to yeah. zip it. that does it. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. and good morning, 10:00 a.m., 7:00 a.m. pacific. i m jose diaz-balart and we are just five days away from the critical midterm elections with many key races neck and neck. president biden and former president trump hit the trail. we are live in two battleground states this morning. plus, the economy is top of mind for many voters as things like mortgages, credit cards, loan payments will soon be even more expensive. we ll talk to president biden s senior adviser public engagement and keisha lance bottoms including biden s warning to the nation about the threat to democracy. also north korea just launched another suspected intercontinental ballistic missile. we ll have a live report from seoul. back here at home, the feds say they busted a nationwide crime ring involving the theft of catalystic converters. we ll break down the details of the operation worth more than half a billion dollars
kari lake, the republican candidate says her strategy is they have to get treated or get moving. some people says that s too harsh and she says it s tough love. katie hobbs used to be a social worker and she s focused on affordable housing as well as a $200 million investment into a trust fund for the homeless. you can see, these are polar opposite strategies that show you how divided this is. what s the reaction to the president s prime time speech last night. what are you hearing there? so i was at a campaign event with kari lake yesterday and remember, she is someone who has questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. she s also repeated some false claims of election fraud. so i asked her to respond to the president s message that election deniers are a threat to democracy. the left is about silencing us, taking away our free speech.
president biden in a prime time speech said that democracy is on the ballot. as i stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in america, for governor, congress, attorney general, secretary of state who won t commit. they will not commit to beinga senting the result of the election that they re runninging in. this is about the caste in america. you can t love your country only when you win. joining us now keisha lance bottoms, senior adviser to the president. good to see you this morning. thank you for being with us. thank you for having me. the president emphasize the need to protect democracy in the american experiment. what has this administration done to protect that, those sacred institutions. we heard the president speak last night reminding everyone how important our democracy is.
it s not something that we can take for granted. the administration has continued to work through the department of justice and homeland security and working with local and state election officials, making sure that we are giving up-to-date threat assessments. as of now there are no credible threats towardses any polling places on election day, but just the fact that we are having to have this conversation in 2022 really speaks to the necessity of the speech that the president gave last night. and so, for example, like your reaction to it. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell that read, quote, president biden is desperate to change the subject from inflation, crime, open borders. now he s claiming that democracy only works if his party wins. americans aren t buying it. what s the white house response to the criticism that the
that s going to be more destruct testify democracy. we will speak out against elections that are corrupt and not a damn way that any one of you say will take that right away from us. jose, clearly, she is leaning into her role here within the maga movement and it s blaming the media as being the real problem. we ve heard that before. indeed. brian, meanwhile, the economy remains the top or a top issue for voters going into tuesday s contest and soon things like credit card debt will be more expensive. what are you seeing. when you talk about the economy, i have numbers to contextualize, and a lot of americans are feeling the crunch and it s not necessarily coming from the labor market. 3.5% unemployment and we ll get an updated figure tomorrow morning and that s the lowest we ve seen since 1969, but what you have a job, what you don t like is the fact that your wages and earnings are getting eroded by this, 8.2% year over year inflation and a big part of