Trump Interference Case, Price Hike Fears, Beirut Hit Again
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Unsealed evidence Donald Trump lashes out as fresh details from his 2020 election interference case are revealed. Plus, supply chain panic. Nationwide fears of price hikes and shortages as the port strikes by tens of thousands of dock workers marches on. And then... The response will be painful. Beirut hit again as Israel vows to strike back at Iran. We're going to speak live with former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton and...

In the United States, the nation has your back. Tackling Helene, President Biden deploys active duty troops to help as the hurricane's death toll rises. All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast, a live look at Capitol Hill on this Thursday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. We are now getting our first look at never-before-seen evidence filed by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith in the 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump.

This includes the personal notes of then-Vice President Mike Pence, who wrote five pages detailing an Oval Office meeting where Trump was pressuring Pence to take action just two days before January 6th. Those notes allege that Trump told Pence things like, quote, "When there's fraud, the rules get changed," end quote. Quote, "You can be bold," end quote. And that Pence had, quote, "The right to do whatever you want to do," end quote.

But the vice president rejected those plans and two days later oversaw the joint session of Congress to certify the election for Joe Biden, telling Trump that his plans in a phone call that morning. While Pence was on Capitol Hill to do this, Trump was at the Ellipse outside the White House launching what the special counsel calls quote, an indirect threat, end quote, against his vice president during a speech to his supporters.

Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories. After Trump's speech ended, chaos took over Capitol Hill as Trump supporters stormed the building in what the special counsel called one last effort to delay the vote certification.

back at the white house the special counsel says trump watched everything unfold in the oval office dining room and while there by himself sent a tweet which helped to fuel the riots it was read in almost real time by a rioter with a bullhorn watch

Constitution giving States a chance to certify a correct set of facts not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify U.S demand one minute after that tweet was sent Mike Pence see him there was evacuated to a secure location when told that his vice president was in danger when he was sitting in the Oval Office dining room Trump allegedly said back quote so what

All right, our panel is here to talk about all the latest. Zolankano Youngs, CNN political analyst, White House reporter for The New York Times. Zach Cohen, CNN national security and justice reporter. Karen Finney, CNN political analyst, former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's campaign. And Mike Dupkey, former communications director for the Trump administration. Welcome to all of you. Zach, I want to start with you just on the reporting. This is a 165-page indictment.

We knew some of the broad strokes of this going in because of what we learned from the January 6th committee. This obviously was the special counsel trying to distinguish here between private and official acts, as the Supreme Court demanded. What would you pull out for us as things that are going to be critical going forward? Yeah, it's really remarkable how Jack Smith tries to make the case that Trump was acting as an office seeker, not an office whore.

holder and basically says that the core and fundamental parts of his original indictment still amount to crimes. And that includes the fake elector plot, which he says in this new charging document that Trump was personally briefed on and warned about that it was outrageous and that it was crazy by people around him and still move forward with it anyway. And then, of course, Trump's interactions with people like

Mike Pence right that's still a question as to whether or not that is covered by the Supreme Court's immunity ruling Jackson it makes the case that they were acting as running mates not as president and vice president so that's how he's trying to get around the Supreme Court's immunity ruling and I think we've all kind of come to understand at this point how there is no love lost between Trump and Mike Pence but

This new evidence does really cast Trump as dispassionate in his reaction when he's told that Mike Pence is being evacuated from the US Capitol. And also his interactions with his family members. He allegedly telling his family members that it doesn't matter if he wins or loses the election.

You have to fight like hell. Exactly, exactly. So that sort of encapsulates kind of the whole tone of this charging document. Yeah. Zolinkano Youngs, let's talk big picture here for a second because obviously this is coming down, you know, under 35 days to the election.

You have this morning we're learning that Liz Cheney is going to be out on the campaign trail with Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party. She obviously is someone who staked her entire political life on what unfolded on January 6th.

What impact does this have on the campaign here at this late hour? Obviously, Trump's people are saying, and I'm sure Mike will want to weigh in on this, that the Justice Department shouldn't have done this. But I'm curious kind of how you think about this as you cover the campaign day in and day out. Sure. I mean, it's...

Look, the Harris campaign and the Biden campaign before it, when they would talk about democracy as a theme in this election, they would often point to January 6th. They would point to also the allies of the former president who were trying to revise the history and the record of what happened on January 6th.

And you had Democrats really trying to remind voters of that day and what the former president did not do, the amount of time that he spent in the White House seeing that riot unfold, and his statements leading up to that riot that encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol.

Something like this that's not just sort of a politician attacking another politician, but our findings in a legal document that are going to continue to be talked about are only going to fuel some of the criticism against the former president. Just to your point as well, when you talk about some of the descriptions in here, particularly about the former president,

and what's described in terms of his reaction to hearing that his then vice president was in danger, that the Secret Service had to rush him off because some of the rioters outside were threatening him. I mean, the former president's reaction is described as saying, "So what?"

Something like that is only going to be talked about in these limited weeks we have in the remainder of the election. And remember, it comes right after a VP debate where one of the real sort of memorable moments was Tim Walz also pressing Vance and asking him whether the former president had lost the election. And he had a non-answer. Well, Casey, the Justice Department shouldn't have done this.

You're absolutely right. To be clear, I did not say that myself. I said the Trump campaign is upset about that. I know. I'm repeating what you thought I would say, and I'm saying it.

But here's why, and I'm coming at this at a little different tact. I think the optics of this are bad, but I think they're bad for democracy. Yes, we can talk about how they're bad for Donald Trump, but a lot of this is already baked in with Trump supporters. But what this can turn into, especially with Trump supporters, is them looking and going, okay, the fix is in. Here's the Biden-Harris administration one more time

They took they delayed, delayed, delayed bringing the case. And now we're at the final edge. And we've got a one sided legal document with putting color on incidents we already knew happened. And it's one more, you know, thumb on the scale by the Biden-Harris administration. That's what's bad about this. This release. In part, it's been delayed because of all the efforts on the part of

the Trump legal team to delay that case. The starting date is delayed. That's fine, but part of why we're here now versus earlier this year is related to part of their legal strategy. Look, I think what it does do, there are plenty of people who haven't been following the details as closely. I think

The way I look at it in terms of the debate, it was a very powerful moment. You're right. It's a reminder why Mike Pence was not the one on that stage. That's what it's a reminder of. It's a reminder the danger of actually being the running mate to this president. There was a time in this country when he said it's not how you...

you know, win or lose. It's how you play the game, not you fight, fight, fight, as in you fight to the death even if you've lost. So I do think for voters who are looking for a reason not to vote for Trump, this could be a final sort of

push to say, okay, no, I can't do this again. Zach, very briefly. Yeah, it's really important to point out the decision to release this was made by the judge in this case, Judge Chutkin, not the Justice Department. I'm just repeating what Casey's words are. Of course, of course. And Trump is directing his anger toward the Justice Department. Are we going to see more before the election on this? It's very possible. There could be more evidence that comes out of this in the next couple of days, so we'll have to wait and see. Alright.

Zach Cohen, thank you very much for being with us this morning. I really appreciate your reporting. The rest of the panel is coming back very shortly. Straight ahead here on CNN this morning, President Biden will not step in to stop the dock workers' strike. That's despite growing concern about the port stoppage's impact on the supply chain. Plus, explosions rock Beirut as Israel weighs a response to Iran. Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton joins us as we discuss how the White House should address the counterattacks.

And after debate night, the running mates return to the trail and the mid-map Western nice is suddenly not so nice. He has to defend the indefensible, and that is the record of Kamala Harris. Senator Vance is a slick talker. You can't rewrite history. And try...

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Now you start to realize who the longshoremen are, right? People never gave a s*** about us until now, when they finally realized that the chain is being broke now. Cars won't come in. Food won't come in. Clothing won't come in. You know how many people depend on our jobs? Half the world. And it's time for them and time for Washington to put so much pressure on them to take care of us because we took care of them.

There you have it, a port strike by some 50,000 dock workers across the East and Gulf Coast entering its third day this morning. A prolonged strike could impact banana shipments, new car deliveries, imported chocolate and alcohol to name just a few.

And this has been prompting some people to return to COVID-era panic shopping amid fears of shortages. If it continues, the strike could cause price hikes in that critical last month before the November election. President Biden warning about the strike's impact on hurricane relief efforts. This natural disaster is incredibly consequential. The last thing we need on top of that is a man-made disaster. What's going on at the ports? We're getting...

pushback already. We're hearing from the folks recently that they're having trouble getting product they need because of the port strike. All right, joining our panel now, Annie Linsky, reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Zolan, Karen, and Mike are also still here. Annie, let me start with you on this. I mean,

The president, Democrats, Kamala Harris, in a tough spot with this strike unfolding because they really rely on, need labor support. But at the same time, an economic downturn, 30 days, is going to get hung around their necks. Oh.

Absolutely. I mean, this union leader is picking a very good time to do this. He has sort of the maximum amount of leverage here. One of the things I think is most interesting is that he has support not only on the Democratic side, but also the Republican

Republican side. I mean, you know, Donald Trump has said supportive things as well and is already maneuvering to do exactly what you said and hang this around Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's neck, for lack of a better way of saying it. So, yeah, I mean, they have the power at the moment. But I have to say, I cannot

fathom that they're going to have this power for a lot longer. I do not think that Joe Biden can allow this strike to actually start hurting the economy. I think they've got a few days, a few more days perhaps, but the president ultimately, I think- - Yeah, Zolan, what are the options for the president? - I mean, they're squeezed here, right? The president could pursue action known as Taft-Hartley, which would basically say that the longshoremen need to go back to work for what's known as an 80 day cooling off period.

That doesn't sort of provide a solution to this labor dispute. You still theoretically after that 80 day period would have to have these guys during that time go back to the table. - But the election is not 80 days away. - 100%. - The election is 33 days away. - And in the meantime, he is squeezed, right? I mean, this takes two really competing pressures.

The president said that he will not pursue Taft-Hartley. And when I talk to White House officials and Democrats, one thing that's on the mind of them is also the crucial labor support unions in three crucial battleground states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan.

You can't alienate those folks, which you would probably do by pursuing intervention like this. At the same time, if this goes on for a couple weeks, you may have also a return to what has been a political vulnerability for this White House now for recent years, that being inflation and rising prices. - But I do think given what we're seeing in Florida, in North Carolina, in parts of Georgia, the devastation and the dire needs in those communities,

that might provide a way to say, look, guys, we have got to make sure that these communities have the basics to be able to, you know, clean themselves up and start to rebuild. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. OK, well, I could have finished my thought, but you do go ahead and interrupt. 2006, 11 days it took George Bush to invoke Taft-Hartley. I cannot imagine that Biden would, Biden-Harris administration would do it before them.

You disagree? No, please. No, no, please. Are you done? You got more? Do you want to say? No, no. I'm asking if you disagree.

I'm just suggesting possibly I'm just suggesting they were in a unique moment given the devastation that we've seen I do think it puts a different kind of pressure on the situation that did not exist before the storm had well certainly something perhaps that the president might argue if you were to do something like this over the objections of his allies in organized labor alright so come here on CNN this morning after Hurricane holy devastated parts of the southeast the recovery process for communities

is just beginning. CNN's Isabel Rosales followed FEMA as they've been working to try to help those communities in need. We'll show you some of what she saw. Plus, former First Lady Melania Trump reportedly sharing her feelings on reproductive rights, and they seem to be at odds with her husband's policies.

It's been nearly a week since Hurricane Helene made landfall in the U.S. and the extent of the storm's devastation unfortunately becoming clearer by the day. At least 191 people are now confirmed dead. Many more are still missing. And damage to critical infrastructure has made relief efforts all the more difficult. CNN's Isabel Rosales followed along with FEMA in North Carolina to capture the challenging conditions for first responders.

Rare and exclusive access. CNN guided up the Blue Ridge Mountains by one of FEMA's 24 deployed urban search and rescue teams. We're deep in hard-hit Avery County, North Carolina. Just collapsed all the side of the road. Portions of Beach Mountain, a remote ski resort town, left unrecognizable by Helene's wrath. The sides of the road just like washed off there.

These winding mountain roads made further difficult to navigate by obstacles. We are entering an area that's closed off to regular people. Only first responders are allowed and it is because it's so treacherous. We're seeing it for ourselves, like thick mud all over the place, trees that are down, portions of the road has crumbled down. So I'm really concentrating here. This is difficult to drive.

And even when debris and fallen trees are cleared by chainsaw and manpower to make way for rescuers, another major barrier. This FEMA supervisor who's been on his cell phone trying to get in touch with his team to figure out where they're at. Division group supervisor Colin Burress pulls us over. Can't get a signal?

We're seeing for ourselves everything that the governor has been talking about, the officials have been talking about, how big of a challenge communication is, not just for civilians, but you guys trying to do these rescue operations. It is. You know, when you don't have cell service, email, text,

All that comes a challenge and the council holds his down. Then by pure luck, a few of his men spot us. They found him just out of the blue. So this is great. We're being reunited and here's the command post right here. This 80 member FEMA team assisting the North Carolina National Guard now on day six of rescuing survivors stranded and cut off from help.

So ESA's trained to find live people and FRUSH is trained to find human remains. They huddle over maps. Beach Mountain and Seven Devils is kind of a priority. Working out the next day's urgent search. How does this work? You guys are doing grids? I see this black line right here. Yeah, it's just easier for us to keep up. So we'll send squads. We'll say, you know, pit grid one or grid two, grid three, grid four.

Before sunset, we roll out. We came up about three miles, but honestly, it feels like 10. Back down the mountain, a second look at what Helene laid to waste. Before we can make it down, another danger getting through these torn and treacherous roads.

This is a special case. Typically the roads washed out in a mountain atmosphere like this. Hurricanes usually happen towards the coast. But this is definitely more challenges for us that we haven't faced before. Regardless, first responders across the state push on. More than 400 people rescued so far, says the governor's office. But the work nowhere near done until all the missing are found. That was our Isabel Rosales reporting.

Let's turn now to weather for today. The southwest and west coast experiencing historic heat. More than 30 million people under heat alerts across the region. Let's get straight to meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning.

Yeah, here it is, Casey. So the area highlighted in this red and orange, that's the 30 million Americans under some sort of heat alert today. And it's just odd for the month of October to have this type of heat. So we're breaking records, but it's also been this streak of heat that we've had over the past several months, which will highlight in just one moment. But this is including places like San Francisco to Sacramento, Los Angeles and eastward towards Phoenix. And we highlight into Phoenix because

just yesterday you broke a decades long record high temperature of 107. It actually reached 108 yesterday, so this puts 113 consecutive days where your temperature has risen above that 100 degree mark. So that's really kind of contextualizing just how extreme the heat has been this year and how it remains. And we don't see any real relief in sight for Phoenix. This is just one city, for example, but much of the southwestern US continues to bake under this abnormally warm October temperature. Now,

completely different story unfolding over the eastern half of the U.S. where we're enjoying very autumn-like weather across the northern portions of New England. We're reaching peak fall colors, so looking beautiful and we'll enjoy the below average temperatures. But there's the above average weather that will continue over the western U.S. Not much in terms of weather aside from an area of disturbed weather across the Gulf of Mexico. We're lowering those chances of tropical development, but regardless, this will bring a lot of rain to Florida through the weekend and into early parts of next week.

Casey? All right, Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thank you very much. Still ahead here on CNN This Morning, the disaster tour across the Southeast continues. President Biden visiting two more states impacted by Hurricane Helene today. Plus, more from Special Counsel Jack Smith's latest filing outlining never-before-seen evidence against Donald Trump in his 2020 election subversion case.

He works for Kamala and he works for Joe. This was a weaponization of government and that's why it was released 30 days before the election.

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Shop blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. We can make more housing. Like, it's not alchemy. Sonia Trouse and her organization, Yimby Law, sued a town in Ventura County in Southern California, not far from where we're sitting down for this interview. We don't have to just accept limits and fight with people. The language of that movement has spread to the presidential campaigns.

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app. All right, turning back now to our lead story. The federal judge in Donald Trump's election interference case unsealing the latest filing from special counsel Jack Smith. The 165-page document providing the American people with the clearest picture yet of the prosecution's evidence against Trump.

Trump less than five weeks from election day. Prosecutors allege that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct the certification of his defeat in the 2020 election. The crux of the special counsel's new filing, that Donald Trump undertook those actions as a presidential candidate and not in his capacity as president.

The special counsel wrote this, quote, at its core, the defendant's scheme was a private one. He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office, end quote. This latest filing made necessary by a July ruling from the Supreme Court, which found that presidents have sweeping immunity for official acts.

Trump's lawyers arguing before the court for a broad interpretation of immunity, one with vast implications for presidential power. If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him,

Is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity? It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act. Judge Chania Chutkan now tasked with determining whether Trump's alleged crimes are protected by that ruling. And she will also need to decide how much more evidence

to make public before election day our panel returns and we were talking in the break about what was actually necessary here and i wanted to bring in something that chuck had said earlier this fall in early september there was a hearing to determine some next steps and she said this quote the electoral process and the timing of the election is not relevant here this court is not concerned with the electoral schedule and we do know she could potentially make more evidence in this

public, but we do know that the timing of these actions matters very much. I mean, Karen, you remember what happened to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Don't I? Don't I just? Absolutely. Look, I think what's different in this case is

this process has been, as we said, been moving along at a pretty fast clip. And it does seem that the judge has been very committed to keeping the process moving along. There's obviously been delays based on motions filed. - She wanted a trial to start on Super Tuesday. - She sure did. And she had, you know, to the quote you just made, she read, she doesn't really care about the election. She cares about the case. And given the delays around some of the filings from the Trump team,

Here we are. Look, it's not 11 days before. Which is when, of course, that Comey letter came down, which is what we're talking in court about. Yes, yes. But it's my understanding, and obviously we would need to consult one of our legal eagles, but this is, I was asking yesterday, is this something, is this extraordinary? Is this something typical? Does this normally happen? It can. And it does not, my understanding is it's not that this is so out of the ordinary to have happened. It is unusual, though.

i i i i would well i mean in fairness we've never encountered this as a nation before a former president that were in you know didn't call off the mob on january 6th and then right again if we look at the 11 days before the 2016 election i mean that was that was an individual making whatever decision he was making this is this is an official agent of doj as a federal judge

not and well wait a second federal judges are not agents of do okay right I mean DOJ is arguing there she's decided right I mean she's that is fair no no totally fair I shouldn't have used the word agent but she's well aware of what DOJ's advice and guidance is on releasing information before an election and this to me is a little bit unusual not just a little bit a lot a bit unusual

for them to do this 30 some days out. But at the end of the day, as we've talked about, all these court cases are gonna hurt Trump, this is a bad situation for him.

His favorability rating was probably higher in May when he was in trial in New York than it is now. And so this is what I was speaking to earlier. The optics of this is bad for democracy, but might be helpful for Donald Trump. You know, even given this sensitivity around the timing of this, I think it'll be really interesting to see how both of the campaigns actually respond.

to this filing. For years now, you've had sort of the White House and the then Biden campaign sort of walk a delicate line where they wanted to tell the public that there is distance between an independent Justice Department and the White House, particularly as these cases were proceeding. At the same time, you know

So it'll be interesting to see what the Harris campaign does. Do they spotlight this? At the same time, the Trump campaign, to your point at times, actually built support and got momentum when some of these different updates happened. I just think, you know, we're in the very end of an election here. I think with a small number of independent voters who are trying to decide what to do,

when they start thinking about January 6th, even if there's not that much that's really new or revelatory in this filing, I think it has that echo of James Comey's letter that yet again, you're thinking about the very thing that is a,

a weakness for this candidate. I don't think you want to, I mean, I think for the Trump people, they just cannot be pleased with this. - And that's what Trump did in 2016, right? He kept saying, "Oh, if she's elected, it's gonna be chaos. "There are gonna be lawsuits." Ironically, there's gonna be so much chaos if it's her. And I do think it reminds people of the chaos of when Donald Trump was president. And I think he's different.

Back then, way back in early this year, which seems like a year ago now, he was so much more disciplined. He would come out of the court, right? And it was maybe one minute he would stay on script, then he would leave. He is now off the chain, as the kids say, and talking about people coming in and slicing your neck. And I'm just saying he's becoming increasingly agitated and unnerved, it seems, on the campaign trail. I don't think...

this is good for people who are trying to decide if they're going to vote for him. I don't think it's going to make them feel more sympathetic. I'm being really respectful, but we have an October of chaos. We have storms. We have strikes. We have strife. We live in chaos right now. And that's in the Biden-Harris administration. Yeah, I will say he doesn't control the weather. I thought I got to. You did. You did. It's one of those things, you know, somebody somebody was wondering out loud, what are we going

what are we going to cut? There's no more debates. There's no more official things. What are we going to cover in the final week? I just wanted to say that there's always something in October. You just may not know what it is. All right, panel. Thank you, guys. You guys will be back in just a couple minutes. Coming up here on CNN this morning, former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton joins us live. We'll ask him about the White House's call for restraint as Israel weighs its next move against Iran. Plus, J.D. Vance and Tim Walz wasted no time returning to the campaign stump.

training barbs over debate night. We of course had a debate last night, a vice presidential debate. I thought it went pretty well. Not bad for a football coach, not bad.

all right this morning several countries preparing to evacuate their nationals from lebanon as the region awaits israel's response to iran's missile attacks the israeli military warning that it has the means to quote strike any target in the middle east and quote overnight israeli airstrikes hit downtown beirut an area that's not been struck since the 2006 war and at least nine people were killed as israel's war cabinet weighs its next move president biden is making clear he supports the country's right to respond

with a key exception. The answer is no. They have a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion.

All right, joining us now, former UN ambassador and former national security advisor under President Trump, John Bolton. Sir, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. I saw that you said earlier this week that you think that Israel should strike Iran's nuclear weapons program. You heard the president there saying that, no, they should not do that. What's your reaction to him saying that?

Well, there are two things wrong with what he said. Number one, that he said it, even if that's his opinion. Why do you tell Israel's adversary, and by the way, America's adversary in Tehran, what you're not going to do? Let them worry about it. You can make the decision, but telling them what you're giving up or what you hope the Israelis give up is just a failure of Diplomacy 101. And second, the position itself is wrong. Israel's response should not be proportionate.

I don't know what the word proportionate means here. When Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, should our response have been proportionate to sink an equal number of battleships that Japan had sunk? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense in this context. Deterrence has obviously failed. Israel followed

Biden's command really back in April that they not respond effectively to that attack by ballistic cruise missiles and drones. I think Israel fired one missile at one missile launching site, obviously didn't deter Iran in the slightest. So the way you establish deterrence, reestablish it in this case, is by responding disproportionately. And the

the most important threat that Israel and the wider world face from Iran is its nuclear proliferation program. Sir, do you think that the... You mentioned, you say deterrence has failed.

What is the bigger threat to the U.S., though? I mean, the concerns about the wider escalation of this war are potentially very serious. Clearly, that's what the administration is trying to avoid. How do you see what you're suggesting not inflaming the situation further?

Well, I think the administration is paralyzed by this fear of wider war. Israel and really the Western world have been in a wider war since October the 7th on multiple fronts. The Houthis in Yemen are now attacking Israel as well as closing the Suez Canal Red Sea passage, the port.

The Hamas attacked out of Gaza last October 7th. Hezbollah has been rocketing northern Israel since October the 8th. And Iran itself has engaged as well as the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. So the wider war is already here. But let's look at it from the point of view of Israel and the United States. Israel first. Can you assure Israel that the next time Iran fires a ballistic missile from its territory,

that under the nose cone of that missile there's not going to be a nuclear weapon. Iran's nuclear program, as I said before, is the biggest threat. Israel is a small country, six, eight, ten nuclear weapons. There's not much of a country left. So ask yourself the question this way: Is the threat of nuclear extinction a bigger or a smaller threat than a wider war?

Sir, we are, of course, just 33 days from the presidential election. And I know you have said that you plan to vote for Dick Cheney to write him in. Dick Cheney...

put out a statement saying that he is going to vote for Kamala Harris. His daughter Liz Cheney is going to campaign with her, we learned this morning. He said, "As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution, and that is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris." Does that sway you at all, that the man that you say you think should be president is urging people to vote for Kamala Harris?

Well, it's caused me to reassess whether to vote for Dick. I mean, I'm looking to vote for a conservative Republican. And I certainly think Dick is a conservative Republican. If he were to win, you know, not much chance of that, I suppose. I don't think he'd put Kamala Harris in his cabinet. I had originally thought in 2020 I'd write in Ronald Reagan to make the point even more effectively. And maybe that's what I'll do this time. I am not going to vote for either Harris or Trump. Neither one are qualified to be president.

Who do you think would be the better person to steward this conflict in the Middle East from an American perspective? I mean, you have talked about the stakes. Would you rather see Kamala Harris in the Situation Room next year or Donald Trump? You know, I don't want to see either one of them for different reasons. It's going to be one, though. Kamala Harris has the requisite. Well, and they're both unacceptable to me.

That's a matter of conscience on my part. I'm not going to choose between two unacceptable alternatives on the ground that one is less unacceptable than the other. Neither one meet the minimal test of whether they should be president to begin with. I understand, obviously, one of them will win, but I'm going to cast a protest vote. I don't like it, and I worry about the United States for the next four years, whoever wins. No, I mean, that's fair enough. Who do you think would be in Israel's interest? Which one of them?

I don't think you can tell. I mean, Donald Trump said yesterday or maybe it was the day before that this conflict between Iran and Israel is like two kids in a schoolyard fighting. And that's about a typical Donald Trump assessment of a complex international problem. Those who think he's going to be reflexively supportive of Israel really should think again. Really interesting. All right. Ambassador John Bolton, very grateful to have you on the show this morning, sir. Thank you very much for being here.

glad to do it thank you all right 52 minutes past the hour here's our morning roundup one of the doctors charged in friends star matthew perry's death is now pleading guilty dr mark chavez entered the plea this week he faces up to 10 years in prison chavez and others are accused of illegally dealing ketamine to perry perry died in october of 2023 due to acute effects of the drug and his subsequent drowning

Today, President Biden continues his Hurricane Helene response. He will tour damage in Florida and Georgia. Yesterday, he visited the Carolinas, flying over the damage and later approving the deployment of active duty troops to provide critical aid for Western North Carolina. At least 191 people have died because of the storm.

Melania Trump sharing her thoughts on reproductive rights just weeks ahead of the presidential election. And it is, seems to be, at odds with the Republican Party's platform. The Guardian reports that in her new book, she writes this, quote, Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman's fundamental right of individual liberty to her own life grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.

Do you think, Mike, I mean, Melania Trump coming out there and saying this at this time, it's obviously very much at odds with the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, but it does potentially line up with where Trump and Vance seem to be trying to go here in the final days. Well, Vance, two nights ago, talking about we need to win back the trust of the American, the Republican Party needs to win back the trust of women and the American people on this issue.

So yes, I mean, it's a bag of mixed messages, that's for sure. But I think that's the intention, again, is to try to throw enough out there to obfuscate. And again, just go back to the actual record. He's the one who appointed the justices that overturned Roe v. Wade. His record when it came to women's health as president was abysmal. Actually made it harder for poor women to access health care, let alone health care services for pregnant women. Well, and he did brag about it.

appointing the justices that overturned him. -Sending the power back to the states, which is, again, a whole other part of this that we need to remember. -All right, let's turn now to this -- Tuesday night's vice presidential debate and the candidate clash that wasn't. -Yep, it was the craziest debate yet. They actually talked about policy. Yeah, this debate turned out to be polite, friendly, and intimate. It was jarring. Basically, people were expecting a horror movie, but instead they got a Hallmark movie. They go, "What? Are they falling in love? What's happening?"

It was an overall cordial vice presidential debate, but now with both Tim Walz and J.D. Vance back on the trail, I guess the gloves have come back off. I just asked the simplest of all questions that every single American should be able to answer. I asked him if Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. He refused to answer. Tim Walz said that he was friends with school shooters twice.

And I said that was probably only the third or fourth dumbest comment Tim Walz made that night. Right. Solon? The difference between, you know, a debate without a crowd and speaking before a rally, right? You're going to see some of those niceties and that tone completely change here. And you're also not going to see these candidates go into the policy details like they did, you know, at the debate. You had them in the weeds at times, you know, in the debate on some of those policies.

I don't think you're going to see that moving forward based off of what we've seen from these rallies. Now it's about sort of picking some of those different moments that can translate to viral clips, sort of a verbal miscue, getting a fact wrong here. That's going to be what you're going to see them highlight moving forward. Annie, the thing that I keep turning over in my head is, and when I was talking to sources about how this was all going,

There are a lot of people out there who didn't seem to have any question that they thought Tim Walz was a nice guy, right? Minnesota nice. But the J.D. Vance perhaps had some challenges in that department and that the fact that all the headlines coming out of it were, well, this was very cordial. They were so nice to each other. Ultimately benefit Vance at the end of the day. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you also have, not to play the stereotypes, but you had two Midwesterners debating and it was a very different vibe. I still maintain Midwestern nice is not actually that nice. That's true. That's true.

- Outwardly it is. - I mean, Vance's people, I was texting with them during the debate, they were so happy with how it was going. And it was a contrast with how he has presented himself on the campaign trail. It was a very different Vance that showed up. It was a Vance that I think we kind of remember from when he was kind of pitching Hillbilly Elegy and sort of presenting himself as a kind of a nice kid from the Midwest who can explain what's going on. But I think really,

what I was thinking about coming out of this debate was not so much 2024, and I hate to say this, but 2028. And I think Vance really did himself a lot of favors for the next election. Whereas Walls, I mean, you know, I think anybody, any Democrat who's thinking of running maybe in 2028 would have watched that and thought, okay, I think I could do a better job on the debate stage. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, which was very much against having Vance be at the top of the ticket, has now, today, it's Vance sells Trump better than Trump. It's their headline. Yeah.

I mean that's true. I mean that's, I'll please you. Look at this. Look at this Kawhi-O situation. I see these headlines of "Sane Washing." Have you seen the line "Sane Washing"? J.D. Dance in the "Sane Washing." Look, he does make the case extremely well. And he did himself a favor. And I think for 99 of the 100 minutes that that went on before we got to that final bit,

Hands down, J.D. Vance won that debate. But we all know that most Americans didn't watch it. And we're going to see these viral clips. And how they spin this in the next couple of days, I think, is what it's going to determine, 2028, and whether or not we think we've got it matters. All right. Karen, I'm sorry because we're running out of time. But you can weigh in on this, though. I really wanted to leave everybody with this. Some might say it is the gruelest day of the year, while others might describe it as fetch. Mm-hmm.

On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was. It's October 3rd. It's October 3rd, and over the last two decades, this day has become synonymous with, this is one of my favorite movies, the cult classic teen girl comedy Mean Girls, from that star-studded cast, including Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams, and I'm not a regular mom, I'm a cool mom, Amy Poehler, to the iconic quotable lines. She doesn't even go here, Glen Coco.

- Not for you, Glen Coco. You go, Glen Coco. - We didn't get to see, you're, stop trying to make fetch happen. This film about teenage girlhood withstands the test of time and it's now making its way to the stage and it's gonna be coming back to theaters. Earlier this year, there was a musical remake of the story to hit the big screen. ♪ She is not, she is stalking the hall ♪ ♪ The thrill of ♪ - I have to say I'm a big fan of Renee Rapp. So whether you're celebrating today with the Jingle Bell Rock or practicing math leads, just remember. - On Wednesdays, we wear pink.

I'm obviously not wearing pink because it's Thursday. It's really too bad that it didn't occur on a Wednesday this year. Anyway, happy Mean Girls Day to all who celebrate. Thanks to our panel. Thanks to you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. CNN News Central starts right now.

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