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American to Re-elect Trump; Biden Frontrunner in New Poll; Breastfeeding Mother Detained by ICE. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 20, 2019 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Do I think I'm going to win? Yes. Do I think I have more enthusiasm now than I had before this, you know, the 2016 election? Yes. I think we -- I think you people do too. And some of you have reported it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, that's President Trump on Sunday talking up his re-election chances. Our next guest has a new article in "Rolling Stone" magazine titled "Trump 2020: Be Very Afraid," where he argues that this country may be poised to re-elect the president.

Joining us now is Matt Taibbi. He's a senior writer for "Rolling Stone."

And this is the part of the interview where we read you back the stuff that you wrote because the prose is so colorful I think people need to hear it.

Donald Trump doesn't visit middle America, he descends upon it. His rallies are awesome spectacles. Gawkers come down from the hills. If NASA traveled the country holding showings of the first captured alien life-form, the turnout would be similar. The pope driving monster trucks might get this much attention.

So what's -- other than being brilliant writing, what's the significance of that to you?

MATT TAIBBI, SENIOR WRITER, "ROLLING STONE": It's like -- it's exactly what Trump just said. You know, I think at the -- I covered Trump from the very beginning of his last campaign. And when he started, reporters forget this, he was really struggling to get over 50 percent approval with his own Republican voters. Now he's starting off in a place that's completely different from the last campaign. He dominates Republican voters and his events are incredible spectacles. I mean people just come from the entire region, miles around, and it's -- you know, the enthusiasm level, it was big at the big of his campaign last year but it's bigger now on his side (ph).

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm so glad you're pointing this out because I think that many of our viewers have never been to a Trump rally. Some have, but most haven't. And I don't think that they quite understand the rock star greeting that he gets. And you need to know the rock star greeting that he gets because otherwise you are ill- prepared for what might happen in 2020.

And so, you've been there. And so just describe this because he likes to talk about it, but sometimes, you know, the video shows some seats not filled. But in your experience, they line up around the block for hours.

TAIBBI: Oh, yes. In Cincinnati I was at a -- you know, at the -- at the U.S. Banks Center and the line was seven, eight blocks long and it was curling around. I mean it -- and they had to turn away 3,000 or 4,000 people because they didn't have enough seats, so --

CAMEROTA: And what is it? What is the magic that he doles out?

TAIBBI: Well, it's a lot of things. I mean Trump is appealing on a lot of levels that we don't write about. I mean race is obviously part of it. But class is another thing that's a huge thing. I mean and Trump is -- you know, he doesn't get credit in a lot of ways for being a very canny politician. He runs against -- he runs against people very well. He runs -- last time he ran against the Republican establishment first with Jeb Bush and that was kind of an easy context. Then he took on Hillary Clinton and the -- Wall Street and the military and lots of other sort of bug bearers (ph). Now, you know, the media is a big part of it. He appeals to a certain kind of people in middle America and he -- he -- to them he's their champion. And, you know, the -- people on the coast and in New York, in Washington and L.A., they're the enemy and they -- they're cheering for him.

BERMAN: What do Democrats who are trying to beat him need to know? How do you beat a phenomena then like the Donald Trump you're talking about here? What do they need to do and what are they doing wrong right now?

TAIBBI: Well, I think one thing is you have to recognize this -- this -- where his votes are coming from and try not to fall for -- I mean the last time I made the mistake that all the reporters did. We all looked at the polls and we said, oh, it's impossible that he could win because his unfavorability ratings are too high. And what we didn't realize is that Trump actually ended up doing very well with voters who disapproved of both candidates. And so he's -- he's not just running to get attention for himself, he's also running against other candidates. And if they're doing poorly, if they're -- if people don't approve of the other side, he tends to win that battle among voters who don't like either really -- either candidate.

And so the first is recognizing that, you know, the extent of his popularity, you know, in small town rural America. You know, if you go outside cities in this country, you will not find Democratic signs you know, during an election. It's wall-to-wall Trump in most places. So, you know, not paying attention to that I think is a big problem.

CAMEROTA: You also make the point that everybody who says, well, look at his approval ratings, they're in the 30s. Sometimes they get to 40, or 41 or 42. You can't win with that.

Oh, yes, you can. TAIBBI: Yes, he won with 38 percent approval rating last time. And, again, that had to do with the fact that, you know, according to some exit polls, something like 18 percent of the country disapproved of both candidates. And among those voters, Trump did extremely well. So people who actually disapproved of Trump were one of his biggest constituencies. And so this is -- this is an important factor in understanding modern elections because there's so much ambivalence and disdain for politics in general out there right now that it's kind of a -- their -- the lesser evil-ism factor is much higher than it ever was before.

BERMAN: I will note, one of the numbers we have seen in the last week talks about -- talked to voters who disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And among those who disapprove of everybody, Biden actually trounced Trump this time.

[08:35:09] Will that stick? Who knows. It might be that people now know the president better than they did before.

What are the risks for him as you look forward?

TAIBBI: For Trump?

BERMAN: Yes.

TAIBBI: Well, clearly the -- if you look at the history of his approval rating, his biggest dips have come after his sort of racial flaps, you know, after Charlottesville, after this recent situation with, you know, the go back quote. He has had trouble bouncing back from those instances. The (INAUDIBLE) Khan incident during August of 2016 which prompted him to go on this crazy tour, racial reconciliation tour, which I covered where he went around talking about how he was going to help African-American communities that, you know, nobody actually believed it but it was -- helped with Republican voters.

I think he's very vulnerable on that -- on that score and his tweets tend to get him in trouble. Even his own voters talk about how they wish he tweeted less.

BERMAN: Matt Taibbi, the article is terrific. Everyone should go read it in its print form in "Rolling Stone."

Thanks so much for being with us.

TAIBBI: Thank you for having me on.

CAMEROTA: Good to have you.

All right, Joe Biden is still the third Democratic frontrunner in our new CNN poll, but how does he compare to past frontrunners at this point in the race? Harry Enten has been up all night looking at those numbers. He's here with the answer, next.

BERMAN: First, though, a look at the CNN film premier of "Halston," America's first big name in fashion designer. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is success fun?

HALSTON, FASHION DESIGNER: Oh, sure, it's fun and it's not fun. And as my mother says, it's the price you have to pay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most successful individual in the history of American fashion, Halston.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Halston.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Halston.

HALSTON: I'm Halston.

I made it in New York.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His clothes danced with you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Halston felt that he had to design everything.

HALSTON: Rugs, sheets, perfume, shoes, bags, gloves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He came like a king.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He know how to get publicity. The problem was he began to believe it all.

HALSTON: I'm the all-time optimist.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I took Halston to Studio 54.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He fell in love with it right away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They lived out a lot of their fantasies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:49] CAMEROTA: Former Vice President Joe Biden continuing his frontrunner status in a new CNN poll. He has regained a double digit lead over the Democratic field. What does history, though, tell us about leading at this point in the race?

Let's get "The Forecast" with CNN's senior politics writer and analyst Harry Enten.

We're going to get to that question in a minute, but you're going to set the table for us.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Yes, let's set the table first. You've seen this if you've been watching this program at all. We've debuted this poll. Biden well out ahead. Nearly doubling Sanders, Warren. Harris has dropped tremendously from June. She's down from 17 to five.

But really what we've seen is just a resetting of this matchup overall to where we were at May with Biden still well out ahead, Sanders right there at 18. The only one who's really moved up is Warren. And we've seen that also in the average of the post-May (ph) polls. So, obviously, CNN is just one of a number of pollsters that have polls the race, post second debate versus post first debate. What we see is Biden has regained some of his strength. Warren's actually climbed a little bit in the average. There's some real question, who's one and who's two here. But I think the real takeaway here is Biden has regained his strength while Harris has dropped off after her first debate bump.

BERMAN: What do we see in the states that matter?

ENTEN: Right. So I think this is important. This is getting to the point that Alisyn was making earlier. You know, how does Joe Biden compare with previous frontrunners? And so I basically took these failed national frontrunners and compared them to where Joe Biden's polling right now. And what we see is Biden is polling the best out of any of these candidates nationally at 31 percent in the average. Jeb Bush was just at 13 percent at this point. Rudy Giuliani, the closest at 27 percent. Joe Lieberman, again, well back of Biden at just 17 percent.

But here's the key difference because it's not just about nationally. Biden has been able to extend his advantage to the early states. So in Iowa, that Monmouth University poll a few weeks ago had Biden at 28 percent. These, Bush, Giuliani, Lieberman, all were at 14 percent or less. So Biden, right now, in my mind, is a clear frontrunner, not a guaranteed winner, but certainly a clear frontrunner.

BERMAN: Just put a button on that because you hear a lot of people say, oh, he's just like Jeb Bush or just like Rudy Giuliani. The numbers tell you something different.

ENTEN: Yes, the numbers tell us he is not like these folks. He has a clear -- a much bigger advantage than any of those folks did. And it's not just national, it's when you get down to the states. The national is just a reflection of his strength in the early states so far.

CAMEROTA: But why are you just looking at failed frontrunners?

ENTEN: Well, we can talk -- take a look at overall frontrunners and what basically we've -- you can see is whether you take a look at Iowa or you look at nationally, Biden, at this point, has about a 30 percent to 40 percent chance of winning the nomination based upon the national polls, or if you were to look at the Iowa caucus polls, he has about a 30 to 40 percent chance of winning those caucuses.

Again, not a majority chance, but he certainly has the highest chance of anyone. BERMAN: And very stable.

ENTEN: And it's very, very stable. Look at this. So this is the current average compared to a CNN poll that we did in October of 2018. Look at this, 33 percent in October of 2018, 31 percent now. That's about as stable as you could possibly get. The only one who's really moved at all here is Warren, who's up from 9 percent to 18 percent. And she's doubled her support but still well in back of Biden.

CAMEROTA: OK, what is interest waning?

ENTEN: And so this is like the other thing. Remember if you're going to -- if you're not going to choose Biden, you're going to have to choose someone else. And who'd you like to hear from more besides your first choice? So we asked this in June -- well, late June this year, and we asked in August. And take a look at this. This is very high, but we're going to get that camera to go really deep in there.

And what do we see, is we see all these candidates at the top pretty much besides Biden and Sanders, they've all seen the interest of who you'd like to see more from drop, four points for Warren, 12 points for Harris, 10 point drop for Buttigieg, 7 point drop for Booker. And so basically if you don't want to hear from more, there's not much of an expectation that the race should shift too much.

CAMEROTA: Hmm, so --

BERMAN: Elizabeth Warren. You're also looking at where her support comes from. Because people have been doing the math today and say, oh, if you add up Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, you get to Joe Biden. Is that necessarily the case?

ENTEN: I don't think it's necessarily true.

Look, Warren's support is very deep among the voters who like her, among very liberal voters. If you average our last two CNN polls, she's at 32 percent, well leading the field. But among all other voters, she's at just 10 percent. And race and education, among whites with a college degree, she's basically in a tie for first place with Biden at 22 percent if you average her last CNN -- two last CNN polls. But among all others, she's just -- at just 11 percent. she has got to broaden her base. She can't just go deep. She has to broaden it out as well. We'll see if she's able to do that.

CAMEROTA: How's the next debate next month looking?

ENTEN: Yes, just one other key point from our poll. Julian Castro got 2 percent in this poll. It's his fourth qualifying poll. He'd already hit the fundraising benchmark. That means he makes the debate and it now means we have ten candidates who will be on that stage next month. Tom Steyer is the other one we have to keep an eye out for. He just needs one more qualifying poll.

[08:45:12] BERMAN: Talk to us -- tell us about lunch very quickly.

ENTEN: Yes, I just want to say, if you've been watching the Popeyes versus Chick-fil-a thing going on, folks, I'm a big fan of the Popeyes chicken sandwich. A plus from me. I love my chicken at Popeyes.

BERMAN: There we go. Very important, Harry, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, 13 days after that ICE raid in Mississippi, a breast-feeding mother remains separated from her four-month-old daughter. OK, we have more on the status of this and the push for that baby's mother to be released, next.

But first, food that was going to go to waste is being shared with families in need. This is today's "Impact Your World."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This asparagus, we package it up, it's going to shelters. It's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody needy. That's the important thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forgotten Harvest, as a food rescue organizers, is literally helping prevent perishable items from going to waste. Items like asparagus, tomatoes, fresh green vegetables, things that are coming off of local farms here in Michigan.

Forgotten Harvest operation is set up largely as a logistics business. We're working in our warehouse with volunteers who are coming here to help repack so that our trucks and our drivers can leave our warehouse in the morning, going to retailers and picking up the food that they have available to donate to us. And then we redistribute the food to our community partners like community homes, shelters, churches.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't thank them enough. This is good food (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every year we're giving out about 44 million pounds of food.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We serve hundreds of family. The term forgotten, it's good that they use that term because there's some food that is forgotten. People just throw it away. Where you have people who can be nourished by it. So there's definitely a need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:33] BERMAN: All right, an update to the breaking news we've been following all morning. Police in Brazil say the man who hijacked a bus full of passengers has been shot and killed by a police sniper. Aerial video shows this dramatic takedown. It's happening right there. It comes after a standoff that lasted nearly three hours on a bridge in Rio de Janeiro. All 37 hostages on board that bus were freed safely. Once again, the hostage situation is now over and the suspect is dead.

CAMEROTA: And we still don't know what his demands were --

BERMAN: No.

CAMEROTA: Or why this whole thing happened. But it was so dramatic and obviously traumatizing for everyone involved there.

All right, meanwhile, an undocumented mother is separated from her four month old daughter, who was still breast-feeding. The mom is being detained by ICE after getting arrested in that large raid in Mississippi two weeks ago.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A father trying to quiet the cries of his four month old daughter with a bottle. She's not used to it, but her mother isn't there to breast-feed.

Maria Domingo Garcia (ph) was one of the 680 people detained on August 7th during immigration raids at food processing plants throughout Mississippi. Almost two weeks later, she's still being held at a Louisiana facility some 200 miles from home.

This video from "The Clarion Ledger" in Jackson, Mississippi, shows Domingo Garcia's husband, who requested anonymity because he too is undocumented, with her three U.S. citizen children, all trying to cope with her absence. Her attorney tells CNN that she's from Guatemala but has been living in the United States for the past 11 years.

RAY YBARRA MALDONADO, ATTORNEY FOR BREASTFEEDING MOTHER DETAINED BY ICE: You know, no criminal history whatsoever. She's eligible for relief from removal called cancelation of deportation. Why not just release her? And we've offered, we'll pay a bond. Tell us the amount you want and we'll pay it today so we can get her home.

GALLAGHER: More than 300 of the people arrested in the raids were released with court dates in the first 48 hours. Many of them for what officials called humanitarian purposes like single parents, pregnant or nursing mothers. ICE spokesman Brian Cox says all detainees received health screenings that would include asking a woman if she is currently breast-feeding. Cox said he couldn't talk about medical information without a signed waiver, but noted communication between Domingo Garcia's lawyers and an ICE representative who says she responded "no" when asked if she was breast-feeding. Her attorney says she was never asked.

MALDONADO: ICE knows about it now too. And instead of taking issue and addressing it, doing something about it, releasing her, they just continue to say, well, she didn't say it when we first talked to her, so we're not going to let her go.

GALLAGHER: Meanwhile, the first federal charges related to those raids have been filed. They're against 41 of the workers who the government says were in the country illegally. There are still no charges against any of the company owners or managers. Search warrant affidavits unsealed the day after the raids show the government believe the companies knew they were hiring undocumented workers, citing videotape conversations and tips from confidential informants, in addition to other physical evidence. The U.S. attorney's office maintains a criminal investigation is still ongoing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GALLAGHER: And we just received a statement from ICE this morning. I want to read you the key line from it here. They say pursuant to subsequent media reports that falsely alleged Ms. Domingo-Garcia was being detained despite being a nursing mother, an ICE Health Service Corps nurse practitioner conducted an additional medical examination of Ms. Domingo-Garcia, which verified she is not lactating.

[08:55:04] Of course, John, Alisyn, milk supply can dry up in a woman between seven and 10 days after she stops breastfeeding. So that doesn't mean she wasn't when she was initially detained, but ICE says that she's no longer lactating.

CAMEROTA: Dianne, I think that the really important point that you bring up there is that if this is supposed to be a deterrent, as we've heard from the White House and Stephen Miller, then why not charge the owners and managers of the facility? How do you expect it to be a deterrent --

GALLAGHER: That's what everyone's asking.

CAMEROTA: If -- if that -- if that part isn't shutdown? Why only punish the workers and the mothers themselves?

OK.

BERMAN: And it's weeks later, weeks later, and it still hasn't happened yet.

Dianne Gallagher, our thanks to you.

So a brand new CNN poll shows one candidate with a solid lead in the Democratic race and one candidate with a solid fall. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:05] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. Poppy Harlow is off today.

A new CNN.

END