Katy Tur Reports 3PM 9⧸12⧸2024 ｜ 🅼🆂🅽🅱️🅲 BREAKING NEWS Today September 12, 2024

good to be with you I'm Katie tur both candidates are back out on the campaign Trail after Tuesday's de debate VP KLA Harris is in North Carolina holding two events in an effort to win that state back the first in Charlotte starts in just about 30 minutes and we'll go there live when it begins former president Donald Trump meanwhile is in Arizona trying to hammer border politics to swing voters but immigration policy is not the headline added the Trump campaign the headline today is immigrants eating pets a fear-mongering internet meme that made its way offline and into the mouth of a presidential candidate on a debate stage how did that happen it could have been his vice presidential pick Senator JD Vance who has himself elevated and spread the allegation in online posts then again it could have been Donald Trump himself who found it after all he did say he saw it on TV at the debate or it could have been the racist conspiracy theorist Laura lomer who brought it to him she was with him the day of the debate seen here exiting his plane in Philadelphia and she was with him even after the debate even after the Fallout accompanying him to a visit with firefighters in New York City on 911 at this point I will note she's also a 911 truther so why is a 911 truther with Donald Trump for September 11th REM remembrances why is a person who claims immigrants are eating cats in Ohio and that school shootings are allowed to happen to help Democrats in elections and that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are in an arranged relationship to sway the 2024 outcome accompanying a former president and current GOP nominee anywhere and it's not just lumer it's Nick Fuentes and Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens all of them have either perpetuated anti-semitic stereotypes or pushed wildly bizarre conspiracies and Trump has surrounded himself with them and many more the political answer is that they help him reach a sympathetic group of Voters who believe that stuff but another maybe simpler answer is that the former president has a hard time separating fact from fiction which is what VP Harris was driving at in this answer on Tuesday night Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people so let's be clear about that and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that when you then talk in this way in a presidential debate and deny what over and over again our court cases you have lost because you did in fact lose that election it leads one to believe that perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament or or the ability to not be confused about fact that's deeply troubling and the American people deserve better but before you dismiss that as a partisan swipe she is far from the only one who's saying something like that just the other day we out on HR McMaster Donald Trump's former National Security adviser who wrote in his new book that Trump quote found it difficult to distinguish between those who brought him sound analysis and those real or imagined who brought him hack need bromides during intelligence briefings joining us now NBC News correspondent Von Hillard in Tucson Arizona also with me is New York Times Reporter and MSNBC contributor Jeremy Peters the implication there in that HR McMaster quote is that he has imaginary friends who brings in analysis and stories all right so van what is the deal with Laura lomer how did she get close to Donald Trump how close is she to Donald Trump I think it's important to understand Katie that this is how the 2024 presidential campaign of Donald Trump has been run for almost two years now and that's not been to limit his access to anybody so whether you're Charlie Kirk or Steven Miller or Cory lowski or Laura lumer if you want to get a hold of Donald Trump there's nobody that is going to try to stand in your way of course we've seen campaign managers and officials like HR McMaster inside of The White House come and go over the course of the last nine years but what has been unique about this campaign is that it's been helmed by advisers who have not tried to limit individuals access to Donald Trump or Tred to convince Donald Trump of who he should or should not converse with or whether he should talk with NBC news or whether he should talk with uh right-wing propaganda Trump aligned outlets and that has really manifested itself in this moment for 24 hours Laura lumer traveling on the campaign plane with Donald Trump this is not a plane with plentiful seats you didn't see any other members of the press or even any other members of that right-wing media outlets and said you see Laura lomer somebody who is not only a 911 truther you went through some of these two weeks ago just two weeks ago she suggested that the school shooting in Georgia was in part due to Democrats and the FBI as a means of using it as a political tool this is somebody who in the Iowa caucus earlier this year suggested that Nikki Haley worked with the federal government to create a massive winter storm to keep Trump voters from showing up to the caucus in order to make sure he wasn't the repan nominee and now you see Laura ler continuing to have a presence despite concerns from Trump allies we should note outside of marjerie Taylor green these allies they are saying these things privately because Laura lomer for anybody that may follow her on social media she is quick to lash out that anybody that gets in her way whether it's Marjorie Taylor green or whether it's Donald Trump's former political director Brian Jack she went last year and called him a parasite in Trump World he should be fired he ended up leaving the Trump campaign to run for for Congress and Laura lomer you know I think Katie it's clear She's Not Afraid of anybody and she is eager to go on the attack of anybody that gets in her way and Donald Trump in N9 years running of political chaos within his campaigns has turned to her in these closing weeks is somebody who uh he is clearly relying on as a messenger and somebody that gets his word out there to a massive and now massive audience there were moments of this um these questionable figures surrounding Donald Trump in 2015 and 2016 Von you know this Jeremy you know this as well but there does seem to be a difference between now and then I mean in 2015 and 2016 he was talking more about policy in the broad sense he was talking about jobs he was talking about the economy he was talking about taxes he was talking about immigration he was talking about China a whole lot I mean he was talking about issues that mattered to people at these rallies and and now it's like he's just talking about internet memes and he's gone down rabbit holes it's not just like the the weird tangents he goes on I mean the the conspiracy theory stuff the dogs eating pets this stuff what happened his material was better back then and the material he has now isn't working I mean this stuff that they've been throwing out there has just he's just more online now well that that could very well be the case I think he's also much more insulated than he's ever been before I mean remember in 20156 what catapulted him to fame and a claim in the far right was his championing of this birther lie about Obama and back then he was talking with you know the notorious conspiracy theorist Jerome Cory who was kind of The Godfather of that lie right and you know but that worked with the Republican electorate you know it was something that a lot of them believed in because they didn't want to believe that Obama fundamentally was an American people eating pets migrants eating pets that I don't know what part of the psyche of the American Electric that I want to ask you that because I know you've done a lot of reporting on on you know deep red mager World Von you have too let me play a little bit of what um Yi shender our colleague here at NBC News uh was able to gather in Springfield uh Ohio uh after this allegation from the debate stage and here's a little bit with a a Haitian immigrant Advocate what does it feel like to now have to deal with this trauma it's hard on them um it's hard on them because they have to deal to get a job to settle down um to hear all those false accusations it's it's really I can tell you that it's really hard on them they they are being more traumatized um not knowing what the future will hold for them I keep thinking about an interview that I did in um at the end of 2020 right before the election I was in Pennsylvania and this is when Donald Trump was going on about fraud saying mail and ballots were fraud and there was no way he could lose the election and the question was if if his supporters really believed him there was no way he could lose the election what would they do if he if he did in fact lose the election and I spoke to one guy and he told me that he would be willing to take up arms he could get violent MH that happened I mean it seemed insane in the moment but it happened a few months later and if Donald Trump is out there and and JD Vance and now Ted Cruz and all of these Republicans are out there and they're saying yeah these Haitian immigrants are are eating your pets how concerning how how probable or worrying would it be that that that online fear-mongering comes out in a physical way right I mean this was a fear back then in 2016 in 2020 that you know the the rights constant very personal attacks on Latin American immigrants was going to result in you know some type of violent episode I mean let's not forget there was a mass shooting during Donald Trump's presidency at a Walmart in El Paso Texas by somebody who bought into you know this this really crazy just vile uh you know racist um uh conspiracy theory against you know um dark killed a bunch of people including a couple of parents left a an an orphaned a little baby Donald Trump went down there and took a picture with that baby Von I know you have sound from people you spoke with there there at the rally in Arizona regarding the uh what did they say right I want to let you just listen to a little bit of the conversation I had with one of the Trump supporters here in Tucson arminda when I asked her about the eating pets narrative and when she heard it at the debate take a listen when did you first hear about the pet eating narrative I read it on the on the an article on the news online and so when he threw that in it it sounded kind of really weird but but I mean I don't go by that I I go by what he's the changes that he's making what he says he does and I like that about him there was another woman that I talked to Katie who said that she heard it for the first time out of Donald Trump's own mouth on the debate stage and instantaneously she said she turned on her phone and searched and she said she couldn't find anything to factually back it up and as you heard from our Melinda there too there's a desire among these folks that even that sort of rhetoric was turning it off to them of course they're still going to vote for Trump but I I think that it's important we've heard Donald Trump outside of a few social media posts and memes about you know cats and dogs that the only time we've heard him verbally say it was at the debate stage and so often as we've seen over the last eight years you and Jeremy know this is that sometimes these conspiracy theories that they take a while to see inin and so that's why I'm interested to see where this goes in the days and weeks ahead because the Trump supporters I was talking to here in Tucson their initial reaction to it was a chuckle a laugh and uncomfortability because it was weird as you heard arminda describe it there and so I'm wondering the extent to which Donald Trump continues to persist with it because we have seen time and again that these kind of uh lies and conspiracy theories they slowly enter the bloodstream and people become slowly over time more comfortable repeating and paring them himself it's we'll have to wait to see whether that's the same situation for this kind of narrative about migrants that is just frankly racist sentiment to suggest otherwise the updated numbers by the way for last night's debate where Donald Trump set it on the stage 67.1 million viewers um Tuesday debate sorry Von Hillard thank you very much Jeremy stick around joining us now National Action Network president host of msnbc's Politics Nation Reverend Al sharpen it's really good to have you as always um let's talk about um immigration I read an interesting piece in the dispatch and this is by the son of a Pakistani immigrant immigrants who who grew up in the Deep South and he argues it is completely fair to have conversations about how immigration is changing a community the effects it's having changing the culture Etc but that this story that immigrants are eating pets is much darker and goes much further quote consider this he says millions of people and I just told you the number millions of people now believe that immigrants are butchering their beloved cats and dogs how will those people approach immigrants or people they think are immigrants if that's what they believe are we setting ourselves up for another Buffalo or El Paso mass shooting which Jeremy just referenced a moment ago Al rev what do you think I think that it is absolutely the thing that is frightening to us I'm I'm here in Washington today at our Nash Action Network office and yesterday was in the New York office meeting with Haitian leaders by Zoom uh that there's genuine concern about where this could go in including some VI when you're telling people from a former president of United States given credibility to this outright lie this hallucination that there are Haitian immigrants let's let's not forget here they're not just saying immigrants they're being specific Haitian immigrants that are eating your animals your pets your cats your dogs you're setting uh up for somebody to do something that is horrific at worst and at you're setting up a racist situation for Haitian Americans and let's remember now Katie that Donald Trump is the same one that called Haiti and several African countries esole countries he has a fixation with black countries and black people uh so he didn't just say migrants are eating your uh uh your pets patient migrants any black anyone of color in Springfield Ohio looks like a Haitian walking down the street you don't stop and take a a test on their accents or look for their nationality so this is a threat to all of us and it should be taken as such which is why I've been talking to Haitian leaders on how we should respond in unison black and white so you have you have Laura lumer you have over the years there's been I mean there's so many I can't name them all but Nick FZ Candace Owens Charlie Kirk all these people that have either been you know perpetuating racists or anti-semitic or just conspiracy theories that Donald Trump has surrounded himself with he's been around them the Democrats have though had a hard time uncoupling Donald Trump and who he's surrounding himself with from um I guess the supporters when they say Donald Trump they've argued he's a racist or they say that he's surrounding himself with racists sometimes or a lot of the time Donald Trump's supporters will say hey what are you talking about screw you I'm not a racist I'm not a conspiracy theorist you're denigrating me you're looking down on me so how do the Democrats point out look who he's with look what he's doing do you want to be associated with them without painting the entire support system as racist or xenophobic or anti-semitic Etc well I I think clearly you have to point out uh to everyone that it is a thread throughout his career dealing with this in the 70s he and his father were sued by the justice department not by S right group justice department for racial discrimination then you go to the late 80s where he took out an ad $85,000 ad calling for the execution of five young black uh and brown men accusing them uh of the rape and uh the uh brutalizing of a vicious crime that happened to a young white female all right fine uh a lot of people felt they were guilty they were csed in the into confessions but then when DNA years later after they had done time in jail proved that they were not the ones he wrote up in saying no no don't settle with them they did it and I think that this is the problem that uh you've got to be able to raise to his supporters uh I also think when you look at the fact that you have a consistant Entourage of Holocaust deniers anti-semites racists and people have believe in autocracy I don't care who's supporting them how do you justify that this man is comfortable with that and his own actions I do not think for the record that everybody that votes for Donald Trump is a racist but I do believe every racist will vote for Donald Trump um he's using immigrants to to go after minority voters specifically back black men saying they're taking black jobs is it effective no I I think that uh when you look at the number of black uh that that have voted for him they're not that much higher than they ought to uh usually get with Republicans and I think that it is insulting when he says the black men that they uh gravitate to him because of his mug shots which in effect is rhetorically criminalizing black men I think that it is insulting that he puts people up that have records from here back to New York and says that they are the ones that should be telling you to vote for so I think that in many ways uh that the poll numbers they're showing with black men are fantasies that will not go anywhere and many but we've never had all blacks do anything but the margins that he gets is no different than those that uh Republicans have gotten in the past in many cases and I think he's going to be more disappointed this time because of things like saying Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs even black men that have whatever differences with the Democrats don't uh want to see that kind of thing go and he brought it to the presidential debate on a platform that millions of people were watching all right Reverend Al Sharpton thank you very much and while it was pretty clear that uh VP kamla Harris got the better of Donald Trump at the debate by calling out his Fitness for office swing voters still said they wanted more from her specifically how how she would be different than President Biden joining us now in Charlotte North Carolina as NBC News White House correspondent Mike memoy Jeremy Peters is still with us as well he's been speaking to swing voters all right Mike um this event in Charlotte I hear it's going to be a little bit earlier than expected what's she doing out there well Katie the way that the Harris campaign sees this moment is that they finally have a little bit of Runway they have the convention behind them they have the debate behind them and they want to build on what they feel is a lot of momentum coming from that debate to advance the case against Donald Trump at this moment you can see that in some of the paid advertising that they've been putting up the first ad that they released was one in which she is making that almost closing argument talking about the need to turn the page and present a more optimistic joyful vision for the future the newest ad that they put out just in the last few hours is one that focused on the abortion exchange between her and the former president one that they feel is especially powerful here in North Carolina one of the reasons they're so optimistic about turning this state from red to blue but the biggest plan here is to just continue to ride momentum the Biden team before the Harris team now knows how powerful a political force momentum is and you can see that in some of the conversations I was having uh before this rally with the voters about how they feel the campaign is going and what they saw Tuesday night take a listen to some of that being able to have my first time voting being for like a black woman like it's really important to me so I know like it's my duty to ensure that the very first person that iect is somebody who I'll be proud to say like 50 years later that that's who I was able to elect into office I think um uh ex president Trump uh showed who he really is which isn't very intelligent which isn't very caring of the American public and certainly not prepared certainly not capable to form complete thoughts Biden he was a good president too but we got he he you know he passed the book to her it's her turn now it's women turn and she's going to be it and it's going to be wonderful so we've already heard what A big Applause line so far today the debate has been we've heard from Josh Stein the candidate for governor here in North Carolina we heard from Governor Roy Cooper as well all of them asking the audience how they felt about the debate overwhelming reaction so now we're just going to wait and see what the vice president has to say about it how much she's not just going to have her team use some of those for TV ads but use that argument on the campaign Trail as well you know there are a lot of people there when it is so loud that you have to scream to be heard on that what is a very powerful microphone Mike memy thank you very much all right um Jeremy the headline of your latest New York Times piece is pundits say Harris won the debate undecided voters weren't so sure explain so a lot of undecided voters and the few that there are cuz let's be clear like this election is still going to be decided on a knife's ed all the polling confirms that and I'm told even some of the private polling that the campaigns have been looking at since the debate affirms that that the needle has not moved much even though it's very clear that Donald Trump lost this debate what people are ultimately looking for who are still on the fence is a reason to go to the polls for KLA Harris I'm talking specifically about Trump curious or former Trump Die Hard Trump supporters who are now uncomfortable with voting for him but might do it again they want to see her sell herself why what are you going to do for me I think is what we heard most do you think it's about policy or is it that they they look at her and they say gosh you know she's a woman she's a black woman black and Indian woman there's is there a little like just underlying discomfort with that because we've never seen a woman in that position before and do they need just to see her more to hear her more maybe not necessarily about specific policy but just to see her in a presidential genre atmosphere milu I think I'm using all those words incorrectly um to make him feel more comfortable with voting for her to be president of the United States we're not talking about race that much in this debate at least not outwardly we're not she's not talking about it she's not talking about how she's a woman but are voters may be feeling it I think that she knows that in order to reach C's voters swing voters she shouldn't talk about what she is uh in terms of her gender and her r she should talk about what she's going to do as president and that's why she needs to be out there more to your question people need to feel like they can trust her to govern that she can get things through Congress I mean the thing that I heard most in talking to these voters is they want Washington to not be broken anymore so for the next president to be able to deliver for them which is why the debate wasn't such a selling point because what K Harris did really well by the way was talk about how she sees a disastrous second Trump term she didn't talk a whole lot about what a Harris term was going to be oh Donald Trump says there will be no third debate he's just put that up on his uh social media saying that he doesn't need to he's a prize fighter and he won um without another debate and by the way that debate reached 70 million people whole lot of people how does she do that is it more TV news interviews please say yes I would hope so I mean not just for our editorial board interview right but has to get out there the one attack that has been effective that Trump and his allies have leveled at her is that she's been hiding and she's afraid to answer questions the rest of the stuff comrade comma crazy comma it's it's nonsense it's not working and Trump knows that or else he'd be repeating it at nauseum uh he we'll see if he does another debate but in the absence of that it's actually a good thing for her because she can go out there and basically continue to talk to voters on her terms which is the most kind of controlled way to do it the campaign's going to it says they're going to be putting her out in front of a lot of uh voters and smaller um venues they're also going to be putting her out in front of local news uh in various swing States remember this is going to come down to not necessarily a national audience uh but a couple of counties in a few swing States all right Jeremy legal correspondent Lisa Rubin all right what happened what did he dismiss he dismissed two counts as you just noted both of them are counts that also have parallels in federal law and so one of them has to deal with Donald Trump signing a certification in a lawsuit that was filed in federal court in Georgia this is the Trump versus Kemp case where he certified or verified that all the facts in there were true as far as he knew it the allegation is there was a conspiracy to file that certification even though John Eastman and Donald Trump allegedly knew that it was false the other count has to do with documents that were supporting that case that were mailed in the uh the charge it self was like basically filing false documents with the court again it's a crime under Georgia law but it's also a crime under federal law so do they stick to the do they remain in federal court or are they dismissed out right they were dismissed because of arguments about the federal supremacy clause of the con so if they want to be charged they have to be charged in federal court yes with this stuff that's correct okay how many counts remain many remain against Donald Trump you know Katie I was looking at the indictment earlier and I'm looking at it now so hopefully our viewers willc excuse me were there 19 counts there are more than 30 counts of this entire indictment but with respect to former president Trump who remember there are other counts against him that have been previously dismissed so there are definitely there's a lot we're going to get the number for you this happened just a moment ago um okay so the case still stands they haven't dismissed the case outright but there's still no trial date no and in fact not only is there no trial date but the Georgia of appeal has an oral argument on December 5th that's when that Court will hear arguments from the Trump t team and other defendants that fonny Willis should not remain on the case this is appeal of Judge Scott mcca's Decision over the winter to let fonny Willis remain in control of her case despite their efforts to disqualify her on the basis of her alleged financial entanglements and relationship with Nathan Wade all right Lisa ruin thank you very much for bringing us this breaking news um a couple of counts dismissed many remain thank you and Republicans led by Donald Trump keep going after the Department of Justice claiming it is full of deep State Democrats who are trying to influence the election so today attorney general mer Garland fought back assuring the department that the AG the attorney general has their back amid a wave of quote dangerous and outrageous attacks joining us now NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken delanian so Ken what did he say Katie Garland talked about the importance of insulating the doj from partisan influence and that's a tradition that really began after Watergate when Garland first joined the Department as a young prosecutor four decades ago he said that tradition is under threat as never before he didn't say this part explicitly but the biggest threat comes explicitly from the Republican candidate for president who has suggested that if he's elected he will use the doj to go after his enemies Donald Trump also has spent years falsely suggesting that the investigations into him were partisan effort by democrats to frame him take what else Garland said our Norms are a promise that we will fiercely protect the independence of this department from political in interference in our criminal investigations our Norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon and our Norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics he was speaking to us attorneys there from around the country and he got a big round of applause when he said along those lines the public servants of the Department of Justice do not Bend to politics and they will not break under that pressure Katie a lot of people have wished that Merrick Garland uh would have said things like this earlier and more often but he said them very forcefully today all right Kendall and Ken thank you very much and joining us now NBC News senior executive editor for National Security David Ro David you also have some news regarding uh Russia and the influence campaign that they were waging with American influencers yeah there was a separate um event today where um a doj official spoke and they essentially said more to come that we haven't seen the end of the Russian influence operations there was this very well-documented case with these Americans most of whom appear to be unwitting they were being paid by Moscow through a cutout but that Russia will be doing more between now and November um China and Iran who were these Americans there were two Americans that ran a production company based in Tennessee um they thought they were being paid by a company um it's unclear actually one of the out you know is what did they know did they realize they were did they think they were being paid by some company or did they know the money was originally coming from Russia were question they were funneling money or or paying yes really popular right-wing online podcast influencers who have big following they were giving them quite a bit of money Benny Johnson was one of them um you say that most of them seem unwitting do they have an idea that somebody knew what was going on it's the two founders of the company but in terms of Benny Johnson and these other influencers they just felt they were getting paid for doing interviews they did not you know the the influencers did not they didn't realize they were getting paid to spread Russian Russian disinformation correct correct but this is how sated it's becoming you know there could be more um cases like this to come as we you know approach this historic election um so the people that were witting um is the justice department going to be charging them they wouldn't say that's Point Blank afterwards and they gave the well that would be election interference and taking money from a from a foreign government yes they said it's an ongoing investigation they can't comment we are less than two months before the election the justice department is obviously a bit nervy you saw mer Garland speaking to employees why is he why is he saying that stuff now uh Ken was right there's a question about why he didn't say this earlier but there is another contrast in this election Donald Trump sees career officials in the state department who who leak a story about him doing something improper as a deep State as this terrible thing that's you know obstructing him Garland says the career officials are heroes these are people that are going to defend democracy and if they leak something that a Democratic or Republican president is doing that's wrong that's that's good the problem is what what do Americans going to think it's hard to sell you know heroic Washington bureaucrat to the public but that's what Garland was saying today and Garland is or the Department of Justice is saying uh that the attacks and the disinformation and the influence from foreign entity in a head-to-head matchup though that is still within the margin of error joining us now National Affairs correspondent for the nation John Nichols and Senior editor and elections Analyst at the cook political report David waserman so John is this a big deal yeah it's a big deal when you get over 50% % in Wisconsin uh that that always counts for something and I'll tell you why uh of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin four have been decided by under 25,000 votes so Wisconsin is always close that's something that that everybody understands but if you begin to open up uh somewhat of a margin especially in the Marquette pole that is generally seen as the best pole in the state the one that that's that's most in tune with where the state is at uh people do wake up in fact in Wisconsin it's this is big news Dave do you agree well Wisconsin is a perpetually close State obviously it was within about 23,000 votes in 2020 and the question is does Trump see the same surge of white non- col voters that was underrepresented in polls in 2016 and 2020 and even though Wisconsin and Michigan look like Harris's best states of the seven in the core Battleground uh Wisconsin is is always going to be dicey and she's going to need a bigger showing in the wow counties to offset the likely Trump margin in Western and Northern Wisconsin Dave there are still so many voters out there who are telling us and telling pollers that they're undecided that they want to see more from vice president kamla Harris how do you e e e hello everyone today we we continue the part of uh notification I will take a boat here us a quick notification here so if want notification here so you can come here for notification also for notification here then CH color good and if here is in all can change color to the blue and use the blue here as you see also here go e e