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Report: RNC Hires A Team to Woo Black Voters; Russia Launches Airstrikes From Inside Iran; 9 Dead, Thousands Displaced In Louisiana Flooding; Trump to Speak to Milwaukee Police and Veterans. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired August 16, 2016 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just past the bottom of the hour. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Donald Trump has a big problem when it comes to African-American voters. When you look at polling, it shows him getting barely 1% of the black vote. That was the recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll. To turn that around, Republicans have brought in some heavy hitters.

One of them is Ashley Bell, now the senior strategist and National Director of African-American Engagement for the Republican National Committee. Also here with me, Republican strategist Joe Watkins, a former White House aide to President George H.W. Bush. So welcome to both of you.

ASHLEY BELL, SENIOR STRATEGIST AND NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF AFRICAN- AMERICAN ENGAGEMENT FOR THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Good to see you.

JOE WATKINS, A FORMER WHITE HOUSE AIDE TO PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Ashley, you have a big job when we're talking 1%. You laugh, but I mean this is a major, major problem. How do you fix it? Who are you reaching out to?

BELL: I don't trust the polls but let's just say if they are true, we have nowhere to go but up, right? This is a big country but I'm going to tell you we have a great strategy to engage African-Americans where they are. Where you'll see the RNC investing resources is in battleground states dealing with historically black colleges for the next generation of thought leaders are there.

Whether there are evangelicals and dealing with black evangelicals in churches or whether it is dealing with black entrepreneurs and dealing with the people who create jobs every day. So we have a strategy. The engagement is under way and I'm proud of this Chairman, Reince Priebus, for doubling down.

I can tell you if most people saw that 1%, they'd just quit and walk away. But the RNC didn't. They're doubling down and are going to go after it.

BALDWIN: I appreciate the optimism and the fact that you can go up from 1%. Yes. Truth. Joe, he just laid out all these excellent places to go, black colleges, churches, barber shop, lots of venues where Mr. Trump, when you read, he hasn't been. It's August. Is it too late, joe?

[15:35:00] WATKINS: Well, it's going to be very, very hard. Ashley Bell is working very hard, but he works for the Republican National Committee. That's very, very different than working for Trump campaign for president. In every cycle that I've seen where you've had a successful -- at least a competitive candidate for the presidency, that person has had his or her own staff, their own campaign team on ground in all the key battleground states.

They've got their own staff people, their own people who are prepared to reach out to the various constituencies in their behalf. And they've boots on the ground in the battleground dates. This campaign has not yet done so.

I know Ashley Bell will do a great job working for the RNC trying to get their message out. But you have got to have a message to share with black voters to get black voters to vote with Republicans. That means certainly the candidate at the top of the ticket, as well as the down ballot candidates. So far that hasn't yet happened.

BALDWIN: Ashley, what's your best pitch to black voters?

BELL: Joe brings up a good point. He is a leader in our party and someone that's well respected. I definitely look up to him. When I look to pastor Omarosa, who is also a black pastor and she's running outreach for the Trump campaign. He's right. That is her job. Her job is to get out there and beat the bushes. And she is doing a good job at that. I think she needs to reach out and recruit good friends like Joe.

BALDWIN: Joe hasn't been reached out to. Joe, you haven't been reached out to. Am I correct?

WATKINS: That's correct. Nobody's called me.

BELL: Joe, guess what? We fixed that. You're going to get a call. It's too late we are on it, and you're going to get a call this week.

WATKINS: I'm not so much it -- but what really what matters to me is if you are running for president of the United States, talk to me in my community. If you go to Milwaukee, talk to me what you are going to do to make sure no more black men or black women for that matter are killed by police officers. Tell me that you care.

Talk to people in the community that look like me. Have people on staff that are paid staff that look like me and not just to reach out to black people. Because black people can do more than just reach out to other black people. Colin Powell was secretary of state. Condoleezza Rice was secretary of state. I mean Susan Rice is national security advisor. You've got African-Americans in both parties who are able to do more

than just reach out to African-Americans. But you clearly at the very least have to have people in place who are paid staff, full time, who know what they're doing, who have been at this before, who understand how these campaigns work and who numbers from 1% to 2% to 5% in all these key places to get that done.

BALDWIN: Final question. I'm glad you brought up Milwaukee. Because yes, I was just talking to a Trump adviser, I said will he be addressing the community, not just police? He said of course we are addressing the economics of the situation.

But the piece of the pie is the fact that, does Trump campaign not need to, Ashley, address what seems to be a perception among some law enforcement against communities of color?

BELL: Well, Milwaukee is a very sad situation, mainly because you had a person lose their life which is always tragic when they don't have a chance to see a jury and be convicted of a jury of their peers. But it is also sad because you had a black officer against another black person. It is not really a racial issue here.

There are underlying issues in Milwaukee you need to be addressed. Unemployment is one of them so you will hear Donald Trump talk about those things today. But at the end of the day the campaign does not make decisions on the policies.

BALDWIN: Ashley Bell, Joe Watkins -- Joe, we'll see if you get a call after this chat. Thanks, gentlemen, so much. I appreciate it.

Coming up next here, 19 people killed in air strikes in Aleppo, Syria today. All of this as Russia is launching a bombing campaign with jets taking off from inside Iran. What this rare move means in the country's raging civil war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news here out of Louisiana, Baton Rouge. Just under water. Catastrophic and deadly flooding, eerily similar to the scenes a lot of people say played out during hurricane Katrina. At least nine people have died, and right now rescuers are still searching the water for any signs of possible survivors.

[15:40:00] Bigger picture here, more than 20,000 people have been rescued from the floodwaters, but a lot of their homes have just been totally destroyed. Like Dennis Parrot. He just moved in to his brand-new home a couple weeks ago after his first home was razed to the ground in flooding.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS PARROT, FLOOD VICTIM: I got this. I know I can do it. I did it once. I sure can do it again. And I will do it again for my family. For all the families out there then I know what you're going through. Keep your head up. Keep god in your heart and understand you will get through. Try not to take it out on each other. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That raw emotion echoed by thousands in the area after nearly two feet of rain put the city -- you see it -- underwater, and more could be on the way. The governor declaring Baton Rouge and surrounding communities as federal disaster areas.

With me now, Craig Cooper, national spokesman for the Red Cross. Craig, I appreciate you being with me. I see the water behind you. I have numbers. You have housed nearly 9,000 people in as many as 55 shelters. You have seen your own volunteers run out of the shelters to help people. Tell me some of the stories.

[15:45:00] CRAIG COOPER, NATIONAL SPOKESMAN FOR THE RED CROSS: (Audio difficulties)

BALDWIN: Craig, Craig, forgive me, if you can hear me. Know we are on Skype. There is a delay. Could you do me a favor and put the phone up to your ear because I am having a tough time with the wind? There you go. Forgive me. Keep going. I'm listening.

COOPER: It's quite all right. So last night we stopped off at a local TV station just to do a quick report to them. Just standing there with one of the engineers from the TV station, he had brought his wife to work. He had 7 1/2 feet worth of water in the house.

All they were thankful for is that somehow their two cats had managed to squeeze in to the upper six inches of the room, found something to stand on and the cats survived when nothing else did. That's all that mattered to them.

BALDWIN: My goodness. What with these shelters, Craig? Are you having overcrowding issues yet?

COOPER: Absolutely not. We are fortunate enough in this area to work with our emergency partners around the state to make sure we know where we can put shelters, large and small. The state of Louisiana in Baton Rouge have opened up two very large shelters that are holding more than a thousand people each. We have several dozen shelters around different parts of the state.

Even some of those shelters, as the floodwaters have changed in direction and started to rise, by surprise we've had to relocate shelters. But at this point we feel very confident we have the number of buildings we need, and now we just to make sure they are safe enough to occupy.

BALDWIN: You said people are losing everything in a moment. It's like that -- and the floods rise.

COOPER: It certainly seems to be the case, Brooke. What's happening here is, people are used to seeing flooding after hurricanes. But what we're hearing from so many people is that areas that have flooded this time are areas that haven't flooded ever, or in 30 years in some cases. So people become complacent. They never expect that they're going to

be flooded. With the 20, 30 inches of rain that areas have had, all of a sudden they are hit with virtually no notice and have to scramble just with clothing on their backs.

BALDWIN: How can people help you out?

COOPER: It is very easy. Text the words lafloods to 90999. That will make a $10 donation to the Red Cross. Of course you can go to redcross.org and make a donation that way, and also call us at 1-800- redcross. We also have an amazing emergency app you can get for your android or iPhone right off the typical app store. It is a very useful tool to keep people informed of what's going on.

BALDWIN: Craig Cooper, incredible job. We are thinking about everyone in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area. Appreciate your time.

Now to this. Russian fighter jets launching bombing raids from inside of Iran. What that says about Russia's expanding influence in the region and how the U.S. and Russia could be working together.

Also, he calls himself the law-and-order candidate. Donald Trump expected to meet with members of law enforcement right now in Milwaukee. This comes after days of violence, protests, racial tension on those city streets. We will take you there coming up.

[15:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Those close to the war zone may be running out of words to describe the misery. The head of the International Red Cross describes Aleppo, Syria as being one of the most devastating areas of modern times. He also said no one and nowhere is safe. Activists say at least nineteen people were killed in bombings today alone.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward has also seen the devastation firsthand. Here she was in March as she used the strongest terms possible to describe the suffering. Here is part of what she told the UN last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The thing that has been killed in Syria that is much more difficult to rebuild than a bombed out building is trust. There is no trust. No trust in the Assad regime.

No trust in the Russians, and no trust in cease fires or cessation of hostilities or humanitarian corridors. No trust in the Russians, and no trust in you by the way, in us, in the international community that have been wringing their hands on the sidelines while hospitals, bakeries, and schools have been bombed while phosphorus and cluster bombs have killed countless civilians.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Such respect for you, Clarissa Ward, for those words and for your bravery and for all of your reporting but let me get straight to the news today. Besides the airstrike in Aleppo, out of Syria we are learning that Iran is now allowing Russia to launch war planes bound for Syria, what do you make of that?

That hasn't happened since the revolution in '79.

WARD: I think it is one of these things where everybody knew from at least the past few years that the Russians and the Iranians were coordinating on some level, working together to prop up the dictatorship of Bashir Al Assad. But to have it be expressed so blatantly and to see so clearly now that Russia is essentially developing this military relationship with Iran, now flying bombing missions out of Iran.

[15:55:00] Having fighter jets moving in and out of that country. And there is historical context for the relationship between Russia and Iran. Russia has been working with Iran to build a nuclear reactor. Certainly this is something new. This is something significant.

This shows us the level and the depth and the scope of the cooperation between those two. It is a response to a massive rebel rebellion against the siege of Aleppo. All of the rebel groups came together, whether they were Islamists or more moderate groups they came together, they managed to break the siege, the regime didn't appear to see that coming.

This is likely a show of force on behalf of the Russians and the Iranians. And certainly it does highlight that America is not so involved in this conflict, that America doesn't have very much leverage and when it comes to the negotiating table and says to Russia, listen you've got to stop bombing hospitals and schools, it doesn't have the same level of skin in the game that Russia and Iran does.

BALDWIN: Clarissa Ward, thank you for that. And you told describing Aleppo, you told the UN you called it an apocalyptic wasteland. Thank you as always for your reporting.

And any minute now Donald Trump expected to attend an event with law enforcement and veterans in the Milwaukee area. This comes of course after the shooting over the weekend. Days of protest in the wake of all of that. We will take you live to Milwaukee coming up.