Trump supporters tell reporter why they left his rally early
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00:00Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris now back out on the campaign trail after Tuesday night's debate.
00:05Donald Trump returning to a rally crowd in Arizona.
00:08He spoke for more than an hour, claiming victory in the debate while attacking the moderators.
00:12And he also repeated some of the debunked claims he made involving migrants, the 2020 election, and crowd sizes.
00:19We of course heard those also on the debate stage.
00:22Residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town's geese and even walking off with their pets.
00:30My dog's been taken.
00:32And they said we lost.
00:34I was told if I got 63 million votes, which is what I got in 2016, you can't lose.
00:41Just get 63. I got close to 12 million more votes than that.
00:46And we lost. But we didn't lose.
00:49Her crowds are zero. Her crowds, she's got no crowds.
00:52They bus the people in. They pay buses to bring people.
00:56Nobody here rode in on a bus.
00:59Joining me now is Sabrina Rodriguez, national political reporter for the Washington Post.
01:03Sabrina, good morning. Wonderful to see you.
01:06You were at this Trump rally yesterday.
01:10We of course also heard from Trump that he doesn't want to participate in a third debate.
01:14He says there will be no third debate.
01:16What did you see on the ground there?
01:18What were your takeaways from that rally that we can't see from just watching the soundbites?
01:25I think the number one thing I will say, Casey, was seeing the number of people who do leave Donald Trump's rallies early.
01:32I think obviously that came up during the debate and hearing Vice President Kamala Harris sort of take a jab at him and get under his skin by mentioning that people leave the rallies early.
01:44That was something I was kind of keeping an eye out for yesterday in Tucson.
01:48And I will say, I mean, I talked to several of the folks that did leave early.
01:51And a lot of people that go to Trump's rallies are in line for six, seven hours before the rally takes place.
01:58We saw yesterday in Tucson over 100 plus degree weather.
02:02I mean, because of the heat, there was dozens of people that had to be taken out of the line with heat exhaustion symptoms.
02:08And really, we did see thousands of people turn out.
02:12We did see that some of those folks that I talked to that left early was because it was a middle of the day rally.
02:18And seeing the family commitments, having to pick up kids at school.
02:22And a lot of people kind of jabbing at me, talking to them and saying, I'm not leaving because I'm bored, I promise.
02:28But I think that was kind of one of the sights to see.
02:32And some people expressing disappointment at the idea that there wasn't going to be another debate.
02:38A lot of people, Trump supporters there were saying, you know, they would love to see him take the stage again.
02:44And a lot of them, you know, kind of reiterating the points he's making where he's trying to sell that he won the debate.
02:51Sabrina, can you talk to me a little bit about the state of play on the ground in Arizona?
02:57Because, you know, as we're kind of tracking these final, you know, just under eight weeks of campaigning,
03:03there are these questions about each candidate's path to 270.
03:08And I've talked to some sources who suggest that Arizona has really moved away from Kamala Harris and toward Donald Trump.
03:15I'm curious if you have picked that up in your reporting on the ground there, what your sources are saying to you about it.
03:21I mean, I think as we'll say with any state of just how tight it is right now, you know, I think it applies with Arizona as well.
03:30But really, I've been looking at the Senate race here between Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego and Carrie Lake.
03:38And that one is the one that sort of gives me this sense that things might be shifting back in Democrats' favors.
03:44A couple months ago, if you had asked me and looking at polls and just talking to folks on the ground in Arizona,
03:50it really did look like there was this shift towards the Republican Party.
03:54There was this support for Carrie Lake and Donald Trump.
03:57And with that shift at the top of the ticket, there's been many more conversations that I've been having with more moderate Republicans
04:04and independent voters who are a key group in this state that are much more Kamala Harris curious,
04:11are much more into this idea of, you know, OK, a new kind of leadership, a younger candidate at the top of the ticket,
04:21are sort of seeing that messaging that is coming from both Ruben Gallego's campaign and the Harris campaign
04:27that is actively courting those people in the middle, is actively saying, you know, politics can go back to being normal again,
04:33and it doesn't have to be people launching insults at each other.
04:37So I think there is this openness. But again, I think as we see in a lot of these battleground states,
04:42just how tight it's going to be, just how much it may come down to those people who are doing the door knocking right now
04:49in intense Arizona heat and sort of what people are listening to on the airwaves as well.
04:55All right. Sabrina Rodriguez for us this morning. Sabrina, very grateful to have you. Hope to come back soon. Thank you.