Trump Makes Election Fraud Allegations; Hackers Hit Democrats Again; Trump Spokeswoman: Obama, Clinton Created Vacuum for ISIS in Afghanistan; Flooding Kills 2 in Louisiana; 1st GOP Representative Supports Gary Johnson as GOP Worries Trump Could Cause Loss of Senate; Senate Majority Leader Issues Warning About Election; Comparing Clinton, Trump Economic Policies.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow, in New York. So glad you are with us. It is a battle for the White House, and the two sides this weekend with two very different concerns that could hurt them on Election Day. The GOP nominee, Donald Trump, already laying out what he says is the only reason that he may lose the swing state of Pennsylvania. Listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: We are going to watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas, and watch and study and make sure that other people don't come in and vote five times, because if you do that -- and I know that you are voting. Is everybody here voting?</s>TRUMP: If you do that, if you do that, and we are not going to lose. The only way that we can lose in my opinion, and I really mean this, Pennsylvania, is if cheating goes on.</s>HARLOW: Donald Trump is convinced that the election is going to be, quote, "rigged" -- his word -- so he has added this to the official campaign website, and it is a page to collect the names and addresses of people to, quote, "help me to stop Crooked Hillary from rigging the election," end quote. The submission button then leads to the straight to the donation page. And for the Democrats, this weekend, more cyber security problems and another hacker to deal with. A hacker dumping a pile of personal information last night online, with private cell phones and e-mail addresses and phone numbers for several Democratic members of Congress. This is not a direct strike on Hillary Clinton, but the House Intelligence Committee calls it interfering with the political process. And they want somebody to be punished. A WikiLeaks data dump back in July caused the DNC chair to resign her position. With me to discuss, CNN's Brian Stelter; also the head of the New York State Democratic Party, Basil Smikle; and also with us is Amy Kremer, who co-chairs the group Women for Trump. Thank you all for being here. Amy, I'll begin with you. When you say that Donald Trump saying this election is rigged over and over and over again, and he comes out last night and says the only which way is that we will lose is if the Clinton camp cheats. Elections in this country typically are not stolen, especially presidential elections. Why does he keep saying this?</s>AMY KREMER, CO-CHAIR, WOMEN FOR TRUMP: Well, Poppy, voter fraud is an issue, and it has been across a number of places. And actually there were arrests made in Philadelphia for election fraud.</s>HARLOW: Hey, Amy, Amy --</s>KREMER: Yeah?</s>HARLOW: -- when has voter fraud been a significant issue in a presidential election?</s>KREMER: Poppy, all it takes in one election is one county, one precinct.</s>HARLOW: And you are saying it happens a lot --</s>KREMER: No, I did not say it happens a lot, but I have said that it happens, that voter fraud is an issue a lot of times that people are concerned about. I didn't say that voter fraud happens all of the time, but it is something that people are concerned about. And people who are paying attention know that it is an issue. But at the end of the day, I think that what Donald Trump is talking about is the number of people at his events and rallies across the country, and not only the events, but the number of people who have signed up, and follow him on the Instagram, and Facebook and Twitter, and the people engaged in the campaign. And the clip that you played, I think it is important for what he is saying there. He said, you know, to go out to do the poll watching, and be engaged and be sure that there is no voter fraud going. And that is what we all need to be doing. We need to encourage people to get involved and be active and work until every ballot is cast at the end of the day when the polls close. But also, you know, if you have the time, and go work at a poll, and do election watching.</s>HARLOW: And let me bring in Basil. Basil, as a Democrat, as a Hillary Clinton supporter, are you concerned about this election being rigged or cheating?</s>BASIL SMIKLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: No, not at all. These arguments about voter fraud are spurious, because if you listen to what Donald Trump said --</s>HARLOW: Because it is in 2004 that the Democrats worried that the election would be rigged against them.</s>SMIKLE: Yeah, but if you listen to what Donald Trump said, he talked about certain areas, and that is a not so veiled areas that are referenced to strongholds that are communities of color.</s>HARLOW: -- Pennsylvania last night.</s>SMIKLE: And Dr. Ben Carson followed up talking about specifically Philadelphia, and areas around Philadelphia. So if you are looking over the last few years, 20 to 30 states have enacted laws that have made it more difficult for people to vote, and not made it easier for them to vote. And that is often a reason --</s>HARLOW: Well, two weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that you don't have to have voter identification in North Carolina, so doing the opposite.</s>SMIKLE: Yes, so states like North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and others have enacted or tried to enact very restrictive voter I.D. laws to make it more difficult for the elderly and the communities of color to vote. No withstanding that, the Supreme Court also gutted very substantial portions of the Voting Rights Act. So these sorts of the comments about voter fraud, and they are statistically insignificant, so that is going to worry me when he talks about Hillary Clinton cheating.</s>HARLOW: And, Brian Stelter, it is going to incenses you when you hear this? Why?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Because as journalists, we face a unique election, and this issue inside of the unique election. Voter fraud is vanishing rare in America, and when it happens, it is investigated and it is reported. It is oftentimes overstated by the press, and particularly the conservative press which fans the flame, and encouraging people to believe it happens more often than it does, and when Donald Trump buys into this, and says it from the microphone to the entire world, it is going to undermine faith in the voting system, and democracy system. And it is dangerous situation for the candidate to say it. It is different when the supporters say, that and a lot of Democrats in 2004 saying that the election was stolen from them, and they were wrong, but somebody like John Kerry he did not support that or encourage it, and Trump is encouraging this language.</s>HARLOW: Amy, to you, and I want to get you no the poll numbers, because it is important. We have brand-new poll numbers out from NBC/"Wall Street Journal," and it shows that 48 percent to 39 percent there, is in North Carolina for example. I mean, that is a nine-point loss in a state that Mitt Romney took. And you have Colorado, and Virginia and North Carolina where Trump is trailing Clinton significantly now. How concerned are you about the numbers three weeks after the RNC?</s>KREMER: Right. Well, Poppy, I am concerned. I think most of the supporters are concerned but, thankfully, we are just mid-August and several months the go until the election day, and that is why I think it is important for Donald Trump encourages the people to get out to vote. That is one of the things that is really important here, and just because you show up at the rally, and just because you are expressing the support on social media, that is not enough. You have to take the action to go to the ballot box the vote, and that is important. There is no excuse not to vote. So I am glad that we are here in August, and room for improvement obviously, and this is something that we need to work on.</s>HARLOW: And it is important when you are looking at the numbers, and Trump is not even at 40 percent in any of these, in any of the four swing states, and it begs the question, has he hit a ceiling over his support?</s>KREMER: But, Poppy, just as he can fall that quickly, and he can climb as well. And so like I said, there is room for improvement and we have seen him above those numbers, and it is important.</s>HARLOW: I want to have us listen to this. Brian, quickly.</s>STELTER: Connect the dots, because Trump is talking about the rigged election is because he is down in the polls. And connect the dots between the stories, and polls where he is struggling, and then talk of the voter fraud, and if he loses on the Election Day, he can refer back to the voter fraud and say that the election is delegitimized.</s>HARLOW: Guys, before I let you go, I want you to listen to this, because Katrina Pierson came on CNN earlier today, and she was speaking about the war in Afghanistan, specifically, and she is saying something that is patently not true. Let's play it.</s>KATRINA PIERSON, SPOKESPERSON, DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: And Barack Obama went into Afghanistan creating another problem. It is Hillary Clinton and her incidents in Libya which was also a reckless decision to create that vacuum. They armed the rebels, and they are funding them now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: You're saying Barack Obama took the country into Afghanistan post-2009, is that what you're saying?</s>PIERSON: What I'm saying is the policies of --</s>UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: You said we weren't in Afghanistan --</s>PIERSON: --Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- that was Obama's war, yes.</s>HARLOW: OK. She is referring to the 2001 war in Afghanistan, following 9/11. And this is not the first time it has happened. And Katrina Pierson, on "New Day," came out to say something that is empirically not true about President Obama getting us into the war in Iraq. How much does this hurt, does it hurt the campaign or Trump among the supporters when the spokesperson is coming out to say it is not true.</s>STELTER: It hurts him with some viewers at home, not all. And there is a repetition with Katrina Pierson here, and not all, but Katrina, who is the national spokeswoman on national television who is saying things that are not true, and I have to give props to Victor who jumped right in there when he heard that.</s>HARLOW: And, Amy, this is your camp. Does that concern you?</s>KREMER: I heard what you just played, and Katrina is a person like all of us, and I make mistake, and I have certainly made mistakes on air, and if she went in and cleaned up that is what she needs to do. And it is one thing and it is like, I don't like to mess up one number, and there goes the credibility.</s>KREMER: And it is important that we are accurate in what we say, and sometimes we do get tripped up, because we are humans, but we need to clean it up.</s>SMIKLE: And it is more than that though, because Donald Trump has gone on television, and accused the president of being a founder of ISIS. That is reckless. And to me not just from Donald Trump, but for his spokespersons all of the way down, and there is reckless talk here that I don't believe that his core supporters really care about quite frankly, but from the point of view from the Republican that actually cares about the party, the standard bearer of the party is making comments that are so reckless and disgusting in my opinion.</s>HARLOW: And Donald Trump says that he was being sarcastic.</s>SMIKLE: Sarcastic is me saying that he is thoughtful.</s>HARLOW: Guys, I have to leave it there. Brian Stelter, and Basil, and Amy, thank you. We have much more ahead.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>HARLOW: Meantime, Louisiana is under a state of emergency as heavy rainfall is causing flooding that has killed at least two people in the state so far. Look at the floodwaters so powerful they swept an 18-wheeler off of the road. The state police shutdown Interstate 10 in both directions in Baton Rouge because of the flooding. And some areas getting 26 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. And Governor Jon Bel Edwards saying that Louisiana has received an unprecedented amount of rainfall.</s>JON BEL EDWARDS, (R), LOUISIANA GOVERNOR: What we know is that we have record levels of flooding along rivers and creeks. Because these are record floods, we don't know how wide the water is going to get in those areas. We don't, and this is unprecedented, and so we don't have records that we can go back to see, and who all is going to be impacted.</s>HARLOW: Boris Sanchez is live for us in Louisiana. Boris, I know that people have been asked to evacuate the home, and at this point, is it a mandatory evacuation?</s>BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as far as we know, the evacuations are voluntary at this point, but more than 1,000 people have had to be rescued from the homes, and cars that are stranded on the roads. And I can tell you that at least 100 roads are still closed right now, and more than 12,000 people as of this morning were without power. And now that the waters are starting to move south, and recede, we are starting to get a clear picture of the damage, and the full extent of the damage. Behind me, this is a body shop, and you can see pickup over, and this is on t other side of the repair shop when the rain came down, and this happened very, very quickly, and washing out the entire area, and it is kind of an industrial zone, and there was a man in two tracker or trying to pull people to their homes to gather things, and one of them was stuck, because the water was so deep. This is one slice of the damage that we are seeing. I am here, actually, with the neighbor, Mark. And you had the trailer on the property, and it got swept up, and now it's flattened right over there.</s>UNIDENTIFIED LOUISIANA RESIDENT: Yes, that is where I was living in that, but it is about 100 yards behind this building here, about 100 yard and come around and floated. It floated that trailer, and that SUV, and it was back there, also. It is floated about 100 yards.</s>SANCHEZ: And, Mark, you have told us that you lived here 20 or 30 years?</s>UNIDENTIFIED LOUISIANA RESIDENT: Yes, 30 years, and I have never seen like this, and back in march when we had the flood like this, and it did not come near this bad, and this water was coming up extremely fast.</s>SANCHEZ: How does it make you feel that your state, your home fall apart this way?</s>UNIDENTIFIED LOUISIANA RESIDENT: Well, I mean, it is terrible. The gentleman who had that tractor right there, and he lost his house in the flood back in march. He just couple of weeks ago got his house back in order. And he has lost everything, and he had six or eight feet of water in his house. That is terrible. And there is people that is just -- you know, it is a sad thing to see.</s>SANCHEZ: It is certainly sad. Mark, thank you so much for talk talking to us, and we are glad that you are OK. Thank you, Mark. Poppy, as you can tell, it is a difficult situation for a lot of the Louisiana residents. And the rain is coming down, and right now, it has slowed down where we are, but it is expected to continue until Monday afternoon.</s>HARLOW: Boris Sanchez is live for us in Louisiana. And keep us posted through the evening. They need some relief there in Louisiana. Thank you so much. Up next, while Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton make the case to the voters, a third-party candidate is making waves and gaining support from a Congressman. Meantime, some Republicans are worrying that Donald Trump's plummeting poll numbers could cost them the Senate. We will see how likely that is. And Hillary Clinton dealing with new questions about ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department while she was secretary of state. Our Drew Griffin investigates. We are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.