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GOP Shows No Signs of Course Correction; Trump, Schumer and Pelosi Meet; President Bush Loved to Skydive. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 03, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:03] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a blue wave helped Democrats gain 39 seats in the House during the midterms. Dems got at least 8.9 million more votes than Republicans, largest margin ever in a midterm election. So are Republicans now rushing to figure out what went wrong? That story is detailed in "The New York Time" this morning. We are joined by the reporter behind that piece, national political correspondent for "The New York Times," Jonathan Martin, as well as national correspondent for "Bloomberg Businessweek" Josh Green.

Great to see you guys in Washington, D.C.

JONATHAN MARTIN, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Thanks for having us.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We came just for you guys.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We decided to just really see if you guys are real.

BERMAN: As charming in person.

CAMEROTA: Real.

BERMAN: Close.

CAMEROTA: So, let's talk about your reporting. Is there some sort of soul searching, some sort of self-reflection, course correction that the Republicans are planning?

MARTIN: I think they're going to do some kind of formal assessment as to what happened. But this is a striking difference from past campaigns. You know, in 2006, Republicans lost the House and Senate. Hastert, the following days, said he was not going to try to stay as leader of the party. There was all kinds of discussion about Bush and the war and Ebramoff (ph) and earmarks. 2012, they lose the White House for a second time in consecutive elections. There's the autopsy about where the party went wrong.

The sound of silence is so loud this time one month after the election where they lost 40 seats. And I think a big part of it is because of the obvious challenge, which is President Trump's unpopularity, is something that they can't fully address because their own base is still so loyal to the president and because a lot of the folks in the House GOP caucus, who are coming back next year, also like the president quite a bit. So it's a bit of a challenge when you can't address the biggest challenge in your way.

BERMAN: Yes, when the elephant in the room, literally, figuratively, metaphorically is the president himself.

MARTIN: Right.

BERMAN: Which is the reason why some of the people were re-elected. Some of the people there were there because of the president. But more of them were sent home because of him.

MARTIN: And here's why it matters going forward. Two issues, recruitments and retirements. You're going to see more of these lawmakers who are sick of being around Washington in the Trump era head for the exits in 2020. And also in terms of recruitment, getting candidates to run next time in '20, is going to be harder if the president is again on top of the ticket because they're going to say, well, we're going to have the same challenge we had in 2018 in the suburbs. Why should I run?

And keep in mind, the first folks they go to, to run, are those who just lost, to run for their previous seats. And that's going to be a challenge because they experienced just now what happened.

BERMAN: And the president's been mocking some of them.

Josh Green, though, I can see the flipside of this, though, which is the last time the Republicans lost after 2012, there was the autopsy.

JOSHUA GREEN, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK": Right.

BERMAN: And the autopsy, what did it tell them?

GREEN: Yes.

BERMAN: It told them to be more diverse.

GREEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Younger and hipper. You know, get an immigration policy.

GREEN: Right.

BERMAN: And they did exactly the opposite and won the White House.

GREEN: That's right. No, the autopsy, led by Reince Priebus, famously said, you know, if we don't pass immigration reform, we are going to lose -- we are going to lose this party for a generation. And that was the one clear policy and push. Of course, Republicans did precisely the opposite, won control of the House, the Senate and the White House and wound up with President Trump.

So I think there's a certain sense of fatalism maybe among the Republicans who remain. On the one hand, they don't want to get smacked around by President Trump for criticizing him. On the other hand, they've produced these autopsies in the past and they've been ignored.

CAMEROTA: But, Josh, weren't you also saying -- sorry, J. Mart --

MARTIN: Please.

CAMEROTA: That the post-election paralysis that Jonathan Martin writes about is also that their caucus has changed and their caucus has changed to be less diverse.

MARTIN: Yes.

GREEN: Exactly. The House caucus in particular, the Republican House Caucus, looks more like President Trump than it did before.

MARTIN: Yes.

GREEN: There are fewer moderates. What few minorities there were, there are now fewer of them. And, of course, women. There are only 13 women left in the caucus. By and large, the Republicans, who will remain in January, are older, whiter, conservative. They look just like Donald Trump. I think when they look in the mirror, they don't say to themselves, hey, we've got a big problem here, but maybe they should

MARTIN: And the question is how -- right, and the question is, how badly do they want to retain or retake power, right?

GREEN: Yes.

MARTIN: Because if they don't want to stay with that status, they can keep a decent amount of members, given how the country is divided. But that would mean staying in the minority for years to come.

Look, guys, I think we're on a track now where basically the country is in a place where you can see a scenario where the Democrats have a long-term grip on the House but don't take control of the Senate because of how the country is split. And I think that's part of the reason why there was this kind of, you know, denialism, frankly, is because the Republicans gained seats this year in the Senate. Think about '06. Both chambers flipped. This time Republicans gained four seats, netted two in the Senate. So it -- I think it's harder to kind of (INAUDIBLE).

GREEN: You know, there's one other factor here I think is worth mentioning, especially when you compare it to these historical times when Republicans and Democrats have had big losses in the past. It's not clear to me that reality, political reality, the fact that this was a big loss, has kind of permeated the Republican bubble. Like not only do you have Fox News not acknowledging bad news pretty much ever for Republicans.

[08:35:10] MARTIN: The president himself.

GREEN: You've got the president -- but you also have foreign leaders. I mean the thing that struck me was Japanese President Shinzo Abe, when he arrived at the G-20 Summit in Argentina, congratulated Trump on his great midterm election victory, which is, you know, like living in "Alice in Wonderland's" upside down world. I mean in -- for a lot of these Republicans, reality has not permeated. There's no real need to change course.

BERMAN: There was someone on Twitter, and I can't remember who it was, but said, either Prime Minister Abe got really bad advance work on the election or really good advance work on Trump in flattering.

MARTIN: Or he was trolling, which would be -- would be the greatest.

GREEN: The third option.

MARTIN: But it wasn't just this cycle. They have a House problem because of how the House map is laid out, obviously by population. They've lost 46 seats in the last two cycles. They lost six seats even when Trump won in six (INAUDIBLE). So, to your point, yes, the autopsy was discarded because -- and Trump won despite of that, but the House trajectory has not changed.

GREEN: That's right.

MARTIN: It's only gotten worse because the House, obviously, incorporates population and the country is getting more diverse and, obviously, more heavily suburban.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what's going to happen this week.

So President Trump is going to meet with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. What's going to happen here?

GREEN: Wish I knew.

Look, you know, there's -- we had a little bit of a history of Trump meeting with Schumer and Pelosi and there --

CAMEROTA: And it's mixed.

GREEN: And it's mixed. Well, initially, you know, there will be some agreements, there's some good feelings, and then pretty much --

CAMEROTA: It blows up.

GREEN: After that, Trump will back down and start blaming them for things. I mean I think the fact that the issue of border wall funding is hanging over the government, is forefront in Trump's mind, is going to make it difficult for there to be good feelings coming out of this meeting because Democrats have been adamant they are not going to -- they are not going to hand over the $5 billion for the border wall that Trump and Republicans are demanding. And Trump hasn't shown any sign that he's willing to back off that number.

MARTIN: Yes. Look, I think it's hard to predict the Trump/Pelosi/Schumer negotiations. It depends where Trump's head is on a given day. I do, though, think it's going to be harder for Trump to get rolled by

his own staff and by congressional leaders in his own party on Capitol Hill. I just think he is now much more confident than he was when he first started in this job. And I think it's going to be tough to convince him that a shutdown is somehow going to be bad politically for his party. I don't think he much cares for --

CAMEROTA: Yes, except that, I mean, the only problem is that a -- he's going to shut down the government over a broken campaign promise. Remember how Mexico was going to pay for the border wall? So he -- that is a broken campaign promise and he's going to shut down the U.S. government over that?

MARTIN: That's not how he views it. So I think there is that. But, look, I think it's hard to guess what's going to come out of this.

I do, though, think that if the two parties weren't in an attractable place, which they are now, I think Trump could actually do work with Schumer and Pelosi.

BERMAN: Absolutely.

MARTIN: Because Trump, obviously, is flexible ideologically and he just wants to notch victories. And if he saw that opportunity with him, I think that could be real. But I think we're probably past that point now politically, don't you?

BERMAN: I -- one -- you always get a sense he was more comfortable talking to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi than Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell behind closed doors.

MARTIN: That's his history. Yes.

GREEN: Yes.

BERMAN: These are -- these are the people he's dealt with in the past.

MARTIN: He was a donor.

BERMAN: Will a shutdown hurt him, Josh?

GREEN: You know, I think over the long term, yes, it would. But in the short term, no, I don't think it would. I mean in speaking to strategists in both parties, I mean there is a sentiment with Republicans and Democrats that that shutdown short term could be good for both sides. For Trump it would fire up his base and get them excited. For Democrats it would give them a cause as they head into this new Democratic majority. But eventually the government's got to open. You know, it's hard to see at this point what the parameters of a deal would be. Would it be more wall funding in order for, you know, amnesty for the DACA kids, something like that? You know, a year ago, year and a half ago, you could envision a deal like that. Now, I don't know if you can.

MARTIN: I think it's tougher now to envision that.

GREEN: Yes. Yes.

MARTIN: There's just (INAUDIBLE).

GREEN: Much tougher, yes.

BERMAN: This is your December, folks, pay attention to this, because it will get pushed off for a week or two but this come to a head thanks to --

MARTIN: A December to remember.

BERMAN: December to remember.

MARTIN: To borrow a phrase.

BERMAN: (INAUDIBLE).

All right, Jonathan, Josh, really appreciate it.

Weeks after wildfires devastated their town, a major milestone today, the big step to get Paradise, California, back to normal. That's next.

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[08:43:15] CAMEROTA: Hundreds of messages sent by murdered "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi may shed light into his gruesome killing. CNN has exclusively obtained ten months of What's App messages that Khashoggi sent to a fellow activist in exile the year before his murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. In them Khashoggi describes the Saudi crown prince as, quote, a beast who would devour all in his path. The messages also lay out plans to form and fund a youth movement back in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, "The Wall Street Journal" reports that the CIA has evidence the crown prince reportedly communicated with a key aide around the time that hit team was believed to have been under the aide's command and they murdered Khashoggi.

BERMAN: The U.S.-led coalition batting ISIS in Syria confirming it has killed a senior ISIS leader. That ISIS figure was involved in the killing of American Peter Kassig, a former U.S. Army Ranger and American aid worker beheaded by ISIS in 2014.

CAMEROTA: For the first time in three weeks, thousands of students in wildfire-ravaged northern California will head back to school today. The hard-hit city of Paradise and surrounding districts in Butte County resumed classes today. The historic wildfires destroyed most of the buildings in Paradise. Classes for the rest of the year are being held in other schools and buildings. The deadliest wildfire in California history has killed 88 people.

I mean it's about time that those kids are able to go back to school. You know, we talked to Eli, you'll remember --

BERMAN: I know. I know.

CAMEROTA: Our favorite boy who has been displaced. And they just haven't been in school for weeks.

BERMAN: No. How do you go to school when you have nowhere to live, you know, when you need a roof, when you have no clothes, when you have no belongings?

CAMEROTA: And you have no school. Yes.

[08:44:55] BERMAN: All right, so what was it like to jump out of a plane with a former president? Our next guest jumped with President Bush three times. Up next, he'll tell us about their meaningful friendship.

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CAMEROTA: President George H.W. Bush made a habit of marking major birthdays by jumping out of planes. Oh, God. OK, on three separate occasions, including his 85th and 90th birthdays, President Bush jumped with that man attached to him that you just saw, Sergeant First Class Mike Elliott. He's a former member of the Army's Golden Knights Parachute Team and president of the All-Veteran Group.

And Sergeant Elliott joins us now.

Good morning, sergeant.

MIKE ELLIOTT, SERGEANT 1ST CLASS (RET.): Good morning, Alisyn. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm great.

What were those moments like to jump out of a plane with President Bush?

ELLIOTT: Well, surely, it was the highlight of my life. Quite an amazing task. A task that makes you a bit nervous when you have a former president strapped to you at 12,000 feet, with every news station in the world watching you as you exit and land, but, you know, an honor that I will never forget.

[08:50:14] CAMEROTA: That is some added pressure, having a former president whose life you are in charge of for that fall right there.

Was President Bush ever nervous before he jumped out? Any trepidation?

ELLIOTT: You know, after his 90th birthday jump, he did an interview and he said on his jump he was a little nervous, but, you know, he was confident that he was in safe hands and, you know, that made me feel really good.

CAMEROTA: Why did he do this?

ELLIOTT: You know, I think he's a man that lived a full life. And, you know, he was shot down in World War II and he felt like he didn't exit the aircraft exactly right, so he wanted to jump again to make sure he did it right. He's a perfectionist. And I think that's why he made this opportunity to jump on every birthday and that's what he did. CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Look at this video of you guys, just suspended

there in midair. What did he say to you about these jumps? I mean how did he feel after you did it successfully?

ELLIOTT: You know, the first time that I had this opportunity down in College Station, Texas, for the rededication of his library, and right after the jump he said, you know, just because you're 80 years old doesn't mean you have to sit in a corner and slobber on yourself. I mean he definitely sent a message out to all mature people that you can still live your life. Age is not going to stop you from doing some of the great things you wanted to do. And after his 85th birthday jump, he said, thank you for making me feel like a young man again. I mean what greatest thing that you could ever hear from a former president.

CAMEROTA: That is really nice. I mean you helped him turn back time.

And so he jumped for his 85th birthday. He jumped for his 90th. He passed away at 94. Do you think that he wanted to jump for his 95th birthday, if he had had that chance?

ELLIOTT: Oh, absolutely. He had said it numerous times. I remember there was a small interview after his 90th birthday jump with 43 and Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Bush said he's going to do it again on his 95th. So, you know, we're definitely going to go up and do a jump for him on his birthday, on his 95th, because that was his dream. And if he was here, he would have found a way to make that happen.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, that's such a nice tradition that you guys will carry on for him.

Speaking of Mrs. Bush, the first lady, what did she think about this practice of his?

ELLIOTT: You know, it's funny. The first time I met Mrs. Bush was down in College Station, Texas. And I can recall the day just like it was yesterday. And she walked up to me and she said, if you hurt him, I will kill you. And I think she would have killed me.

CAMEROTA: She really put a fine point on it there for you. You understood the --

ELLIOTT: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: You understood it was precious cargo that you had there.

ELLIOTT: That's right.

CAMEROTA: So I understand that he wrote you letters afterwards. Can you share some of those?

ELLIOTT: You know, he has written me four letters and in each one of those letters he refers to me as a friend. I think one of his statements, to say that we had a close relationship would be an understatement. And, you know, when you read these letters from a former president and he's saying all these great things about making him feel good, making him feel young and having a confidence in me -- and not only me, the entire military and the U.S. Army Golden Knights because it took all of us to make this happen. But it makes you feel really good from a little boy in North Carolina to have this opportunity to have such great precious cargo, this superman that I call him. So absolutely amazing.

CAMEROTA: So, sergeant, last, was there a message for others in his doing this? I mean I know he clearly -- he liked it. And, as you say, he felt that he was sort of resolving, I guess, some unresolved desire to do it perfectly. But was there a message to the rest of us that this 85 and 90-year-old was jumping out of a plane?

ELLIOTT: I think his message would be, continue to live your life, continue to create American values and do what you love most to do. And I think flying airplanes and jumping out of airplanes is something he loved to do. And nothing stopped him from doing that.

CAMEROTA: Well, Sergeant Mike Elliott, he was clearly in good hands, as his family believed, with you. Thanks so much for sharing your experience with him with us.

ELLIOTT: Thank you. Have a great day.

CAMEROTA: You too.

"The Good Stuff" is next.

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[08:58:38] BERMAN: It is time now for "The Good Stuff."

A Michigan man literally lighting up the holidays for America's heroes. Dustin Ergang started hanging up Christmas lights for veterans, active military personnel and first responders, ten years ago. He said he was inspired by his great grandfather who served in two wars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUSTIN ERGANG, A1 LIGHTS ON WITH CARE: He's passed on four years ago. And I just kind of keeps me in remembrance of him. This is his favorite time of year so --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Dustin says nothing beats lifting the spirits of people who gave back so much to our country. Good for him.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, that is wonderful.

All right, President Bush's love of socks was well documented. And as his casket is flown here to Washington, it gets ready to leave Houston this morning, his spokesman released the picture of the socks that Mr. Bush will be wearing. Oh, look, they paying tribute to his lifetime of service that started as an 18-year-old when he volunteered on his birthday to go into the Navy. BERMAN: And the socks were something that really developed later in

life (INAUDIBLE). As he was in a wheelchair when people could see his socks, he wanted to put a smile on people's face so he'd always wear something colorful. There's a picture with President Clinton from over the summer where President Clinton was visiting him and Bush was wearing Clinton socks and the two were posing. But that was just so wonderful.

CAMEROTA: All right, well, CNN's coverage of President Bush's life and legacy will continue right now.

[09:00:05] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Jim Sciutto. Poppy is off today.