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Trump in Alabama Tonight to Boost GOP Senator at Risk; Tom Price Being Investigated Over Private Jet Use; Trump Tweet: Facebook Ads Part of "Russia Hoax"; CNN Special Examines Trump's Social Media Use; McCain to Vote No on Health Care Bill. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired September 22, 2017 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[13:30:00] ROY MOORE, (R), ALABAMA SENATE CANDIDATE: It's our business to take care of our business. DACA is wrong. DREAMer is wrong.
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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Moore there trying to play up how closely he is also aligned with Trump.
We saw a Senator Strange walking past and we asked him how he is feeling, and he said he is good and excited for the event with President Trump, which is behind me.
On Monday, the day before the election, Vice President Mike Pence is swinging through town to campaign for Luther Strange. The White House pulling out all the stops in this very tight race -- Jim?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: They are pulling out the stops.
Alexander Marquardt, thank you very much.
Both Roy Moore and Luther Strange say they support the president's agenda, but Moore says he also wants to free the president from the shackles of the establishment. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOORE: President Trump is being caught off in his office. He is being redirected by people like McConnell. They do not support his agenda. They will not support his agenda in the future. I think we need to go back and look at the things and what's going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Joining me now to talk about this, CNN senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson; David Drucker, CNN political analyst and senior congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner, and Chris Cillizza, CNN politics reporter and CNN editor-at-large.
Nia, the president on one side, Sarah Palin and Sebastian Gorka, Steve Bannon. Talk about stranger things down in Alabama. (LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
ACOSTA: I think we are in the upside down. We have been there for a while.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: We have been there. Not only those folks, but people like the guy from "Duck Dynasty" and "Sean Hannity" and James Dodson and evangelical figures. It is a very strange make up and shake-up here. We usually think of the president being aligned with his base. We have his real base. He will be voting in this campaign. And I would really want to see tonight how Donald Trump handles this. What he says about Luther Strange, Big Luther, as he calls him. And what he said, if anything, about Roy Moore? That's one of the things as well. As what will happen in the pews of churches on Sunday. Southern Baptist preachers have a way of communicating to their parishioners what they think would happen in elections. That's something interesting. Roy Moore is a Trumpian candidate. But he sounds like a Baptist preacher talking about the ills of the world and political correctness. It's going to be a tough fight. The latest polls I have seen have him up by about eight points. He was up by 16 before. It is tightening, but eight points is a lot.
ACOSTA: David Drucker, is it a loss for the president if Luther Strange loses on Tuesday?
DAVID DRUCKER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's a loss for the president. The president, from the Republican point of view, is commended for actually investing in his endorsements. Instead of a couple of tweets, he is going down there and laying some of his political capital is on the line. I don't think that Republicans voters will hold the president responsible if he loses. I do think Republicans in Washington are watching this closely. How much juice does the president have with his base? Alabama is ground zero for the Trump Republican base.
I think the other thing to watch here, and why are Republicans in town so worried about Moore? It's not because he is conservative or ultra conservative. But he would vote the way they vote 90 percent of the time. It's his controversial rhetoric on social issues. This is like Todd Akin winning a seat and saying things that are intemperate. And Republicans in 2018 will be forced to answer for things that Moore will be able to amplify with the platform of a Senate seat. That's why Republicans have spent so much money. Senate Leadership Fund spent $9 million to elect Luther Strange. It's a huge investment. It's not just because Strange is the incumbent, but their choices here are you either have Luther Strange or you have this rebel radical that is the cause of nothing but trouble.
ACOSTA: Chris, how much does it help the president persuade the Republican Senators to go along with him when he is backing someone like Luther Strange? Is there a connection where it helps him?
CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER & CNN EDITOR-AT-LARGE: The average person would think, no. But anyone who spent time in Washington, it's probably at the margins it helps. Luther Strange is one of them. I think you have to remember that the Senate is a very exclusive club. Ask Democrats and Republicans, but, yes, certain people don't like mitch McConnell. At the end of the day, if you support someone who is not incumbent, in their mind, they think, well, he could do that to me. It helps the margin. Do I think it gets Susan Collins to vote for the Graham-Cassidy reform bill? No. I need to mention this.
I want to mention this. If you go back, I will be very interested if Luther loses, to go back and read the geniuses of the Trump decision support Strange. I assume Mitch McConnell was involved in it. But Moore is so much more a Trump-like candidate that, if he gets nothing from that, neither a win or good will, Donald Trump will take to Twitter and make some
(CROSSTALK)
CILLIZZA: -- makes some of his views known.
(CROSSTALK)
[13:35:31] ACOSTA: Speaking of tweets, let's look at this tweet that the president fired off this morning about Rand Paul. "Rand Paul, whoever votes against the health care bill will forever in political campaigns be known as the Republican who saved Obamacare."
Talk about not helping things very much.
HENDERSON: It's not going to matter to Rand Paul. We know where he is on this bill for some time. He doesn't matter in terms of what's going to happen with this. Where are they going to be? In Alaska and the hopes on the ground there. Topic number one, I'm sure will be health care and those will matter. In terms of what happened last time in convincing those folks and I don't think they are looking to him at this point --
(CROSSTALK)
ACOSTA: Yes, he is not going to Alabama to give a health care speech, to save Graham-Cassidy.
(CROSSTALK)
ACOSTA: He is going down there to intervene in the Senate race with time running out on health care. It's incredible.
I want to switch gears because this is a very important story. Talk about the swamp. As I like to say, same swamp, different alligators. HHS Secretary Tom Price and his penitent for private planes. The HHS inspector general is now investigating Price and his travel preferences. Price that has taken a number of private jet flights, around two dozen or so, at taxpayer expense, all while they are talking about potentially taking millions of people out of the health care system.
David, does that resonate at all outside of the Beltway?
DRUCKER: Yes. I think it does, because it's the kind of misuse of government funds where you have figures in Washington doing things that normal people don't do. That helped drive a lot of what we saw in 2016, whether it was on the left for Bernie Sanders or on the right for Donald Trump. Tom Price, when he was a member of Congress and chairman of the Budget Committee, would have gone crazy, and rightfully so, if Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's first HHS secretary, would have been running around the country on private planes while she was busy pushing the Affordable Care Act.
ACOSTA: Chris, quickly, because we are about to go, does this put Tom Price in trouble?
(CROSSTALK)
ACOSTA: Are we there yet?
CILLIZZA: You would think it would in a traditional presidency. The problem is the things that tend to put you in trouble is the Trump presidency is disloyalty to Donald Trump, and a little bit betting bad press on Donald Trump. If it blows up bigger and the HHS I.G. investigation makes it more likely it will blow up bigger, yes. But if it's portrayed as, well, he is under attack by the media and it's a double standard, he will be fine.
ACOSTA: He'll be fine.
Nia-Malika Henderson, David Drucker, Chris Cillizza, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
A programming note, speaking of health care, be sure to watch this Monday for a CNN town hall event. Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar debate Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy on health care and the new Graham/Cassidy bill. That is this Monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern. Watch the sparks fly.
Coming up, one man's evidence is another man's hoax. Another man being the president. The president comes out swinging against Facebook and the those onlin3e ads linked to the Kremlin.
Plus, unfolding now, a frantic search for survivors in the rubble from the Mexico earthquake. We will take you to this collapsed building where they hope to see signs of life, and they are seeing signs of life. We will get back to that as soon as we can.
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[13:43:10] ACOSTA: Just when you thought President Trump was in agreement that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, well, he reverts back to calling it a phony story. The president responded to the news that Facebook is turning over Russia ads to Congress with this tweet: "The Russia hoax continues. Now it's ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest coverage in favor of," who he calls, "Crooked Hillary."
That contradicts what the national security adviser told our Chris Cuomo.
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GEN. H.R. MCMASTER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: We have to find the areas of cooperation with Russia, even as we confront their destabilizing behavior.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Just to be clear, on the record here. I want you to have the opportunity for this. The questions about what they did, who might have helped them, and to stop it, you believe those are all legitimate questions for us to look at?
MCMASTER: Of course, and so does the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: It depends on the day, it seems.
Let's bring in CNN political director, David Chalian.
This is like deja vu all over again. David, what do you make of the back and forth over whether Russia meddled in the election. He can't stay with this.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: He can't because he can't get behind the notion that anything related to Russia somehow calls into question the legitimacy of his presidency. He can't separate those two things. He seems incapable of it. He, at times, conceded, yes, it's Russia, fine, let's move on. It's never consistent, and here today he is calling it a hoax.
ACOSTA: We have new CNN polling released about this hour or just this hour about Russia and the election. What are the numbers showing? It's pretty remarkable.
CHALIAN: Take a look there. A majority of the country, 54 percent of Americans, say it is likely that the Russian-backed content on social media did affect the outcome in 2016. Like everything else in American life, partisanship drives so much of this. Look at the difference among partisans. Among Democrats, 82 percent think it's likely that Russia-backed content on social media affected the outcome, 55 percent of Independents, only 15 percent of Republicans believe that.
[13:45:11] ACOSTA: Wow.
CHALIAN: You see where you stand ideologically determines how you see this.
ACOSTA: And is it possible when people hear the question asked, if you are a Republican on the line and hear that question asked, you automatically feel compelled to say, I don't believe this?
CHALIAN: There is no doubt that happens.
ACOSTA: There's that dynamic? CHALIAN: There's no doubt that happened, because you view it that way.
One other finding, we asked people, do you know someone personally that changed their vote because they saw something in this Russia- backed content? That is a different story. Only 11 percent say, yes, they know someone that changed their vote, even thought, as we showed, a majority of country believes this stuff happened and had an effect on the outcome.
ACOSTA: And 11 percent said yes, but as we know, it was not a large number of votes in three key states that determined the outcome of this election and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes. So 11 percent could have an impact.
CHALIAN: Perhaps -- 11 percent are saying I know someone personally -- you are right. In the right places, it could have had an impact. This is what Mark Warner, on the Democratic side, is looking at on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
ACOSTA: Doesn't sound like a hoax to everyone else.
David Chalian, thank you very much.
Coming up, we are staying on top of the breaking news, a race against time after that major earthquake in Mexico. Search teams holding out hope that people are still alive in the rubble of nearly a dozen buildings. We will take you to one of them, coming up.
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[13:50:55] ACOSTA: President Trump's critics say his use of Twitter is often not presidential. The president would rather call his use of social media modern-day presidential.
In a CNN special tonight, correspondent, Bill Weir, examines the relationship between Trump and Twitter and he traces the evolution of presidential communications in the past to the present.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As communication evolved, the presidents we remember took existing tools and made them their own.
Teddy Roosevelt courted cartoonists.
UNIDENTIFIED CARTOONIST: The whole way.
WEIR: FDR spoke into a radio microphone.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is war.
WEIR: Like no president before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It became mandatory listening and everybody would lean forward and hear what the president had to say.
WOODROW WILSON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Give me a chance, will you please?
WEIR: And while Truman and Eisenhower were the first on TV.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not because they are easy but because they are hard.
WEIR: JFK and Reagan --
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tear down this wall.
(CHEERING)
WEIR: -- are considered the best.
WILL RIPPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The president of the United States tweeting new criticism.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORREPONDENT: This was delivered on Twitter.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: President Trump tweeted this, quote --
WEIR: Which brings us to number 45.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll do it verbally, on television, I'll do it on Twitter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: We have gone from FDR's fireside chats to President Trump's fiery tweets.
Bill Weir joins us live.
It is hard to have this conversation without talking about the Twitter, isn't it?
WEIR: It is. It becomes such a part of our wallpaper these days, Jim, that I wanted to sort of take a sweeping view of this through history. The idea that all of these tweets, compiled to be studied for centuries, he has reinvented presidential communication like few before him. And it comes with a cost. Of course, we'll get into the pros and cons tonight.
ACOSTA: Today, we've seen tweets, Bill, from the president referring to Crooked Hillary. We know what that's about. Calling North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, a madman and criticizing Republicans who oppose the current health care bill. Is there a downside, do you think, for the president to rely on social media so much? It doesn't appear to be a downside to this point.
WEIR: This is the guy who defied political gravity since he came down the escalator. You would think it would be a tweet too far. Many I talk to, presidential historians, like Douglas Brinkley, who is convinced the machine that helped make him, will be his undoing. You, of course, have got the drums of war beating, calling him a madman, a Rocket Man in North Korea. A lot of concern those could be misconstrued, which could bring us to the brink, closer than any sort of one-on-one diplomacy. There is also the legal jeopardy he puts himself in. People say Twitter is different, you should take what he says there differently than when he is on a different podium. Even his distractors are saying, no, no, this is his unfiltered it, this is the most clarified look we have into the intentions of this man when he is tweeting at 6:00 a.m. watching cable news. Don't take the phone away.
So that's what's so intriguing about this. Minute to minute, we are watching to see which one will grab the news cycle and which one could ultimately leave the elevate and lay him low.
[13:54:06] ACOSTA: OK. Hard to imagine scholars studying this for decades to go. But, Bill Weir, we're glad you're on the case.
Bill Weir, thank you very much.
Be sure to watch Bill's special report "Trump and Twitter" -- "Twitter and Trump." That is tonight at 9:00 eastern here on CNN.
Coming up, new insults and new threats between Kim Jong-Un and President Trump. Did the nuclear standoff just get worse? A live report is next.
Plus, live pictures of a textile factory that collapsed in the Mexico earthquake. Crews there are trying to save people trapped in rubble there. We'll be live in a few moments. Standby.
And thanks for watching.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Pamela Brown, in for Brooke Baldwin.
Breaking news, in the 11th hour, the Republican effort to overturn Obamacare, Senator John McCain says he will vote no on the new bill being considered.
I want to read his full statement just in. I'm reading this. Bear with me. He says, "As I repeatedly stressed, health care reform legislation ought to be the product of regular order in the Senate. Committees of jurisdiction should markup legislation with input from all committee members and send their bill to the floor for debate at amendment. That is the only way we might achieve bipartisan consensus on lasting reform. Without which, a policy that effects one-fifth of our economy and every American family will be subject to reversal with every change of administration and congressional majority. I would consider supporting legislation similar to that offered by my friends, Senators Graham and Cassidy, were it the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment. But that has not been the case. Instead, the specter of September 30 budget reconciliation deadline has hung over this entire process. We should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party line basis as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare --
