Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. And of course to those of you on cnn max. Gentyes, joining us today fr the u. S. One of the greatest names in broadcasting. That is true. Just ahead on cnn newsroom donald, i know youre watching. You cant help yourself. I know youre watching. No one calls you donald trump anymore, well call you donald duck. Every time i hear you, i feel dumber. We cant trust you. I have been discriminated against, but america is not a racist country. We will end this war. We wont have a blank check, we wont have u. S. Troops. I saved American Auto manufacturing, you know that, in my first term. And ill save it again. We did great. He serves a Billionaire Class and that is what is wrong with this country. This week of all weeks, it will hit home that they are not here, they will miss being here more than were missing them. Live from london, this is cnn newsroom with max foster and bianca nobilo. It is thursday, september 28, 9 00 a. M. Here in london, 1 00 a. M. In simi valley, california where republican candidates for the u. S. Presidency make their case to the American People. They gathered on wednesday night for the second of three debates. Once again frontrunner donald trump was missing from the stage. The seven candidates took turns going after President Biden for the economy, crime, the border crisis and even the autoworkers strike. Here is a look at some of the highlights. Polls dont elect president s. Voters elect president s. And well take the case to the people in the early states, well do it in a state by state direction. And as reagan said, this is our time for choosing. This is where President Trump went wrong. He focused on trade with china, he didnt focus on the fact that they were buying up our farm land or that they were killing americans. He didnt focus on the fact that they were stealing 600 billion in intellectual property. He didnt focus on the fact that they put a spy case off our shores in cuba. Whenever even other ceo k3nd paed into the chinese market, we opened a subsidiary in china. But what was different than every other company . We got the hell out of there. And when i started my company well stand up for the rights of parents and well pass a federal ban on transgender chemical or surgical surgery anywhere in the country. Weve got to protect our kids from this radical gender ideology agenda. If we give you ukraine, next will be poland. This is a guy in 1991 who said that was the darkest moment in World History when the soviet union fell. Listen, everybody, he wants to put the old band back together and only america can stop it. More now from cnns jeff zeleny. Reporter the republican candidates tangled furiously during a two hour debate wednesday night here at the Reagan Library in see me valley, california. Time is clearly running out for many of these candidates to break through and emerge as a leading alternative to former President Trump. That was clear from Florida Governor ron desantis who early on in the debate directly confronted the former president. You know who else is Missing In Action . Donald trump is Missing In Action. He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record where they added 7. 8 trillion to the debt, that set the stage for the inflation that we have. Reporter short time later former new Jersey Governor Chris Christie followed suit. Of course he has been building his candidacy off of a critique of the former president. His indictments were not mentioned at all during the debate. But the former new jersey governor said this donald, i know youre watching. You cant help yourself. I know youre watching. Okay . And you are not here tonight. Not because of polls and not because of your indictments, you are not here tonight because you are afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. Reporter tim scott had one of the strongest moments of the debate when he talked about the history of race in america. Our nation continues to go in the right direction. It is why i can say i have been discriminated against. But america is not a racist country. Never ever doubt who we are. We are the greatest country on gods green earth and frankly, the City On The Hill needs a brand new leader. Reporter as the evening wore on, a spirited debate broke out between tim scott and fellow South Carolinian nikki haley, former governor of the state who actually appointed him to a senate seat in the first place. They tangled for one of the first times in the president ial Campaign Going after their histories of spending and other matters. Clearly this debate was a sign where these candidates are trying to emerge as the second place in this race against donald trump. There were common discussions on ukraine, china, tiktok, Abortion Policy and again not mentioned indictment against the former president. So seven candidates on stage, but the one who was not, donald trump, may have benefited the most of all. Jeff zeleny, cnn, simi valley, california. As jeff mentioned, donald trump chose to skip the second gop debate as he did the first one. Instead the former president traveled to the swing state of michigan to Campaign Amid the ongoing autoworkers strike. Unlike President Biden who joined the union picket line the day before, trump toured a nonunion facility not a strike. Here is . Of what he told them. Yesterday joe biden came to michigan to pose for photos at the picket line. [ boos ] but it is his policies that sent michigan autoworkers to the unemployment line. I s i sided with the auto workers of america and those who want to make America Great again and i always will. Trump has support in michigan including some of the union members, but the head of the uament wiua m w had this to say i dont see any point in working with him because he doesnt care with what the Working Class stands for. He serves a Billionaire Class. Thomas gift is director of the center on University Politics at the University College of london. He is joining us from harrisburg, pennsylvania. Thanks for joining us. What do you think of this idea that the winner of the debate wasnt even there . Well, i think that that is absolutely right. Donald trump won last night because nothing disturbed the Equib Librium where he is declared frontrunner. And nothing would happen that would make donald trump to second guess his decision to bow out of future debates. And that is all that matters. But it is hard to parse winners and losers like this because it is really not a typical debate. The guy that is dominating the polls isnt there. Most of trumps rivals save Chris Christie and to a lesser extent ron desantis are essentially pretending that he doesnt exist. Usually we can assume that candidates are at least trying to knock out the leader. But Donald TrumpsAchilles Heel s the criminal indictments werent even brought up. And that is really something. So i think the debate really felt Something Like a diversion. There was some infighting, some psycho dramas among the candidates that were there, but no one is really budging in the polls and i think that is to terrorisms advantage. Do you think that any of the candidates other than the former president of course, those that were participating last night, improved their chances at all by their participation . I really dont. And i think right now you almost have to say that these debates look largely peripheral bordering on irrelevant. They are pro forma, they may determine who is the second place candidate or maybe even who trumps Vice President ial pick is, but trump is 40 Percentage Points up. You cant ignore that. The underlying pretense of these debates is that there is a real competition, but there is not a real competition. I think by refusing to show up, trump is just reinforcing his main message which is that this is a coronation, not a primary. And trumps entire candidacy is built around this era of inevitability that his nomination is somehow preordained, that it is selffulfilling. And i think that that looks right. It is hard to look at the data and make any other projection. And, you know, contemporaneous to that the fact that trump is running so close to biden in national polls. Basically defies this Electability Argument that so many of trumps opponents have been making against him. And quite an interesting row between haley and ramaswamy around tiktok. My kids have been pointing out tiktoks and links to the election and it is all ramaswamy. They all know who he is and they dont know who any of the other candidates are apart from donald trump. I mean, what do you make of that . I mean, it will be difficult getting young voters out of course, but hes a bit of a star in the online world. Yeah, Vivek Ramaswamy is all over tiktok, he is all over twitter. I follow him and i think that he is quite effective at delivering his message in these kind of bite sized segments. He is very enthusiastic. He is rhetorically very impressive. Just watching him talk, he was referred to as the chatgpt candidate by Chris Christie in one of the earlier debates. But you know, im not sure if the young vote is really who is going to determine this election. So i think to a large extent ramaswamy is building up his profile. Maybe setting himself up for a position in cabinet if trump were to win or maybe even teeing himself up for 2028. But, yeah, it is certainly interesting and he is reaching voters where they are. One of the moderators donna perino asked which one of the candidates should be voted off the island. Obviously trump is on far ahead in the polls, but clearly candidates would need to drop out if there was even a theoretical possibility of somebody else winning the nomination. Who do you think that person might be . Well, i think what these debates dont seem to be doing is clearing the field and the only way that trump is going to face a real primary is if he is forced to go head to head with a single opponent. Whether that is desantis or haley or someone else, that does mean other candidates dropping out. Either in the coming weeks or right before iowa and new hampshire. Because right now this is the trump versus even else primary. It is a huge fractured field. Everyone is splitting the antitrump votes. And winner take all or even proportional primary, trump can essentially amass all the delegates with that formula. He has about 55 of the partys vote at the moment. Only way to beat that is oneonone. But there is a collective action problem which is dropping out might be good for the broader effort to challenge trump, but it is not good for the candidates individually and no one wants to self sacrifice, no one wants to be that first mover. So i think to a large extent there will be pressure on some of these candidates that are just lingering in the single digits. But, you know, who is actually willing to bow out first, im not sure if i laparticularlyf donald trump is going to run away with it, why not just stay in the race. Thomas gift, always great to hear from you. Thank you for joining us from pennsylvania. Donald trumps civil trial is set to begin monday in new york on charges of widespread business fraud, a case that could pose an existential threat to trumps real estate empire. And it follows several major setbacks. The wednesday in the Election Interference case firmly rejected calls to recuse herself. She said her past statements this trump were not evidence of bias as trump alleged. In her 20 page ruling chutkan said that shes never taken the position that trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned and trumps lawyers could not show that she ever said anything like that. Only a few days remain before the u. S. Government will be forced to shut down again due to a stalemate in congress over how to keep the lights on. Unless Congress Acts decisively very soon, federal agencies are set to run out of money at midnight on Saturday Night. But many republicans are wary of the political costs that they could incur from a lengthy shutdown. Here is what some lawmakers had to say about the dysfunction within their party. At the end of the day leadership proceed Crassity Natured and created a mess. Now we got to find our way through it. If that means staying a couple extra weeks with a shutdown, that is fine. Tactics it takes to shut the damn thing down doesnt benefit the conservative platform. This is not a paralleling or supporting a conservative platform by any stretch of the imagination. If you make a deal, you got to stick to the deal. I understand that the speaker has a lot of pressures on him, so i dont want to judge why hes doing what hes doing, but i think if he struck with the original deal, but that was going to be impossible too from what we hear from the house. For more now on why a shutdown now may seem more likely than ever, here is cnns John Lawrence. Reporter this october might be a little more spooky than usual in the u. S. Do you think a Government Shutdown is inevitable . I dont believe anything anymore in politics. Reporter funding for the government expires on sunday, and right now there is no plan in place to prevent that. Every day i have confidence because were america. We will solve the problems before us and every day will be better than the day before. Some days you stumble and some days you get better. Reporter the white house is calling on House Republicans to back the bipartisan stopgap bill that would temporarily keep the government running. Speaker mccarthy needs to stop letting the maga radicals drive his decisions and do the sensible thing, follow the senates lead and pass a bipartisan cr to prevent this reckless shutdown. Reporter but 134 some membef the house gop arent showing signs of compromise. If they want somebody to just keep coming voting for continuing resolutions, they have had other choices but im here to fight. Reporter among the potential impacts of a shutdown . Active Military Members and Border Patrol agents will go without pay. Im John Lawrence reporting. Indicted u. S. Senator bob menendez plans to address his fellow Senate Democrats later today as calls mount for him to resign. Menendez and his wife are facing multiple corruption and bribery charges involving three businessmen and the government of egypt. At least 30 Democratic Senators are depandimanding that he step. Menendez was arraigned on wednesday in federal court. He pleaded not guilty and said he expects to be fully exonerated. Investigators say he and his wife took hundreds of nous cash and gold bars and othenowlged t present his, quote, biggest fight yet. More than two months after this american soldier made a mad dash into north korea, he is back on u. S. Soil. Well have a live report on his return. Plus an apology after canadian lawmakers cheered a ukrainian veteran who fought with the nazis in world war ii. And rough night in philadelphia as what police are calling criminal opportunists smash into retailers in the city center. A u. S. Soldier held in north korea is back on american soil. Travis king flew to san antonio and being examined at a medical center. King was released after, quote, against diplomacy but they insist that no concessions were made. Travis king first Yocrossed E Border and they rejected our direct approaches, ended up talking to sweden and sweden talked to us and helped negotiate this transfer. But i would not see this as a sign of some breakthrough. I think it is a oneoff being willing to return this private. It is unclear what disciplinary action king may face. Authorities say that he willful and without authorization crossed into north korea during a tour of the dmz. Mark stewart is covering this live from beijing for us. Mark, now that travis king is back on u. S. Soil, what is the priority for him and also the u. S. Government . Reporter i think that there is really two priorities. One is health, the second would be helpful information. Lets first talk about health. U. S. Officials want to make sure that he is in physical and emotionally good state of mind. And so it has been made clear that upon his arrival he will be examined by a very experienced team in these matters. Among the potential stops he may make during this very well orchestrated arrival, he may be enlisted in the department of Defense Program that helps people who have been held in captivity who have been held far away from home. Basically reassimilate and get used to life once again out of these at times challenging conditions. It is something that brittany fwr griner experienced. And then there is this other issue of helpful information. It is very rare for an american to be held in north korea as well as being released. So he will likely face questions about where he was taken, what questions he asked, what kind of information that he volunteered back. It is all part of this big protocol when someone who he was held in a compromising situation arrives back in the United States. So when we saw a team of