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Analysts Examine Chances Democrats Win House of Representatives and Senate in Midterm Election. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 05, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They all say speak about the economy. Speak about the economy. Well, we have the greatest economy in the history of our country.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: But sometimes it's not as exciting to talk about the economy. Right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now, Van Jones, former Obama special adviser and host of "The Van Jones Show," S.E. Cupp, host of " S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" and Joshua Green, host of Joshua Green --

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: -- correspondent for "Bloomberg Business Week" and CNN political analyst. It's a local cable access show.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Van, I want to ask you, as the resident Democrat on this panel, when you see a 13-point edge 24 hours before the election, does that just make you so nervous, just and make you sweat?

VAN JONES, CNN HOST, "THE VAN JONES SHOW": People have been voting for a while. We have a voting season, not just a voting day. And Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. So, there's a danger that people look at it, oh, I don't have to go vote. I can watch Netflix. No, you have to go vote. You have to go vote. Don't watch Josh's show.

(LAUGHTER)

JONES: I think if I were a Republican, it's very, very difficult to have this kind of economy doing this well and still have this sort of bloodbath possibly in the offing, and it's just because of the way the president has played his hand. He has gone out of his way to offend and insult and divide people. And I hope there will be a response tomorrow and this month that tells Republicans and Democrats, we deserve better.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Josh, because you're taking grief --

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: I'll turn to you next. I hear all about your show. So somewhere between 31 million people and 34 million people, those are two different numbers I've heard, have cast their ballots already. That is a 68 percent rise since 2014. That sounds significant. What does that tell us?

JOSHUA GREEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It tells us that there's massive intensity on both sides. One thing I think strategists in both parties agree on is that there is going to be massive turnout. In states like Texas you've already seen more term turnout than they got in the last midterm election. I think for Democrats, by and large, that's good. They were counting on this influx of angry anti-Trump voters to push them over the hill in places like Florida and Georgia, in these suburban House districts. But until we count the votes we really don't know, are these all Democrats or have Republicans heard the president's dog whistles about immigration and so on and decided to show up and support Republicans?

BERMAN: Intensity makes it hard to model, which means when you look at these polls it's just hard to know because you're looking at some voters that never showed up before. And one thing we know about voters who never showed up before --

GREEN: And as good as this poll is overall for Democrats, you have a 13-point generic lead. You've got Trump's approval below 40 percent, the one number that stuck out for me as good for Republicans is that their intensity number had come all the way up to 64 percent, only four points behind where Democrats are. That's the one thing I would be worried about if I were a Democratic candidate.

BERMAN: S.E., the choice that the president made is to make this about him.

S.E. CUPP, CNN HOST, S.E. CUPP UNFILTERED: Right. That's one of the choices he made.

BERMAN: One of the choices he made.

CUPP: He has also chosen to run a nationalist campaign in the closing days, saying explicitly, call me a nationalist. Use that word. I am the stuff of Paul Ryan's nightmares in the past week, suburban, white, educated women, because we used to be a very reliable voting bloc for Republicans. I am a Republican. And I think there are a lot of women like me who have been turned off by that message.

We'll find out in exit polling what it was that won Democrats the House if that, indeed, that happens. But I think it's important to score here that Republicans are poised to take the Senate, and we're not even really debating whether that's going to happen, is still a huge deal, that you have a president running a nationalist message that is turning off so many people that historically the party in power does really well in midterms. This should scare Democrats that if Republicans keep the Senate, even if by a small margin, Democrats still have not figured out a national message. They might have figured out a more local, state-by-state message, ignoring Trump in the final days, running on issues like health care, that's good. But for 2020, there will still be ghosts haunting the Democratic Party.

CAMEROTA: That's your wheelhouse, Van.

JONES: We also drew the worst hand possible. We're defending two or three times as many seats, though. But listen, I agree. Trump being dumb does not make us smart. And we've got to be able to figure out a way to do two things. Part of what's exciting to me is you now have, among Democrats, a test case, five test cases to see if a more progressive populist message can work.

[08:05:02] You have Stacey Abrams in Georgia, You have Gillum in Florida, you have Ben Jealous in Maryland, You have Beto in Texas, and actually you have Paulette Jordan in Idaho, all of whom are doing something unusual. They're proud to be progressives. They look somewhat different. If all of them lose, what that says is Democrats, guess what, this idea that we can have a multicultural, multiracial populism is maybe not smart. But if a couple of them win, maybe there is a pathway forward. I'm looking actually more at the governors' races more than the House races to figure out what is the future for the Democrats.

BERMAN: This is a parameter setting election.

JONES: On both sides.

BERMAN: We don't know what America is as a voting population, and we should know Wednesday morning. I think that is fascinating.

JONES: Can I say one more thing about what Trump is doing? If you look at this from a global perspective, Trump's behavior actually makes a ton of sense. This is what a lot of rightwing, populist, strongmen do. They don't see themselves as just head of state or commander in chief. They see themselves as movement leaders. So they go out in the countryside. They have big rallies, they have been marches, they try to handpick who is going to run this province and that province. That's how you wound up with DeSantis in Florida. That's how you wound up with Kemp in Georgia. From a global point of view, this is very predictable, rightwing, strong man behavior in an election.

CUPP: It's happening around the world. You have this with Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, you have this with Duterte, you have this in Britain. This is being modeled right now. It's not just endemic to what's happening in the United States right now.

GREEN: The problem with looking at this globally, in every country where this happens, it has riven the country, it has split them. These rightwing leaders don't come in and unify government in a way that allows them to govern. Look at Italy. Look at what's happening in all sorts of European countries. I think that problem could hit tomorrow when this division that Trump has driven with demagoguery and anti-immigrant sentiment may allow Republicans to hold on to the Senate. We'll see. There's still a chance Democrats win. But it almost certainly is going to split the House in a way that benefits Democrats, not Republicans. And what do you wind up with? A country that's split and angry. CAMEROTA: S.E., we always talk about breaking norms, norms, President

Trump has broken them, and former president Obama breaking the norm of going on the campaign trail and speaking vociferously against the current president. What do you make of it?

CUPP: I thought the speech yesterday in Chicago was good. That message that this is about the character of our nation was prime Obama and I thought really poignant and I think more Democrats should be talking about framing the election that way. Some of it, there's a smugness to Obama that even Democrats recognize. And some of that sort of you should take a time machine with me back to the good old days when I was running things, I don't know that that's going to appeal to a lot of people outside the tent. But Obama is, by far, the most, I think, effective voice for the Democratic Party right now in a party that is really lacking one consolidated message.

BERMAN: Van, I remember people noting that Barack Obama couldn't get other Democrats elected behind Barack Obama when he was president.

JONES: Yes.

CUPP: That's true.

BERMAN: Why would it be different now?

JONES: I'll tell you why. You have to remember, I'm on the leftwing, hope and change are part of this party. And we used to cry and beg, please, Obama, come out and do rallies. And the White House would say, he's the head of state. He's the commander in chief. He's not going to come out there and do that stuff. He has got a country to run. And so, yes, he didn't do what Trump did. Yes, Obama is breaking precedent by going out there, but so is Trump. You've never seen a president go around the country doing 20,000, 30,000 person rallies.

CAMEROTA: In midterms.

JONES: Before a midterm. Some of them don't even do it for their own campaign. So you're in a situation where, yes, you have the sitting president and the former president doing something we've never seen before, and we won't know the outcome until tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: The fact that there's so much motivation at the rallies and people are so enthusiastic, does that tell us what is going to happen?

GREEN: Not necessarily. But I think Obama going out and campaigning the way he has is important for one reason, and that is that he tends to be most effective and resonate most with the demographic groups that Democrats are really counting on to win in the midterm election which historically have had trouble turning out. That could be minorities, that could young people, and it could especially be educated suburban white women in districts like those outside Chicago, which are probably going to decide control of the House.

BERMAN: That's a good segue for us to talk about, before we get to local races, I just want to say one thing that has struck me is you have seen a lot of discipline by the Democrats, which is also unusual. And this health care message that they've been delivering, and it's hasn't been on too much national TV. It really hasn't. But you still see in our poll that it's the most important issue to Democratic voters. I think that's interesting.

JONES: You say discipline, and I like to hear that term, but it sure is late in coming. Let's not forget that Democrats spent a year praying that Bob Mueller was Harry Potter and was going to show up with a wand and fix everything with no work.

[08:10:08] And I was screaming in the summer, there will be no blue wave without blue work. And now we do have, I think, finally, you're seeing the work. And what's happened is you have had a lot of grassroots groups knocking on doors. And guess what. Nobody is talking about Russia. Nobody is talking about Comey. Nobody is talking about Mueller. They're talking about the fact that they can't see a doctor.

And when people at the doors started saying the reason you can't see a doctor is because of Donald Trump and the Republicans. That's when people said talk to me more. And so from the grassroots up came this message, guys, can we talk to something that people actually care about? And you can listen, in places like Florida, you've had grassroots knock on a million doors. You've got domestic workers knocking on doors in Georgia, and that grassroots wisdom is finally coming up to the party.

CUPP: Just a month ago, Democrats were talking about Brett Kavanaugh. And if you were a Republican, you hoped they kept doing that for the next month. And had they, I think we'd be talking about Republicans keeping the House, frankly, because that energized Republicans in a huge way. So we'll see if this strategy sort of at the last minute, of turning to the most important issue to Democrats will work.

JONES: Fancy that.

CUPP: I know. But also, in the last week or so Democrats have chosen, Democratic campaigns have chosen to talk about Trump less. And we have a new report talking about that. We'll see if that's an interesting strategy for 2020 as well.

CAMEROTA: Guys, we're out of time. Hold that thought until tomorrow. Thank you.

CUPP: He can use it on his show.

(LAUGHTER)

GREEN: Tune in never.

BERMAN: NEW DAY will be on early tomorrow and Wednesday starting at 5:00 a.m. eastern time. CNN's election night in America coverage begins at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: OK, so a congressional candidate is speaking out after a "Saturday Night Live" skit, and this comic made fun of his combat. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know he lost his eye in war, or whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw will respond next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, HOST, NEW DAY" "Saturday Night Live's" Pete Davidson drawing backlash after making fun of Dan Crenshaw. He is a former Navy SEAL turned Republican congressional candidate in Texas, who lost his eye from a homemade land mine explosion in Afghanistan. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE DAVIDSON, AMERICAN COMEDIAN: This guy is kind of cool, Dan Crenshaw.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, man.

DAVIDSON: Hold on. You may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hit man in a porno movie. I'm sorry. I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Dan Crenshaw, the Republican candidate for Texas' second congressional district. Good morning, Mr. Crenshaw.

DAN CRENSHAW, CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE FOR TEXAS, REPUBLICAN: Good morning, Alisyn. Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Great to have you. What did you think when you heard that you were featured on "SNL"?

CRENSHAW: Well, you know, the first part of that skit was just strange. I don't know what kind of programs that he's watching. The second part, I think, is when it just became dark. We have thick skin, but as veterans it's hard for us to understand why war wounds would elicit such ruckus laughter from an audience. I think they should have - I think they should have rethought that joke a little bit, if you can even call it a joke.

CAMEROTA: So listen, here is what people need to know. You are a Navy SEAL. You did five tours of duty. You lost your eye after being hit by an IED in Helmand Province in 2012. You've received the Purple Heart, two bronze stars, a medal with valor. You could squash Pete Davidson like a grape, obviously, okay, so I mean, it's not even a fair fight, right? He's punching up.

CRENSHAW: No.

CAMEROTA: So what do you want from him this morning? CRENSHAW: Well, you know, everybody is asking that. Do you demand an

apology from this man? I do not demand an apology. He probably should apologize, but I don't want some hollow apology. I think he has exposed himself. I think he's exposed himself for who he really is. I wish him well. I think what him and maybe the producers at "SNL" should do is pool their money together. Let's throw a figure out there, $1 million, and we will donate that to a series of Veterans nonprofits that helps veterans, maybe the Navy SEAL Foundation, maybe Wounded Warriors, maybe Folds of Honor. I was just at their benefit last night. There's a lot of great organizations out there, there's a lot of veterans that really need help. Frankly, this kind of thing is offensive to them. They feel laughed at.

CAMEROTA: Okay, so that's really interesting. I mean, I don't know that Pete Davidson has $1 million but we'll see what "SNL" comes up with. And if "SNL" heeds your call to do something. Meanwhile, while I have you, I do want to ask you about some veterans' issues.

CRENSHAW: Sure.

CAMEROTA: As you know, President Trump has been talking a lot on the campaign trail about this migrant crisis as he calls it, this group of migrants from Central America that are still roughly a thousand miles away from our border, but he is saying he would like to send 15,000 troops to the southern US border. That's more than are in Afghanistan, there's 14,000. More than are in Iraq, 5,200. Do you think that's appropriate?

CRENSHAW: Well, I think the President and his advisers need to come up with any way necessary to make sure that 10,000 people don't break down our barriers the way they broke down the barriers on the Mexican southern border. We need to be working with Mexico on this issue. We need to be monitoring it closely. So need to do what is required.

A lot of those troops are logistical in nature, they're there for medical reasons, they are there for housing reasons. They are building those tent cities like the President talked about. The bottom line is this. We need to stop thousands of people from illegally crossing from one side of our border to the other.

If you simply allow that to happen or we pretend that there's just nothing to see down there, then we're setting a precedent, we're setting a dangerous precedent where there are no laws enforced in our country and that is not sustainable. It's not sustainable for a law enforcement already trying to defend the border. It's not sustainable for our court systems that have to deal with illegal immigrants coming across. It's not sustainable for our schools when they try to put their children in our schools, or our emergency rooms.

[08:20:00]

CAMEROTA: Of course, but I mean - and Mr. Crenshaw, I just want to fact check a little bit because just to be clear, our reporting from people embedded - journalists - embedded with the migrants is that the numbers have dwindled. They're not 10,000. They have, at last count, dwindled to 3,500 but, our border agents have processes. They have rules for when people present themselves at the border. It would not look like what happened in Mexico. I mean, they've dealt with this before is my point. They've dealt with people who are ...

CRENSHAW: Well, how do you know?

CAMEROTA: Well, because there were other so-called caravans in previous years that have shown up at the border and we treated them like asylum seekers and processed them and they were dealt with. In other words, it wasn't a crisis by the time it showed up at our border.

CRENSHAW: And maybe it won't be this time either, but to not be prepared for it, I think, would be a disservice to the American people.

CAMEROTA: Okay, next question. Are you comfortable with the fact that President Trump has not visited a military base in a combat zone since becoming President?

CRENSHAW: Well, you'll have to ask the President why or what benefit that would have for the military ...

CAMEROTA: No, they did, we did. And he said - hold on just a second. He said that, "At some point, I will do that at some point, but I don't think it's overly necessary. I've been very busy with everything here." So I'm just getting your take on if you think he should do that.

CRENSHAW: As Commander-in-Chief - as Commander-in-Chief, he is quite busy. I was in the military for ten years, I never once saw any president visit a base that I was at and I felt I could do my job just fine.

CAMEROTA: But do you think that it helps morale when a US President shows up at a military base in a combat zone?

CRENSHAW: It could. It could help morale. But I will tell you this. I still keep in contact with a lot of the soldiers, the SEALS who are out there serving. Morale is actually very high. And the reason is this. The President gives our generals and our troops the ability to do the job, the ability to go forth with the mission that we have given them. It did not feel that way under the Obama administration. And I have to tell you the truth on that. It really didn't feel that way. Troops do feel like the President has their back and morale is actually pretty high.

CAMEROTA: All right, Dan Crenshaw, thank you very much for your perspective and thank you for your service. Great to have you on "New Day."

CRENSHAW: Well, thank you.

CAMEROTA: John?

JOHN BERMAN, HOST, NEW DAY: President Trump has targeted red state Democrats facing re-election tomorrow. How should they fight back in the final hours? We're going to ask a Democrat who pulled off a big red state upset, next.

[08:25:00]

BERMAN: We're really just hours away from the first polls opening in these crucial midterm elections. Five Democratic incumbents in red states have become frequent targets of President Trump as they fight to keep seats. So can Democrats win back the House and the Senate? Joining us now, red state Democratic Senator Doug Jones of Alabama. Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

I want to start with the news from Friday, the jobs numbers, 3.7% unemployment, wage growth above 3%, higher than it's been in years. Why would you tell voters they should change anything with those kind of numbers?

DOUG JONES, US SENATOR, ALABAMA, REPUBLICAN: Well, yes, that's a really good point. I mean, I think my colleagues in the Senate have been part that have growth, been part of that expansion. They've done that. And I think that is part of their message for the Senate, it's why change this? We are doing well in the Senate. We are trying to be bipartisan. We are trying to reach across and do those things. It hit home, those kitchen table issues I talked about.

BERMAN: Well, these Democrats didn't vote for the tax cut, most of them, for instance.

JONES: Yes, but tax cut is just part of this issue. I mean, there's a lot of things about the tax cut that are good, there's a lot that is not so good. This is a long-term cycle. This just didn't just happen over the last two years. This started over the course of these senators' careers, whether it's been six years or 12 years. This is part of a growth that has stemmed from the recession from 2008. So they've been part of that. They've been part of making sure that the economy is moving in the way it should be. Now they've got to focus on wage growth. I think that's a big issue as well.

BERMAN: One of the things that's interesting, if you look at each of these states and they're all different. Each red state - every state in the country is different. But you have Claire McCaskill in Missouri running against distinctly what she calls crazy Democrats. What's a crazy Democrat to you?

JONES: I don't know that. As you said, every state is different. I mean, you know, look, I think, in those states that we're focusing on, like in Alabama last year, we - you know, our center of gravity is a little more right there in the center, and I think that's what Claire is talking about.

We see a lot of voices on the far right and the far left and it's those folks I think in the middle, like Claire, like Joe Donnelly, like Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester and Joe Manchin and Bill Nelson, those are the folks that really folks gravitate to, right in the middle, to try to get things done because the only way you can get things done in the Senate is to have some kind of bipartisan reach and be able to talk to folks on both sides of the aisle. That's their strength. BERMAN: Have Democrats - have some Democrats made the job of Claire

McCaskill in getting re-elected harder?

JONES: Sure they made the jobs harder. There's not question about that. But that's not unusual, John. That happens every election. I think that there are times that there are Republicans on the other side of the aisle that make Republicans have a very difficult time. I think the President is making Republicans have a difficult time this year. We're seeing that time and time again.

So that's just part of the election cycle. Everyone focuses on their election. At the end of the day - at the end of the day, those folks are going to want in those states, they are going to want a senator who has their back, regardless of who is the President is. They want to make sure that senator has got their back so that when the administration does something that's favorable, they're going to be with them. But when they do things that's not going to help their state, they're going to stand up and try to represent the people of those states. That's the real power that those Democrats in the red states are talking about. They have the right ...

BERMAN: I want to play you - you talked about the President and how he could be divisive for some Republican candidates. I want to play you something he said. I think he was in Indiana here. Important here, it was another one of these states, these red states that he's been campaigning in. So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's no surprise that ...

[08:30:10]