Episode Transcript

David Rind

00:00:03

Cleanup continues in Florida from Hurricane Milton, which slammed into the Gulf Coast as a Category three monster packing wind gusts up to 100 miles an hour.

Bill Weir

00:00:13

There's a gust blowing against my back that I can lean against like a wall.

David Rind

00:00:18

Saint Petersburg experienced a once in a thousand year rainfall event, more than 18in.

Bill Weir

00:00:26

We got a little bit closer to the fall and crane here in Saint Petersburg. There's one of four of them downtown.

David Rind

00:00:34

I think it was the third hurricane to hit Florida this year. That's only happened five times in hurricane seasons dating back to 1871. And before the storm even hit. Milton spawned dozens of tornadoes, some of which were deadly. And a record number of tornado warnings. Of course, beneath all those superlatives is the role manmade climate change plays here. Warming waters allows these storms to become a lot more powerful. Now, climate change isn't usually front and center on the campaign trail, especially not on the Republican side. But what has been getting a lot of attention is the federal government's response to recent storms, including Milton and Hurricane Helene. And in the past few weeks, we've seen that conversation go from political spin.

Former President Donald Trump

00:01:24

$750. That's all they're getting...

David Rind

00:01:28

To downright dangerous misinformation. My guest is CNN's Steve Contorno who covers the Trump campaign. We're going to talk about the impact Trump's lies are having on the ground and how the storms could impact voting in some key states. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

David Rind

00:01:56

So, Steve, you're based in Florida, St Petersburg, actually. You covered the Trump campaign and Florida politics in general. But we're speaking on Thursday afternoon after Hurricane Milton just came through. So what if these last few days been like for you and the Tampa Bay area?

Steve Contorno

00:02:11

David I've lived in Florida for a decade now, and in all that time, I have never evacuated during a hurricane. But almost from the moment it started forming, this system seemed different. And by the weekend, the threat to our home and our lives felt so much more acute than any storm that has come through our area over the past decade. So on Monday, my wife and I packed up our car with our dog and our cat and our one year old son, and we evacuated to the Florida Panhandle. And we've been watching the storm through the eyes of our neighborhood ring cams and stories from friends and former colleagues who stayed behind. So even though it was a direct hit to Tampa Bay that many feared and didn't bring the record storm surge that it could have. The rain was really unlike anything St Pete has seen before. We're not sure what we're going back to when we return. But we also know it could have been a lot worse. And for many people, it was.

David Rind

00:03:07

Yeah. There's so many people in the in the area that that have similar stories and are just not sure what they're coming back to. But I do want to ask about your actual bid, the 2024 election. How has this Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, before it kind of played out on the campaign trail?

Steve Contorno

00:03:25

Well, for Trump, it's been playing out in a familiar fashion. He has seized on a tragedy and found a way to insert himself into it, to attack a political enemy.

Former President Donald Trump

00:03:33

We just learned that Kamala skipped out on all of her briefings to prepare for hurricanes, said never took a briefing.

Steve Contorno

00:03:39

Mostly by criticizing the Biden administration's response and often by amplifying all kinds of misinformation about FEMA, some of which has been refuted repeatedly by local and state officials on the ground and even from within his own party, he asserted. Biden didn't talk to the Georgia governor, which wasn't true.

Former President Donald Trump

00:03:57

Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country, including 1 billion for gift cards for illegal aliens and putting them up in luxury hotels.

Steve Contorno

00:04:16

He keeps claiming Harris has spent $1 billion in FEMA money housing migrants. Again, that isn't an accurate or complete description of how that money was used.

Former President Donald Trump

00:04:26

It was disgraceful what they did. So she didn't send anything or anyone at all. Days passed, no help as men, women and children drowned.

Steve Contorno

00:04:36

He basically said that there haven't been any helicopters or rescues in North Carolina when the National Guard there at that point had conducted well over 100 missions in the air.

David Rind

00:04:47

Yeah, I spoke to somebody in North Carolina who had the National Guard come up near their house to make sure everything was okay.

Steve Contorno

00:04:53

Exactly. And it's not just Trump. His allies have joined him in making these false assertions. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on social media that, quote, They control the weather. Elon Musk asserted planes couldn't get in to provide relief, which prompted the transportation secretary. Pete put a judge to reach out directly to the tech billionaire to try to correct the record. And the result is that FEMA and local officials have had to expand resources and expend time and energy debunking these unfounded conspiracy theories. A Republican congressman from North Carolina even had to put out a fact sheet clarifying that no one controls the weather.

President Joe Biden

00:05:32

Former President Trump has led the onslaught of lies. Assertions have been made that property is being confiscated. That's simply not true. The saying people impacted by this storm who received $750 in cash and no more. That's simply not true.

Steve Contorno

00:05:49

We've also seen President Biden himself come out and dispute a lot of the accusations and push back fiercely against them.

President Joe Biden

00:05:58

Mr. President, Trump, Former President Trump. Get a life, man. Help these people.

Steve Contorno

00:06:03

And he has been joined by his vice president, Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris

00:06:06

It is dangerous. It is. It is unconscionable, frankly, that anyone who consider themselves a leader would mislead desperate people to the point that those desperate people would not receive the aid to which they are entitled.

Steve Contorno

00:06:22

Who has been campaigning but also trying to use her official office to demonstrate her capabilities. And part of that has been trying to stop these these rumors and this misinformation at the source.

David Rind

00:06:37

Well, that's the thing, right? Because like we've seen hurricanes and the response to hurricanes get political before, where one side accuses the party in power of being slow to respond or something. But it's different when you're making straight up lies to the point where agencies on the ground feel a complete loss of trust. Or they even feel threatened in some way. And in fact, this really jumped out to me. One North Carolina man called into the Dan Abrams show on Sirius XM earlier this week and claimed that his father in law, who was in Asheville, was refusing help from FEMA because he believes FEMA is going to take his house if he accepts assistance.

Anthony

00:07:15

We sent him all the FEMA bulletins. We've sent him all the stuff from the fact checkers. He doesn't. Believe it...

David Rind

00:07:22

That this whole disagreement was like breaking up his family.

Anthony

00:07:25

My wife, my poor wife is like, the hell with him. And it sucks. It really sucks, Dan.

David Rind

00:07:31

I mean, it's just wild to think that that it's gotten to that point for some people.

Steve Contorno

00:07:35

Yeah, we are used to seeing this sort of politics of disasters play out where states that are red states having a Democratic president, how are they going to work together when there is so much partizanship in this country right now? And usually they end up having sort of this moment where they put that aside and work together for the benefit of those who are affected and for the good of the country. And what we are seeing with President Trump, former President Trump, is no willingness to put aside politics and instead insert himself into the situation for his own political benefit.

David Rind

00:08:31

Just in general, what can history tell us about how hurricanes have kind of shaped presidential elections in years past?

Steve Contorno

00:08:40

There is a long track record of these storms when they play out close to an election having an impact on the dialog around the race and certainly at times even the race itself.

Reporter

00:08:56

Crisis makes unexpected political bedfellows.

Gov.Chris Christie

00:09:00

I cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state and for the people of our state.

Steve Contorno

00:09:06

You think back to hurricane and Superstorm Sandy and what transpired when President Obama came off Air Force One and embraced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2012, right before that election.

Reporter

00:09:23

President Obama returned the favor.

Former President Barrack Obama

00:09:26

He has put his heart and soul into making sure that the people in New Jersey bounce back even stronger than before.

Steve Contorno

00:09:33

It's interesting. In Florida, governors often operate under the shadow of Jeb Bush. He is still remembered here fondly for how he ushered Florida through a string of terrible storms.

Jeb Bush

00:09:45

'Floridians south of the I-4 corridor and in the Keys should prepare for the possibility of a major hurricane making landfall late in the weekend.

Steve Contorno

00:09:54

'Andrew, Charley, Wilma. Hurricanes that still strike fear in the lives of those who lived through them. So DeSantis in Florida is sort of an interesting figure in this moment because he operates in both a world and a state that has been defined by Jeb Bush's stewardship of storms, but also in that post-Sandy world that I just described, where Republicans who work with Democratic presidents can face blowback from their own party. In 2022, when Ian rocked Florida's west coast just as he was amping up to run for president. He appeared side by side with Biden to view coastal wreckage during an unusual display of bipartisanship. But then a year later, when he was running for president and another storm hit the state, he wouldn't join Biden. And notably last week, when Biden was in Florida to survey storm damage from Helene. The two were not seen together.

David Rind

00:10:52

Yeah, but they have gotten on subsequent calls to kind of coordinate this thing.

Steve Contorno

00:10:57

They have. But there's been this interesting sparring through the media between DeSantis and Harris over her desire to speak to him leading up to this storm.

Vice President Kamala Harris

00:11:06

People are in desperate need of support right now. And playing political games at this moment in these crisis situations. These are the height of emergency situations. This is utterly irresponsible and it is selfish.

Steve Contorno

00:11:19

She calls him selfish for not taking her call, offering assistance, and he pushed back that she doesn't have a role in a disaster response and was posturing for her campaign.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

00:11:30

She has no role in this. In fact, she's been vice president for three and a half years. I've dealt with a number of storms under this administration. She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts. And so what I think.

Steve Contorno

00:11:44

The irony, of course, is Trump is accusing Harris of not doing enough while the scientist is suggesting she doesn't have a role in disaster.

David Rind

00:11:51

Response. Like which one is it? Does she have a lot of power in the response or not?

Steve Contorno

00:11:56

Exactly. And when you talk to officials of both parties, when Donald Trump was president, they said that Vice President Pence was often the person making phone calls upon the approach of a disaster, just to let them know that the administration was there for them and that was ready to respond. So there certainly has traditionally been a role for the vice president. You know, there is not much in the Constitution that defines what a vice president is supposed to do, but they are certainly part of the executive branch and the administration.

David Rind

00:12:29

Do we know at this point how the storms, if at all, will impact the actual voting here? I'm thinking about like early voting sites in some of these states or mail routes in North Carolina for mail in ballots, not to mention that, you know, people might just not have the election on their mind as they're working to literally pick up the pieces of their house or something like that. Like how are the campaigns responding here?

Steve Contorno

00:12:53

Well, I think you're going to see a state by state difference in how they respond to holding an election under these extraordinary circumstances. And that is a function of the way that we hold elections. They are locally controlled and operated. So in Florida, for example, officials insist voting will continue as planned. DeSantis declined to extend voter registration, but he has called on counties impacted by Halloween to make voting sites available to people who may have been displaced by the storm. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is pushing North Carolina to expand voter access there after some very hard hit conservative areas remain deeply affected. And some of the provisions they have proposed are ones that the Trump administration, when he was president and his allies, have criticized states for taking back during the pandemic when Donald Trump was running for reelection. And what's interesting is this all comes. As Trump's election strategy is heavily reliant on running up the score in rural counties. We reported recently how Trump's campaign is intensely focused on finding conservative people who don't normally vote and convincing them to show up. It's already hard enough to mobilize these kind of voters. And now in battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina, those people are a lot more worried about where their next warm meal is coming from and wondering whether they're going to have electricity by Election Day than they are about voting.

David Rind

00:14:28

Right. Right. And to that point about unconventional voters, voters who literally need to be convinced to actually show up. Is that why Trump is kind of appearing on some of these podcast, you know, courting? You know what I would describe as like the bro vote? What should we take from those appearances.

Steve Contorno

00:14:48

In the face of a seemingly historic gender gap? The Trump campaign has tried to counter that by aggressively going after white male voters, especially those without a college degree. And they have targeted them in these swing states.

Former President Donald Trump

00:15:08

Your thing is going really great. My son's a big fan of yours. Barron.

Theo Vaughn

00:15:11

Really? Barron is.

Former President Donald Trump

00:15:11

Yeah.

Theo Vaughn

00:15:12

He just graduated high school, right?

Former President Donald Trump

00:15:14

Right. He just did it. He knows you very well. He's a dad. He's big y. A big one.

Theo Vaughn

00:15:20

That's cool.

Former President Donald Trump

00:15:22

That's where it is nowadays, right? Yeah, Well, it's interesting.

Steve Contorno

00:15:25

And one of the ways they are doing that is, yes, by having Trump appear on podcasts that they believe reach these individuals, shows like Theo Von's podcast or holding a late night chat with Elon Musk on access. These are areas where they believe that they can find disengaged and disenchanted male voters who are inclined to support Trump but don't have a strong track record of necessarily showing up at the ballot box. And one of the things they are attempting is telling their supporters, here is an app that you can help us find people in your network who we think are like you. They're conservative. They have similar interests. They like Trump, but they don't typically vote. And you can punch in your name and it'll show you who in your circle of friends and family is politically like you but doesn't vote. And they are being encouraged to reach out to those individuals and convince them that this election they need to actually show up.

David Rind

00:16:37

They're kind of like outsourcing the work.

Steve Contorno

00:16:39

In more ways than one. They're outsourcing it to their own supporters, but they are also outsourcing it quite literally. They have a super PAC formed by Elon Musk that has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to mobilize voters. There's also another group called Turning Point that is run by a very close ally of Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, that is also trying to mobilize voters in Arizona and several other swing states, specifically looking at younger people. So it has freed up the Trump campaign to instead focus on advertising and on the rallies that they believe help drive their candidate. But it is an unusual step. And on top of that, there is not a track record from Elon Musk or Turning Point USA of having success turning out voters. So it is a calculated risk on the part of the campaign trying to hand off what traditionally they or the Republican Party would be doing this time of year to these outside entities.

David Rind

00:17:49

That's so interesting. And you see Kamala Harris trying to perhaps reach some of those same kind of unconventional voters by appearing on podcasts like Call Her Daddy and with former NBA players just trying to reach all of those pockets where these people might be. And to your point, if there are people impacted by a hurricane and maybe thought about voting, but now with all this going on, may not. Steve, good turnout. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

Steve Contorno

00:18:18

Thanks, David.