Ac360 starts now tonight on 360 breaking talk debate and the race ahead. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. We re just 55 days until the election. We begin with the impact last night s first and only scheduled presidential debate could have on a race that s now a sprint. An estimated 67. 1 million people watched according to nielsen figures out in the past 45 minutes including taylor swift, whose first move was to tell her 283 million instagram followers that she d be voting for kamala harris her posting in turn has sent more than 300,000 visitors and counting to the federal government, voter information website. Now, the day began with the absence of campaign politics in a remembrance, the alqaeda attacks, which united americans determination 23 years ago today the two candidates together in lower manhattan along with president biden, former mayor bloomberg, and giuliani and others remembering the nearly 3,000 lives lost on 9/11, politics return later today outside the flight 93 nat
Im going to turn you over into the trusted hands of one mr. Wolf blitzer, who is in this Situation Room, which just is actually in Philadelphia Today it is Debate Night in america and we are now just a few hours away from what will be an historic President Ial Debate. And the first Facetoface Meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Good evening to all im Erin Burnett im Wolf Blitzer in philadelphia. Welcome to our viewers here in the united states. And around the world. This is a Special Edition of the Situation Room. Erin, the unprecedented Showdown Tonight will be thank you. Place right here in philadelphia. These are brand new pictures were getting right now the Debate Stage former President Trump now making his way to the city of brotherly love. Cnn is learning. He will be joined by two family members, Eric Trump and his wife, lara trump. And wolf. The stakes obviously couldnt be higher. This is a Razortight Race from every single poll. Early
. howard: two weeks before the iowa caucuses in the republican primary has a new opponent from the ranks of those who say their defending democracy a single main democrat, secretary of state sh shanna bellows has knod donald trump off the ballot, one person a lifelong liberal a joe biden supporter following the lead of colorado supreme court in invoking the 14th amendment in declaring the former president and eligible. that would take the decision out of the voters hands and is an absolute media bombshell. when we look at iowa it s worth noting that very conservative republicans have one the complicated caucuses in the past, mike huckabee in 2008, rick santorum, 2012, takers 2016 and gone on to lose, the media s intense focus on iowa always gives the winner a boost, we ve never seen numbers like this with the fox business pull pain donald trump of 52%, ron desantis the 18%, nikki haley at 16% in iowa that s what we call a blowout, truck made a video urging iowa supporters to
say hitler was right. this is disaster from one end to the other. do i think he ll recover? probably. this is probably the worst trip that any presidential candidate has taken. chris, is this really a gift to team obama and do they need to even say anything just let it play out as it is? what do you need to say? i mean, i know people are going to hate that i m going to say this. mitt romney does deserve the gold medal for gaffes. if you look at the reality what he did, it kind of reinforces his narrative about romney he s not a discipline candidate, that he s not focused on, you know, delivering a message and that s problematic to say the least domestically but when you go overseas and in particular in really sensitive spots like israel, you know, you can actually cause international incidents and it just shows you he s not ready for primetime and for someone who likes to talk about their experience and their background it just, i think, is a serious crack. the president is out