This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, so Lifelock wants to remind you to update your passwords. Using the same password across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable to cyber criminals. For comprehensive identity theft protection, let Lifelock alert you to anything suspicious and fix any issues. Start protecting your identity today with a 30-day free trial at lifelock.com/podcast. Terms apply. What's happening now? Breaking news. Donald Trump says he won't repeat won't take part in the second debate with Kamala Harris. Trying to spin their showdown this week is a win for him, even as his allies are deep into damage control after his rocky, off-message performance. We're standing by to see if he has more to say at a rally this hour in the battleground state of Arizona. Also tonight, Vice President Kamala Harris is firing right back saying she and Trump owe it to voters to face off again. Harris is working to build on her debate momentum with events in the swing state of North Carolina. Plus, the U.S. Attorney General, Merrick Garland, slams efforts to turn the U.S. Justice Department into what he calls a "political weapon." We're breaking down his fiery speech to staffers and his warnings about the threats and the attacks they are now facing. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States. And around the world, I'm Wolf Blitzer, you're in the Situation Room. This is CNN Breaking News. The breaking news this hour, Donald Trump declaring there won't be a second presidential debate between him and Kamala Harris, the former president, hosting the announcement online shortly before his rally this hour in the battleground state of Arizona will monitor that. CNN Steve Contorno is at the Trump event and Tucson Eva McKend is with Kamala Harris in North Carolina. We'll get Harris's reaction to all of this. But Steve, let me go to you first. What reason does Trump give for not doing another debate? Well, just moments ago, Trump posted on his website, Truth Social, laying out his case for why another debate is not necessary. He wrote, I quote, "When a prize fighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, 'I want a rematch.'" Polls clearly show that I won the debates and he ended with saying in all caps, "There will be no third debate." He also said that the vice president should quote, "Focus on what she should have been doing for the last four years." Now, I should note that a CNN poll of registered voters who watched the debates, 63% of them said that Harris outperformed Trump. Trump though is making the case and his campaign has made the case that they have gotten more of a bump out of this debate that Harris has and they see no need for a second debate when 65 million people watched the first one. So instead, he is hitting the road. Today, he's in Arizona, a critical battleground, also a border state so we can expect that immigration will be on his mind as certainly was at Tuesday's debates. He also is going to focus on the economy, behind me on the stage. There are signs set up with some of his economic messaging, including make housing great again and no taxes on tips. Even in a state like Arizona, where it's a border state and immigration ads have been flooding the airwaves, most voters say the economy is their number one priority going into this election just as it is in all the other swing states, Wolf. I, Steve, could turn on the scene for us. We'll see what Trump has to say. This hour, we'll stand by for that. Not a vice president Kamala Harris out there on the campaign trail in North Carolina and still pushing for a debate rematch with Trump. Seeing as even the candidates in Greensboro in North Carolina for us right now, that's where Kamala Harris will soon hold her second event in the state today. So Eva, what's the latest, what does she already say? Well, the reason why her campaign wants another debate is because they believe that that platform illustrated in their view that the former president is unfit for the presidency. And although winning a debate is not the same thing as winning an election, they feel as though overall it just provided a lot of momentum for the campaign, though they are still measured in their response and know that they have a lot of work to do. Well, let's talk about North Carolina. They believe that this state is really in play, this cycle, for a whole host of reasons. One of which they feel as though the candidate, the Republican candidate for governor here, is especially weak in a way that benefits them. They also are encouraged by the amount of momentum here when it comes to early voting. 161,000 people have requested ballads to vote early. You also have nearly a dozen historically black colleges and universities in this state. And so they can speak directly to those voters. I can tell you that I spoke to some young women in the crowd from Bennett College. They are very excited and this is the first time that they'll be participating in a presidential election. And so for those reasons and then also running on the strength of reproductive rights, they think that they can really compete in this state in a way that they haven't been able to do in the recent class. I'll leave you with this, Wolf, the last time a presidential candidate was a Democratic presidential candidate was successful in this state, it was 2008 with President Obama. And let's take a listen to how the vice president spoke about the debate in Charlotte earlier this evening. Two nights ago Donald Trump and I had our first debate. And I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate. Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important. Now, we'll say that they aren't successful in Pennsylvania. Here in the state of North Carolina, if they are able to pull out this state with North Carolina and a few other states, they can still get to that critical 270 electoral votes. So that is why she is here today making two stops. That is why they are investing so heavily here in the South. And North Carolina, clearly a critical state, even McKend on the scene for us. Thank you very much. I want to bring in our excellent political experts right now, Jeff Zeleny. I want to remind our viewers of the results from our CNN instant poll of debate watchers. The other night, 63% said Kamala Harris won the debate compared to just 37% who say Trump won that debate. Are you surprised Trump is now foregoing the chance to have a better performance in front of tens of millions of voters? Well, if only surprised in the fact that if Donald Trump holds to this, and I think we should say if he holds to not wanting to do a third of debate, it's simply him giving up on a very large audience, which is something he very rarely does. But one of the things he clearly did not like was that contrast on stage. The contrast benefited Vice President Kamala Harris. It did not benefit Donald Trump. Of course, he could have a rematch. He could actually prepare for this debate, which clearly he did not do for the debate in Philadelphia. But no, I'm not surprised necessarily at the outcome because he is trying to live in an alternative universe where he says he won the debate. He says polls say he won the debate. That clearly is not true. Republican advisors, Republican allies, Republicans who want him to win tell me they think he missed a big opportunity. So the reality here is he believes he can sort of live in this unity or this world where he is saying he won. He clearly didn't. But the contrast with Harris is something that clearly does not appeal to him a second time around. At that point, Michael Eric Dyson is with us as well. Michael, thanks for coming in. It wasn't that long ago as you and I remember when the Trump campaign slogan with regard to debates was, quote, "Anybody, any time, any place." They even sold t-shirts and blazoned with that motto, "Do you see Trump refusing to do another debate as a tacit admission that he scared and that he lost?" Of course. She beat him like a dirty rug. She smoked him like a pack of menthols. And his fatal mediocrity was revealed. Here's a man whose delusional narcissism has made him believe that somehow he won that battle. Remember, he said she had just turned black, so he was racially charged in his rhetoric. And then he said she was stupid and not very bright. She was so bright she just charged you with intelligence and logic and overwhelmed him. Here's a guy who's proud to be unmolested by enlightenment facing up against a woman who was his intellectual superior and she rubbed him in all certain terms. So yeah, it makes sense for him to back off and to pretend that he has nothing else to prove when he has everything in the world to prove, but he has the privilege of his own white masculinity to hide behind. Scott Jennings is with us as well. Scott Trump is continuing to claim he actually won the debate, but this is what Republican strategist Carl Rove, a man you and I know well, writes today. Listen to this. Tuesday's debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was a train wreck for him, far worse than any anything Team Trump could have imagined. Mr. Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as dumb as a rock, which raises the question, what does that make him? What do you think of what Carl Rove has to say? Well, he missed an opportunity. I mean, there's no question about it. She came out. She had a game plan. She executed it. I do think he got some points scored on the economy, which in our CNN snap polls showed he actually went up on the question of the economy afterwards. But overall, he got off track for most of the debate after the economic portion was done. I'm not surprised that he wouldn't want to do another debate. I don't think there's much to be gained for him in another debate. I think, you know, he's done seven. He won one, which was the Biden debate in June. The other six, the snap poll say he didn't win and he lost three to Hillary, but he still won the election. So I don't think it's fatal, but he did miss a chance to execute during this debate. And now we're going to grind it out for the next two months. It sounds like with no big event to change the flow of the election. We'll see what happens. Anna Navarro is with us. Anna, in a statement declining to face off against Harrison, another debate, Trump uses a price fighter comparison. What did you make of that? Well, Wolf, anybody who follows boxing knows that when a champion wins a fight, they either have to defend the title or retire. But if you want to keep that belt, you go back into the ring and you defend the title. So if he wants to use his own analogy, I would say to him, then go ahead and retire. Look, we all saw it, 70 million Americans saw it. She baited him. She reeled him in. She filleted him, breaded him, fried him, and then chewed him up and had him for dinner. So this is undeniable, Donald Trump is used to lying and saying lies so many times over and over and over again that he himself begins believing them and thinks people are stupid and going to believe them also. The reason he's not doing another debate is because he thinks it's not going to be good for him. And it's very ironic because we all remember he spent weeks, if not months, mocking Joe Biden for not wanting to do a debate, which was false, but he would do it at every rally. I think Kamala Harris should do the same to him, mock him, go with him, call him a coward, call him a chicken, send people and chicken costumes to his rallies. And you know, remind him that if he wants to, that if he's so brave and he wants to defend his boxing title, he should go back in the ring. You know, it's interesting. Beat by a girl, he got beat by a girl, he got beat by a woman of color in front of 70 million people. I hope it hurts. It was a huge, huge television audience and even more we're watching on various social media platforms. I want to play a moment, Jeff, featuring President Biden and a Trump supporter that's getting a lot of attention right now. Watch this. There you go man, oh God, I need that hat. Want my autograph? They don't know. You don't want it. Come on. I ain't going that far. Yeah. I'm going to do a selfie. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Hey. Hey. How proud are you now? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The White House said today, Jeff, that President Biden donned the Trump cap as a gesture of quote bipartisan unity. What did you make of that? Look, that was when he was visiting Shanksville, Pennsylvania, dropping by, I believe, a fire department on 9/11. Look, that's classic Joe Biden there in many respects, that handshake there. If Joe Biden was still running for office, if he was still a candidate for the presidency, he might have shaken that hand a little bit longer and tried to win that man over. I mean, I saw Joe Biden doing that when he was running for president, obviously, a couple different times and certainly in the office. Look, I think it was a moment of unity that there should be certainly more of. And also, he's a good sport. The voter there, obviously, a Trump supporter asked him to exchange hats. I think it was a moment of good humor. Obviously, the right is using the image there, the still image of the president with a Trump hat on to try and discredit him and discredit Vice President Harris. But if you watch the whole moment, I think it's actually a nice one. Michael Eric Dyson, let me get back to you. You have a brand new book just out entitled Represent the Unfinished Fight for the Vote. Coming as Donald Trump and House Republicans are trying to pass a rather controversial bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote, something that is already illegal. You got to admit that if you want to vote, you have to be a citizen. So why are we seeing Republicans push for this now? Well, they're trying to obfuscate a fundamental right here. And that is the right of American citizens to vote. All of this exaggerated, a sermon-drung, and all of this drama about voting irregularities have been proved to be much ado about nothing. On the other hand, attempts to impose ID registration laws. You can use a gun registration to get to voting as opposed to your school ID. So this is the attempt of the right wing and conservatives to undermine the legitimate and valid attempt of people to vote and using that now, they're desperate. They have a candidate who is an orange apparition who has really expended all of his political capital. And all he can appeal to now is xenophobia, nativism, and prejudice. And on the other hand, we have a candidate who is trying to bring America together. All races, all creeds, all ethnicities and nationalities. And in our book, we explore the historic legacies of inequality that have driven the attempt to make the vote something that was hard to get for average ordinary people. It's an important book entitled Represent The Unfinished Fight for the Vote. We'll be reading it and certainly actions to get your thoughts down the road. Michael Eric Dyson and the whole team, guys, thank you very, very much. Coming up, we're going to get reaction to Trump's refusal now to debate once again from a key Michigan Democrat who's warning the race is still razor close in her key battleground state. The president of Debbie Dingell is standing by live. And the Trump campaign is now attacking the United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland, after Garland denounced threats and intimidation of his staff over at the U.S. Justice Department. Bankers David Muir and Lindsey Davis sat there and only corrected me on things where I was right, but didn't correct Kamala on Project 25 that I knew nothing about on the bloodbath hoax that has been totally debunked, which had to do with the automobile industry that is going to be dying, it's dying under this administration, they're all going to be shipped out to China, and everybody in the automobile industry making manufacturing automobiles vote for Trump. We're going to bring back that industry. These people are killing it. She talked about knowing it was all false. She talked about the Charlottesville hoax and these people did nothing about it, which has been totally debunked, as they say, by snopes and snopes and everybody else, and go look it up. Go to snoops, whatever the hell that is. Now, I hear that's a liberal site, and they came out totally in favor of me. There's got to be a bad thing, but they said they gave you total phony suit. Kamala Harris said that no state allows abortion in the ninth month, which is a complete and total lie they do, they do. And even after birth in some cases, she claimed, "I want to monitor women's pregnancies. I don't want to do that. I don't want to. It's a total lie. I don't want to do that." Women, I won't be following you around to the hospital, monitoring. No, she made it up. She's a liar. She doesn't work at McDonald's. She said she worked at McDonald's, right? She worked at McDonald's, and she was working so hard. There's only one problem. She didn't work at McDonald's. She's a liar. Liar. She claimed that I want to deny people IVF treatment when, in fact, I want to require insurance companies to pay for it. And I came out totally in favor of IVF. That's fertilization for the men in the audience. I wish we got a lot of tough ones here. She claims she doesn't want to ban fracking when she said repeatedly over a 10-year period, "I will not have fracking." Then about a little while ago, she goes, "I'd love to have fracking." Her pollster came back and said, "This is not good. In Pennsylvania, you want to ban fracking. That's not so good. That's a big part of what they do, right?" And she came back. She came back. All of a sudden, she thought fracking was wonderful. Here's what happens with all of these things. Right after the election, she goes back to where she was. She claims she doesn't support mass gun confiscation when, in fact, she supported it entirely and through her entire career, think of that. She wants to confiscate your guns. Does anybody in the audience have a gun raise your hand? Would you mind if this lunatic knocked on your door? Hello. I'd like to take away your gun, especially the women won't allow it, they're not going to allow it. That's unbelievable. What is that? Twenty percent of the audience. Let's go. Does anybody in the audience not have a gun? Right? There's somebody. So if you want to keep your gun, we don't have to go through the rest of it. You want to keep your gun, vote for Trump. Okay? I promise. But you know, she did something even worse than that. You know what it is? She was the leader of a thing called the movement, defund the police, how about that? She was the leader of the movement to defund the police. Now think of it, anybody that wants to defund the police, that's called she's down and dirty left. Okay? That's down and dirty. If she's in there for a week at defund the police, we don't want her to be president. We don't want her for anything, frankly. But all of a sudden, all of a sudden, she says, "No, I never said it." You know, she actually goes around saying she never said it. But we've got like 10 years of tapes where she's saying it. With the guns, with the fracking, with everything we mentioned, she had many years of tapes. But the public was not full, they saw right through it, Kamala's lies, an unprecedented part is an interference of two low life anchors and low lives. For them to do what they did, and they wouldn't correct her on like Project 25, I don't know what the hell it is, I purposely have not read it, I could, but I don't want to. Because they never had my authorization. And for them to allow her to get away with me, everything I said, "Well, we don't think it's true like the crime statistics." The FBI didn't report the most crime-ridden cities, they didn't do it. They left out large numbers of areas where they had a lot of crime. So the numbers came in, they weren't up too much. And if anybody in this audience doesn't think there's more crime now, there's so much more crime now, but they gave false and fraudulent numbers. They did it with something else, 818,000 jobs, think of it. They said they had 818,000 jobs that didn't exist. So your jobs numbers look better, but now they had to do. What happened is they were taken away by a leaker. Usually I don't like leakers, but I like this particular leaker, whoever it were. But when a prize fighter loses a fight, you've seen a lot of fights, right? The first words out of that fighter's mouth is, "I want to rematch, I want to rematch." And that's what she said, "I want to rematch." Paul's literally show that I won the debate against Kamala Harris. And as you probably know, because you know, when you say Harris, does anybody know who Harris is? Now, Kamala is a very different kind of a word, nice name, very nice name. But you know her as Kamala -- you don't know her as Harris, when you say Harris, everyone says, "Who the hell is that," right? But she immediately called for a second debate, which means that she was like a prize fighter that lost a fight. We had two debates, though. I had a debate with Crooked Joe Biden, right? And I had another debate with her. She and Crooked Joe have destroyed our country with millions of criminals and mentally deranged people pouring into the USA, totally unchecked, unvetted, and with inflation bankrupting our middle class, it has gotten bad. Everyone knows this, and all of the other problems caused by Kamala and Joe. It was discussed in great detail during the first debate with Joe and the second debate with Kamala Harris. She was a no-show at the Fox debate, you know, Fox invited her. She was a no-show. She got with the great Sean Hannity. Does anybody know Sean Hannity? Good man. He's that good man. And they said, "Where is she?" She didn't show -- so we did a town hall, and he got great ratings on that town hall. I'll tell you right now. He got really great. He led all of television for the week. That's not bad, right? Simple town hall turned out to be -- it turned out to be a town hall from what it was supposed to be, but she didn't show up. She refused also to do NBC and CBS. She went over to ABC, which, in my opinion, has taken a big hit because these two people were bad news. They kept screaming at me. I said, "Why are you screaming?" I said to myself, "I'm looking at him. I always liked him. I'm not going to watch him anymore. I'm not going to watch him because he's not legit what he did. I'm not going to watch him." And his hair's not as good as it used to be, you know? Kamala should focus on what she should have done during the last almost four-year period. She kept complaining, "Well, you know, when I'm in, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that." And at the end of the debate, I said, "Why don't you just do it? You could leave right now. Why don't you do it?" I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do that. And then I'm going to do this, and that, and that. Remember at the convention, when she went out, they nominated her, even though she got no votes, they nominated? No, she came in last place in the primaries, right? And then she said, "Tortle Trump is a threat to democracy." No, she's a threat to democracy. She is a threat to democracy. But you remember when she went out, and she said, "Thank you." Do you remember that? It was the weirdest thing. Am I wrong? They were saying, "J.D. and I are weird." No, we're very solid people. She's weird. And that vice president of hers is really weird. He's really weird. All right, we're going to continue to monitor Donald Trump. He's speaking in Tucson, Arizona right now, making all sorts of very weird statements, including that he had a monumental, his word, monumental victory over what he called comrade, Kamala Harris, at the debate earlier this week. I want to bring in, seeing as Kristen Holmes, she's in Los Angeles right now, where Trump will be holding a fundraiser later tonight, and seeing as chief National Affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny is back with us as well. Kristen, break down what Trump just said in Arizona, because he's going on and on and on, making up a lot of stuff. Yeah, I mean, most of this is him trying to relitigate the entire debate. I mean, we've been hearing him now for something like 15 minutes, go through it, bind by line various attacks, but now he is in front of a very friendly audience who is cheering him on. I know that he had a monumental victory. At one point, he said that they won with women and independents. Of course, as we know, our polling did not show that. They have pointed, they, the Trump campaign to a number of conservative straw polls taken right after the debate, but as we have reported repeatedly, there were a lot of people who went into this debate knowing who they were going to vote for. So it's not surprising that if you look at a conservative straw poll, that conservatives would think Donald Trump won the debate, but obviously our polling didn't show that. He went through a number of different claims. He criticized the moderators. All of this appears to be a lead up as to why he is not doing this third debate as he announced earlier today. Just a couple of things that he said, he said that Kamala Harris claimed I want to monitor women's pregnancies. That's not something I want to do, but he really particularly took issue with the fact that the moderators fact-checked him unsurprisingly. And then he said that they didn't fact-check her, even when she was talking about Project 2025. That is something we know has gotten under his skin of all things. He mentioned this twice in just the short span he was speaking that they didn't say anything about the fact that he has claimed to have nothing to do with Project 2025. Then he went on to his same claims about the fact that he won the debate and that she said noted the other debates that she asked for a second debate right away, which means he won. I mean, well, if this is just him again, relitigating the entire debate, I can tell you time and time again over the last several days, I have picked up the phone and called Republican allies of Donald Trump's who have said in different words that they were disappointed with his performance on Tuesday night. Do they think it costs him the election? No, but he is hearing from people and he is hearing these reports of Republicans saying that he could have done a better job. He should have stuck to the issues. That is what every Republican that wants him to win in November has told me about his debate performance. Clearly, it is getting back to Donald Trump who seems anxious on stage. He is ranting. He is angry. All of this again, relitigating Tuesday night, but this time he is in front of a crowd of Trump supporters so you can hear them cheering. He's getting the reaction he wants in that room. He certainly is a Jeff. What did you make of Trump's explanation that we just heard for why he won't debate Kamala Harris again? Well, look, I mean, he is trying to create an alternative reality. I mean, we've seen him be successful, at least among Republicans in doing that before about the outcome of the 2020 election and other things. One thing he was not talking about were those words printed on the screen on the stage right behind him. This was designed to be a message about the economy and about housing costs and his other economic proposals. They were printed on stage right behind him and he certainly is not talking about those at least at the moment. But look, he is clearly trying to sort of reset the conversation here. But to Kristin's point, so many of his allies thought that he missed an opportunity. He went down one rabbit hole after another. He followed the exact debate that the vice president was trying to leave for him about crowd sizes, et cetera. And he's ranting. But that does not mean that his supporters won't like it. They obviously will. But one of the whole issues here is he spent so much time in his bubble delivering many of the lines on stage at the debate that he does at rallies and to friendly audiences. And they simply do not comport with the reality here, but we've seen this movie many times before. What we don't know is how this one will end. I'm sure we'll see it many times down the road. Jeff Zellini and Kristin Holmes to both of you, thank you very, very much. And we'll be right back with more news. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. So Lifelock wants to remind you to update your passwords. Using the same password across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable to cyber criminals. For comprehensive identity theft protection, let Lifelock alert you to anything suspicious and fix any issues. Keep reciting your identity today with a 30 day free trial at lifelock.com/podcast. Terms apply. I'm CNN's John King. Join me for the podcast all over the map where I'm traveling across the country to find out what American voters think, what frustrates them, what gives them hope, and what may motivate them to go into the voting booth. Nevada is not just a battleground in this presidential election. I know that his panics have made a difference in a lot of elections. The economic anxiety that you find all across the country, but you will find it on steroids right there. Listen to all over the map, wherever you get your podcasts. At a rally in North Carolina earlier today, Kamala Harris told the crowd, she's the underdog in this race. Let's discuss what's going on with Representative Debbie Dingle, Democrat of Michigan. Representative, thanks so much for joining us. Earlier today, you told my colleague Casey Hunt that you were thrilled by Kamala Harris's debate performance earlier in the week, until you got a reminder from a local official in your state of Michigan. I want to play for our viewers what you said. Listen and watch this. It's just closer than people realize. He stayed on message on immigration and immigration. It is a powerful, it leads to insecurity, fear, both in economics, the job market. So what are you hearing, Congressman, from voters in your state of Michigan, which is a key battleground state now that you're home? So I just got home, but I want to tell you, we've got the first poll that's been down post Tuesday night by Mitchell Research for Mears. And it shows that what my gut said this morning is correct. It shows that it's a statistical dead heat in a head to head just between the two of them. It's 48, 48, while 56% of the people think that she won the debate. If you take all of the candidates that are on the ballot, she's up by one point, which for me is not comfortable. So I think that while clearly I hear everybody and I love hearing, I agree with everybody how well she did. I think that former President Trump, Donald Trump, is very strategic and refusing to do another debate. I made that prediction that Casey on Tuesday night, I knew he would go after the moderators of that debate. And we've got a lot of work to do and can take nothing for granted. The bubble of Washington, D.C. and commentators talking to each other is not the real world. And I will be in union halls, farmer markets, veterans halls, VFWs this weekend. And I want to see what people are saying, but this poll confirmed my gut. So you're worried, obviously, which is understandable. Kamala Harris, his vice presidential running mate, Tim Wallace is landing in your state of Michigan any moment now. Harris will certainly be back soon. What do they need to do to get ahead in this dead heat race in Michigan? Is immigration the place to start? What they got to do is talk about the economy there and we've got to talk about trade. You know, Democrats did a terrible job of talking about trade in 216 and Donald Trump played to union workers fear and anxieties. President Biden and Vice President Harris delivered delivered on that. They have to talk about it and remind people what he promised and what he didn't do out of these promising billionaire cuts, not doing anything for the working people of America. So he's got to, she's got to come in here, Tim Waltz has to come in here. And Tim Waltz is very good at just talking in everyday terms and talking straight talk. That's unknown forever. I think his straight talk is going to work in Michigan. They've got to be here. They've got to be president. Which by the way, Democrats were not in 216 and we can win. I'm Debbie Determined, not Debbie Downer, we will win, but if we take one thing for granted, we won't and that's why we got to really work hard in Michigan. Successful candidates often say they got to run as if they're losing in order to make sure that they win. You say Kamala Harris needs to focus in on the economy, which of course is a huge issue. State watchers told CNN after the debate, they favored Trump by some 20 points on that specific issue. How does she turn that around? She has to show, first of all, I hear it from young people to seniors about how they affordable housing is a serious issue for her. I don't think Donald Trump's ever thought about affordable housing in his life. That's one of the first economic issues that she talked about. I do hear union workers concerned about their job. He's not keeping us competitive by the way. The auto industry is fighting in a global marketplace. Electric vehicles are one of the vehicles of the future. He wants to destroy it. We have to not let him play the union workers' fears, but talk about how we lost a decade of competitiveness in the '70s because we weren't ready for the global marketplace with small cars. We can't let Donald Trump get away with his playing to people's fear and anxiety. We have to give him the facts, show him how we're not going to lose jobs, we're creating jobs, bringing the supply chain home. And nothing he ever did when he was president did that. One of the most divisive issues in your party, especially in your home state of Michigan, is the war in Gaza. Kamala Harris has stuck closely to her script that she's working tirelessly around the clock for a ceasefire even though those talks are deadlocked at least right now. Is that enough for your constituents in the so-called uncommitted movement who are devastated by all the carnage that's been going on over these months in Gaza? You know, it's a particularly bad day again in Michigan because our Attorney General filed some charges against some students who were protesting this issue. I think that the vice president has been much more direct on this issue. A former president, Trump doesn't care about what's going on in Gaza. He doesn't care about my Arab-American constituents. I have to remind them what he did when the first week that he was there, he wanted to deport them. Does he know how many they want to deport? She's got to talk straight talk. We all want a ceasefire. We need that ceasefire. We need the hostages to come home. And it's a -- look, I'm going to tell you. It's one of the serious issues we have here in Michigan. But I think we've got to talk real facts with the community and what is at stake if someone like Donald Trump is elected for the Middle East. Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Up next, the former President Trump's campaign on the attack after the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, condemned those using the U.S. Justice Department as a political weapons statement. Former President Trump's campaign just issued a statement attacking the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, hours after he delivered a very forceful speech to U.S. Justice Department employees, responding to what he calls, and I'm quoting him now, an escalation of attacks against career prosecutors. All this while alluding to former President Trump and never mentioning his name. Seeing as Brian Todd as the latest. Brian? Wolf, the latest back and forth between the Trump side and Merrick Garland and the Justice Department comes as the tensions between those two entities have reached alarming levels, with the Attorney General genuinely seeming exasperated today. An indignant Attorney General takes aim at those who he believes have leveled threats against prosecutors and other staffers at the Department of Justice. We will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon. In an impassioned speech to Justice employees, Merrick Garland said it's dangerous now for people at the department to simply do their jobs, and he condemned what he called the escalation of attacks against government lawyers, law enforcement agents and others. These attacks have come in the form of conspiracy theories, dangerous falsehoods, efforts to bully and intimidate career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out and threats of actual violence. Garland never mentioned former President Donald Trump by name, but it was clear the recent actions of Trump and his allies fueled much of his frustration. The former president definitely amped up the threats against the Department of Justice, and he has been threatening to put people in jail who work for the Department of Justice, who work for election offices by threatening them with this idea that they were cheaters during the election. Indeed, last weekend, Trump threatened prosecution and long prison sentences for election officials and political workers who Trump suggested could cheat in this year's election. The former president, posting on Truth Social, quote, "When I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." It's part of Trump's efforts to cast doubt on the integrity of this year's election, even though there's no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularity in any recent U.S. election. Trump has often suggested recently that he would weaponize the justice system to go after his political opponents if he's elected again. Even though during this week's debate, he accused the Democrats of doing that to him, to create the recent criminal prosecutions against him. They weaponized the Justice Department. They used it to try and win an election. They have fake cases. Garland defended the department's integrity. There is not one rule for friends and another for foes. One rule for Democrats and another for Republicans. And he reiterated his prosecutors and agents won't be intimidated by political attacks. But it is dangerous and outrageous that you have to endure them. He's worried about election-related violence. He's worried about Trump inspiring someone who may take what he is saying and run with it and feel like they need to take things into their own hands. The Trump campaign responded to Merrick Garland's speech today with a statement calling Garland's conduct disgraceful, saying his actions have done, quote, "tremendous damage to a once-great institution using phony charges to interfere with the presidential election on behalf of the Democratic Party." Wolf. All right, Brian. Thank you very much, Brian Todd reporting. Let's discuss what's going on, all the rhetoric that's coming from the former president of the United States and his allies, including threats to election officials joining us now here in the Situation Room, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, Jen Easterly. Jen, thanks very much for joining us. You just heard Brian's report, Trump on Saturday, threatened to jail election officials if he wins in November. He posted, "When I win these people that cheated will be prosecuted." Has your agency reached out to any election officials to provide support for them in the midst of these threats? So as the federal government lead for election infrastructure security, we are in regular communication with state and local election officials across the nation, providing them support and resources, training to help protect themselves. But I'll tell you, Wolf, this is one of the key things that election officials have been talking about for years are these threats of harassment and violence against election officials and their families, largely stemming from unfounded claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. I think we need to remember that election officials are not some faceless bureaucrats. They're our neighbors. They're our friends. They're in our communities. And they're not doing this for pay or glory. They're doing it because they believe in our democracy and they deserve our support and our respect and our gratitude. They're hardworking Americans and doing important work and they don't deserve these threats. How much does Trump's rhetoric, his rhetoric, and his allies' rhetoric lead to an increase of harassment and threats to these election workers? Well, there have been a long-standing problem with physical threats. We've heard this for years now, threats of harassment, threats of violence, swatting. And that's why we are constantly looking to be able to provide resources, like active shooter training, de-escalation training. We provide physical assessments of polling places to ensure that we can work with election officials across the country to reduce risk. And, of course, they work very closely with local law enforcement to help them reduce risk to both people and to facilities. Jen, I know you've said that election infrastructure has never been more secure in our country. How do you convince Americans of that, particularly the Trump supporters who clearly hear all these threats coming from Trump? Yeah, so let's be clear. This threat environment is more complex than ever. We have cyber threats. We have the physical threats we just talked about. And we have the threats from foreign adversaries who are intent on undermining American confidence in our democracy. But I spend an enormous amount of time with election officials. They have done tremendous work to ensure that the security and resilience of election infrastructure is better than it has ever been. They have put safeguards in place to mitigate risk. And I have incredible confidence in them. And the American people stood as well. But for those who don't, be part of the process. Be a poll worker. Talk to your election official. It's a transparent process. What they'll tell you is three key things. First of all, for the voting systems that you'll use to cast your ballots, they are not connected to the Internet. Secondly, 97% of registered voters will cast their vote in jurisdictions that have paper records. Those records can be verified to ensure accuracy. And finally, election officials put multiple safeguards. There's testing before they use election equipment. There's cybersecurity controls. There's physical security controls. And there's post-election auditing. So multiple layers of controls that can help to ensure that risk to election infrastructure is reduced as much as possible. And these threats coming in from Iran, from China, from Russia, right now, how serious are they? They're very serious. And we've been talking about this for months, working with the intelligence community and the FBI. We've put out a lot of advisories on this. It is very clear that our foreign adversaries, Russia, Iran, China, are intent on interfering and influencing in our elections, specifically to undermine American confidence in our elections and to sow partisan discord. And we, as Americans, need to ensure that they are not successful. We need to come together and ensure that we do everything we can to preserve our democracy. Thank you very much for all you're doing, Jen Easterly. Thanks very much for coming in. We really appreciate it very much. And coming up, Vice President Kamala Harris is already needling former President Trump over his debate performance. I'm calling for another one, but Trump is insisting there won't be a rematch. We're going to take you inside the dueling campaigns. That's next. The world has set up for the honest man to succeed, America's a hustle. From the director of The Batman, comes a new HBO original limited series, The Penguin, starring Academy Award nominee Colin Farrell. I'm film critic Amy Nicholson, inviting you to join me as the host of The Penguin official podcast, a deep exploration into the next chapter of The Batman saga. Stream the HBO original, The Penguin, starting Thursday, September 19th at 9 p.m. on max. Listen to this official podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. And I'm going to take you to the next chapter of The Penguin. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States. And around the world, I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in the Situation Room. And let's get right to the breaking news on Donald Trump's announcement that he won't debate Kamala Harris again. CNN anchor Kaitlyn Collins is here with me in the Situation Room. Kaitlyn, how is Trump spitting all of this? Well, Trump is now arguing that there is no need for a third debate, which by that he means a second debate with Vice President Harris, of course, the first debate in his view being that sit down that he had the debate with President Biden earlier this summer that ultimately led to him dropping out of the race. And he's making this argument and he's giving a series of reasons for this. In one, he had this lengthy post on Truth Social earlier today announcing that there would not be a third debate. He was criticizing Harris with a message that actually a lot of his allies thought he didn't deploy nearly enough in that debate this week on Tuesday night, which was essentially arguing that if she has all of these policies and these plans that she's running on, why not put them in place in the last three and a half years that she's been in office? That wasn't really something you heard Donald Trump emphasize until his closing argument in the debate, something that people I spoke to thought was far too late in that 90 minute debate that they had on stage. But Trump was just in Arizona, obviously a crucial state that he needs to win in this election. And this is what he told his supporters about why he is not going to do another debate with Vice President Harris. When a prize fighter loses a fight, you've seen a lot of fights, right? The first words out of that fighter's mouth is, "I want to rematch. I want to rematch." And that's what she said, "I want to rematch." Polls literally show that I won the debate against comrade Kamala House. Now, Wolf, obviously he is citing polls that aren't really that well respected, saying that he defeated her. But the other comment that he made just now he offered another reason for why he's not debating her, which is he said that it's too late that a lot of people have already started voting, early voting and ballots going out as we know, and arguing that, which is surprising given it was just last month in August when he was holding that press conference at one of his properties where he was the one who proposed three debates with Vice President Harris. This is going to become the nominee. Now he is saying it is going to only be this one. And Wolf, I'll tell you, I've been doing reporting on this. And essentially, immediately after he got off stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, he started quizzing people about how he had done. A lot of them told him to his face that he had done a great job against her. Privately, they were not saying that. They were actually disappointed that he wasn't able to execute the case better against her, that he was on defense the entire time, and that he took the bait moment after moment in a way that was clearly designed and telegraphed by the Harris campaign leading up to that. But they were going to try to get under his skin and then were successful at doing so. And since then, and you've been doing a lot of excellent reporting on all of this, since then, what's been the fallout from his allies to how that debate went? Well, a lot of them have been downplaying the significance of this debate. And maybe they're right. We don't know. We're just now seeing numbers come in about what voters thought about that debate, not just what the political experts thought about it, but they've been downplaying the significance of it and saying that it's not going to shift the margin or shift the needle very much. Obviously, the margin matters a lot. And even if it shifts it a little, that could disrupt where his standing is right now. But almost to a tee, everyone I spoke with over the last 48 hours since that Tuesday night debate did believe there would be a second debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Harris. They did not think he would, he would back out of it, even though he tried to back out of the ABC debate, he was talking about it a lot. So tonight, him saying no more debates. The question is, does he stick by that and does it stand? We shall see Caitlyn Collins, excellent reporting as usual. Thank you very much. And Caitlyn, of course, will be back later tonight, 9 p.m. Eastern to anchor her excellent show, The Source. We'll, of course, I'll be watching. Also tonight, Kamala Harris has been taunting Trump over his debate performance after he announced he won't face off with her on stage again. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has more, she's joining us for Charlotte, North Carolina. Right now, that's where Harris spoke just a little while ago. What did the Vice President have to say, Priscilla? Well, the Vice President renewed her call for another debate. Remember, just moments after the presidential debate concluded on Tuesday, the campaign came out and put another one on the table, and so they were ready to go. And that's exactly what the Vice President said on the stage, only minutes when she started her remarks. Take a listen. Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate. And I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate. Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important. Now the Vice President has reason to perhaps want another debate. They felt strongly about the way that it went on Tuesday. They also raked in a lot of cash, $47 million in the 24 hours after the debate, and the campaign isn't taking former President Donald Trump for his word yet on whether or not one happens. And she has chosen to come here to North Carolina to stop. She was in Charlotte here earlier. Now she is in Greensboro. North Carolina is of course the state of the campaign wants to keep in play. President Joe Biden lost it in 2020. It's been years since the Democrat has won in the state. But they think that because of the unpopular gubernatorial GOP candidate and because reproductive rights is such an important issue among voters here, that they can make headway. Tomorrow, she heads up in Pennsylvania, another battleground state, an important one where she's trying to appeal to voters. Well. Alright Priscilla, thank you very much Priscilla Alvarez on the scene for us. Thank you. Let's bring in more of our political experts right now, Alissa Vera Griffin. Are you surprised Trump is now refusing to face off against Kamala Harris for a second time? I'm not surprised, but I would predict that he may change his tune on this. Listen, if Kamala Harris sees a bump in the polls from her performance in the debate where I think most folks think that she won, I could see a world which we're in a couple of weeks. While Trump actually says I challenge her to a debate, he'll likely say that he wants it to be on a favorable network, he'll likely ask for it to be certain moderators, but I could see him thinking if things get a little bit tighter in the final eight week stretch, he might need a big moment to remain competitive against her. So I wouldn't rule out that there will be another one. And I think it's incredibly smart politics that the vice president got ahead and was the one to first call for the second debate. It puts Trump on the defensive, a place he doesn't like to be. So I actually think there's a world in which he tries to flip the narrative and agree to another debate. Interesting. Brian Lanza, I understand you're now a senior advisor with the Trump campaign. Is Trump scared to debate Kamala Harris again? First of all, thank you for having Wolf. No, it's not a function of being scared. It's a function of what are our priorities towards the end of the election. Our goal is to talk to as many voters as possible and our goal is to paint Kamala Harris as a liberal. And I think we have better opportunities doing it through one-on-one interviews, through our rallies, through going into these states and having this impact. It's been going on a debate that's sort of stacked the deck against President Trump, not to the proper fact check against Harris and sort of dove into that environment. Listen, our goal at this debate was to continue to paint Kamala Harris as a radical liberal. And that's what we did. She didn't respond to any of the accusations we made. And they're going to stick. And whether she had a strong performance or not, we feel we hit our goal of continuing the paint to speak to that she's radically to the left outside the American mainstream, which has been reflective in the CNN poll and which has been reflected in New York Times poll. I'm not sure if we're going into the final seven weeks. Meghan Hayes, the Harris campaign, raised, what, $47 million in the 24 hours after the debate on Tuesday night. What does that tell you about the momentum she has right now? I mean, today had over 600,000 people who donated that $47 million. So it shows that there is a lot of momentum still in her favor. These debate nights are incredibly lucrative for fundraising. So on top of wanting to have more substantive conversations for the American people, it's also a huge night for people to bring in more money for their campaign spend. So I do think they are in a really good place. They have the wind at their back on this. They have a lot of money for their organizing, for door knocking, and boots on the ground and to be on air and on radio there. So I think that this is an incredible moment for her to raise so much money in the first 24 hours. Interesting. Alyssa, we now have the first results from a new substantive poll conducted after Tuesday night's debate, it finds a little change in the state of the presidential race, Harris at 47%, Trump at 42%. That's about the same as the 45% for Harris to 41% for Trump. That was the result in the poll just before the debate. So what does that tell you? This race is neck and neck. I don't think that anyone here, if they're being honest with themselves, could say either is the front runner at this moment. Listen, Trump still performs better than Kamala Harris does on the economy. I think we could argue that Hillary Clinton likely won both debates in 2016 yet she went on to lose. So I think there is so much that's going to happen in this final stretch. But I do think the resources are important. This $47 million, that allows Kamala Harris to be playing in the Sun Belt states to be expanding the map to all seven battlegrounds so that she has more optionality in the states that she wins, that it's not just must win Pennsylvania, but there's also some other avenues. So that's a big advantage that she's going to have. And I also think just trying to reach low propensity voters and trying to get some more young people out there. But listen, Donald Trump is playing smart. He's trying to reach some untraditional audiences, the podcast he's doing, the right-wing audiences of younger men that he's trying to appeal to. So it's so neck and neck. I think it's going to be one of the closest races in a generation. Certainly seems to be neck and neck right now. Brian, Kamala Harris, once again today, repeated that she's the underdog in this race. Does Donald Trump see himself as the favorite? No, listen, you know politics better than anybody else. You're either running hard or you're running scared. So we're running hard. Kamala Harris is going to do the same thing. I expect nothing less of our democratic opponents. But we have our priorities, we have, and she knows hers. Our priorities are to paint a picture of a San Francisco liberal, something that she's been her entire professional career and how that's outside the mainstream of America, certainly outside the mainstream of Pennsylvania and Michigan. And we're going to effectively do that. We've done that effectively in the last month and a half in spite of all this media buzz on the TV of the race being reset, we still see her drifting, drifting further, further to the left as voters see that. That is a success for us and we're going to continue to drive that message during November. Interesting. Megan Kamala Harris just launched in your state and other battleground states this. Watch this. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest, being forced to carry a pregnancy to turn. They don't want that. I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one's own body, should not be made by the government. Megan, voters already favor Kamala Harris on this issue of reproductive rights. Could it make more sense to focus in on the economy right now to dig into a Trump's advantage with voters on that economic issue? I think this has been a strong issue for Democrats and I think it's good to continue to nail that home. For folks, I think it builds up your base. It gets to undecided voters. Also, there's a lot of women in the suburbs in these battleground states that are undecided and I think this is an issue that's important to women. I do think that they need to keep hammering at home, part of having such a large war chance that they are continuing to build is being able to fight on many fronts. This isn't the only ad they have out, they have that, it's on the economy, they have ads on the immigration. They are fighting on all fronts here on the different issues. They've reached those different voters but this has been known to be a very strong issue for Democrats and I think it's smart of them to continue to drive at home. Alyssa, what do you think the messaging from the Kamala Harris campaign should be as they try to seize the momentum from the debate? Kamala Harris had a line she used about five times in the debate which is there's more that unites Americans than divides them. She's trying to move to the center, you know, Brian will point out her record was to the left but she's talking about actual policy issues that resonate with the vast majority of the country. If she can play to the center, talk about the economy, talk about rebuilding the middle class, that works. I actually agree though, abortion is an animating issue. We've seen red states, deep red Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas where there have been ballot initiatives or constitutional amendments around abortion and even Republicans have turned out to vote for some access. So I think that's more about just energizing voters but she has got to hit on the economy that is the number one issue for voters. It's the economy stupid as they used to say, all right guys, thank you very much, standby we're going to get back to all of you in just a bit, just ahead. More reaction to Trump's refusal to debate Kamala Harris. Once again, the Democratic governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, there he is, he's standing by live, we'll discuss when we come back. We're following the breaking news in the presidential race. Donald Trump announcing today he won't debate Kamala Harris again as the vice president is hammering Trump about his performance in the face off on Tuesday. Joining us now, Illinois's Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, governor, thanks so much for joining us. Why do you think Trump is refusing to debate Kamala Harris for a second time? Well, let's be clear, if anybody who watched the Tuesday night debate saw Donald Trump was weak, he honestly came across as a little desperate. Kamala Harris came across as strong and presidential and I think if he had another debate with her and that happened again, I mean, that would be, it would be it for his campaign, he'd be done. So I think that's why he's afraid, that's why he doesn't want to have another debate. And Kamala Harris is right to go out and brag about the fact that frankly, Donald Trump has no plans for middle-class Americans, for people who are struggling in the United States. And he showed that no plans at all, couldn't even tell you what he was going to do to help people on healthcare or small businesses. You heard Kamala Harris talk about a plan that she's got to help people buy homes to make sure that they have the ability to raise a family with a tax credit, child tax credit. Very important to have, to show the American public what you're going to do as president. Donald Trump, no plans, Kamala Harris knows that her job is to address the challenges of working-class people across this country. You know, the Harris campaign governor says it raised a very impressive $47 million in the 24 hours after the debate. So how do you think the campaign best seizes all this momentum now? Yeah, I think you're right to call it momentum because, you know, people don't go online and give $25 or $50 unless they're motivated after seeing that debate. So $47 million, a lot of it in very small contributions, pretty impressive. So seizing on it means making sure you're taking the message of the plan that she talked about, the strength that she talked about that the United States needs in the world and the weakness that Donald Trump showed and take that on the road to the battleground states. And she's doing that. She's been doing bus tours. And interestingly, note that she's going to places that often you don't see Democrats going to rural areas of Georgia, for example, with Tim Walz and making sure that people understand that she's going to be a president for every American. Donald Trump seems like he's all about Elon Musk and the wealthiest people in this country. You know, Kamala Harris is somebody who's fought her entire career for everyday average folks who just need a little bit of help from the federal government. Kamala Harris repeated today, a governor that she's the underdog in this campaign, a new poll taken after the debate shows her up five points over Trump. Is she really the underdog? What do you think? Yeah, you got to remember that these national polls really are not accurate in terms of, you know, who's really ahead. This is going to come down to maybe eight or 10 battleground states. And we have an electoral college system, whether you like it or not. And Donald Trump won by the way in 2016 by losing the popular vote, but winning the electoral college. It's important for Kamala Harris to win in each one of those battleground states. So that's really where people ought to pay attention. And yeah, it's true that, you know, it's always good to see a poll the way you're ahead. But the reality is that we've got a lot of work to do, you know, Kamala Harris and the campaign that she's running and all of us were helping, it's about getting people out to vote because in the end, a poll doesn't tell you a lot. What does tell you a lot is who shows up on election day. And I do think that she's got the momentum. I think that Americans are starting to see that Kamala Harris truly is on their side. She's the one who's fighting for them. And she's not about all these petty grievances that Donald Trump's been about. So again, she's got good momentum, but there's a whole lot of work to do between now and November 5th. As I keep saying, smart candidates always run as if they're way behind so they don't lose that advantage. The economy governor is certainly one of Trump's biggest strengths right now in this race. Harris has tried to separate herself, at least from some of President Biden's economic policies. But in our CNN instant poll of debate watchers taken right after the debate, Trump actually widened his lead over Harris on who would do a better job on the economy. What does she need to do, Governor, and you're Governor of important state like Illinois, what does she need to do to turn these numbers around? Well, again, it's focusing on the things that really matter. The kitchen table issue is important to all Americans, you know, the cost of health care and accessibility of it. The idea that people could go start a small business, making sure that people can raise a family and with a $6,000 child tax credit. These are all things that matter to ordinary Americans who just want to get ahead a little bit. And it's been challenging. There's no doubt about it. We've had inflation all over the world. The United States is fair to better than most other countries, I might add. But inflation has now come down. Maybe it's about two and a half percent, needs to come down a little bit more. But that's the thing that I think that Kamala Harris has been focusing on and needs to continue to remember. She's only been a candidate for president for the last, what, 70, 80 days, maybe 90 days. It's not a lot of time, but she has managed to even up the race with Donald Trump where he had been 10 points ahead before that. And so now she's just got to go battle it out state by state. And I will say that Tim Walz, what a great partner he is for her because I think he conveys, you know, real heart. And that to me is what people want to see in their leaders, someone who actually cares deeply about, again, ordinary, everyday working families across this country. Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, are going to get things done for them. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, thanks for coming into the Situation Room. Appreciate it very much. Well, I'll be back. Coming up, the far right promoter of conspiracy theories who's gotten close to Donald Trump is now being painted as extreme by none other than the MAGA firebrand, Marjorie Taylor Green. Goodbye, we have details. Tonight, some of Donald Trump's most ardent allies are raising serious concerns about a far right provocateur and promoter of conspiracy theories who's made her way into the former president's inner circle right now. Her name is Laura Loomer, and she's been seen traveling with Trump twice in the past few days alone. Her views are considered extreme even by representative Marjorie Taylor Green, who's calling Loomer's rhetoric a huge problem and arguing that she doesn't represent the MAGA movement. Our political experts are back with us right now, along with CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter, who's back here at CNN. Welcome back, Brian. Thank you. To CNN. Good to have you back. I want to start with you. We've seen Loomer in Trump's inner circle in recent days. Who is she and what are some of the conspiracy theories she's been promoting out there that Trump is now publicly elevated by bringing her into his inner circle? That's right. She's a self-promoting far right performer who has a long history of racist and Islamaphobic commentary. She's also a failed congressional candidate in Florida. She's the type of person who 10 years ago would not have been the subject of national news. She'd be shouting into the void on some obscure social network. But nowadays, partly because of the Trump movement and because Trump has brought her on into the inner circle, she is a newsworthy figure and someone deserving of this kind of scrutiny. For example, here's a recent post from Loomer promoting that racist lie about Haitians in Ohio referring to cannibalistic Haitians stealing and eating people's pets. We know that's been debunked, but it didn't stop Loomer from pushing the lie. That is the kind of thing that we've seen travel, perhaps, from the likes of Loomer to Trump. For example, it was very disturbing. In 2023, Loomer calling 9/11 an inside job promoting a long conspiracy theory. And then there she was earlier this week at the 9/11 commemoration at the ceremony in New York. This raised a lot of eyebrows given Loomer's history promoting conspiracy theories. Those are a couple of the examples, Wolf, of Loomer potentially influencing the former president. And Brian, let me follow up. We're now seeing some Republican lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Lindsey Graham for that matter, distanced themselves publicly from Laura Loomer after she tweeted about Kamala Harris's Indian American heritage and cooking. What about that? That's right. And I'm sorry to read this one out loud. It's pretty gross. But here's what she posted about Kamala Harris saying, "If Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry and White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and it goes on and on clearly touching on racial prejudice there. It is notable that the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene have tried to distance the GOP from Loomer." Here's what Greene said. I have concerns about her rhetoric and her hateful tone. To me, many of the comments that she makes and how she attacks Republicans like me, many of the Republicans that are strong supporters of President Trump, I think they're a huge problem. But that doesn't represent MAGA as a whole. For years, we have been covering Marjorie Taylor Greene's conspiracy theories and her history of offensive and controversial statements. And yet she seems to know that it is smart politically to try to distance from the likes of Laura Loomer. Like I said, if Loomer is a failed congressional candidate, she's a troll who lives on the internet trying to get attention. She once actually handcuffed herself to the offices of Twitter protesting the fact that Twitter banned her. That's the kind of internet persona she is, but because Trump has brought her in, she is a newsworthy subject. And that raises the question, Alyssa, why is Donald Trump associating himself with someone like Laura Loomer, who has a long history of making bigoted comments? So Laura Loomer, somebody who was a bit of a presence in the 2016 campaign, she tried to get access around Donald Trump. She did, she tried to during his first term, but I think this underscores how different a second Trump term would be than a first. Adults in the room, the Mike Pence's on the campaign and when in the White House would not have let this person around the president, they would speak out on the fact that this is not somebody who should be advising him, that she's dangerous, she's polarizing, she espouses blatantly racist beliefs. And it just seems like those guardrails have come off. There was a picture of Susie Wiles standing next to her. And Susie Wiles is a serious, thoughtful operative, and I cannot imagine for a minute she thinks that this is a person who should be in Donald Trump's ear. And by the way, during the debate, when he infamously said they're eating cats and dogs, once I learned that Laura Loomer had traveled with him, it made sense because oftentimes the last person in Donald Trump's ear is the person that he ends up espousing what they want him to say. It made sense there. There is a major risk to this person being anywhere near a potential future president of the United States. You know, Megan, the White House today called Trump's associating with Laura Loomer repugnant. That was the word. What does it say to you that Kamala Harris hasn't yet waited into this? Look, I don't think she needs to weigh into this, right? Like who he wants to surround himself with is his business. It just shows the American people who he is and what his character is. Those aren't the people that she surrounds herself with. Also it's telling that actual Republican conservative Republicans that worked with him in the White House before don't support him. His own vice president doesn't support him. He doesn't have the support of the traditional Republican party. So he is going to these extreme people because those are the people who are telling him what he wants to hear. You know, the vice president doesn't need to get involved in this because that's just not who her character is and she doesn't listen to people. It's just showing more about that Donald Trump is listening to these racist people and he's also being racist with these horrible statements that are coming out on the debate and on Twitter and true social. So it's just telling of who he is. And I just think it's repugnant that we're even giving her time discussing her relevance. It's interesting Brian that this is, as you and I well know, this is certainly not the first time Trump has been criticized for associating with rather hateful figures like Laura Loomer. Do you think enough attention is getting paid to all of this right now? I would tell you on 9/11 when this happened, no, but today I think there is now, thankfully more scrutiny and partly that is because she's been traveling with the former president this week. It strikes me as another example of the feedback loop that the Trump is in where he gets misinformed by people around him. Sometimes the TV shows he watches, sometimes the online personalities that he hangs out with, he ends up getting bad information. In some cases, I totally bog his information like about the case in Ohio, then he repeats it, then it becomes even more of a story, then it becomes a multi-day news cycle that ultimately may hurt his campaign all because of the people that he chooses to either listen to on television or in this case, hang out with on his airplane. And some weirdos that he actually invites to have dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago. Guys, thank you very, very much for that analysis. Just ahead, hours after the US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, speech condemning political attacks against the US Justice Department, Donald Trump's campaign issued a statement slamming Garland himself, we'll talk to our experts about what's going on, that's next. Amid escalating attacks by former President Donald Trump, today the US Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned those using the US Justice Department as a quote, "political weapon." Listen. There is not one rule for friends and another for foes, one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless, one rule for the rich and another for the poor, one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans, our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon. Now Trump's campaign has responded calling Merrick Garland's conduct and I'm quoting the Trump campaign disgraceful, joining us now to discuss CNN's senior justice correspondent Evan Perez and CNN legal analyst Kerry Cordiro. Evan, how significant is this message from the Attorney General? This is a message that's close to his heart. This is something that he believes very strongly ever since he came back to the Justice Department, Wolf, and part of the issue here is not only the fact that the former president has been attacking the Justice Department, claiming that it has been weaponized, but also the concern that some of these attacks on the department and the prosecutors and some of the agents actually have led to threats against them. We've seen, for example, members of Congress who have publicized the names of agents, who have been involved in things that they don't agree with, and then as a result of that, those people have had attacks or threats against them, their families. Listen to the Attorney General talk specifically about those concerns with regard to the Justice Department. It is dangerous to target and intimidate individual employees of this department solely for doing their jobs, and it is outrageous that you have to face these unfounded attacks because you are doing what is right and upholding the rule of law. And Wolf, I mean, obviously the Attorney General, he's open to getting these attacks, the FBI directory. They understand that it comes with a job, but sort of the line agents and the prosecutors, that's something else, and that's one of the things that he was very, very much concerned about in this speech. And the threats to election workers and their families, that's awful, what's going on. Carrie, the trumpet team, basically attacked the Attorney General and the Justice Department for that matter. Once again, after Merrick Garland's speech today, how much does this underscore why Merrick Garland took this very rare step in speaking publicly about this issue? Well, I think that's part of the reason why he chose now to give this speech, because he knows that as we get closer and closer to the election, Wolf, the rhetoric and potentially the actual threats that Evan was describing against members of the Justice Department are only going to increase. And so I think this was a really powerful speech by the Attorney General. In part, he is looking also, I think, at his legacy of leadership over the department, but he is someone who does not just lead the department, he is of the Department of Justice. And so he has made it his mission during his tenure to restore confidence in the department, to really communicate to the agents and the prosecutors and the career civil servants who work behind the scenes, that he is there to support them. And he knows that this next several weeks leading up to the election is going to be particularly fraught, it's going to be a heightened environment. And so I think that's why he wanted to communicate this now. All this comes, Evan, as you know, I'm in heightened concerns right now for election workers and others as we get ready for another January 6, potentially, hope it doesn't happen. But there's clearly a lot of concern that come January 6, something else could happen. Right, exactly. And look, I mean, given the fact that you look at the polls, you see how close everything is. And if we have an election like we did last time where we have a couple of weeks where a couple of states are still waiting to be called, you have the potential for those kinds of threats as they happen in 2020. And one of the things that the Homeland Security Department recently did, or the last couple of days, is designated January 6. For the first time, they've designated January 6, which is the time for the certification of the ballots, for that to be a national security, national special security event. And the significance of that is that, you know, the amount of security that will be surrounding the Capitol is so much more than was there in 2020. The concern there is that, you know, you have groups that will seek to try to take advantage of this again next time. And I know, Kerry, this is something you've advocated for over the years. Absolutely. So in testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee in 2021, I argued that in earlier that that event, January 6 should have been designated in NSSE, this special security event. And so this is a really important development that has happened today. What it means is that the January 6 will be treated like the Super Bowl, the Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service will now be in charge of security for this event that will give them resources, manpower, coordination over the federal government, personnel, state, locals, and they will really put together an operational plan to protect January 6 and the certification of the election the same way that they protect the inauguration or the Super Bowl. Very important indeed. All right, guys. Thank you. Very, very much. Evan and Kerry, appreciate it. Right now, firefighters in Southern California are battling several major wildfires. Thousands of people have already been forced to evacuate as flames engulf homes and cars. We're going to bring you an update that's next. Three major wildfires are now ripping through Southern California, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. CNN Stephanie Elam has the latest. A race against time, fighting extreme wildfires along multiple fronts in Southern California. After triple digit heat and high winds have fan surging flames, firefighters are now battling three immense firestorms in the region where more than 100,000 acres have burned in recent days. In Orange County, a woman fleeing the airport fire on foot as a fire battalion chief comes to her rescue. The blaze is only 5% contained as scorched air rises, creating firewalls of smoke and flames, searing ranch lands engulfing homes, fire department, everyone out, evacuate. There are nearly 11,000 residents in the evacuation zone of the bridge fire. Everybody burning out, going to the gas and gas in the cars up, trying to get out of here before they got burned. It was, uh, it was scary. The blaze is still at 0% containment and is igniting dry brush spreading across mountaintops. Some firefighters here had to stop fighting the flames to help residents flee according to the U.S. forest service. They were actively helping law enforcement evacuate people from the community. It was a life-saving mission. Were you able to see what it looked like at that time? In Inferno. In San Bernardino County, the line fire where fire clouds morph into thunderstorms, wind gusts and dry conditions have banned the flames, torching homes and cars and knocking out power lines. Firefighters now hoping cooler temperatures ahead will help them hold the line. And I just spoke to a man who rode out the bridge fire here in rightwood as it was blowing past the building he was in. He said that it actually sounded like it was roaring as it was going by, fueled by those really intense winds, which just goes to show you why this fire blew up as quickly as it did from Sunday at 4,000 acres to over 30,000 acres on Monday and now over 51,000 acres. Well, Stephanie Elam, thank you very much. Stay safe. We'll be right back. The NFL has dramatically changed its kickoff rules in an effort to try to reduce injuries. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has our report. What you're watching is perhaps the most dangerous play in football, the kickoff routine. It's space and speed. So if you think about where we're standing here, you've got players that are lined up. In this case, maybe 50, 60 yards away from where we are, they're running down the field as fast as they can possibly run. So coming down the field at speed and then having collisions, obviously, is a driver for injury. The NFL says last season concussions occurred four times more often on a kickoff than any other play. It's exactly why Riverdale Country School in the Bronx wants to change the game. I sort of jokingly said to him, like, I want to change football in America, like we need to figure this out. Want to change football in America. It's pretty audacious. Yeah, I don't know if I actually realized what I was saying at the time. John Pizzi is the school's athletic director. Yeah, so in 2018, we had 18 players left for the last game of our season. We had a bunch of concussions and a bunch of season ending injuries. So we made a decision to cancel our last game, but when that season ended, we had to figure out how we were going to manage the next football season. So together with the Concussion Legacy Foundation, they proposed something pretty radical, getting rid of the sport's most iconic play. No more kickoffs. No more returns. The beginning of their games now look like this. Play just starts at the 35-yard line. And so far, Pizzi says they've seen a 33% decrease in concussions across the league. And importantly, an 18% increase in participation. Parents certainly like the idea. And it turns out, so do the players, like Team Captain Tristan Cornell. I see all these injuries that happen from kickoffs, so the fact that we don't have that probably allows us to keep healthy and play throughout the entire season. It's a fascinating approach. But the NFL's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Alan Sills, says the league is not yet ready to give up on the kickoff altogether. All options are on the table. I mean, I think that certainly eliminating the play is one of those options, but I believe they're potentially other solutions. So this year in the NFL, you're going to see a very different sort of kickoff, what they're calling a dynamic kickoff. Now, again, previously, as soon as the ball was kicked, all 11 members of the kicking team would start sprinting down the field to try and tackle the receiving team. Lots of speed, lots of space. This season, only the kicker is back here while the opposing teams are lined up all the way over here, separated by just five yards. And none of those players can move until the ball has been caught by the receiving team or it hits the ground. It reduces the speed and the space of the play. It's what Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McCay says is one of the biggest rule changes in 30 years. The problem is we're trying to not just make this game better next year. We're trying to keep the game going for 10, 20, 30, 40. That's what our legacy is supposed to be. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, the Bronx, New York. My special thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta for that excellent, excellent report. Thanks very much for watching. Aaron Burnett, our friend, starts right now. TCM's new limited series is called Making Change. I'm your host, Ben Mankowitz. I'll be discussing some of the most significant political films of all time with a number of special guests, Steven Spielberg, Kaitlyn Collins, Stacy Abrams, Robert Gates, Sally Field, just to name a few. There's politics in everything. There's politics in every genre. Without the arts, you can't have a sophisticated culture. Join us for Making Change Fridays, beginning at 8 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies. You
