point, although it also seems like a significant risk, right, in the event that Harris were to win because those companies do rely so much on him. And that's why he's so all-in right now. Right. All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, trash interference. Texas fans littering their own field over the weekend. This is one of five things you have to see this morning. Plus...

Alec Baldwin returns to Saturday Night Live, not though as Donald Trump. May I please finish? I'm asking you to. Well then you have to listen. Well I can't because I'm talking. Well, when will you stop? Maybe when I go to bed. Okay. Alright, 22 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. A deadly helicopter crash in Houston is now under federal investigation. Four people died Saturday night when the chopper collided with a radio tower. There was a child among the dead.

An Aboriginal Australian lawmaker heckling King Charles in her country's parliament. The senator represents an area home to much of Australia's indigenous population who lived for thousands of years on the continent before the arrival of British settlers 230 years ago.

Officials in California are now trying to identify the man in this video seen, oh gosh, that's awful, whipping sea lions with what appears to be caution tape, causing them to flee and fall down the hill. The incident was reported to police. The Texas Longhorns apologizing for their fans after they threw trash onto the field during their football game against the Georgia Bulldogs. ESPN reports the team has been fined $250,000.

A New Mexico sheriff found himself stuck on top of his police truck as he was surrounded by floodwaters. The eastern part of the state was under a flash flood emergency as historic rainfall fell on that region.

And on that note, time now for weather, where that flash flood watch has now expired in New Mexico. At least two people were killed. Hundreds more had to be rescued. Let's go to our meteorologist, Derek Van Dam, with the latest on this. Derek, good morning.

Yeah, good morning, Casey. We sure are grateful for the Chavez County Sheriff's. The brave men and women who go out there and and are performing and have performed these rescues. But when you see a video like that, when you see a sheriff stuck on top of his vehicle unknowingly with the water overtaking his own SUV, who rescues the rescuer, right? I mean, these are the real life situations that they have to bear.

be thrust themselves into in order to make these daring rescues that you see on the video behind me. But again, we are so grateful that they were able to pull those individuals at least out of that rushing water. Now this is just incredible to see how much water fell from the sky over four times

their entire october monthly average. This is their wettest day they've ever recorded in Roswell, New Mexico. No wonder we're seeing the damage pictures this morning and all weekend long frankly of cars piled up across the bridges and impacting some of the local roadways. There are a lot of precipitation falling just to the southwest of Roswell. That's where the hardest hit areas of Chavez County was actually

impacted. Now this storm system is moving away from New Mexico. That's the good news. We'll get an opportunity to dry out, assess the damage, but this will also bring the chance of severe thunderstorms today. Just a marginal risk, but something we need to be aware of across the nation's midsection from Nebraska southward through Kansas and into Oklahoma, damaging winds, large hail and a tornado or two quite some rescuing or harrowing video, I should say, coming out of Chavez County.

Indeed. All right, Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thanks very much for that. Coming up here after the break, election officials in Michigan, a critical battleground, combating concerns over voter fraud. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson joins us live. Plus, Donald Trump taking his love for fast food to the next level, manning the fryer at Mickey D's. I don't know how you do it. I put together some really impressive deals. But this thing you've pulled off, it's amazing.

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. Do you trust early voting and mail voting? Honestly, I don't like to say I don't trust it. I'm sure there's

You know, there's voter fraud. I think if it's an affordable and equitable option for a lot of people and it gives access to voting. I'm waiting to the polls. I'm waiting to election day, November the 5th. So that way I know my vote will be counted for him.

Trump supporters in Detroit telling CNN's Elena Treen what they think about mail-in voting in their home state of Michigan, where already one million pre-election ballots have been cast and where Michigan officials have been combating concerns about voter fraud and ballot security since 2020.

Out of the seven states that Donald Trump targeted in 2020 for his fake elector scheme, Michigan's slate of electors for 2024 has by far the largest share of election deniers, with six of the 15 Republican electors currently facing charges for their involvement in the scheme. Joining me now to discuss how the state is preparing this time around is Michigan's Democratic Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. Madam Secretary, thanks very much for being here. Thanks for having me.

So let's start with these fake electors, these election deniers. Michigan has this history. Is there any reason to be concerned about this in 2024?

Well, you know, we have seen an influx of misinformation, not just from candidates in the United States, but from foreign bad actors and adversaries into our state through social media. And so that does generate the potential for threats and violence. And among all, as you're hearing from the clip you just showed, diminishes citizens' trust

in a very secure election process. And so all of that has created challenges for us as election administrators, especially because we have in-person early voting, which is new this year as the result of a citizen amendment passed in 22. But at the same time, the fact that so many people are voting, over a million people have already cast their ballots now two weeks out, more than two weeks out of election day, is a great sign that many voters are actually not just trusting the system, but participating.

including thousands of Detroiters who showed up to vote early this weekend. - Have concerns about some of the history and potentially culture around politics and threats of violence in the state of Michigan. I mean, we saw what happened at the state Capitol during COVID. Obviously there was that terrible plot against Governor Gretchen Whitmer that was quite troubling.

Is your office preparing for anything based on some of these past incidents? How do you think about that?

Yeah, well, we always say we plan, we hope for the best, but we plan for every contingency. We've passed laws since 2020 to make it a crime to threaten an election official in their line of work. And we've built robust partnerships with law enforcement and first responders, holding scenario planning exercises with election officials, law enforcement and first responders all around our state.

to make sure we've planned through every possible iteration of how this these threats could materialize on election day or beyond and so we are planning for every contingency and i've been very grateful for our law enforcement and election officials in the communities all across michigan who have really stepped up and embraced this moment to be ready for anything but at the same time we want to communicate to everyone that this is a

moment to be happy, joyful. We get to choose the next president of the United States. Let's respect the process, stay within the guardrails of the law, and ensure no matter who someone's voting for, that they can cast their ballot and be heard. When you say you've done scenario planning exercises, can you give us an example of what one of those might look like?

Yeah, we bring local election officials, law enforcement, sheriffs, sheriff staff, first responders, firefighters and EMT officials into a room. And we have an expert come in from CISA, the Federal Security Agency or other nonprofit, nonpartisan partners to kind of go through this. Let's say this happens.

someone calls in a bomb threat or something like that, or there's a disruption in a polling place. These are the steps each of us will take in order to mitigate the damage of that particular issue and also ensure there are consequences involved. And then we also try to send the message to everyone, just turn the temperature down a little bit. This is a moment to respect a process and respect our election officials, not disrupt it. And we hope those mitigation factors as well as our

are pleased to the public right now to respect each other, come together and participate in our well-secure election process over the day. It has in the past, and I hope it will again. But if not, again, we'll be ready for everything. Do you have any concerns about the election certification process that actually will certify your results and get the electors to Washington, D.C.?

Yeah, we do. And we saw in Wayne County where Detroit sits in 2020, what can happen if you have pressure on these four individuals whose job is a ministerial role to simply look at the math, confirm the numbers and then certify the election so that we can move forward with any audits and recounts and the like.

So we do have concerns and we have eyes on every location of a certification board in all of our 83 counties, as well as the state. We'll have law enforcement there protecting the process, but also people in the room to try to, again, de-escalate things if things do escalate. And we hope as we are entering this season that, again, everyone will stay within the boundaries of the law, but we'll be there to make sure there are consequences if anything occurs.

All right, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Hope you'll come back. Of course. Thanks for having me, Casey. All right. Let's go now to this story. Let's turn back time a few decades before Donald Trump's presidency, before The Apprentice, back to when the world knew Trump simply as a real estate mogul and a New York City tabloid fixture. A big and tasty for just a dollar? How do you do it? What's your secret?

Together, Grimace, we could own this town. Now Trump is stepping behind the counter at McDonald's, this time for a campaign stop in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. I'm looking for a job, and I've always wanted to work at McDonald's, but I never did. I'm running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony story. So if you don't mind, I want to work the French fry counter.

So Trump there once again claiming without evidence that Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald's in the 80s. That dispute

inspiring this campaign stop over the weekend. Trump, of course, no stranger to the Golden Arches, his love for fast food well documented. In 2019, Trump hosted Clemson's football team after they won the national championship and served up this spread of French fries and burgers at the White House. And during his Sunday visit to McDonald's, Trump again put on the apron, he manned the fry station, he handed out food through the drive-through window to customers who, according to the Washington Post, were pre-screened by the Secret Service.

The restaurant was closed to the public for the event. I love salt. Wait a minute, I spilled some. I'm very superstitious. Our panel has returned. So I have to say, when I first saw that image of Trump kind of hanging out the drive-thru window,

A part of me thought, wow, is that real? I never thought he would do something like that. The Trump that we saw in 1999 in that old ad is the one that was much more familiar to me. Like, look, we're going to run this town, right? Like someone who owns a McDonald's, not someone who works in one. I mean, clearly they have a strategy to try to appeal to working class voters, try to twist the knife on Harris.

I still found these images to be jarring. Well, part of what is so striking about them is that he's not trying to not be Donald Trump. Like some politicians go and they try to dress up as somebody they're not. He's still got the red tie. He's still so clearly himself. And I think this was an unbelievably smart move because one thing that has differentiated Donald Trump from other really wealthy politicians is that he has never been seen as the aloof,

the billionaire who would never deign to hang out with the commoners like he's always sort of portrayed himself as on the rich guy who doesn't really like the other rich guys I'm one of you and this is part of this I think this was insanely smart well to that point is part about larger effort on Trump campaign to sort of soften Donald Trump's image it's why why you've seen his grandkids sort of being appearing at the rally and also spoke at the RNC is it a

a larger effort going on by the Trump campaign to appeal to some of those suburban women that he's currently losing. The most humanizing moment in that clip was when he threw the salt over his shoulder. It was like such a normal reaction that anyone is like, oh, like we all do that when you're cooking or whatever. And so that was the most like normalizing and humanizing moment, I think, in this clip.

clip, but to your point, he still has his shirt on, his tie on. Most politicians would have showed up in a collared shirt or something that said McDonald's and tried to more fit in. I did find it striking that the whole restaurant was shut down and it was just sort of like a staged event, but I do think it is definitely poking at the

the vice president. - I will also say though, him showing up with Grimace in that old ad, I bet that gets some more traction 'cause Grimace is like a thing with Gen Z. - Is he? - Yes, it's a thing. - All the TikTokers, yeah. - It's a thing. - Oh, so you guys are cooler than me. - I've just read about it. - I have absolutely no idea.

All right, coming up here on CNN This Morning, the final 15 days of the race. Mark McKinnon joins us to talk about Trump, Harris, and how they sound very different. Speaking of, hear Donald Trump say way too much about Arnold Palmer. -Arnold Palmer was all man. He took showers with the other pros. They came out of there, they said, "Oh, my God." -Let's make it into our music.

Who the hell wants to hear questions, right? Let me hear that music, please. Everyone, let's thank President Trump. Nice and loud. God bless you. So play YMCA. Go ahead. Let's go. Nice and loud.

Was Donald Trump's 39-minute spontaneous dance party the closest we are getting to an October surprise? As both campaigns enter the homestretch, there will be no big final debate. Trump's made that clear. Both campaigns now, of course, just focusing on turnout in swing states that will decide the election. When the Harris campaign started off, that was just back in July, joy seemed to be the central theme.

But with the polls showing a dead heat, Harris and her running mate now attacking their opponent in more direct and stark terms. Look, they pulled him out of interviews and his team admitted he's exhausted. Canceled another talk show this week. Look, give him a break. He's nearly 80 years old. He's out there rambling, moving around. We'll give him a break. But look, he's not up to this anymore, folks. He's not up to it.

Our next guest writes this in his latest piece for Vanity Fair, quote, Trump suddenly seems not just lazy, weak, by dodging another debate, for instance, and old, but also truly out of it. Some days he makes it seem like the 25 in Project 2025 is a secret plan to execute the 25th Amendment if he actually gets elected, paving the way for, Lord help us, President J.D. Vance. Joining us now is Mark McKinnon, the writer of that piece, former advisor to John McCain and George W. Bush. Mark, always grateful to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here.

I honestly, we've been sitting here in the break talking about what we saw from Trump at McDonald's and kind of what he accomplished by doing that. He's clearly trying to troll Vice President Harris over what she has made kind of a central piece of the biography she's trying to sell to voters. But it's also a place that he obviously has loved in public for quite some time. What is your assessment of this campaign move?

Oh, solid move for Trump. I thought I thought it was really good. I mean, to your earlier guest point, it makes him just seem down to earth. You know, he's still Trump, but he's, you know, he's hanging out with McDonald's with real people talking about stuff that real people like that.

Definitely a good move. But my point in the Vanity Fair piece is that this thing is baked. There's not really many undecided voters at all. This is going to be decided. I think this is about the gaps, and this is the reason why I think Kamala Harris is going to win.

When it's all about turnout, what's key is enthusiasm, right? You know, whose voters are more excited about going out to vote? And Harris has like a 10-point advantage. So that's one gap. There's a gender gap. She also has about a 10-point advantage on women voters. And then I think there's an early voting gap. As we see from the data coming in, like you just showed in Michigan,

There's huge numbers of early voters turning out. Now, we'll wait to see until after the election what that really means. But generally what that means is the Democrats vote early. And so those numbers are up. It's likely more Democrats. So I see a lot of signs that polling is not picking up. There are advantages for Harris. And I think that she's going to win.

So, Mark, just to absolutely take your point, and obviously I put a lot of stock in kind of how you think about these things. I guess I have two questions. You mentioned a gender gap. We're also seeing a historic, it's really a double gender gap, right? Men are really going for Trump in significant ways. And I

I'm interested to know how you think that interacts. But also this question of, you know, now when I talk to sort of my smartest Republican sources, historically they would say if you're getting a voter off the couch who basically never gets off the couch, that person is a Democrat and that that is going to be different this time, that it's likely that that person is a Republican. I'm curious what you think that means in terms of early voting and how that impacts things.

Great question. Let me handle them both. Number one, I'm in Georgia today and I'm going to Athens tomorrow for a Charlie Kirk turning point rally. So just sort of counter to my own narrative,

There's a reality out there that there are huge numbers of young men turning out for Trump. And these Charlie Kirk campus rallies, you see a sea of young men and a sea of red hats. So this conventional wisdom that on college campuses it's all women and they're all voting for Harris. Well, go to a Charlie Kirk rally. I'll be there tomorrow and I can report next week about what I actually saw. The low information voters is a good point, too.

But I just don't think that I understand that everybody's going after those low information voters, but not a lot of them vote. I mean, that's why they're low information voters. They don't normally turn out. And I just don't think if they if they're not excited about Donald Trump before, I don't know why they would be now. So you fish in the pond where the fish are. And I think that's where Harris is going. And again, I just see a lot of signs that when you net it all out.

Women, I think, are going to make the difference in this election. Women are, you know, you think about HRC PTSD, Hillary Clinton PTSD from 2016 and Roe. You add that up, I think that creates a real advantage among women and a bigger gender gap. Yes, there's a gender gap with men with Trump, but it's a much larger gap for Harris. And I think they're the ones who are truly excited, Casey.

Mark, what do you make of, again, I take your point that you think Harris is on track to win here. I'm not trying to take away from that at all. What do you think is going on with

Harris people who are saying behind the scenes in a way and you can see it in the changes they've made in their strategy right putting her out in these interviews making her more accessible taking more risks that's usually how people who are behind behave in a campaign right it's Trump that's pulling out of interviews trying to you know do more controlled settings to take fewer risks what does that say to you about where they think they are

It says to me that it's a smart campaign. Casey, there's only one way to run a campaign. I mean, you can either run scared or unopposed. She's opposed, so you run scared. You always run like you're 20 points down. The problem in 2016 is the Clinton campaign didn't do that. That's why I say there's HRCPTSD. People are not going to make that same mistake. They're going to run like they're behind. You've got to run through the tape, and that's exactly what the Harris campaign is doing, and I think it's really smart.

Yeah, really interesting. All right, Mark McKinnon, I'm anxious to hear what you see in Athens, Georgia. Come back next week. We'll talk soon. I'll do it. I'll report from the ground. Sounds great. Okay, well, we have to talk about, look, I'm just, I'm never going to quite look at an iced tea with lemonade the same way ever again after this. Very special hello to La Trobe. Oh, I love La Trobe. You know why?

The home of Arnold Palmer. This is the home of my friend Arnold Palmer. I said, when I come here, I'm going to tell him the real story of Arnold. But Arnold Palmer was all man. And I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women. But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough. And I refuse to say it, but when...

He took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, "Oh my God, that's unbelievable." I had to say it. I had to say it. Oh, did he really have to say that? I mean, Kristen...

I'm we were talking earlier about locker room talk mean this is literally this is that's not just a figure of speech one that I'm longer with listen you can drive a straight line for 2016 to when there was a lot of talk about size and size of his hands and Marco Rubio and the we're going to go back to 2016 for the size of his hands Obama crack that yeah yeah yeah yeah good to hear I well so I mean

Again, I mean, this, I guess, just goes back to exactly what we were just talking about, this double gender gap, how each are talking to the other. But it does seem to me, Megan, if Harris is in the suburbs of Philly trying to, hanging out with Liz Cheney, trying to convince women that they should

not, you know, that they should bother to go and vote against Donald Trump as much as they are, you know, she's trying to convince him to vote for her. Trump is not exactly hurting that cause with this. No, it's so undignified. And I think that it's not even getting people to go out and vote for her. It's these people who are the low information voters. It's just like, just stay home and don't vote for him either. Like kind of situation I think is also at play. We've talked about a lot of times. I just don't think any of this helps him. I think that it just reminds people that he's not a serious person and not to be left with our nuclear codes, but...

I mean, I guess we'll find out. Well, and I will say, one Republican who was a man texted me yesterday and just said, like, he found it hilarious. And so there are some people that actually just find it funny. Well, that's the thing. He's going to his base. He's going to men. And this is, like, for social media. Like, he is very good at playing to his base and playing to social media. But are those the people who are going to decide the election? I think that most people and most...

really smart and talented pollsters have decided that's not who's going to decide the election. So I just don't know why he keeps doubling down. In some ways it's the difference between MAGA and the classic conservative Republican who perhaps, you know, haven't had a country club membership. There was quite the exchange between my colleague Jake Tapper and the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, on this over the weekend. Let's watch that. Why is he talking about Arnold Palmer's penis in front of Pennsylvania voters?

Jake, you seem to like that line a lot. Let me tell you that Donald Trump is doing rallies nonstop around the country. Let me just say something. I don't want to be talking about this. Donald Trump is out there saying it is unstable. But you continue to. Let's talk about it. Because you won't address it. Wait a minute. Hold on. You won't address it. He is out there talking to voters. No, I'll address it. Let me answer it.

Okay, don't say it again. We don't have to say it. I get it. There's lines in a rally. When President Trump is at a rally, sometimes he'll speak for two straight hours. You're questioning his stamina, his mental acuity. Joe Biden couldn't do that for five minutes.

We don't have to say it, he says again. I mean, it's like there's a reason why this kind of stuff is not usually in our politics. Like, can we let our kids watch these rallies? Okay, well, two things here. Joe Biden's not running, so that's number one. So I don't know why we're talking about Joe Biden's age again. And number two here is,

this entire show and like over the weekend we were not talking about the issues we were not talking about how the candidates were talking to voters about the economy and immigration and abortion and it's like why we're with mcdonald's but we're not with this but it's like the entire news cycle has been totally co-opted by him inappropriate comments not forcing us to talk about this this was a choice to talk about this right but he knows other things we could be talking about but he knows that

the bait will be taken. And I just, exactly. And I just think it's so, it's such a disservice to voters. And it's so, but again, he's playing to his base and playing to social media. And that's what he's capitalizing on in the last couple of weeks. Do you think it's a net positive for him?

Those particular comments? Yeah. No. Do I think that they matter at all beyond making us all like lose our minds for 24 hours? No, I don't. I really don't. OK, fair enough. One interesting thing about, you know, that Johnson was talking about is there's been Democrats have been really trying to attack Donald Trump's stamina or his age lately. And, you know, that could have been a bug.

a much better argument if they hadn't spent a lot Democrats and spent last two years at basically defending Biden stamina and so but it is this very late push to try to make don Trump's age and his lack of health transparency an issue and the campaign yeah interesting alright let's look at this if you're up late this weekend you might have seen Alan Baldwin return to Saturday Night Live but he was not impersonating Trump as he did in 2016 I'm sure so remarkable portrayal instead Baldwin la over the weekend was Fox

host Brett Baier, alongside Maya Rudolph's Kamala Harris and James Austin Johnson's Trump.

See how I don't let men interrupt my answers? Very demure, very mindful. Now, Kamala Harris has called you unhinged and a danger. What do you say to that? You know, I heard about that. They said I was threatening. Not true. I would never threaten anything except perhaps violence. They do phony investigations, okay? I've been investigated more than Alphonse Capone, who famously did nothing wrong. Scarface! Kids are going back to school, and they're coming back a different gender. You know, they're going to Zoltars, and they're coming back big.

It's really a shame. You know, they're switching bodies. They're doing Freaky Fridays in Hannah Montana's, you know. We're a failing country. America is a terrible place full of jerks and idiots, but we love it. It's really bad.

All right. So who do we vote? Alec Baldwin or that performance there for Trump? Just thank goodness for Saturday Night Live during the election season because it's very funny, very entertaining. It clearly does mean that we are entering the final weeks, especially with the TikTok, the turning to the camera, very mindful, very demure. I think that Trump impression was great. The oscillating between like America's terrible, America's

great. Trump really does do that. He's captured the weave, right? This jumble of things where it sort of makes sense. You sort of know where he's going, but actually if you were to read a transcript, it is completely undeciferable. Yeah. I will just say that this weekend, I think between what we saw on SNL where they did their version of capturing what was going on here, each candidate really fully themselves in kind of all ways, giving us a very

distilled version of what this campaign is going to be in the final two weeks. Thanks, you guys, for being here this morning. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. 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.