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New Day
Flooding in Texas; Cruz and O'Rourke Spar in Debate; Polls Ahead of Midterms. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired October 17, 2018 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:32:56] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Former Congresswoman Mary Bono resigning as interim president of USA Gymnastics after four days on the job. Bono received immediate criticism from Olympic Gold Medalist Simone Biles and Aly Raisman for ties to a law firm that had advised the organization during the sex abuse scandal involving former team doctor Larry Nassar. Biles also took issue with Bono's apparent anti- Nike tweet in response to their ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: One of China's biggest movie stars, Fan Bingbing spotted in public for the first time since June. The photo and media agency Visual China says these pictures were taken just two days ago. They show the actress arriving at Beijing's International Airport. CNN cannot independently authenticate the report. Earlier this month, China's state media reported that the actress was fined $130 million for misreporting earnings on her film project. She's got a lot of fans, though, who will be excited to see her right there.
CAMEROTA: Oh, yes. I mean that's the end of a very mysterious story, that she actually has surfaced.
BERMAN: Yes.
CAMEROTA: OK, recreational marijuana is now legal in Canada. A bill passed just after midnight allows adults to carry and share up to 30 grams of legal marijuana in public. Canadians are also allowed to harvest up to four plants in their homes and make products, such as edibles, for personal use. Consumers must be at least 18 years old.
BERMAN: No grand prize winners in last night's Mega Millions drawing, which means Friday's jackpot is at a record high, apparently just like Canada now. $868 million. It's the second largest jackpot in U.S. history.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.
BERMAN: Thank you for laughing at my dumb joke.
CAMEROTA: You're welcome.
BERMAN: The winning, or losing, Mega Millions numbers last night were 3, 45, 49, 61, 69, and the mega ball was 9. CAMEROTA: Oh, those were exactly the ones I was going to choose. I
just didn't have time to go to the store. I can't believe this.
BERMAN: No, I'm sure.
Tonight, another big drawing, Powerball with an estimated $345 million jackpot. You're not going to win.
CAMEROTA: How do you know that?
BERMAN: I know that.
CAMEROTA: Because I feel like I am.
BERMAN: You're not going to win.
CAMEROTA: If you don't see me on Monday, you'll know what happened.
BERMAN: Look, I have a personal gripe with lottery stories, which all has to do with the fact that how many times I've had to stand inside a store, you know --
CAMEROTA: Well, they sell them. So have I. I love those MOS --
BERMAN: During a morning show.
[06:35:02] CAMEROTA: What will you do with your winners?
BERMAN: Yes, I know. Yes, you always -- if you're a correspondent you always have to buy a ticket because some jerk anchor is going to ask you --
CAMEROTA: All the time.
BERMAN: Did you buy your ticket? And then if you say no, it's like, wha, wha, and like the whole morning show falls apart.
CAMEROTA: OK, well, I understand the wha, wha, the whole morning show falling --
BERMAN: Did you buy your ticket?
CAMEROTA: I'm going to.
BERMAN: OK.
CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz facing off in a fiery debate against his Democratic challenge Beto O'Rourke, reaching back to the 2016 campaign for a debate punchline. We have the highlights and lowlights, next.
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[06:39:52] BERMAN: New this morning, severe flooding in Texas has killed at least one person. The governor there has issued disaster declarations in 18 counties. Evacuations have been ordered because of the flooding from the Llano River. A bridge over the river -- look at that -- it collapsed. Wow. And residents are being told to stay away from their homes for the next 24 hours.
CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray has the forecast.
Jennifer.
JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, John, that river really shot up about 30 feet between Monday and Tuesday. It has gone down quite a bit, but it is expected to raise still today. So the threat of the water going back up is definitely there.
Near Kingsland, that's where that bridge got washed away. Most of these areas saw about two to four inches of rain. Some areas got up to six. Some areas even got up to ten.
By the way, this is brought to you by the Shark Ion Robot Cleaning System. One dock, two Sharks.
Yes, it's still going to be raining. We have a lot of river gauges that are in major flood stages in the purple shaded areas there. We have flood watches in effect, flood warnings in effect. So the rain is going to continue.
And it's a cold rain at that. We are going to continue to see it across the hill country, even into Dallas as we go throughout the day today. So that threat for flash flooding is definitely there. Two to four additional inches of rain possible as we go throughout the next couple of days. This is for the next three days. So that's where we're going to see the highest amounts but we're going to be watching for that closely as we go through the day, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: OK, Jennifer, thank you very much for that forecast.
Back to politics.
The gloves come off in Texas. Republican Senator Ted Cruz and his Democratic challenger, Congressman Beto O'Rourke, sparring in their second and likely final debate before Election Day.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is live in San Antonio with more.
So, what happened, Ed?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.
Well, the newest CNN poll shows that Ted Cruz is up over Beto O'Rourke by seven points. Now, that's close by Texas standards, but not close enough, and that means the pressure is on with early voting starting next week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice over): With three weeks left in the Texas Senate campaign, Democrat Beto O'Rourke left behind the nice-guy approach and unleashed much more aggressive attacks against Ted Cruz. The goal was to draw a starker contrast between himself and the Republican senator, as most public polls show that O'Rourke's rise has stalled out.
BETO O'ROURKE, DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE, TEXAS: Senator Cruz is not going to honest with you. He's going to make up positions and votes that I've never held or have ever taken. He's dishonest. That's why the president called him lyin' Ted and it's why the nickname stuck because it's true.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Well, it's clear Congressman O'Rourke's pollsters have told him to come out on the attack. So if he wants to insult me and call me a liar, that's fine. But, you know, John Adam's famously said, facts are stubborn things.
LAVANDERA: There is a stark and deep contrasts on issues between the two candidates, from health care to border security, tariffs and climate change, and the affects the tax cuts will have on the federal budget deficit. But this debate was perhaps the last time both candidates would share a stage before Election Day, a final chance to deliver face-to-face political jabs.
CRUZ: Congressman O'Rourke sides with liberal extremist on the national level instead of the people of Texas, instead of jobs of Texas.
O'ROURKE: You've got somebody, as I mentioned earlier, who is all talk and no action. So if he's not showing up in Texas, if he's not showing up in D.C. to vote, who is he showing up for?
LAVANDERA: In recent weeks, the television ad wars have escalated.
CRUZ: I'm Ted Cruz, and I approve this message.
O'ROURKE: I'm Beto O'Rourke and I approve this message.
LAVANDERA: Cruz going after O'Rourke on issues like taxes and border security.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Cruz has always stood with us shoulder to shoulder on a secure border.
LAVANDERA: O'Rourke, at least on television, has been mostly on the defensive. The most memorable ad has come from an anti-Cruz PAC, knocking the senator for embracing Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If somebody called my wife a dog and said my daddy was in on the Kennedy assassination, I wouldn't be kissing their ass.
LAVANDERA: Ted Cruz also claimed that if O'Rourke were elected, he would immediately push to impeach President Trump.
CRUZ: You want to talk about a shutdown. With Congress, with O'Rourke leading the way, two years of a partisan circus, shutting down the federal government in a witch hunt on the president.
O'ROURKE: Really interesting to hear you talk about a partisan circus after your last six years in the U.S. Senate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: Alisyn, after the debate, O'Rourke's camp happy they were convinced that -- they said the candidate had done a good job contrasting himself with Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz's campaign manager told us after the debate, describing Beto O'Rourke this way, that when an unconventional candidate goes conventional, that's typically when they get split open like a cantaloupe.
So that's how things are shaping up here in Texas for now.
Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Colorful, and delicious.
BERMAN: Yes.
LAVANDERA: There you go.
CAMEROTA: Ed, thank you. Thank you.
BERMAN: And heart healthy, I will say.
CAMEROTA: Thank you very much.
We do have a quick programing note. Be sure to watch CNN's live town hall with Beto O'Rourke tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. A similar invitation was made to Senator Ted Cruz, which he declined.
[06:45:01] BERMAN: So, what's inside the numbers in that Texas Senate race? There's something about Harry, next. He will surprise you with a look at the polling.
Plus, a high brow look at the president's feud with Stormy Daniels.
CAMEROTA: Oh, I look forward to hearing how that will work.
BERMAN: I think we have some of it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAMEROTA: All right, we're less than three weeks out from the midterm elections. A new CNN poll on the Texas Senate race shows the Republican, Ted Cruz, is leading with a 7 point advantage over Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.
There's something about Harry. So let's dig into these numbers with CNN's senior politics writer and analyst Harry Enten.
Hi, Harry.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Hello. How are you?
CAMEROTA: Doing great. You're having a great hair day.
Meanwhile -- meanwhile, tell us what's going on in Texas.
ENTEN: Yes. So, as you pointed out, right, we have a new CNN poll. Among likely voters, we have this seven-point split right here, 52 percent to 45 percent. The question is, why is Cruz leading over O'Rourke by such a wide margin? One reason why is that O'Rourke is, simply put, not getting his voters out. One way we can tell that is by looking at all registered voters and we see actually that Cruz has only a five-point lead among there, which means the people who are actually going to show up are less likely to support O'Rourke than Cruz.
This is not the only poll that shows that. There was a "New York Times" poll last month that showed a similar thing going on, right? Among registered voters, it's only a four point slip. But then, among likely voters, it expands up to eight.
[06:50:04] Why do we have that split? Well, in "The New York Times" poll, what we see is something very interesting. Latino voters, who are a key voting bloc in Texas, who are supporting O'Rourke, they make up 27 percent of all voters. But among the likely electorate, those who are actually going to turn out, they only make up 18 percent. So that is a huge drop and that is hurting O'Rourke in the polls.
BERMAN: Yes, he doesn't seem to be able to convert whatever enthusiasm might exist there --
CAMEROTA: And money.
BERMAN: And money to people actually saying they're going to show up and go to the polls there. So, some of these people may be responding, yes, we like Beto in the poll, but we're not going to show up.
ENTEN: That's exactly right. I think Beto O'Rourke has more enthusiastic supporters in New York City than he probably does in Texas, based upon everything I have seen with the money coming in versus what the actual polling numbers are showing.
BERMAN: Do you have a ceiling? Like at 45 percent? What are you projecting on Election Day?
ENTEN: Yes. So, right now what we are showing, our forecast actually a somewhat tighter race, which is a four-point win for Ted Cruz. I actually think this might be on the lower end as some more polling data comes in that reflects what the CNN poll was showing. It may show that expanding.
Indeed, there's another way that we can sort of look at this race, right? We can look at what the expert ratings are, including CNN, Inside Elections, Center for Politics, Cook Political Report, and what they show this that this race on average is leaning towards the GOP.
What does that mean? Well, I looked up, since 1992, on Election Day, if a race is leaning towards a party -- I'm not going to reach all the way over there, it's far too -- far --
CAMEROTA: Yes, we don't want you to pull something. ENTEN: I don't want to pull my hammy, but 96 percent of the time, if the race is leaning in that direction -- that's some very nice art work, your kids will be very proud of you. So right now, if this race holds where it is, Ted Cruz is going to probably win.
BERMAN: I like the deep dive into the --
CAMEROTA: I do too.
BERMAN: He just kept on going.
Where are we at the House ratings and Senate ratings today?
ENTEN: Right. So if we look at the House -- I actually thought the Democrats were going to gain, but, in fact, that hasn't happened. Right now the current forecast has Democrats with 228 seats, that's the forecast, 10 more than needed. That's about the same as we were yesterday. No movement. I know it's a little boring. But, you know what, that's what the numbers say and I just go where the numbers take me.
If we were to look at the Senate, the same exact thing. This is not going to move very much until we get some more swing state polling in Tennessee and North Dakota.
CAMEROTA: When's that going to happen?
ENTEN: I hope soon. Some media organizations hopefully will fund some polls there. I don't have the money to actually do that.
CAMEROTA: Is he telegraphing something to our bosses?
BERMAN: He's like disappointment (ph). He's expressing disappointment.
CAMEROTA: I know.
BERMAN: And I think the hair is a cry for help, at the same time. It's all connected here.
ENTEN: You know what, my barber just cut it a little too short, and the nice people in the makeup room are doing the best that they can, but I just don't have a lot.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.
BERMAN: There is something about Harry.
CAMEROTA: Yes, there is.
ENTEN: There's --
CAMEROTA: Do you have any more for us?
ENTEN: Well, I would just say, one thing to keep in mind though is that although the Republicans are at 52 seats in the Senate in our forecast, there's still a shot that the Dems can take control, right? There's still a margin of error going on here. Let's say something crazy happens in Texas, let's say something crazy happens in North Dakota or Tennessee, there's still a shot that Democrats could pick up control. While, in the same token, if, let's say, we see some major movement towards Republicans, which is certainly possible if you look at the red states that are on the board, Arizona, Nevada, these are two very, very close races, if let's say there's movement towards the Republicans, they could end up with -- all the way at 57 seats. It's not a likely scenario, but I think this is something I keep drilling is that we are still three weeks from Election Day. Polls can be wrong, as we saw in 2016. So we have a best estimate, but we still have that margin of error.
BERMAN: All right, drill baby drill.
There's something about Harry.
Harry Enten, great to have you here with us. Thanks very much.
ENTEN: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Harry's forecast will be available each day by 9:00 a.m. at cnn.com/forecast. It will include the range and the certainty and the prediction along with a daily column to break down what it all means for Democrats, Republicans and you.
BERMAN: This is like a disclaimer. You know, if you see a rash or indigestion, call your doctor immediately.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.
ENTEN: My mom's a doctor (ph).
BERMAN: Harry, thank you very much.
CAMEROTA: And we don't mean to suggest that you cause those symptoms.
BERMAN: No. No.
ENTEN: No.
CAMEROTA: No.
BERMAN: Stick around. Stick around. We, again, Stormy Daniels, the president of the United States, they have a lot to stay about each other and late night comics have a lot to say about them. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:58:14] BERMAN: This will come as a shock, the comics are having a field day with the Twitter war between President Trump and Stormy Daniels. Here are your late night laughs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": The president took a little victory slap at Stormy Daniels after a judge ruled in his favor in the defamation case she filed against him. He tweeted, federal judge throws out Stormy Daniels lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees. Great, now I can go after horse face. The reason Stormy Daniels reminds him of a horse is because after they had sex he had to pony up $130,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Saudi leaders are preparing to admit to the accidental killing of Jamal Khashoggi, despite denying that they harmed him or even knew of his whereabouts since his disappearance.
TREVOR NOAH, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": The Saudi government is testing their excuse before officially using it? That's something I've never seen in my life. They're like, we never saw this man, but what would you say if we said we did see him, but we killed him by mistake, huh?
Well, then you would be punished.
Well, in that case, we never saw him.
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Trump is offended that you'd think he defend these despites for money. He does it because he swore loyalty on the orb (ph). Trump must obey orb (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: The orb (ph) has been under covered, I will say, in the last few days.
CAMEROTA: Do we have to -- do we have to sort of yodel as we say orb (ph).
BERMAN: I think it's in the rider. The orb (ph) has that in its rider. There's always yodeling when discussing it.
CAMEROTA: We'd like to thank our international viewers for watching. For you CNN "TALK" is next. For our U.S. viewers, NEW DAY continues right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An employee of American Media should enjoy the full protection of the U.S. president.
[07:00:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It depends whether or not the king or the crown prince knew about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An operation of this sophistication, without the approval of the crown prince, is inconceivable.
MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: They told me they were going to conduct a thorough investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the most embarrassing appeasement of a dictator since Helsinki.
