Trump says he could win California if Jesus were the vote counter. Frank Luntz responds

Former President Trump also sitting down for a new interview and a one on one with TV's doctor Phil Trump, made a pretty stunning claim about the assassination attempt against him. CNN's Alina Treen is with us now on this story. What did Trump say? well, he said a lot of things in that interview, but one of the interesting things was that he tried to place at least some of the blame for the assassination attempt in Butler. last month on both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Now, we have heard him and other high profile Republicans try to argue that the rhetoric from Democrats, particularly you could hear Trump references in that interview on the line about him being a threat to democracy as being something that could have perhaps contributed to this. Of course, there is no evidence of that. But then he also went on to talk about his Secret Service detail. I want you to take a listen to exactly what he said. When this happened, people would ask, whose fault is it? I think to a certain extent, it's Biden's fault and Harris's fault, and I'm the opponent. Look, they were weaponizing government against me. They brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me. They weren't too interested in my health and safety. So a lot to unpack there. But, the parts about Secret Service, he went on to say, you know, that he thinks that they, perhaps tried to limit some of the Secret Service that he has had or that that has affected the Secret Service protection that Donald Trump has. I mean, there's just no evidence of that whatsoever, although I will say that, you know, this is an unprecedented election. You have a former president who still has Secret Service detail. And then it was then, a current sitting president, who's both running against each other. Now you have Vice President Kamala Harris. So there's been a lot of strain that we have reported on, thoroughly here on the Secret Service and whether or not that impacted them that day, I think we're still waiting to learn more details in their investigation. But all to say, this is some really, you know, nasty attacks now from Donald Trump. We're entering that new phase, a new phase of the election where we're going to continue to see some of this. There's obviously no evidence that Vice President Harris or President Joe Biden contributed at all to this, but he's trying to argue that their rhetoric, some of the language perhaps did play a role that day. You know that Donald Trump has said this before. I think we're going to continue to hear some of these lines, but obviously no evidence to back it up. All right, Elena, thank you so much for that. We appreciate it. let's talk more about this with pollster and communication strategist Frank Luntz. Frank, listen to what Trump said, something else he said in this interview. He covered a lot of things. As Elena said, with Doctor Phil, this was about vote counting in California. I look at California, I gave a speech I had, so I had a crowd so big, I said, there's no way I could lose California. But automatically they mark it down. If you're a Republican is a loss that you lose by 5 million votes. I said 5 million votes. I guarantee if Jesus came down and was the vote count, I would win California. Okay, I do. Frank like to point out that Jesus took some bread and fish and made a lot more bread and fish out of it, so maybe not the best vote counter. However, I just wonder when you're looking at voters, undecideds? Independents? Does this cut through? How do they see these kinds of comments? I want to make one clarification about Jesus in politics. Jesus was Jewish. He lived at home till he was 30. He went into his father's occupation and his mother thought he was God. So that's something that Donald Trump, you understand. Is he speaking about Jesus? Nobody cares genuinely. Nobody cares. They don't care how big your crowd size is. They don't care about whether you're going to win California, lose California. It's not relevant. California. With all due respect to your California viewers, the state is not going to vote Republican no matter what. What matters is how it plays in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, which is now up for grabs. Georgia, which is now up for grabs again, or the states in Nevada and Arizona. That's all that matters in this election. That's number one. Number two is the negativity does not play. The public is just frustrated with it. It's had enough of it. And when you compare the two candidates on my side on personality, Kamala Harris beats Donald Trump over whelming Lee. But when you compare them on inflation, when you compare them, which is really affordability, when you compare them on immigration, which is really security and safety in a sense of, of of not being afraid in the country when you compare them on those two issues, which matter more to the voters than anything else. That's right. Trump does. Well. And I want to emphasize this to every viewer thinks I'm anti-Trump or anti Harris. If you talk about things that voters don't care about, they're not going to vote for you. And Donald Trump is already talking about this election being stolen. You can't steal something that you gave away. I've never seen the candidates more missed the mark than Trump, as his advertising is exceptional. It's very explicit and very clear. But in terms of he himself, he's all over the map and he deserves the fact that he's been following. But again, I have to give you one caveat and then I'll be quiet. He's actually stopped falling. Even though they had a pretty strong convention last week. It looks like the Harris boomlet has reached his peak with. They're having roughly a three point advantage. I remind you that that was the advantage that Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump on Election Day 2016, and he still beat her in the Electoral College. This election is way too close to call. We do bring you on to make noise, not to be quiet, Frank. but I wonder, as we see the vice president heading to Georgia with her running mate, the latest New York Times Siena College poll shows Trump leading Harris in Georgia among registered voters, 51 to 44. So that's a you know, that's that's quite a spread right there. A seven point spread is that what you think Georgia is at right now? Trump is leaning in Georgia. And if Trump wins Georgia and wins Pennsylvania, it's going to be very solid. That's going to indicate where North Carolina is going. It's going to be very hard for Harris to win those of the key states. And we still go back to Donald Trump. Choose the right vice president, vice presidential nominee. He did not need that to win Ohio. Did Harris choose the right vice presidential nominee? She does not need the governor of Minnesota to win Pennsylvania. I think that both campaigns are calibrated perfectly. Both candidates are not. And you're going to have this bigger divergence as time goes on between. Now, the candidate performs and how the campaign performs. And mark my word, they both matter. And the fact is that debate on September 10th, whether the side by side is going to be mind blowing. Arguably, it's going to be the most important day of this entire campaign, except for the day when Biden and Trump had that same interaction and Joe Biden came up wanting.