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Can Heidi Heitkamp Overcome Voting Against Kavanaugh?; What Presidential Approval Rating Means For The Midterm Elections; Hurricane Michael To Strike Florida Panhandle As A Major Hurricane; CNN Reality Check: President Trump's Best Week Ever? Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 09, 2018 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:37] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Just four weeks away now from the midterm elections exactly and North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a red-state Democrat, is in the political fight of her life. She voted against Brett Kavanaugh last week while representing a state that backed President Trump by 36 points in 2016. So, what are her chances of holding on to her Senate seat?

CNN's Dana Bash went to North Dakota -- your 49th state, I believe, in the United States -- and you interviewed Heidi Heitkamp. And you are live in Bismarck this morning -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, a chilly Bismarck this morning. Good morning, John.

It is one of the most-watched Senate races -- already was before the vote that Heidi Heitkamp took -- and the question was how is that going to affect her chances now?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): Heidi Heitkamp having fun, walking in a classic North Dakota parade. Her smile masks her political reality. She is the most endangered Senate Democrat and knows voting against Brett Kavanaugh probably didn't help.

SEN. HEIDI HEITKAMP (D), NORTH DAKOTA: It's been a tough week for me because the political rhetoric is you can't vote that way if you expect to come back. And I tell people Ray and Doreen Heitkamp didn't raise me to vote a certain way so that I could win. They raised me to vote the right way.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Applause here, but elsewhere, reminders that President Trump carried this state by 36 points.

KEN CALLAHAN, NORTH DAKOTA VOTER: I don't know how we're going to get -- ever get over that.

BASH (on camera): So you're obviously a North Dakota voter. You're disappointed with her vote against Kavanaugh?

CALLAHAN: Yes.

BASH (voice-over): Her Republican challenger, Congressman Kevin Cramer, well ahead in the polls, said he was shocked.

REP. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND), SENATE CANDIDATE: I really fully expected her to vote yes.

BASH (on camera): Why?

CRAMER: Because she'd been building her entire campaign -- really, her entire brand -- as the bipartisan senator from North Dakota.

BASH (voice-over): Heitkamp voted for Neil Gorsuch and planned to do the same for Kavanaugh.

HEITKAMP: I had the office prepare -- begin to prepare a statement saying that I was voting for him --

BASH (on camera): Really?

HEITKAMP: -- up until -- up until that hearing.

BASH: Wow.

HEITKAMP: No, that --

BASH: And that changed everything.

HEITKAMP: It did for me.

BASH (voice-over): She didn't believe him and worried about his temperament, especially after watching a second time with the sound off.

HEITKAMP: We communicate not only with words, but we communicate with body language, we communicate with demeanor.

BASH (on camera): And what did you see in his body language.

HEITKAMP: I saw somebody who was very angry, very nervous, and I saw rage.

BASH (voice-over): Cramer is appealing to voters who see all this as victimization run amuck.

CRAMER: The politics of personal destruction, I think as with this broad stroke being just accepted, is offensive to a lot of the women in my family.

HEITKAMP: You should be so grateful that your mom's never been victimized, and that your wife's never been victimized, and your daughters haven't. But people in my life have, including my mother, and to suggest she's not strong because she's a victim was like a trigger for me. BASH: Heitkamp is trying to focus elsewhere.

HEITKAMP: This is high-tech -- super high-tech -- and it's also really expensive.

BASH: Hurting farmers like Tom Brosowske, whom she invited us to meet -- he says China's soybean tariffs -- retaliation for Trump's trade policy -- already cost him $100,000.

[07:35:05] TOM BROSOWSKE, NORTH DAKOTA FARMER: How is it going to work out? I haven't heard a plan yet.

BASH: Cramer says he opposed Trump's new tariff plan against China at first, and lost.

CRAMER: Once the president sets a strategy -- a global strategy -- I think it's better if we get behind him, unify, and win a trade war fast rather than undermine the entire process.

BASH: Six years ago, Heitkamp won by a single point. Her warning this year, the shrinking middle needs more gridlock.

HEITKAMP: If someone like me can't get reelected, what does that speak for other people who want to be moderate or does it just encourage people to go to their base? I think that's a real concern.

BASH: For now, Heitkamp is determined to be herself. When a band plays, she grabs the mic.

HEITKAMP: Singing "You Are My Sunshine."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Now, Heitkamp knows that the polls show that she is behind here but she says that was the case six years ago when she won. She eked it out -- barely one percent -- but she says that she is just pushing along. She's going to do as much as she can.

And the thing about this state John and Alisyn, that you know, is that it's big geographically but there are only 750,000 people here. So, people really do know each other. They get to know her.

And she's also trying to put out of her mind the fact that Democrats nationally are seeing this race as critical to whether they have any chance of actually taking back the Senate.

BERMAN: Dana, we have a question from a viewer who writes, "What is the one state that Dana Bash has not been to?"

BASH: Montana.

BERMAN: Montana? You're close.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: Go -- take a left.

BASH: Yes. Is NEW DAY going to send me to Montana next?

BERMAN: Yes. Jon Tester -- to interview Jon Tester --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: -- coming up later.

CAMEROTA: The horse is pulling up right now.

BERMAN: All right, Dana Bash. Thank you very, very much. And the people of Montana --

BASH: Thanks, guys.

BERMAN: -- forgive you.

So, can Democrats flip control and get power in the Senate if Sen. Heitkamp is really in as much trouble as we've seen there? Who knows the answer to that?

CAMEROTA: Harry.

BERMAN: There's something about Harry. Let's get "The Forecast" with CNN senior politics writer and analyst, Harry Enten.

Heidi Heitkamp's in big trouble.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Yes, no doubt she's in big trouble. A Fox News poll out last week had her down double-digits. My forecast has her down by a little bit less but probably around five percentage points.

And the other thing I'll note is yes, some of the public polls were bad in 2012, as Dana's piece pointed out, but Heitkamp's own polls actually had her ahead. So the fact that she's down now and she was down -- I wouldn't look to 2012 as much of enlightening our own opinion of this race.

CAMEROTA: All right, let's talk about President Trump's approval ratings. They have ticked up since September. So he is now at 41 percent. In September, it was only 36 percent.

So what's the backstory?

ENTEN: Well, I think that there are a few key numbers from our poll.

Number one, I would point out that his approval rating among registered voters is actually slightly higher than it is among all voters. It's at 43 percent among registered voters and that's key because remember, not all adults are going to turn out and vote in the midterm election.

In fact, it's registered voters and then it's even a deeper dive in the likely voters -- we don't have those numbers available yet -- who are the people who are going to turn out. So he's actually perhaps given a little bit more of a boost to Republicans nationwide.

And I'll point out that if his approval rating can get, say, north of 45 percent, then it's a very, very different ballgame, and we still have a month to go. So, you know, we're right in that margin of error where hey, maybe if he gets a little bit higher he won't be that harmful to Republican candidates nationwide.

BERMAN: And our poll is not an outlier here in terms of the president's approval rating ticking up, correct?

ENTEN: Correct.

You know, I took a look at the Gallup numbers as well. Gallup, which had the president in the 30s about two weeks ago has him into the mid- 40s now, just like our poll among registered voters does. So that's one of the things I'm always keeping in mind, right?

Is this poll an outlier? It's not. Last time around it was an outlier when it dropped, and this time around it's not an outlier when we've seen it spike back up.

CAMEROTA: So what does all that tell us for the midterms?

ENTEN: This is a thing that we know going back since, say, 1946 since the post Second World War. We know that when a president's approval rating is below 45 percent, it tends to spell major trouble. There have been a number of cases where that's been the case.

And as this graphic shows, when that happens we see that the president's approval rating, when it's below a certain threshold -- when, say, it's below 45 or it's below 50 percent -- that spells major trouble.

The seat loss for the president's party in that particular case is below -- it's greater than 35 percent. All right, 35 seats -- excuse me.

BERMAN: Republican strategists tell me flat-out that a 5-point swing in the president's approval rating is worth 20 seats. To them, in their mind, the way they look at it is he's five points higher -- when he was at 36 they told me if he stays here that's 20 more seats we're going to lose.

ENTEN: Yes, and indeed -- remember, one of the key relationships that we know heading into this midterm is that when you approve of the president's job you're probably going to vote for the Republican candidate. And when you disapprove you're probably going to vote for the Democratic candidate.

And we know that when there's a shift of one point on the generic ballot, usually it shifts three or four seats into the other column. And so, not surprisingly, when you have a 5-point shift in the president's approval you would expect 20 seats to shift.

[07:40:00] CAMEROTA: Let's talk about the Taylor Swift effect, shall we? So, in the 24 hours since Taylor Swift came out and talked about

voting and encouraged people to vote, and said who she planned to vote for, there have been 65,000 more voter registrations. This is nationally, OK? On average -- well, for August, the number was 56,000.

BERMAN: The entire month of August.

CAMEROTA: The entire month of August. So in the 24 hours since she talked about it, 65,000.

Is this the Taylor Swift effect nationally or is it because the deadline to register is today?

ENTEN: I don't know the answer to that. I like historical backing to know one way or another and Taylor Swift hasn't made big endorsements like this before so it's kind of a little bit difficult to tell.

But what I'll point out is in Tennessee, which I think is the big number, right -- as we showed up on the screen -- it's only been about a little more than 2,000 and there are, I believe, over 3.6 million voters registered.

CAMEROTA: Wait, hold on a second. You're downplaying this because the entire month of September was only 2,800 and since her post -- we now think it might even be updated from this -- it's between 2,100 and 2,600. So --

ENTEN: I'm not trying to downplay Taylor Swift's ability to convince voters.

BERMAN: You're uncomfortable talking about Taylor Swift.

CAMEROTA: You really are.

BERMAN: You are uncomfortable talking about Taylor Swift.

CAMEROTA: What's happening -- what's happening with you two?

ENTEN: No. I would much rather talk about old singers like my uncle Neil Sedaka or maybe Stevie Wonder.

BERMAN: He is really your uncle?

ENTEN: He is really my uncle.

CAMEROTA: And you're just name-dropping.

ENTEN: I'm just name-dropping. When I'm in trouble in a corner, I like to name-drop.

But I guess my point being that in terms of the effect of the election, that her endorsement, I don't think, matters that much.

She puts out great music. I think it's great that she wants to talk about how she feels about different politicians and if it gets more people registered, all the better.

But my job, as I see it, is to try and give you the truth and whether or not this is actually having a big impact in terms of changing the electoral winds and I just don't see that so far.

BERMAN: That's the first time that Neil Sedaka has ever been thrown a lifeline on a news program.

CAMEROTA: How about Neil Sedaka's endorsement? How would that feel?

ENTEN: I don't know. I will say that love will keep us together and that breaking up is hard to do.

BERMAN: Which was a song about you -- about his nephew, Harry Enten.

Harry, thank you very much for being with us --

ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: -- today. And there is something about Harry.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, Harry.

All right, let's take a look at some live pictures right now because Hurricane Michael is bearing down on Florida. It is expected to make landfall as a category three hurricane tomorrow.

The National Hurricane Center has a new advisory and we will get all the details coming right up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:04] BERMAN: We have some live pictures we want to show you from over the Gulf Coast, but this is nothing.

CAMEROTA: No.

BERMAN: This is nothing.

CAMEROTA: That's a beautiful day.

BERMAN: This is Panama City Beach, Florida. As you said, this is a beautiful day.

This is nothing compared to what we are going to see starting overnight as a -- what will be a category three hurricane makes landfall -- projected to make landfall right there in Panama City Beach, Florida tomorrow, sometime mid-morning, maybe mid-afternoon.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers with us with the very latest forecast -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEORLOGIST: And that's part of the problem, John -- those high-rises you see there. The farther you go up in a hurricane, the stronger the winds are. So what might be 95 or 100 at the surface, with some trees blocking some of the wind, will be 120 to 130 on the top of some of those high-rises, so we'll see what happens there.

There's an airplane in the storm right now. It is flying around. It just found 102-mile-per-hour wind gusts, so we suspect the 8:00 a.m. advisory may bump our 90-mile-per-hour storm to something a little bit higher.

This is what the radar is going to look like over the next few hours, all the way to about midnight tonight. A few scattered showers coming onshore there in Apalachicola. Those outer bands that we talk about coming onshore maybe 6:00-7:00 tonight.

But the wind problem is going to be the issue here. A 120-mile-per- hour storm as it's over very warm water right now -- nothing really tearing it apart -- and making landfall somewhere plus or minus noon -- probably two hours. And then, plus or minus 30 miles east or west of Panama City. The winds are going to get there tonight, though.

And if there's a bridge, like the manager said there -- actually, one of the Congressmen said -- if there's a bridge you have to get over it. You need to get over it before we get to T.S. -- before we get to 45 miles per hour because otherwise, that bridge is going to be shut down. If you need to evacuate, you need to go as soon as you can.

Here comes the storm and there goes the power. I don't show this much but this is an important map.

We go from widespread to minor power outages. Anywhere with orange and red will be major power -- widespread power outages. That's Panama City, that's St. Marks, that's St. Joe, all the way up to Tallahassee.

Just power lines down, trees down. All of these areas anywhere from Port St. Joe to Mexico Beach will all be without some power for a while.

So here comes the storm. It is eight to 12 feet with a storm surge at six to eight feet. You're just to the south of there from about Cedar Key down.

We do have the new update as I suspected -- just in my ear -- because one thing in here and one thing out there. One-hundred miles per hour right now at 8:00. That advisory just out 12 minutes early. Thank you, NHC.

It is now a category two storm and that's where we're thinking this is going to continue to get stronger and stronger. The eye is very visible now.

This is a storm that is growing in intensity, growing in power, and hurricane warnings are posted all along the Gulf Coast, even into Georgia because it isn't going to slow down very quickly.

CAMEROTA: OK. Chad, thank you very much for all of those updates in real time. We do appreciate the National Hurricane Center getting them out to everyone.

OK, it's time for "CNN Business Now."

Google will shut down its social network Google Plus and timing is interesting. Google announced the closure after news broke that it hid a security bug affecting 500,000 users.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now with more. Hi, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Hi there, Alisyn.

The glitch that Google didn't want you to know about is finally exposed. In March, Google discovered and patched a security bug in Google Plus, but it did not tell users. Google says there was no evidence any data was exposed.

But, "The Wall Street Journal" says Google stayed quiet for a different reason, to avoid scrutiny. Its legal and policy team warned senior executives disclosure would mean immediate regulatory interest.

Think Facebook. Remember, Facebook's own big data breach was revealed that same month. That prompted lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic to call for stricter regulation and led to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's grilling before Congress.

[07:50:01] Now, Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, will also now head to Capitol Hill this year, promising lawmakers he'll testify about possible conservative bias at tech companies. But, Pichai will likely also be asked about Google's decision to conceal this breach for months.

Now, Google Plus launched, of course, as a rival, remember, to Facebook back in 2011. But, Google admits it failed to achieve quote "broad consumer or developer adoption." It means it wasn't very popular and now it's bye-bye, Google Plus.

BERMAN: Bye-bye, Google Plus. I hardly knew you. I never understood you to begin with.

All right, thanks so much Romans -- appreciate it.

So you may have heard some supporters of the president say that he is coming off his best week in office. Is that really the case?

Our John Avlon has a "Reality Check," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:55:32] CAMEROTA: President Trump is on a political winning streak, so do the numbers back up those recent successes?

CNN senior political analyst John Avlon joins us with a CNN "Reality Check." What's the reality, John?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Here's the reality, Ali. Four weeks from today, voters will be heading to the polls and just in

time, the reality show president can claim his best week ever. There's no denying it. Trump's been on a bit of a winning streak in big areas of jobs, trade, and judges, which his party could definitely use after trailing in the polls.

So let's start with jobs, always the core promise of Trump's presidency. On Friday, new job numbers came out showing a nearly 50- year low in the unemployment rate, hitting 3.7 percent in September. You've got to go all the way back to 1969 -- Woodstock -- to find a lower unemployment rate.

And while it's fair to point out that this is the culmination of an 8- year recovery, this new low is on Trump's watch and that's great news for the country.

Also, Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise successfully renegotiating NAFTA, rebranding it the USMCA. Now, this is no revolution. The basic premise remains intact but Trump played hardball and gave concessions that benefit workers.

In particular, at least 75 percent of car parts will need to be made in North America and at least 40 percent of cars will be built by workers making at least $16 an hour by 2023.

There are improved protections for intellectual property and increased access to Canadian markets for dairy farmers. All good news.

Finally, of course, judges. With the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, Trump can claim two Supreme Court seats. As many justices in two years as President Obama got in eight, thanks to the unprecedented obstruction of Merrick Garland.

Yes, this was the narrowest confirmation vote in over a century and the court is more politicized than at any time in living memory, but a win is a win no matter how ugly.

And with that, Trump made good on his promise to social conservatives who overlooked his personal behavior on the premise that he'd appoint the right judges. Now, the Supreme Court will have a decided conservative tilt for the foreseeable future.

And that's not all. Trump and Senate Republicans have pushed through 69 judges to higher courts, more than any recent president.

Add to this an increasingly tough line with China, including an ongoing trade war, continued talks with North Korea, and his passionate pen pal Kim Jong Un. Plus, a comparatively taped (ph) Twitter finger and you've got to acknowledge a presidency that's hitting its stride and delivering for his base.

So it should come as no surprise that Trump has seen a job approval bump, gaining five points in the past month. But, before the White House uncorks a bottle of Trump wine to celebrate, it's still the lowest approval rating for any president on record at this point in their term, according to Gallup, and that's with a booming economy. So, cold shower alert. Heading into the midterms, a president with below 50 percent approval rating has lost an average of 37 seats in the House. But this unprecedented president knows a thing or two about defying polls and political history, and Trump can now credibly claim his best week ever and point to some big wins coming down the stretch.

And that's your "Reality Check."

CAMEROTA: Really interesting, John. Maybe that's why people are so tired. They really are tired of winning.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: You know Kaitlin Collins said --

AVLON: Or a second cup of coffee.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: Kaitlin Collins noted though, John -- it was interesting -- that if you're talking about the president's best week ever, that was the week when that "New York Times" had that giant expose on his finances and the fact that he wasn't exactly as self-made as he always claimed to be, so that's interesting.

AVLON: A lot of big stories that should have really hit and hurt, but the other stories -- the big narratives were elsewhere. So those big stories may still get him in the end. They may snowball their impact. But the attention was elsewhere on Kavanaugh, on Ford, and Trump benefitted from that momentum.

BERMAN: All right, John Avlon. Thank you very much.

We do have some breaking news on Hurricane Michael, now a category two storm, so let's get the latest forecast now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: All right.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, October ninth, 8:00 in the east.

We do begin with breaking news because the National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Michael has intensified in just the past few moments into a category two storm. Forecasters say it will continue to strengthen to a major hurricane before making landfall in the Florida Panhandle tomorrow.

These are live pictures that you are looking at right now. You can see the surf kicking up. This is Panama City Beach. This, of course, is well ahead of the storm so people are still sprinkled on the beach a little bit there, though there is a mandatory evacuation now in effect for that very spot.

Governor Rick Scott has a dire warning. He calls Hurricane Michael a monstrous storm that could bring total devastation.

Millions of people are now under evacuation orders in at least 10 counties ahead of this hurricane.

BERMAN: And in 90 minutes, Justice Brett Kavanaugh will sit on the bench of the Supreme Court for the first time. Overnight, he took part in a White House ceremony.