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Report: Arizona Decides Today -- McCain or GOP Challenger; White House, Trump Respond to Anthem Protest; Newborn Twins Among 6,500 Rescued Migrants. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 30, 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] BRAHM RESNIK, REPORTER, KPNX NEWS: Ann Kirkpatrick not necessarily the greatest retail campaigner like John McCain. She is going to have to develop in that way so he may not have as many liabilities against Ann Kirkpatrick as you might think but there will still be Donald Trump out there. For the past several months -- he just doesn't want to talk about him.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I know you will be talking to Trump tomorrow as will we ahead of his big immigration speech there in Phoenix, for now, thank you, Braham Resnik. The politics on the ground there in Arizona so, so key. Thank you.

RESNIK: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here, the White House and Donald Trump joining the chorus of people weighing in on NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit out the national anthem. We will talk to the legendary sports writer, Rick Riley, who interviewed the Kaepernick's family. He joins me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is taking hits from all sides after refusing to back down from his protest against police brutality. Latest blows actually come from the White House and from Donald Trump, both are blasting his decision to sit down during the national anthem during that preseason game Friday. The White House calling Kaepernick's decision, "objectionable", and Donald Trump has said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:35:00] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I have followed and it is -- I think it is personally not a good thing. I think it is a terrible thing. You know, he'll -- maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try. It won't happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Many of those who are against Kaepernick's actions argue he is a success story, produced by the very country he's protesting. So joining me now is the legendary sports writer, Rick Riley. I know you laugh, but you are. I am a huge fan. Rick Reilly, first of all, welcome to CNN, welcome to my show.

I think what's interesting, I read back this piece you wrote in 2013 about Colin, in a very personal way, about -- ahead of his super bowl in 2013. The fact that he is adopted, his birth parents, his parents who raised him. Can you tell me that story?

RICK REILLY, SPORTS WRITER: Colin Kaepernick has always been a very opinionated kid. He was adopted by this terrific white couple out of Milwaukee, they moved to California. But they went out of their way to make sure he knew what his race was and connect him to the culture.

For instance, he said when he was a teenager he wanted to get his hair corn rolled. So his mother, every month, would drive him about an hour and 15 minutes to a black community where they could corn roll his hair. I remember once he gave an interview in which he said he would show up with his parents somewhere and the person behind the counter would be great to his parents, the white people, then look at him and say, what do you want?

[15:40:00] He always felt like he was being discriminated against then. But some thing's changed with him in the last year. His twitter feed has gotten much more radical. I think he looks skinnier. Of course his numbers are falling like a fat guy on a water slide.

They just keep going down and down. I don't know if this is his last hurrah or entry into politics. When you are on a team and start talking about politics wearing the uniform, you are going to have trouble. If I start talking politics at my Thanksgiving dinner table, there is going to be conflict. Guys on the team do not like this. This is not what you want right before you go out on the field.

BALDWIN: But Rick, it is so interesting. I've talked to professional athletes. I think there is even more pressure for some of these younger players. I think immediately some of the basketball players during the black lives matter protests and when that was in the ether. You look for these young men, many of them young, to be these heroes and these role models. It is only when somebody disagrees with what they're doing do they say it is not OK.

REILLY: Brooke, I'm amazed that he had the courage to do this.

BALDWIN: You are.

REILLY: His heart's in the right place but his brain is completely in the wrong place. This is not going to work. I've been listening to talk radio for two days and no one's talking about police brutality. No one's talking about what it is like for a young black guy to see young black men being shot for reaching for their driver's license. He has every right -- I think he has a great point about police brutality in the country.

But you are a quarterback. You can do this in so many ways. Steve Nash, the basketball player, used to wear t-shirts or a hat. Put signs in your locker. You give interviews. For instance, the black community could also learn how to deal with cops. Stuart Scott was a great friend of mine. He said when he was pulled

over simply for driving by being black, he said he put his mom on the phone, he turned on the dome light, he put his hands on the steering wheel, and he would say, officer, my hands are on the steering wheel. I am not going to do anything until you say I can. There's got to be kind of give and take from both sides, the cops and the black community, to try to get past this problem.

BALDWIN: What about -- I know you've interviewed him and you've wrote about him after he passed, Muhammad Ali. Rick, people are pointing out parallels to Colin to Muhammad Ali, to Jackie Robinson. Do you think those comparisons are going too far?

REILLY: That's a tad far. Tommy Carlos and John Smith during the '68 Olympics in Mexico, the raised fist on the podium, 99 percent of people said that was wrong. That turned out to be a very seminal moment in the progress of race relations in this country.

By the way, there are now statues of those two guys. There is not going to be a statue of Colin Kaepernick sitting on the bench during the anthem. But I do think he has the right and he has a good point about black lives and police brutality in this country.

The other day at the ESPYs, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul stood up and said, African American athletes, it is time for you to do something. Here is a kid who is standing up, rather sitting down and trying to do something, I just think he picked the wrong place to do it.

BALDWIN: Rick Reilly, thank you.

Coming up here on CNN, my next guest says if Donald Trump wins the White House he might just hate it and he has seven reasons as to why. We'll talk with a former executive in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations about life as commander in chief.

Also ahead as we watch our breaking news here, the official spokesman for ISIS killed in Syria. High-profile target who helped orchestrate terror attacks, especially inspiring those in the west. More on him straight ahead.

[15:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A former high-level executive in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations says if Donald Trump wins the White House, he'll hate it. And he has seven reasons as to why. The author of that list, Howard Schweitzer, joins me now.

Also with us, CNN political commentator and Trump supporter, Scottie Nell Hughes. Welcome to both of you. Howard, this is the first thing this morning I read. And so of the seven reasons can you please give me your top two reasons why you think Donald Trump would hate his time in the oval office?

HOWARD SCHWEITZER, SERVED IN BUSH, CLINTON AND OBAMA ADMINISTRATIONS: At the top is the bureaucracy. It is excruciating. You can't hire and fire people at will. Some of the rhetoric in the campaign has suggested you can, but the fact is you can't. Then Congress. They control a lot of the agenda and they'll be crawling all over a President Trump. So, Brooke, those two reasons are at the top of my list.

BALDWIN: I also kind of enjoyed reading -- I say this tongue in cheek -- about being bored. If elected. What do you think?

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think he's correct. I read this. I don't know necessarily about hating it. He will hate the bureaucracy. His two top reasons were the exact reasons Donald Trump will hate it. But he won't be bored.

Because he is going to do everything -- we knew he was going to be like Miley Cyrus and coming run like a wrecking ball.

[15:50:00] and just destroy everything that's been built up. He's already laid out that first hundred days. He has this very ambitious plan from everything from repealing Obamacare to appointing Supreme Court judges to building a wall, at least getting a design, the trade policies. I don't think he will be bored until at least year two or year three when he has already solved all the problems of the world. He's going to be that efficient.

BALDWIN: OK. On the boredom note, can you, Howard, as I try to find which number the boredom was, why do you think he would be bored? Did I read something about a short attention span?

SCHWEITZER: He goes from topic to topic government is a cruise ship, not a speedboat. You can't come in with a wrecking ball and just turn everything upside down. You need a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, to reform government.

There is no doubt there is room for reform and there is no doubt that Trump has resonated with the electorate. It is incredibly admirable what he's been able to do with the electorate up to this point. But now he is in a job interview, he is trying to get elected president of the United States. He's got to show people that he wants this thing. He's got to show people that he's going to be into every aspect of the job.

BALDWIN: Let me flip the script. And be fair, Hillary Clinton I think what could apply to her is being investigated. That could be an issue. Also Congress as well. Don't you think?

SCHWEITZER: Definitely. This goes both ways. I think, look, she's easily beatable. She's the most beatable candidate other than Trump I think we've seen in a very long time. And, frankly, if there was anybody on the other side of the aisle right now I think they would be way ahead. But he's not and I think we have to ask ourselves why. On the why point, I think part of the reason is he's not showing a desire to actually do what's necessary to get the job done.

HUGHES: I don't think anybody in America today thinks that Washington needs to stay exactly the way it is. Reason why Bernie Sanders was able to such enthusiasm behind him and now Donald Trump is because they don't like the inefficiencies that are going on right now.

They don't like incompetency and that's what Washington, DC stands for. I think actually going in and having this idea of -- I agree working with Congress is going to be a disaster for him because he is going to say, listen, American people brought me in here to make things start working again. We've done nothing these last eight years except just build more government. Let's bring it back to the people. I think that's what's going to make it an exciting time for America.

BALDWIN: Quickly as I listen to both of you, Howard, you know a thing or two how this goes. Prediction time. What does that first presidential debate look like?

SCHWEITZER: I think he's going to come out strong. I think historically incumbents -- I think we have to look at her as an incumbent. She represents the status quo. Have come out and had a very hard time in the first debate. He's going to come out very strong and he's going to be Trump. He's not going to be something he's not. I think he's going to do very well.

Expectations are going to be low. Part of this is an expectations management game. He's going to probably over-perform expectations. But in the long run, the Clintons are running -- Hillary Clinton is running a very disciplined campaign operation, and that's going to be very difficult to overcome.

BALDWIN: OK. Howard Schweitzer, Scottie Nell Hughes, thank you so much.

Still to come the latest heart stopping photo from the migrant crisis. You have to watch. Newborn twins rescued from the water. Two of the thousands pulled to safety in just the past couples of days. CNN went along on a rescue missions much like this one here. We will share these incredible images. Please don't turn away.

[15:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The numbers are staggering and the images are heartbreaking.

Some 6500 migrants have been pulled from the violent waters of the Mediterranean Sea in just 30 hours. Among those rescued, this five- day old baby peering out from his pink blanket. He and his twin brother were born prematurely. Both very fragile, but they survived.

Many of the refugees are families from across sub-Sahara Africa, who are trying to reach Europe but ended up stranded of the coast of Libya. And one of CNN's own reporters was there last month as rescuers spotted this small boat crammed with desperate migrants trying to make it to shore alive. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CREW MEMBER: We started at 4:00 in the morning. Now we came to another two boats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REFUGEE: They do know about this journey before. They know exactly what it is going to be. These are the two choices that they have maybe die in the sea or you are getting across the sea. This is the two choices that we have.

(SINGING)

[16:00:00] CREW MEMBER: At times the way they speak, so easy, they will get there fine, all of this, but then I try to think that -- I wonder if they do get what they want.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Outside of Africa, they treated people like real people. Real humans. That's what we're looking far.

CREW MEMBER: When I look at these children, they're all happy, laughing, and in my mind I think these children don't know what they're going through. They might in a time go back to their country and share their expertise and make their country better. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Moni Basu, let me bring you in the CNN digital reporter behind that piece. To look at the pictures it one thing, you're in the middle of it. What was that like?

MONI BASU, CNN DIGITAL REPORTER: We spent five days on a boat run by a private rescue operation called Migrant Offshore Aide Station. That was back in July and within the course of a few hours we witnessed the rescue of 366 people all traveling from Libya on the small rubber inflatable dinghy designed for maybe 25, and there was more than 100 people each on the boats.

They're very dangerous. They are easily punctured and once their punctured it goes down very fast and people don't last very long in the ocean. These people are told by smugglers it's a two-hour ride to Italy. In reality, Lampedusa which is the closest point to the Libyan coast, is more than 40 hours away so they don't really know what they're going in for.

BALDWIN: We look at the faces and bodies jammed on these boats, do you know how any of these families have faired a month later?

BASU: Yes, I followed one particular man, a Sudanese man who had been traveling for months, and he was horrified when he saw the dinghy but he was forced at gunpoint to get on the boat. And he prayed to god that he would make it safety and he was one of the ones rescued. I spoke with him last week, he was taken to a migrant processing center in Italy and now he is waiting at a makeshift camp on the Italian- Swiss border.

He wants to make it to France where his brother lives, but who knows, all of the European countries have started shutting down their borders and gotten strict with who their allowing in.

BALDWIN: those premature babies, we saw the face of that little boy, and then his twin sister there. All of the stories, all of the faces, I encourage everyone to go read this phenomenal piece of journalism on CNN.com. Moni Basu, thank you as always for coming on and sharing what you have done. Thank you all for being with me. We'll send it to Washington now for

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper