Transcript of Hear why James Carville is ‘not convinced it's going to be close on Election Day’

The former President speaking tonight just northeast of Pittsburgh, his second Pennsylvania stop of the day. Moments ago, as you heard, he raised the possibility that a Harris victory could be the country's last ever election. He cited, and I quote, Somebody I heard the other day, I mean a pretty smart person. Also tonight, breaking news, Vice President Harris weighing a trip to the Southern border on Friday, plus new polling and much more. We're going to get a perspective now from the husband and wife team of Mary Madlin and James Carville. They're the focus of a new CNN Films documentary airing October fifth, 7 Eastern, titled Carville: Winning is everything stupid. I want to start with you with just quick polls. Nbc, CBS, both released national polls showing vice President leading nationally. New York Times, Ciena Poll shows the former President ahead in Sun Belt State, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. When you see these numbers, what do you think?

I say this, and it sounds like polls are going to say all kinds of different things. I'm just thinking in this century, other than maybe 2008, I think all the polls showed a really tight rate. 2000 was really tight, 2004 was really tight, 2012 was really tight, '16 was clearly a lot tighter. And then a public average was only like two %.

I mean, Trump underperformed in those '16 and 2000 polls. Right.

And something will break one way or the other. But I don't think that we're going to get a good sense of this through polling. We'll wait and see, but it hasn't changed a whole lot. It really hasn't.

What is your sense that Who's winning? What's your sense right now?

Every day, I think about who's going to... Every minute I think about who's going to win is a minute I'm not thinking of how we can win. And I just can't. And of course, like anybody else, I see the polls. I talk to people about them. But if Harris does one, two, three, she can win. If she doesn't do one, two, three, she can lose. And that's honestly the best I can come up with.

What did you think of your former boss Dick Cheney endorsing Harris.

I love that. Dick Cheney has turned from Darth Vader to Captain America. Like last night, Nancy Pelosi's people were like, We love Dick Cheney. I'm the one who drove him to 11% as Dardvader. I have friends on all sides of this who are with deep convictions, and that's as it should be. And that's why I say everybody should quit listening to opinions because there's as many of them as other things. And I just think for yourself.

When you look at just the last couple of months, you have Donald Trump talking about Haitians eating cats and dogs. His candidate, North Carolina, revealed as talking about himself as a Black Nazi on a porn site. He brought a 9/11 conspiracy theories to 9/11 in memorial ceremonies. Why do you think it's this close?

I think it is.

I think it's more than close. Of course, it's close. You just said it was close.

It's close to Poland. I'm not convinced that it's going to be close on election day. I'll say that if there's seven swing states, the most least likely scenario is it breaks for three. It always gets... And again, every race other than maybe 2008 has been close right up to election date. I could be wrong, but it's It's going to break in one direction or the other. I really believe that. Most of the time, these elections do that. I don't like to predict elections. I would just say this just doesn't feel like a race that Harris is going to lose. But that's just a feeling. That's just a feeling.

As much as some Democrats want this to be a race about a prosecutor versus a felon, in your opinion, James, is it still the economy is stupid?

I think it is. And I think that she has a wide opening because Trump is saying, you got nothing to lose. Everything is terrible. I think people do have something to lose. I think most people are working. People have jobs. I don't know how to tell people this, but your 401k, to the extent you have one, is probably doing a little better. And I think he set up this dichotomy. You got nothing to lose, so you ought to try all of these tariffs and mass deportations Which everybody says would have a horrifically negative impact on economic growth. I think that she's set up to say, you have something to lose. You have something to protect. We can do better, but we certainly don't want to go back. I think she's got a giant opening. I hope she takes it. I really do.

He's denying that Trump sets her up to say a lot of things. The problem is she says nothing unless she conserves salad dressing on it. She hasn't said a thing.

I want to play a clip from the documentary that you just talked about. Let's watch this.

She know it's now my travel dog. That's what she is.

It's our pictures on.

They both passionately love their country. They both passionately love politics. They're both really expert and they're students of the game, but they're on different sides. They have such a famous, I know it's like a cliché, such a famous mixed marriage. She's a devout Republican. He's a reptile. And yet they've made it work over the years.

I'm really a conservative. He's really liberal.

There's three things I ain't changing. I ain't changing lives. I'm not changing sexual orientation. I'm not changing political parties. We're going to go to the house with what we got here, okay?

They have a deep love and a deep respect. There's no question. And the secret, I believe, what do I know, but the secret I believe to their marriage is they don't talk about politics.

What is it like living with you two? Friday night, if we weren't with you, we'd probably be having a good stiff drink, which we're about to go do right now anyway. All right, I'll let you go do that. Mary, thank you. James Carville, thank you.

You bet.

I like to join them. Do you get sick of people asking you, How do you live together? Because there's a lot of folks who have these dynamics in their families, then they find it hard.

Yeah, they get a pretty good... It is hard. We talk politics.

Who are we to advise on this? I was 40. He was 49 when we got married. That's not a conventional marriage. I got accidentally pregnant at 42. That's not conventional. So who are we to say? And also, why don't I want to think like him? And he doesn't want to think like me. If two people think the same, then they have a redundancy in their marriage. There's nothing redundant in this liaison that we have.

You know, since the dawn of time. That's what it is. That's what it is. A liaison.

I like to keep it. How long have you been married for? I'm calling it a liaison still.

From 1993?

It still could.

Okay, Anderson, that's what It's the marriage healthy. If I can think of it as a liaison from which I can flee.

You know that the most creative people in the world, since the dawn of time, have tried to explain romance, and they're still trying to explain it.

I said, I did it. We're going to be able to explain it in one movie. It's probably not going to happen. If Shakespeare couldn't do it, then who else can... How can we do it?

Before you go, what do you think the next 43 days are like? In terms of the craziness?

This entire cycle, things have happened that we couldn't imagine. How many times did we start the day? You start the news at night. Who I would have thought this was going to happen? Something tells me something else is going to happen. I don't know what it is, but the idea we got 42 days to go, six weeks. This is a sprint to the finish. I I think there's another plot twist coming here. I'm just not good enough to tell you what it is.

I got to just ask, Bernie Sanders on this program, and it's in the film, called you a hack. You owned that. You took it as a part of- Right. I remember.

What happened was when he did that, I think it was you. But it was on seeing it. Luke Russell texted me the thing and I said, oh, my God, how could I get this lucky? I'm a hack.

So he called you a hack. And then you went to Matt on President Biden saying you think it time to go. Do you ever worry about the stuff you say? I would be up night, I would be up night, sweating after if I said something like that.

I've been in the public eye for 32 years now. I have never had to say, if I said something that offended someone, I want you to truly know that I've never meant to... I say controversial stuff. Sometimes I say things intentionally to provoke the conversation. But I've never had to come back and say if I offended someone, I'm sorry, sometimes I offend people, but actually intended to offend people. That's different.

Thank you for letting me be part of your liaison. Thank you. You've been a big part of our life for a long time.

We're glad to be on here. Thank you, sir. Mary Matlin. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Again, the new film is called Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid. It airs Saturday, October fifth at 07:00 PM Eastern right here on CNN.