♪ i'm margaret brennan in washington and this week on "face the nation" as vice president harris and former president trump prepare to face off for the first time in philadelphia, an exclusive conversation with trump's top primary rival, former u.n. ambassador nikki haley. >> you haven't endorsed donald trump. you spoke at the convention. but are you going to campaign

for him? >> you know, he knows i'm on standby. >> with just under two months until election day, nikki haley shares her advice on what the republican nominees should be focused on to win. >> harris alley, north carolina's governor roy cooper will join us. his state has gone red the last three presidential elections. what would it take for his party to win it this november the u.s. uncovers a sprawling effort by russia to interfere with the 2024 elections. we'll talk with a house democrat on the intelligence committee, jim himes and chair michael mccaul will be here, revealing the results of his three-year investigation into the biden administration's withdraw from afghanistan. it's all just ahead on "face the nation."

>> good morning. and welcome to "face the nation." we're starting a consequential week for both the trump and harris campaigns. with just 58 days until election day, both are preparing for their first debate. will it change a race that remains neck and neck? we begin this morning with our new cbs battleground tracker poll of the three key states, pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin, where the race is essentially even. vice president kamala harris is up just one point in michigan, tied with former president trump. weijia is in one of those states pennsylvania and has the latest from the trail. >> reporter: in pittsburgh. >> can get a hug? >> of course. >> reporter: vice president harris took a break from intense

debate prep to shop with voters. >> are you ready to beat donald trump. >> yes, i am. >> harris asked what she wants to get across during the debate? >> time to turn the page on the divisiveness. it's time to bring our country together. chart a new way forward. >> reporter: rallying in wisconsin, trump had a different message. >> we're run by stupid people. stupid, stupid people. and we found that out at the debate with joe. how did that work out? we're going to find it out again on tuesday night. is anybody going to be watching? >> reporter: harris' aides say they plans to focus on policy. our new poll is competitive, in part because voters think she will help the middle class and has an edge on making housing more affordable. trump is doing better with those who say the economy and inflation are major issues. especially holding favor among non-college and white voters.

sources familiar with trump's debate prep say it's been informal but he is going over specific policy proposals. a senior harris campaign official says they believe trump thrives under bright lights and on national tv and they expect he will be ready. margaret? >> that's weijia jiang in pittsburgh. we caught up with former presidential candidate nikki haley the former ambassador and south carolina governor explained why she is supporting trump but you'll also hear her views on what she thinks he should be focused on in these last two months until election day. we began by asking if she'll campaign with him. >> you said you're on standby. in other words you haven't been asked to campaign. are you advising at all in his debate preparation or speaking to the campaign? >> i'm not. you know, that's his choice. he can, you know, whatever he decides to do with his campaign, he can do that. when i called him back in june i told him i was supportive.

i think the teams have talked to each other a little bit, but there hasn't been an ask of yet. should he ask i'm happy to be helpful. >> donald trump finished a press conference three quarters of which is grievances related to the past convict related to alleged sexual assault. i know when you were campaigning you said you had no reason really to question the findings of the jury related to the defamation case brought by e. jean carroll. i'm not asking you about the specifics of the case, but if that's the focus of a press conference, for a presidential candidate, is it the best use of his time and what is the message to female voters to be going through this again? >> i think the focus for me is on policy. you know, i think -- >> he's the candidate. >> i've always said, if i thought biden or trump were great candidates i wouldn't have run for president. i ran because i thought i could do a better job. >> you don't think he's a good candidate? >> i think he is the republican nominee and put him against

kamala harris who is a democrat nominee for me it's not a question. do i agree with his style? do i agree with his approach? do i agree with his communications? no. when i look at the policies and how they affect my family and how i think their going to effect the family that's where i go back and look at the differences. this is -- these are the candidates we have been given. you look at kamala harris and it's quite remarkable. she never had a debate. she never had a primary. she never had anyone vote for they basically took her and in 48 hours put her back out there and she was this whole new candidate. the reality is, she has a record. the administration has a record. trump has a record. and so neither are perfect. neither are ideal. >> let's talk about the policies then. one of the things that we know is hurting american families is the high cost of child care. the federal reserve said parents typically spend 50 to 70% as much per month on child care as they do on their housing

payment, which is usually the largest monthly expense. yesterday, donald trump said -- >> as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it's relatively speaking not very expensive. >> that sounds out of touch with the economic statistics. >> mine child care is very expensive. i know just even at the time i had little kids i worked just to pay for our child care. >> what part of his policy do you like on that? you said on your policies that's what made you back him? >> what i liked were the tax cuts that he had, that kamala wants to remove. >> she wants to expand the child tax credit. >> that's the problem. when you get into child tax credits you're picking winners and losers. i would rather them just cut middle-class taxes across the board. families need more money for housing, child care, gas, to living their life. i'm looking at the facts. under harris they raised taxes. under trump they've cut taxes.

>> you don't like child care tax credits trump is proposing. >> we have to do something to help child care. rather than saying we're going to give child care tax credits help everybody. cut middle-class taxes. that's what people need. let them have more money whether it's housing, whether it's rent, groceries, whether it's gas or whether it's child care, they need some relief. whether i -- i don't oppose a child care tax credit but cutting middle-class taxes across the board is better. >> yes know that since vice president harris entered the race the gap among women voters has grown to a double-digit lead for her over donald trump. according it our cbs most recent survey. so how do they close that? because just as recently as last week, jd vance said he's disoriented and disturbed that the head of the most powerful teacher union in the country doesn't have a single child and continues to say things that certainly are highlighted as

being offensive to women. that is going to hurt, won't it, with female voters? >> it's not helpful. is he an effective messenger for the policies you say they are stronger on? >> look, you can look at style or you can look at substance. i choose as a voter to look at substance. the style, i will say -- >> what's the substance of that? >> the substance is cutting taxes, making housing more affordable, immigration, national security. that's the substance. the style is, no, it is not helpful to talk about whether women have children or whether they don't. it's not helpful to say any of those things that are personality driven or anything else. i have said that. i will continue to say to republicans stop it. that's not helpful. you know, if you want to talk about things, stick with policy. americans are smart. they don't need all of this other noise to distract them. they just want to know how you're going to help them. you know, what i would suggest to every american, look at the records of each of them.

you've got some stark contrasts there. you know, harris was not strong on the border. trump was strong on the border. harris wanted to eliminate tracking. now she's taking that back. energy production was not as strong as it was under the trump administration. >> it's at a record high right now, actually. when you listen to some of the things you don't like handouts and you're concerned about sort of the fiscal conservatism here. former president trump pledged to mandate that the government and insurance companies pay for fertilization or ivf tatments for women. is that a policy you would support insurance companies or federal government pay for that? >> it's not a policy i support any more than a policy of kamala harris to remove private health insures or medicare for all. at the end of the day -- >> this is the head of the republican party. this is the republican nominee. >> i know. margaret, you have to talk about the head of the democrat party. don't just look at one and not look at the other. when you talk about medicare for all, when you talk about

removing private health insurance, you might as well be canada. you might as well look at socialist health care. we never want to get to that point. you're not going to get ivf or anything else, cancer drugs, when it comes to that. when you look at health care we need to know, both of my children were products of fertility. we want that option to be available to everyone. but the way you do it is you don't mandate coverage. instead, you go and you make sure that coverage is accessible and you make sure that you're doing everything you can to make it affordable. >> you would urge people who identify as republican to support policies you say are not conservative? >> i don't agree with trump 100% of the time. i don't have to like him or agree with him 100% of the time to know that life for americans would be better under the policies where we have strong immigration, where we have law and order, where we have an economy where we can look at opportunities, where we've got national security that is strong. i don't need to sit there and

like someone to decide those policies are better. >> they do -- >> it's grading on a curve. >> it's not. it's how you look at it. i would ask you, how are people going to be better going through the next four years like we have the last four years? any american will tell you, their life is not better. so our goal is, how do we make life better? instead of making it about the personalities, can we not start saying what do we all agree about on the policies? there's serious policy concerns. >> china, this is a very serious threat picture around the world right now. you were just in taiwan for the first time. former president trump said taiwan should pay us for defense and the u.s. is no different than an insurance company. how concerned were taiwanese officials by that comment? >> first of all, when i went taiwan i think it's important that americans know what i saw. i met with the president, the vice president, the defense minister, we were on a military base and met with their intelligence officers.

the life of a taiwanese every single day, first of all, they have 30 million cyber attacks a month in taiwan. they have aggression from air and sea by the chinese every single week. i wanted to see if taiwan, if they were victims, waiting for a handout, or what they were saying. i was so impressed because they're not waiting for help from anyone. ten years ago, their chinese investment was 84%. today, their chinese investment is 11%. they are proactively not investing in china. their mandatory military service starting at 18 years old, they started at four months. they've now increased it. you have to serve militarily at 18 for a year. they have, you know, while cutting that investment, they are getting ready militarily. they're doing joint training with america, which is fantastic. when it comes to our allies, when it comes to freedom loving countries, we need to be the best friend to them that we can. because if china takes taiwan,

what we saw with russia and ukraine it affected 1% of gdp. you saw the economy shake from that. if china takes taiwan it would be 10% of the global gdp. that's $10 trillion compared to the $1 trillion in ukraine. we need to care about that. we need to care about it from freedom. we need to care about it from the economy. we need to care about it from security. we need to care about the fact that if russia takes ukraine and china takes taiwan we can't assume we're going to be okay if we live in a silo. that's not the case. >> what you just laid out is a policy that's strongly in defense of taiwan. >> it is. >> are you saying that the next president should commit because neither jd vance nor donald trump have said that they would send u.s. troops to defend taiwan? >> i don't think we need to send u.s. troops to defend taiwan. >> joe biden said he would, told my colleague at "60 minutes." >> taiwan does not want troops.

what taiwan is asking for is joint military training and to partner with us so they can make weapons to defend themselves. they want intelligence sharing. look, i'm the wife of a combat veteran. the last thing we want to do is just keep thinking about sending troops. if anything we want to prevent war. the best way to prevent war from china is to start arming taiwan now and making sure that they're ready. >> when you were campaigning you said when president trump left office, china was militarily stronger than before. they've only increased that in terms of their nuclear development and their expansion of their military. you said trump did not put us on a stronger military foothold in asia and did not stop the theft of american technology. he had moral weakness in trying to befriend president xi. if this is the threat of this century, how can you say he is the commander in chief you can support now? >> because i look at what happened under the harris administration. you look at this situation --

>> aren't we supposed to judge that record? >> we're going to judge both records. let's look at the harris administration. russia never would have invaded ukraine. china would not be -- >> they were in ukraine. they did not withdraw from ukraine. >> well, go further. they wouldn't have started war with ukraine. and china would not have gotten more aggressive with taiwan if we would not have had that fall in afghanistan. it's not that we left afghanistan. it's how we left it. it was dangerous, it was careless, and he was weak and we have suffered ever since. we didn't have any conflicts under trump. i was his u.n. ambassador. we put more sanctions on russia. we kept china at bay. we let our allies know that they were -- that they were protected. all of that happened. now what i will say to both trump and harris, is the worst thing we can do is walk back from our friends right now. so we need to be a friend to ukraine. not make them beg. we need to be a friend to

taiwan. prepare so that china doesn't do it. we need to be a friend to israel and not say we're going to give you and take i back like what harris and biden did. we've got to start being friends with our allies. i will say it until i'm blue in the face america can never be so arrogant to think we don't need friends. you have to be a friend to get a friend. there are no perfect administrations here. by any means. but trump was definitely stronger when it came to national security as opposed to the harris administration and that's just a fact. >> how can you be confident that he will be? you're talking about four more years. when he is saying things like this talking about like a protection racket for taiwan. they have to pay us. >> i'll be the first one to say that's not the way it should be. look i'm always going to tell you the truth on where i think. this is not blind support for anyone. this is saying, don't sit there and threaten taiwan that you're going to -- on being friends. this is -- they have 50% of our chip production. they are a friend and ally to

us. and they are a democracy. let's have -- if anything, this is what i would tell donald trump and kamala harris. what you need to do with taiwan is help them economically, militarily, diplomatically. economically, we should have a free trade agreement with taiwan. without question. diplomatically -- >> start talks towards that -- >> we should require taiwan become a member in the united nations and in the world health organization. and militarily, we should do whatever we can to joint exercise share intelligence and do what we can. >> you have talked about the isolationism in the party, and it troubles you. this past week justice department brought a case against russia regardng a $10 million disinformation campaign in which it was using in part right wing media. do you think that this isolationist streak is being fueled by the russian state? the problems you are diagnosing right now that you are also saying donald trump is echoing

in some way? >> margaret, this is bigger than that. this is the tip of the iceberg. first of all, look at what happened in hochul's office with the chinese influence and what was happening there. >> the governor in new york. >> look at the murder-for-hire plot on u.s. soil which i was named in by iran. look at the russian disinformation, which didn't start this year, this has been going on for years, russia, china, iran, and north korea to some extent, they have spent years on the xcheapest form of warfare, how do you divide americans and cause chaos. they have done that. when i was running my presidential campaign the fbi had a separate hearing with me to let me know that iran was meddling in our -- influencing the election with our campaign. they were -- >> to hurt you or help you? >> to hurt me. the murder-for-hire plot named me. that's by iran. this has been going for a long time. and americans need to wake up.

don't just look at russia, don't just look at china, don't just look at iran. the biggest lesson we need to take is when you look at social media, i bet you a larger percentage of those are foreign engagements. when i was in taiwan they would tell you, they could look at facebook and any time taiwan put something out it was suppressed. anything chain put out it was played up. why is that. our social media companies owe americans from a national security perspective. how many of these foreign bots are dividing us. every bit of our government influencers, press and media, need to say, how many of these foreign influencers are buying people? and what are we doing to protect us? nothing. no one is talking about tiktok. biden and trump both said they were against tiktok. they're both on it now. kamala is on it now. china loves that. america needs to wake up when it comes to foreign actors. >> "face the nation" will be back in one minute. stay with us.

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we go now to the governor roy cooper of north carolina. a battleground state. he joins us from raleigh. good morning to you, governor. >> good morning, margaret. >> vice president harris will be in your state thursday. we know this is a consequential week. debates can be catastrophic. they can be inconsequential. do you anticipate the average north carolinian is open to persuasion or even watching what happens on that debate stage this week? >> there's no question about it. it's close here in north carolina. it always is. this was biden-harris closest loss in 2020. only 1.3%. so the fact that kamala harris as vice president of the united states has been to north carolina 17 times, shows that she cares about our state. she knows that we are in play and she knows if she wins north carolina, she is the next

president of the united states because trump has no other pathway. >> is it winning or is it just reducing the amount by which they lose rural voters? you have a very large rural population in your state. >> and you know, things that the biden-harris has done has helped our rural population. i have been able to expand medicaid here in north carolina that's helped working rural north carolinians. we're getting high-speed internet all across our state. that's something that people are beginning to find out about. and she's got a plan. she's got a plan to lower costs for north carolinians, particularly in this child care arena, drug pricing. we're excited about the economic plan that she has and i think north carolinians will respond to it. >> well, i want to ask you more about some of that because our latest cbs polling shows it is a very, very tight race and it is the issue of economy and

inflation that is weighing the most on voters. we're going to talk about that in a few minutes when we take this break and we'll come back to finish it with you, governor. stay with us.

cbs will have special coverage of the presidential debate on tuesday with a preview at 8:00 p.m. eastern. the live simultaneous of the debate will begin at 9:00 p.m. followed by expert analysis. >> announcer: this portion of "face the nation" is brought to you by simplisafe. there's no safe like simplisafe. could this be menopause? clearblue menopause stage indicator uses an app that combines your age, cycle data, and fsh hormone levels over time in a personalized report to share with your doctor

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welcome back to "face the nation." we continue our conversation with the democratic governor much north carolina, roy cooper. governor, our cbs polling shows this is still a competitive race for donald trump, largely because of those voters who just don't think they are better off