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Beto O'Rourke Throws Hat into 2020 Race; Massive 'Bomb Cyclone' Winter Storm Hits Midwest; Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), Ohio, is Interviewed about Democratic Presidential Primary Contest. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired March 14, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[07:00:18] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. Huge breaking news in the 2020 race.

Just a few minutes ago, former Texas Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke announced he is running for president. He released a campaign kickoff video. We'll show you some of that in just a moment.

This was a highly anticipated moment, partly because O'Rourke electrified national grassroots support and broke fundraising records in his race for Senate in Texas. But he lost that race.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: O'Rourke arrived in Iowa overnight for a three-day campaign kickoff. He is also on the cover of "Vanity Fair" this morning, complete with a photo shoot by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.

O'Rourke tells the magazine, quote, "Man, I'm just born to be in it."

Also breaking this morning, this monster bomb cyclone as it's called in Colorado. It has turned deadly. It is bringing hurricane-force winds and whiteout conditions to the state, leaving more than 1,000 drivers stranded. Hundreds are still waiting for help as we speak.

So we'll have more on the storm in a moment, but let's begin with CNN's Leyla Santiago. She's live in Iowa where Beto O'Rourke will campaign today. What's the situation, Leyla?

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, really not too big of a surprise. Right? Over the last four months, he's sort of been hinting at this. He initially said, "No, I'm not considering a presidential run," and then he said, "OK, I'm thinking about it," sort of teasing along the way, telling Oprah he'd have a decision by the end of the month. And then this morning this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Amy and I are happy to share with you that I'm running to serve you as the next president of the United States of America. This is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us. The challenges that we face right now, the interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy, and our climate have never been greater. And they will either consume us or they will afford us the greatest opportunity to unleash the genius of the United States of America.

In other words, this moment of peril produces, perhaps, the greatest moment of promise for this country and for everyone inside of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANTIAGO: So what should we expect now that this announcement has been made? Well, there's a three-day trip here in Iowa. We are in Keokuk, the southeastern part of -- of the state, in which he's expected to talk to a crowd today.

Talking to his staff, they've sort of hinted at the fact that they are targeting areas where President Obama won and then President Trump won, as he joins this really crowded field of Democrats vying for that nomination and that seat in the White House.

I had a chance to talk to him yesterday. And I asked him, I said, "Look, you have often said you want to run for something, not against something. But if you ask Democrats out there, the majority of them will tell you that they are running against something. They want to see President Trump out of the White House."

So can he do that with the approach he took in the Senate race, in which he lost against Ted Cruz, but he managed to raise $80 million, had a very narrow loss, just three points there.

And he says, yes, he plans to take kind of that same grassroots approach. And he believes that what he did in Texas will energize young voters and get him a win, get him into the White House.

So let's talk issues. He has certainly talked a lot about immigration. He's talked about ending the prohibition on marijuana, the criminal justice system. Those are the e-mails he's been sending out.

But yesterday when I asked him about the issues, and this is a quote, he said the most pressing, the most urgent, the most exponential challenge, he says that was climate.

BERMAN: All right. Leyla Santiago for us in Iowa there. I expect we will see Beto O'Rourke very shortly. I don't think he'll wait too long to make some new pictures today. Thank you, Leyla.

Joining us now, Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary. Nia-Malika Henderson is CNN senior political reporter, who is involved in the entire Beto O'Rourke saga. We'll get to that in just a little bit.

CAMEROTA: Intriguing.

BERMAN: Jonathan Martin, national political correspondent for "The New York Times"; and Rachael Bade, congressional reporter for "The Washington Post."

I want to put up on the screen the latest poll numbers from Iowa, where Beto O'Rourke is, to show where he is. He's at 5 percent, in fifth place right now, Joe Lockhart, and that's down from where he is in December. So why, then, do Democrats seem to care so much? Why is there so much buzz about this guy at 5 percent in Iowa?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I wouldn't put too much stock in the 5 percent. Looking at the Iowa numbers, there seems to be a penalty for not getting in. Biden's numbers have dropped over the last couple of months. Beto's have.

I think there's a -- there's a mythology that's built up around Beto O'Rourke and a mythology about people taking on tough races. Texas.

[06:05:05] The biggest stars of the Democratic Party from the midterms were three people who lost. Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, Beto O'Rourke, because they exceeded expectations. They showed that Democrats can compete in Republican areas. So I think he's got that going for him.

I would expect the next time you see an Iowa poll, you'll see his see his numbers go up. The question is, you know, in the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire, will -- does celebrity help or hurt? There's a -- there's a lot of examples of people who have gone in with a lot of fanfare and, you know, walked out with their tail between their legs.

So I think, you know, the second -- the last point I'll make is I think this is a really interesting dynamic now with Joe Biden, who also has a different kind of celebrity, because they are -- they do represent the middle. And from a generational point of view, it's very -- it's a very powerful thing for Beto O'Rourke to say, you know, "I agree with Joe Biden, but I'm 30 years younger and, you know, more -- could do all of these things."

So I think it's going to be really interesting shaking out over the next couple of months. And I would suspect by the summer, if we look at the Iowa numbers, we're going to have a much better idea of, you know, sort of what the contours of the race are.

CAMEROTA: Rachael, it was so interesting. We had Harry Enten on last hour, where he showed us the continuum of where all of the candidates are ideologically on the spectrum. And Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke are right next to each other as most moderate.

So does this announcement by O'Rourke today change Joe Biden's calculus?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Perhaps. I mean, Joe Biden is clearly not there. His top officials say he's 95 percent in. But obviously, his heart is still in those last 5 percent, so he has not jumped in yet.

The interesting thing about Beto is that he's able to sort of bring up all this energy and really excite people, even on the far left, even though he doesn't endorse a lot of those liberal policies that we're seeing a lot of these candidates right now who are out in the race endorse.

When he was running for Senate, he didn't endorse Medicare for all. He didn't call for free college. Yes, he's talking about the environment right now, but if you look at the spectrum, you're right, he is more a centrist candidate or more moderate Democrat, even though he personally shuns those labels and hates to be called that, apparently.

But yes, he and Joe Biden, should Biden jump in, they're going to be competing for this sort of centrist lane. And right now we're seeing a lot of energy on the far left.

And Beto is interesting, because he's one of those people who can really get people rallied and excited about him, even though he's not endorsing those policies that we're seeing everybody else endorse right now.

BERMAN: Eighty million dollars in his Texas Senate race. That is a pile of cash right there.

All right. Nia-Malika Henderson, were going to bring you into this story right now. In this "Vanity Fair" piece -- and again, we'll put the cover up just so people see it. It's not everybody who gets this kind of treatment from "Vanity Fair".

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BERMAN: The Annie Leibovitz photo on the cover there, the long profile timed exactly for the announcement. Inside this profile, there's a quote from Amy O'Rourke, Beto O'Rourke's wife: "Amy bristled at a CNN essay that chastised him for taking an 'excellent adventure' while leaving his wife and kids at home." Amy O'Rourke said, "I was a little insulted, because it implied that I couldn't support our family."

You were the author --

HENDERSON: Yes.

BERMAN: -- of said CNN essay. And the larger point here was -- and it gets to Beto O'Rourke's celebrity and position here -- that he is treated differently than other candidates and, specifically, perhaps, different than other female candidates?

HENDERSON: Yes, that's right. I mean, I was a little disappointed to see that the author apparently didn't quite read my original essay there, and then Beto O'Rourke's wife then had an odd interpretation of it, as well.

The point of that piece was to talk about the ways in which Beto O'Rourke benefitted from white privilege. The idea that he could go off on this excellent adventure. I think he only felt emboldened and free enough to do that because he was white and because he was male, and because his wife could, in fact, stay home and look after the kids, as she said there. She could support the kids. And so that was what that piece was about.

There couldn't be, I don't think, a female candidate or an African- American candidate who could do that kind of exercise and get so much praise for it.

He was talking about, in these blog posts, that he was in a funk; and he didn't have a job at the point. And at that point, I think a lot of actual workers were out of jobs, because it was during a government shutdown. So that sort of, I think, freedom that he could feel, really, I think, had a lot to do with the fact that he is white and male.

You had Joe Lockhart there say that the real stars of 2018 were folks like Andrew Gillum, folks like Stacey Abrams. But I haven't seen Stacey Abrams on the cover of "Vanity Fair." I haven't seen her get the kind of treatment that -- that Beto O'Rourke has gotten so far. And I think that has a lot do with race and gender.

And it's something, I think, that Beto O'Rourke is going to have to grapple with, the idea of how is it that someone who did raise $80 million lost against Ted Cruz? How is it that all of the sudden, he thinks he's qualified or has enough accomplishments to be president? I don't think he would get the same sort of confidence and sort of embrace for a woman or an African-American or minority candidate.

CAMEROTA: J. Mart, your thoughts?

JONATHAN MARTIN, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Let me offer some reporting. We have a story out this morning about Beto's announcement. And one of the key questions, guys, that I'm wondering is can he scale up from his Senate campaign?

What was so striking about the lead-up to this announcement is that it was kind of a DIY job. Beto is his own manager, his own spokesman in a lot of ways. That's what happened last year during the campaign. And it was certainly the case this year.

He was personally calling a lot of would-be campaign staffers, asking them to work on his campaign. He got lots of encouragement, but lots of folks said no. They didn't want to move to El Paso. They didn't want to uproot their lives.

And part of the reason why this took so long is because he was trying to get folks to work for him and was trying to put together the organization to actually go forward. As of last weekend, he still didn't have a campaign manager. And it's not clear this morning who his campaign manager is going to be.

We have in our story, guys, that last weekend at the big festival in Austin, South by Southwest, he actually had an hour and a half meeting with Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who's a very well-regarded Democratic strategist here in Washington, about running his campaign.

It just really shows the kind of improvisational nature of this candidate, somebody who did it his way last year in the Senate race: no pollster, no ad guru, Facebook everything. Well, he's starting off this campaign for president in very similar fashion. Seat of pants, doing it his way, heavily digital, no gurus.

Does that matter? Donald Trump kind of proved in '16 it didn't matter as much as it used to. But do those same rules apply in the Dem primary? That's what we're doing to find out.

BERMAN: It's really interesting. Really interesting reporting there, perhaps, about how this has all gone down the last few weeks.

I do want to suggest, Nia, that Beto O'Rourke himself seemed to address some of the issues that you brought up there about his whiteness and his maleness.

In the "Vanity Fair" piece, he talked about that. He says, "I totally understand people who will make a decision based on the fact that almost every single one of our presidents has been a white man, and they won't something different for this country. I think that's a very legitimate basis upon which to make a decision."

That's pretty interesting, Joe.

LOCKHART: I think it is. And I think he -- he does seem self-aware. Nia makes a good point. I mean, why don't we do as much coverage of Stacey Abrams? True.

CAMEROTA: Well, maybe if she announced she was running for president, they would.

LOCKHART: Maybe if she announced she were -- president. She's been hinting at it.

I think the -- to me, the most compelling part about this, though, is what it does to the field. I personally believe that someone who embraces the so-called Democratic socialists will have a very difficult time beating Donald Trump. And this, I think, putting Beto in there and Biden in there, stops this race to the left.

Now all of a sudden, there's a lot of space in the middle for all of the candidates so that they don't run to the left and then find themselves unelectable in the fall.

So as a, you know, as a Democratic strategist, I think this is a very positive thing. We'll see who, you know, emerges. But we had had about a two-month run where everybody was trying to outdo themselves on, whether it be the green deal or how high can you raise taxes? I think this will provide some ballast, and that is very important once we get through this primary and caucus process.

CAMEROTA: Rachael, in terms of what J. Mart was saying, the ad-hoc nature of this, that he didn't have a staff in place, he addresses it in the "Vanity Fair" article in this way: "'I don't have a team counting delegates,' O'Rourke says, again, invoking a politics not readily accessible by reason. 'Almost no one thought there was a path in Texas, and I just knew it. I just felt it. I knew it was there, and I knew that with enough work and enough creativity and enough amazing people, if I'm able to meet them and bring them in, then we can do it. That's how I feel about this,' he says. 'It's probably not the most professional thing you've ever heard about this, but I just feel it.'"

Alex Burns sniffed last hour at the "I don't have a team counting delegates." Paul Manafort's available briefly, if he needs that.

MARTIN: Not for long.

CAMEROTA: Not for long, but I mean, remotely available.

MARTIN: Is there WiFi where he's going? I'm not sure.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, Rachael, what -- I mean, he's sort of making virtue of that he doesn't have a team in place.

BADE: Yes. We'll see how long that lasts, right?

Look, that "Vanity Fair" piece was really interesting, because he talked in very, like, mystical terms about how he would just show up to a campaign rally totally unprepared, and he would, like, feed off the crowd. And "I'm born to do this." And "Oh, it will figure itself out."

[07:15:09] Well, no. He's running against how many other Democrats in this primary? He's going to have to get up to speed, and he's going to have to have some sort of staff and some sort of structure if he wants to be successful here.

I think there's something else to watch in the next few weeks, and that is that how does the far left react to Beto and react to Biden, should he get in? I mean, as I mentioned before, people in Texas, progressives, they got behind Beto.

But right now, I can tell you from Capitol Hill, we're seeing a lot of infighting right now between the progressives and the moderates. And it's going to be interesting to see, do the far left, do the progressives go after them and hurt these new or centrist moderate candidates in such a way that it cripples them in a general election by attacking them and attacking their positions and trying to move them further left. I think that that's yet to be seen; and the infighting in the party is really going to heat up in the next few weeks.

BERMAN: I will --

MARTIN: Real fast, guys.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

MARTIN: John, if I could, I mean, there's a lot of Obama comparisons to Beto for reasons that are understandable, in terms of both their youth and their charisma and the fact that they try to allied being defied with one wing of the party or another.

It was easier for Obama to pull that off in '07 and '08, in part because the overriding issue of that election was the Iraq War. And in the eyes of the Democratic primary voters, Obama was on the right side of the Iraq War. It's a different moment now in the Democratic Party. There is a sort

of turn to the left. There is more pressure to be a kind of down-the- line progressive on a lot of issues in a way that Obama did not face those kind of litmus tests in '07 and '08. And I think it's going to be tougher for Beto to kind of pull this off in terms of, you know, dancing around the specifics of where he is on "X," "Y," and "Z" policy issue, in a way that Obama didn't really face that kind of pressure a decade ago, in a different moment.

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stand by. Nia, you're going to be back in just a second. We're going to hear much more from you.

Our other breaking story this morning is the bomb cyclone that has unleashed severe weather in a large part of the country. In Colorado alone, dangerous hurricane-force winds and whiteout conditions that made driving really close to impossible and deadly.

Hundreds of motorists were stranded in the conditions. Rescues -- we just spoke to someone from El Paso County -- still under way at this hour.

CNN's Scott McLean is live in Lone Tree, Colorado, along a closed stretch of I-25.

Scott, give us the latest.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John.

It's a pretty bizarre sight to see. I-25 is the main north/south corridor, and you can see, it is completely black down there. There are no cars moving north or south at this hour; and it's closed down for about a 30-mile stretch. It is also closed down north of the city, as well.

The priority for first responders, or even the National Guard that's been called in, is to get to these stranded motorists, some of whom have been stranded for several hours on end.

This storm was really something. It was pretty nasty. It dropped almost four feet of snow on one town in southern Colorado. In the big cities, luckily, it dropped less than a foot, but it was really the wind that caused the problem. Those driving hurricane-force wind created some really dangerous conditions in this state and beyond.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCLEAN (voice-over): A bomb cyclone stranding over a thousand drivers throughout Colorado, leading to a 100-car pileup on Interstate 25. An El Paso County spokesman telling CNN, "We are in full saving lives mode" as authorities scrambled to rescue drivers who were forced to wait for hours in the bitter cold.

Colorado State Patrol Corporal Daniel Groves was killed after being hit by a vehicle while helping a stranded driver. The state's governor declaring a state of emergency as some areas got slammed with as much as 20 inches of snow. In Colorado Springs, this park blanketed in snow in just four hours.

Firefighters even having to dig out police vehicles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We drove here from Breckenridge to the Denver Airport, and it was horrible. There were roads closed and all kinds -- I'm surprised we got here.

MCLEAN: Low visibility and snow-covered runways causing major delays and thousands of cancellations at Colorado's airports.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sat on the tarmac for about three hours, little over three hours. It was pretty difficult, pretty difficult, and the condition's even been getting worse.

MCLEAN: Weather watches, warnings and advisories spanning around 1.5 million square miles across the central U.S., stretching from Canada to the Mexican border.

The ferocious storm system unleashing winds up to 100 miles per hour, on par with a Category 2 hurricane.

In Texas, gusts tearing apart these mobile homes near Dallas, knocking semitrucks over onto their side, and flipping small airplanes like this one upside-down. The wind also contributing to this 26-car train derailment in New Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[07:20:06] MCLEAN: And John, in El Paso County alone, where you had those 1,100 or so stranded drivers, there are still 250 open calls at last word. Some of them are for people with medical conditions.

As for good news, most of the people who lost power yesterday have it back, though there are still about 75,000 people, mostly in the Denver area, who don't have it.

The airport, it is also getting up and running. Most runways are now open, although there are still a lot of cancellations. There should be more and more flights getting out as the day goes on and as this storm starts to move east -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. The people are still stranded. I mean, those open calls, as you say.

Scott, thank you very much for the update from there.

All right. He's a Democrat in the Senate who is not running for president.

BERMAN: No way. There isn't one.

CAMEROTA: There is one. Yes, there is. And Sherrod Brown is going to tell us why he got out of the race and what he's telling the other candidates.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAMEROTA: Breaking news this morning, the 2020 race is getting even more crowded as former congressman Beto O'Rourke officially jumps in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'ROURKE: Amy and I are happy to share with you that I'm happy to serve you as the next president of the United States of America. This is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:25:07] CAMEROTA: All right. Joining us now to talk about this and so much more, we have Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.

Good morning, Senator.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: Good morning, Alisyn. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: I want to get your reaction to Beto O'Rourke's announcement that he's running for president.

BROWN: I have no reaction. I -- just one more, one more, one more gets in the race. Bring him in; it will be an interesting primary fight.

My goal is to do what I've done all along, and that is talk about the dignity of work and encourage my colleagues. I hope that every candidate does what a number have started to do, and that is make the narrative of the Democratic Party talking to workers, the betrayal of this president, the betrayal of workers by this president, the phony populism by this president.

And I'll continue to talk about honoring and respecting work. It's how you win elections. It's who I am. It's how you win elections. It's also how you govern come January 20, 2021.

CAMEROTA: Senator, is Beto O'Rourke just one more getting in? I mean, he's on the cover of "Vanity Fair" today. He's done -- he's gangbusters in terms of fundraising. Is he in a different category?

BROWN: We'll see. We'll see. I don't put any -- any colleague in a different category. I think there are very bright people running from all across the political spectrum.

My goal, my mission is, it's been since November, was to inform this race and influence this race, continue to fight for a Democratic Senate here, continue to fight for a Democrat against President Trump, and point out his betrayal of American workers starting in Lordstown, Ohio, when he turned his back on those 5,000 workers laid off; to his phony populism. Because populism is never racist. It's never anti- Semitic. It doesn't cut taxes on rich people and then cut Medicare and Head Start.

So I'll keep pointing that out. Let the primaries play out the way they can, the way they will. I want to win the Senate. I want to help the Democrats win the Senate. I want to help the Democrats win the White House.

CAMEROTA: In terms of informing the race, which is what you said is your goal, I understand that you've heard from many of the candidates. What are those conversations like? What are you telling them?

BROWN: Yes, I've had -- since the election, since election November of 2018, when we rolled out our big new work ideas and something I've worked on for years. And when I went to the forum -- my wife Connie and I went to New Hampshire and Iowa and Nevada and South Carolina, got a good reception on that issue. I don't think there's any issue that has taken hold the way that the discussion of honoring and respecting work, if you love your country, you fight for the people who make it work, regardless of race, regardless of gender.

That's catching on, not only among the four states, and demanding that we talk about that from voters. I am hearing many of my colleagues already using that term. I'm hearing a Republican here and there use that term. They use it slightly differently.

But if this -- if Democrats begin to talk more about work, about honoring and respecting work, about the dignity of work, about restoring dignity to the White House, you're going to see, I predict, January 20, 2021, that whoever raises her hand or his hand will talk about the dignity of work in that inaugural speech. It will be a Democrat.

CAMEROTA: Does watching all of these people get in one after another to the race make you rethink your decision or regret your decision?

BROWN: No. No, neither. I made a decision based on personal issues. I've never had -- unlike most of the people in this race, it's clear from their comments that they've wanted to be president of the United States for five years, ten years. Many of them ran for the Senate in order to run for president. I didn't have that life-long desire.

And so in the end, I wanted -- I want to stay in the Senate. I want to work -- Trump's budget right now, he cuts funding, almost eliminates funding to clean up the Great Lakes. I need to be in that arena, fighting there. But I'm also going to be involved in the presidential, talking to candidates, making -- doing listening sessions on the dignity of work, likely. And certainly, in Ohio and maybe beyond.

CAMEROTA: OK. So let's talk about your arena, the Senate. Today the Senate is going to vote, it sounds like, to block President Trump's emergency declaration for the border wall. Here are the GOP senators that have said that they're going vote with the Democrats. It's Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, Mike Lee.

Do you know of any others planning to block the president's declaration?

BROWN: Unfortunately -- probably, but unfortunately, what I hear from Republican senators for the last two years, really, since Trump ran, in the cloakroom or in the Senate floor and in my office or in a committee room, what they say and how they publicly cast their votes have been two different things.

I mean, there's -- there's -- doesn't seem to be a lot of backbone in a lot of my colleagues to step up when the president utters racist statements, when the president betrays workers, when the president just simply lies time after time after time, when the president exhibits his phony populism. And then betrays workers. I mean, the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives.

A lot of my Republican colleagues are bothered by that. They just don't vote that way.