Of you for being with us. Ac360 begins now breaking news and a possible campaign, stop at the southern border for vice president harris is new polling gives him a boost in arizona and two other battleground states. Also tonight she says, yes, to a second debate, the former president says, no political power couple paul james carville and mary matalin join us for their take on the campaign plus the latest from israel and lebanon after the deadliest israeli airstrikes on hezbollah targets in a generation good evening. Thanks for joining us, the former president is holding the second of two events today in western pennsylvania, his trip through the commonwealth shadowed by a mobile billboard for the democratic national committee many reading, there's no debate. Donald trump's a chicken. The message alluding to his decision to opt out of a second debate with vice president harris, the faceoff would err on october 23 on cnn again, she's already said yes and invited him to do the same joining me on the debate stage let's have another debate is more to talk about him. Voters of america deserve thing here the conversations that i think we should be having on substance on his shoes, on policies well, his answer now is no. And here's how he justified it she's done one debate i've done two it's too late to do another. I'd love to in many ways, but it's too late. The voting is cast by that he means early voting, apparently though it's hard to see why that would preclude debating again, the campaigning after all goes on hill election day. It doesn't stop when the early vote is cast. In any event, he's also again calling the legitimacy of the vote into question, posting this on social media quoting now, the democrats are talking about how they're going, how they're working so hard to get millions of votes for americans living overseas. Actually, they're getting ready to cheat now he's referring seems to a program that's been around since the 1980s for getting absentee ballots to american service members and americans living overseas. That happens all the time. Quoting again from the post, he's saying without any evidence that it amounts to stealing our military votes a foreign president is also making news with his answer to this question if you're not successful this time, do you see yourself running again in four years no, i don't know. I don't i think that that will be that will be it. I don't see that at all. I think hopefully we're going to be successful mr. President, thank you for the interview. I appreciate him much his tone there, notwithstanding new polling tonight from the new york times and siena college shows him competitive or better in three sunbelt states, leading the vice president in arizona and ahead, but within the margin of error, meaning no clear leader in georgia and north carolina. No clear leader either nationally in cnn's latest poll of polls, which shows the vice president ahead by three but it's pulling in the book border issue, which could be factoring to a decision the harris campaign is just now weighing namely whether to go there late this week. We'll have more on that shortly. New developments as well in the case of the republican who wants to be north carolina's governor, but also once referred to himself as a black nazi on a pornography forum, where he also said he'd like it if slavery was brought back and he would like to have some slaves mark robinson, that's his name over the weekend, several senior staff members of his quit. One of the state's republican us centers, thom tillis told cnn he would not be campaigning for him. And late today, republican senator and vice presidential nominee, j. D. Vance, would not answer when pressed on whether the former president still supports the man he once called dr. Martin luther king junior on steroids as i've said, that is mark robinson's case to make to the people of north carolina. I'm not going to make it for them. And the people in north carolina, they get to be the judge's of whether they believe him or not. It's really that simple. Let's focus on the real issues that affect north carolina so a lot to talk about, starting with cnn's priscilla alvarez on that significant potential changes if vice president harris's campaign scheduled. So what are you learning about this potential trip to the border well, anderson, some campaign officials remain concerned that the former president donald trump, as you laid out, is still leading on the issue of immigration and border security. But sources it's telling me they also see an opportunity they think that they can start to close that gap. And so they are weighing a potential visit to the u. S. Mexico border when she is slated to visit arizona on friday. Now, of course, the vice president has visited the border as vice president, she's also done so as california senator and the attorney general and sources tell me that no final decision has been made yet on this potential stop, but it is certainly significant because it is telling of the campaign see in the issue of border security continuing to crop up as a top issue among voters. And if she were to go, she would go at a time when border crossings for low the lowest they've been since 2020. Of course the administration has been citing executive action over the summer for the plummeting of those border crossings. And it would give her the opportunity to talk about that in battleground arizona, where again, as you mentioned, former president donald trump continues to hold a lead in those polls. So this would be a notable stop if she were to make it still significant though, that she's going to arizona when the polling is so tight, show alvarez, thanks. Cnn's danny freeman is at the trump event and the western pennsylvania town of indiana. So what was the foreign president's message to pennsylvania voters today? simpson the theme of today when it comes to foreign president trump's trip to western pennsylvania was the economy, the economy, the comedy boredom comes to this particular rally. He only started speaking maybe a little over ten minutes ago. And at times he has spoken about inflation, yes afghanistan, other issues that he and the campaign i'm not trying to been drill down against vice president harris. However, he has talked about a leak last debate that he had with vice president harris, complaining about how the moderators treated me also said that vice president harris, he felt was terrible at the debate. He also criticized vice president paris is interview with oprah that took place the past few days as well, noting that he and oprah used to be close but earlier in the day, former president trump actually made a rare off the record stop when it comes to a grocery store and he actually paid for a woman's groceries at the store in front of cameras. Really making it an opportunity to comment on the state of inflation in this particular country at this moment before that, he also held a roundtable with farmers and he was using that opportunity to talk about his ambitious tariff plans at one point, actually threatening the company, john deere, saying that he would put 200% tariffs on quote, everything that you want to sell into the united states. If the company moves production to mexico. So we'll see if he continues on that economic message tonight so far at this rally in indiana, anderson, and there's another trump campaign event that'll take place in pennsylvania, right? yeah, that's right. Anderson, our own alayna treene, she actually confirmed earlier this evening that we now know former president trump intends to go back to butler, pennsylvania on october 15. We knew that he had been planning to go back to butler since he was shot at that rally back in july, but we didn't know specific details. Now, we're learning he's going back there on october 5th and i'll just note anderson that particular event is particularly important to a lot of trump's supporters here in pennsylvania. I've spoken to them many folks who have said to me that they've actually determine that they wanted to volunteers step up and actually help out the campaign specifically because they were potentially at at rally in butler, pennsylvania. It has been galvanizing, especially for trump's supporters. Here in western pennsylvania, anderson, danny freeman, thanks very much on the stand was ashley etienne, vice president harris's former communications director cnn, senior data reporter harry enten, also republican strategist doug heye and ana navarro and is a harris supporter. So let's talk about the colin, the ellipse. All looks good for trump. It looks good for trump. And i think it's part of a larger trend you know, last week we were discussing those great lake battleground states, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. Those polls looked good for kamala harris. And indeed, if you take an average across those three states, kamala harris has a small advantage of two point advantage. You look across those sunbelt battleground states, do i think there were a lot of democrats in all these polls are too good for trump, blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is, even when you average across all the polls, not just polls that come out today, you look across the sun sunbelt battleground states, georgia, arizona, north carolina, on average, donald trump is ahead by a point and a half. And i think this speaks to a larger issue that the harris campaign has, which is she seems to be doing work kristen joe biden did four years ago in states in which the democratic coalition is highly reliant on voters of color. In north carolina and georgia, that would be african africanamericans out in arizona, that would be hispanics. She is behind his pace on with those particular voters. She's holding around with white voters. And i think that's in large part why she is holding her own in the great lakes up and michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin, because the debris our credit coalition is whiter. You were saying with black is a black man or black women. It's black men in particular who she's struggling with. She's also particularly struggling among younger black voters. This is something that we've seen in the polling, which is that among young voters overall. Yes, she is doing better than joe biden was at the beginning of the year, right? just before joe biden dropped out of the race? but she's doing significantly worse than joe biden did four years ago. So it's a very interesting sort of different coalition one in which the electoral map at this point is still at least a little bit undetermined. Ashley, why do you think she's not doing well with those groups that harry was talking about? well, i can think it's actually still quite early. I mean, the polls are a little all over the place. I always caution overinvesting polls, especially at this time because there was never a poll that showed in 2016 that donald trump was going to win. But in addition to that what you're really looking at it this stage is the trend line. She continues to trip pinned up, close the gap with many of these key constituencies and donald trump remains flat. In fact, he's still at 50% unfavorables. I mean, that's incredibly high. So i think there's still a lot of opportunities. Opportunities for the vice president, but she's got she's got a lot of room to make up for a lot of room to grow, but she's got to accelerate the pace. Doug, i mean, as the now the republican governors association, they pull financial support from mark robinson in north carolina's several senior staffers. Staffers have stepped down obviously, i mean, he's got nothing else to do so. I assume he's just going to stay in the race, but does is this thing i mean, is it over for him i think the race was probably over before thursday's revelation, certainly after the kfile revelations on thursday, the race went from not being on life support to being officially declared dead. And i think there are two reasons for that one is what these staffers at left you were not really on the 800m if you were looking at the mark robinson campaign, there were a lot of very smart professional people who decided to stay away because they're knew, they knew there was trouble coming and whomever robinson is able to bring on if anybody now wouldn't be the 800m, they'd probably be the queue r or s team. And it doesn't matter because the race is over. What does matter is whether or not now this is going to have an impact on the presidential race. And it certainly will have an impact down ballot for the counsel of states. And there's a targeted congressional seat in north carolina, one as well. That's why north carolinians are nervous. It's why republicans in washington are nervous. They've had to concede a gubernatorial seat. Bad enough, but this could have much bigger implications. First lady milan trump has been pretty much out of the public eye for most of this campaign. Obviously, she showed up briefly at the republican convention. She didn't speak there she did speak at two political fundraisers for the log cabin republicans, which is a gay group. It's been disclosed now that she was paid more than $237,000 there's furthest one of those events and what sort of unusual as the president of the log cabin told cnn earlier this month that the group did not put up the money for her to speak and the disclosure form did not give any more information about the source of the payment didn't say whether or not he knew about the money, but as far as i know i mean, does it make sense? i mean, why is she understand? there's a lot of grift in this family, but why is she receiving this money? she's the former first lady you would think there are some things she might do for, a larger issue other than just getting paid married to donald trump? i'm not sure i blame her for trying to get as much money as she can for putting up with him and pretended to be part and parcel of this. Look, she's obviously a full participant in the trump family grift. Just this in the last few days, we have heard heard about donald trump selling crypto. Donald trump selling collectible coins melania trump, with this memoir book, which is about this debt. And now she's selling christmas ornaments for $90 each cheap christmas ornaments were $90 each. It's really i find that incredibly tacky and unseemly because the people that they are preying on. And when i say they, i mean, trump's writ large because they're all into this grift or the poor people are their supporters, their followers, who they are using the pay for their luxuries and to pay for their money. But it is tacky that supposedly people who have this much money are out there turning maralago and turning this campaign until the home shopping network. It is frankly tacky harry, just in terms of the numbers, i mean, if this polling holds up, i mean, do you think it is early to ashley's point? i mean, i think republicans thought it was early last week when those polls up in the great lakes, we're looking good for kamala harris. I think there are a lot of democrats who might argue it looks early now, look, we still have, you know, well over a month ago. Yes. Things could definitely change at this particular point going forward, but the bottom line is this has been one of the steady as racist on record, right? if you were to ask me a month ago, who was ahead in the national polls, i would have said kamala harris was slightly ahead. I would've said she was slightly ahead in those great lake battleground polls, but the bottom line is this race anderson it's the closest that i've ever seen. And you can see it so well on the electoral map, right? let's just say that we believe the polling for a second and say we're going to assign each of the states to the person who is the polling leader, even at the lead, is very, very small. What do we get? we get kamala harris with 276 electoral votes to donald trump's 262. That would be the closest race since 2000, right? in terms of the electoral college. And of course that map is because kamala harris holds in those great lake battleground states, while donald trump does well along the sunbelt. But here's the thing to keep in mind. If you were to look at this map right now and apply the errors of the polling errors that occurred in 2020, right? when the polling underestimated donald trump, he'd win and all of those swing states right? he'd win in those great lake battleground states, for example. But if you were apply the error that occurred in 2022 when the polling actually underestimated democrats kamala harris would win and all those swing states, that's, we're talking about. We're told that that's what you're showing that poll right there. Is that poll, that poll at map, that map. That map is if the polls are exactly correct and what i'm telling you anderson, is the polling is rarely exactly correct. We have a margin of error. It's there for a reason and the bottom line is at this particular point, either candidate to win this election rather recently actually, do you think next week's vice presidential debate matters much for either, i mean, for either candidate for either irs todd i believe that walz is on the ticket because he's going to voters that are those disaffected republican voters, independent voters those democrats that lean more right? i mean, that's his primary job on this ticket is to engage those folks, get them activated, get them galvanized and excited about this ticket. So he's got to actually achieve that while at the same time undermining j. D. Vance and confidence in him, which he's already done himself. So there's not a whole lot of work that he is due there, but i definitely think that he is bridging the cultural divide with these reporters that i mean, excuse me, what these voters that democrats have had trouble turning out in the last two election cycles. So that's his primary job, and that's going to be his primary audience. So yes, it actually it does matter. And i just want to play something that the former president said at his rally tonight about what would happen if harris wins the election i mean, somebody i heard the other day, pretty smart person. And you think about it and it could be true. They said we don't win this election. That may never be another election in this just country could happen how do you interpret that i mean, i think budweiser is he quoting himself because i feel like he said that before in various ways. I feel like you're right. I mean, i feel like he has told us that he would be a dictator for day for one day, which is a little scary. I feel like he has told us that if he wins, there's never going to be a need for another election. And so i guess this is recycling the same point. I don't ask me to interpret donald trump anderson, frankly, i don't speak trump. I think the man the man is talking gibberish and makes absolutely so luckily, no sense. I really don't know how any american can go and stand in a rally for hours and hours to hear to hear what's like, i might as well be reading dr. Seuss because that makes a hell of a lot more sense than anything that comes out of donald trump's mount and frankly, given all the things he says about her animal lecter and sharks and batteries and windmills. Him threatening that there's not going to be any more elections as one of the lesser stupid things he says, all right, thanks to everybody by the way, every doctor says pretty much every day these days and it's quite enjoyable coming up next james carville and mary matalin on their new documentary, living life as a famously bipartisan political couple, and of course, we'll talk to them about the state of the race every minute i think about who's going to win is a minute. I'm not thinking of how we can win also tonight with the race in georgia as close as it is, we're joined by the former democratic candidate for governor there, stacey abrams get back i voted buttons. I drag remote. Why no