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Cuomo Prime Time

Florida Bracing For Direct Hit From Hurricane Dorian; No More Automatic Citizenship For Some U.S. Military Children Born Abroad; Andrew Yang: Bernie's Federal Jobs Guarantee Proposal Much Better In Abstract Than In Real Life. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired August 29, 2019 - 21:00   ET

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


[21:00:00] JEN PSAKI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA, FORMER UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPOKESPERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: --at this point even with gaffes that he's made on the trail. So, it might be that people are forgiving and they don't care.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR, NEW DAY: And again, it may just be part of this new era we're in where things like this don't matter as much as maybe they used to if they ever mattered. But we're going to have to wait and see on that.

Jen Psaki, great to have you on with us tonight. I really appreciate it.

PSAKI: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: A lot more going on tonight with Hurricane Dorian bearing down. The news continues. So, I'll now hand it over to Chris for CUOMO PRIME TIME. Sir?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, CUOMO PRIME TIME: All right, thank you J.B. I am Chris Cuomo and welcome to PRIME TIME.

Hurricane Dorian is gaining strength. It's headed for Florida. And we have someone here tonight who's braved the dangerous elements to make his way with his crew to the very center of this storm. The Hurricane Hunter is in the sky right now, and we will give you the latest on what the concerns are, and why.

We also have Andrew Yang here. He made the cut for the next debate stage. Is he cut out to take on the ultimate fight against President Trump? His big pitch is a stipend for all. Let's put it to the test tonight. He's been going at it with Bernie Sanders over it. Let's compare their ideas.

And whom does it serve to punish children of some of our Service members overseas? We're going to have a Great Debate on the new front of the President's immigration war.

What do you say? Let's get after it.

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CUOMO: Good news, Dorian, right now, a Category 1 storm. Bad news, you know how it works, right?

The longer it's over that warm water that's down there, the stronger it becomes. So, by Sunday, forecaster - forecasters are saying it could be a Cat 4 hurricane, and that will be around the Bahamas.

Well then what happens? Well the next thing that happens is it heats - hits the East Coast of Florida. Where? How strong? What happens when it hits? Those are the open questions.

The Hurricane Center is warning Floridians begin thinking about making preparations, pay attention to your local officials, think about whether you have what you need, think about how you'll get out.

There's a state of emergency in - in effect already in all 67 counties. Florida could feel tropical storm force winds as early as Saturday evening. Now remember, once that kind of stuff starts, especially at night, very tough to move.

Tom Sater is tracking Dorian's every move. We're going to go to him live at our Weather Center in just a moment. But first, let's get right into the eye of this hurricane.

All right, joining us right now is Jack Parrish from the NOAA Hurricane Hunter flying inside Dorian. Jack, can you hear us?

JACK PARRISH, NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER FLYING INSIDE DORIAN: Yes. We are, Chris, hearing you just fine.

CUOMO: All right, so first things first. How are you guys up there in the storm? Is the crew OK? Are you OK?

PARRISH: Yes. Thanks for asking, Chris. We are doing just fine. We are flying this storm in 8,000 feet over the top of the ocean. We've gone through the storm one time. We will go through it two more times, so we got a really good pass for first flight through.

CUOMO: All right, and just for the audience, Jack is a Meteorologist. He's not flying the plane. They work as a team up here. He's going to try and get the information, get a sense of the storm, so he could help people back on land that are trying to figure it out, and their people flying the plane as well.

This is one of the most fascinating aspects of our weather coverage, Jack, as you brave men and women who go up there into the storm, how does Dorian size up with other storms that you've seen?

PARRISH: Chris, I've been flying them for 40 years. Well it's not - it's not a Cat 5 by any means. But it's a - it's a good robust Cat 1 and showing every bit of sign of getting a little bit stronger. We saw about 81 knots of wind on the west side - just on the west side

of the eye. We saw about 72 on the East Side. So, it's like - it is like rolling storm. There's no question about it.

CUOMO: Any chance that we get lucky? This is the only kind of story where journalists like to be wrong, and that this storm somehow misses our East Coast or dissipates. Chances of that at this point?

PARRISH: Yes. I have to - I have to tell you what I do is observe the weather, and I let the experts at the National Hurricane Center predict it.

So, we do both the full trips through the center to give them updates on what it's doing, say over the course of the next three or four hours, and then they put them into those sophisticated computer models and NOAA generates those and gets the results.

It's still about four days away from landfall, so there's plenty of time for changes of the track and intensity. But yet it's being (ph) coming from Florida, other one is probably, you know (ph).

CUOMO: Right. All right, we'll see what happens. Fair enough. The idea of this storm as compared to any other, is there anything unusual about it or anything that gives you any concern or optimism about it?

[21:05:00] PARRISH: Well, Chris, we started to fly this last Monday when it was down off the South, East tip of Barbados, and it was very disorganized, very disorganized for the next few days, and then it suddenly sprang into organization, just as it moved off the Northeast corner of Puerto Rico.

So, you know, seeing this state of disorganization, you would have found it hard to believe that it could organize so rapidly, so we always suspect that at any time, they could get suddenly stronger. We always have to be wary of that.

CUOMO: Anything that gets organized quickly starts to build quickly, obviously more concern. Now, one of the questions that we get every season, but it always bears repeating as an answer from you guys, how can you fly through the middle of a hurricane and be OK?

PARRISH: Well, Chris, what we like to see it is commercial jet is flying along at 550 miles per hour, so as far as the jet's concerned, that's how strong the wind is blowing.

Most of the wind is horizontal in a hurricane, so all you have to do is sort of craft the airplane into the wind, and we can fly exactly perpendicular right into the center. We make a few course adjustments to hit the exact center, and then go back out the opposite side.

So, it's only the - the turbulence that we find in the eyewall that is kind of sporting for us. And the NOAA crews, they're doing this even longer than I have, so we have the best experts in the business up front, taking care of the - flying the airplane. CUOMO: What is it like in the eye of the hurricane? Is it like a magical experience? Is it something that you just get used to? I mean, on land, that's always that one moment of calm, as it passes over. What's it like from the sky?

PARRISH: Well, Chris, we get - we get three or four or five or six of those - of those times when we're in maximum turbulence in the airplane. We occasionally go into Zero G, occasionally stuff flies about the (ph) that often right has happened.

And then you burst into the center and it's just as calm as standing in the studio, I assure you, that's how flat it is. Magnificent sight! But also, it just makes you sick to think that it's - it's - it's heading in the direction of populated areas. And so, we're just--

CUOMO: Right. And just in terms of--

PARRISH: --asking people to always pay attention to the emergency managers and act according to their - those - those people's instructions there.

CUOMO: 100 percent! We all want to - we all hope we're wrong. We all hope the estimates in the, you know, all of the kind of guesswork is exaggerated. But you got to prepare for the worst.

And just to remind people of the kind of men and women that do this work for the rest of us, you heard Jack just kind of casually go past the fact that sometimes it reaches Zero G in the airplane. That means no gravity, and things start floating around.

Can you imagine being on an airplane, and all the sudden there was no more gravity, let alone talking about it that casually?

Thank you, Jack for the dedication. Thank the crew for us. Please let us know if there's any information that we need to pass along.

A whole bunch of us will be going down there to cover the storm, to make sure everybody in its way gets the care that they deserve, and the information that they need. Be well, Brother, and thank you.

PARRISH: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: And look, it's important in these moments of crisis that if people are going to go through it, they know they're not alone. So, of course, we're going to cover it. Of course, we're going to deploy.

It doesn't matter how uncertain the situation is. It's better to be there and prepared for the worst. And then, God willing, we pray for the best. Like I said, we would be so happy to be wrong.

Now, here's the avenue of concern, triple threat. You have the storm surge, you have the winds, and you have the rain. These are not unusual components. It's about how much of each, where, and how long.

We're going to check in on its track, the expectations, the variables. One of the best, Tom Sater, next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.

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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.

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CUOMO: All right, let's bring in our Meteorologist, Tom Sater. Tom, Mr. Parrish, who was up there in the Storm Hunter said something that seemed very concerning to me. I want your context on it.

The storm did less to Puerto Rico than expected, thank God. However--

TOM SATER, METEOROLOGIST & WEATHER ANCHOR, CNN INTERNATIONAL: Yes.

CUOMO: --when it moved off the edge of Puerto Rico, he said, Dorian that had been very disorganized and therefore was given some confidence that this storm might somewhat dissipate, organized very quickly. What does that mean--

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: --to you?

SATER: Great question. And we do thank him for his service, Coastguard, Navigator, Radar Man, unbelievable.

This system right now, Chris, has been fighting dry air since its birth. And even on the infrared satellite imagery, you can kind of see the comma shape here.

So, we think, throughout the day, dry air has been trying to infiltrate the system. But let's go back to its birth because if you ask most meteorologists and forecasters, four or five days ago, if this had a chance, we would say, "Absolutely no way." Surrounded by chaotic atmosphere, just dry air, it eats these systems up. This is the little storm that could.

And as it made its way toward Puerto Rico, yes, they got lucky. They had more rain today on the trailing arm of this, down to the south, than they did when it passed through. Still a little bit of dry air, but let's show you what those flights found, just a little while ago, and they're still inside.

First, we had a NOAA Aircraft, three pilots, all-female crew moving out. They get the upper air data. And now, we've got two more that are flying through, different levels, they found a surface wind at 93, then they found one at 101, here's 98. They take the average, which is like 99.6. So, I suspect, coming up in the 11 P.M. hour, this will be a Category

2 because that's Category 2. They take the averages. That's most likely the factor here. This is just the beginning.

In the center of the core now, we're starting to see some real convection on the infrared satellite imagery, and that's important, because that means there's going to be dramatic strengthening. We know in those - that flight data, they've also seen a real drop in the pressure. So, this thing is building.

Now, tropical storm force winds, expected as we get into late Saturday night in towards Sunday morning. But that's just the beginning of the story, Chris. There is a lot more going on. And we learned a lot in the last 24 hours.

CUOMO: Like what? I mean, you know, look, you know how I play these things. I'm always hoping we're wrong.

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: I'm always hoping that the spaghetti--

SATER: Absolutely.

CUOMO: --models that there's one aberration or an anomaly or once it hits the land--

SATER: Right.

CUOMO: --it dies in a way that it can't really recover.

SATER: Outliers.

[21:15:00] CUOMO: Any chance here?

SATER: Yes. Yes.

CUOMO: Good.

SATER: But the windows, you know, they - they close as you get closer. Yesterday, we thought we had a Category 3 making landfall, and it changed to a Category 4.

And really, that's understandable because it had such a long period of time over these waters that at Cat 3, you get into that warm Gulf Stream where it's like, you know, upper 80s, near 90, and it just blows up.

So, here's our storm now. Let's take a look at some of the models now. In red, is the U - the U.S. model. We do this with every storm, right? European is in yellow, and it's got a good history.

They both have their pros and cons. But they have fluctuated a lot in the last 24 hours. Let's explain.

We're going to put a little blue dot here for the European model. You cannot see the U.S. because it's underneath. Good agreement. That's what we want to see. We want to see these in agreement.

But then watch what happens now. You see the U.S., this is Monday morning. It's still well offshore. What happened to that Sunday night possible landfall?

Well here's the European over Nassau, Bahamas. And now, we move it forward, we're at Tuesday overnight, and it's only the U.S. model. Now, we call these guidance models for a reason. They just guide us, doesn't mean this is going to happen.

So, let's now take this to where we think both models will make landfall, and it is quite interesting to find some connection. Here it is, U.S. model, where it's at West Palm--

CUOMO: Oaf!

SATER: --you got Jupiter, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach.

CUOMO: Vulnerable places.

SATER: And now, look at the European, almost exact. But Chris, this is going to blow your mind, because I haven't seen anything like this. Yes, they're in agreement at landfall. But remember, they're off on timing.

This is Monday at 8 P.M. for the U.S. model. This is Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning, that's almost 48 hours later here that we're talking about two different time periods, which really creates a problem when you're trying to evacuate people, who goes, the preparations.

Now, the steering current's another thing. The other thing we found out overnight tonight, besides both models, dropping from northern Florida to the South that that European model wants to put on the brakes right before it makes landfall.

CUOMO: Right.

SATER: That does a couple of things. Obviously, you know.

I mean when they stall, it churns up the seas. You got more bands of rain, more possible flooding, beach erosion. But it also then gives the environment surrounding the storm time to make up its mind what steering currents are going to be dominant.

And, right now, if we have a landfall near those time periods, even within that time frame, if it stalls, we may have a system where different elements in the atmosphere are pulling or pushing, and it may sit--

CUOMO: Yes, that's the worse.

SATER: --and that's--

CUOMO: Sitting is the worse because in the--

SATER: --that's Harvey.

CUOMO: --especially in land that's already saturated and doesn't have a very--

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: --good water table in terms of taking more. Look, here's the only good news right now, for an optimist, is you got time, between now and then.

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: And they'll get more information. We'll know more about this storm. We'll know more about the currents involved.

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: And hopefully, we get a better picture, so people can act--

SATER: Yes. Chris--

CUOMO: --and act the right way.

SATER: Yes. This has changed so many times over the last couple of days. It's going to change more.

CUOMO: Right. We'll be there.

SATER: So, really, don't--

CUOMO: We'll be ready.

SATER: --don't trust anything you see right now. But you got to hope that, you know, sometime--

CUOMO: All right, and look--

SATER: --we're going to get a better handle on it--

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: --it's also the worst time. Labor Day weekend, everybody has plans.

SATER: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Everybody's got family. Everybody wants to live their life. I get it.

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: Tom and I are in that boat as well. But we will be there. And we will be on guard and on watch for you. Tom, I'll be depending on you--

SATER: Yes. CUOMO: --heavily, as always. Thank you, brother.

SATER: Likewise.

CUOMO: All right, we're keeping a very close eye on this, man. Why? Because you want to be wrong, but God forbid, you're right. We know what these storms can do to this part of the country.

We also want to tell you tonight about some other big news that's going on, all right? There's outrage over these new rules for children of some of our troops and other Americans working overseas. The administration has been saying, "No, no, no. This is fine. Nothing's really changed." Is that true? Let's debate it, next.

And the bigger question, does truth even matter anymore? Next.

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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.

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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.

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CUOMO: All right, so first, we had to deal with the treatment of severely-ill migrants. Now, it's the children of some U.S. military members and government workers who are born abroad.

This administration, within a single week, has taken aim at both types of protection, including birthright citizenship. How is this making America great?

That is the start of tonight's Great Debate with Jennifer Granholm and Rick Santorum.

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TEXT: THE GREAT DEBATE.

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CUOMO: Let's state what the criticism here is, Jennifer, and then let Rick defend it. So, what is your problem with this because the administration says they're just getting into compliance with the State Department law.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, FORMER MICHIGAN GOVERNOR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know--

RICK SANTORUM, FORMER U.S. SENATE MEMBER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That--

GRANHOLM: --I mean, first of all, it was announced last night, and then they've walked it back, and it's not even clear to me right now who it applies to, what it applies to.

But the point - the point being that what they did was they announced that people - that children who were born not on U.S. soil, who were - who were children of people who are serving overseas, whether they're serving in civilian roles, or serving in the military, were not going to be allowed to be U.S. citizen, and then they added all sorts of caveats to that.

Can I just say, Chris? You put this in a broader frame. And I think it is part of this - this spray, this web of poisonous anti-immigrant policies that this administration has - has taken on, starting with - I mean the Muslim ban was the first thing, but, of course, the - the separation of families, the kids in cages, kids not having access to water, showers, soap, toothbrushes.

And then, today, when this - this additional information. along with the information yesterday about kids with serious diseases, and - and difficult medical problems not being - being told that they must go back to countries that don't allow for the same - that don't have that same kind of medical treatment, what this does is it creates this - this web of policies that tell the world that we have no humanity anymore.

[21:25:00] Where is the humanity? These categories of people used to have exceptions that allowed for - for example, in the case of migrant children, judge, to have some discretion about whether they should be allowed in or not or kept here because of their medical conditions.

CUOMO: Right.

GRANHOLM: What a horrible message this sends to the world about the U.S. retrenching on our humanity?

CUOMO: Well it's all depends on what you think the message is. Rick, you're shaking your head because--

SANTORUM: Yes, I mean, you know--

CUOMO: --you don't think that's the message.

SANTORUM: --if - if what Jennifer was saying was true, I would agree with her. But what she's saying is simply not true. It's not what the administration is doing on the first issue of "Sick children."

What the administration did was simply put in place what the law is, which is you should not have blanket deferrals of - of classes of people, which Barack Obama, remember, said he couldn't do, and then did, and - and say "Well these - these people are - are going to - are not going to be deported," in fact, gave them visas to stay here.

What they're saying is that we're going - we - we are returning to what the law is, which is that you are not guaranteed to stay here. But, as the law does say, if you have a humanitarian reason to stay, like a medical condition, then you go through the normal process.

And, by the way, that only happens if ICE actually comes - comes and tries to deport you. None of the people that I saw in the media have - have an ICE deportation order that's trying to be enforced.

GRANHOLM: No. But they have a letter saying that they've got to leave the country--

SANTORUM: They have - they have a letter saying--

GRANHOLM: --in 33 days. They--

SANTORUM: --they're no longer going to be--

GRANHOLM: Thousands of people received this.

SANTORUM: They - they're no longer going to be deferred. They're not - what - what the law is, is there's prosecutorial discretion as to who should be deported or not. Barack Obama changed that and said we're not--

GRANHOLM: Except that they've taken away the discretion.

SANTORUM: That's right. Barack Obama--

GRANHOLM: I mean, Rick--

SANTORUM: --Barack Obama - we're not taking away the discretion. What - what this law does - what the law is, not what it does, what the law is, it says that you cannot give blanket deferrals.

You leave it up to ICE, and ICE then makes the determination as to whether they're going to be subject of deportation or not. And if they are, then - then that process, a judicial process is put in place to determine whether there's humanitarian exception--

CUOMO: Right. What would - Rick--

SANTORUM: --which in the case of all these medical cases--

CUOMO: --Rick--

GRANHOLM: And--

SANTORUM: --would be the case.

CUOMO: Rick, it's about the rule. It's never been about the rule, right? The rule of law is too simple--

SANTORUM: But that is the law.

CUOMO: Hold on a second. Hold on a second.

SANTORUM: Barack Obama disobeyed the law.

CUOMO: Hold - I know what the law is. SANTORUM: And changed the law.

CUOMO: This is about how you enforce the law. Here's what I think you're missing.

It's not about the law or the history of the law. It's how you choose to enforce it. Each of the policies that's been outlined, and some that have not yet, are about increasing harshness, making it harder to stay, excluding people more quickly--

SANTORUM: It's just returning to what--

CUOMO: --getting more people out--

SANTORUM: --what - what's before Barack Obama broke - broke the law, and said we're going to give blanket deferrals. This I mean - this is what Bill Clinton enforced. This is what Barack Obama enforced prior to DACA.

The idea that this is somehow cruel and mean, there is a - a - a provision in the law that provides--

CUOMO: But Jennifer, that's exactly why--

SANTORUM: --they remain if they're an exception.

CUOMO: --the President - and you can argue the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of what Barack Obama did all day. I see both sides of that easily.

But the policy judgment was it's not fair the other way. These people should stay. Your argument is this administration has reversed the mercy of it that they see it in terms of getting people out where the Obama administration--

SANTORUM: If Congress wants to--

CUOMO: --was about keeping people in.

SANTORUM: --change the law, Congress should change the law. But the obligation of the President--

CUOMO: Well hold on a second. Hold on, Rick, Rick--

SANTORUM: --is to enforce the law.

CUOMO: --Rick, if you want to make that argument--

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: --hold on, if you want to make that argument, then right now you condemn this administration for trying to run around the Flores agreement, right now.

SANTORUM: Actually, I'm not - what the administration is doing is actually taking the Flores agreement which, by the way the Obama administration opposed, and trying to make it - trying to make it humanitarian by actually setting up--

GRANHOLM: Oh my God, Rick.

SANTORUM: --facilities for people to be able to be kept together as a family--

GRANHOLM: Oh!

CUOMO: Keeping people indefinitely--

SANTORUM: --until there's an adjudication.

CUOMO: --is not--

GRANHOLM: Right.

CUOMO: --any type of tender mercy. The whole point of the Flores settlement was that--

SANTORUM: People--

CUOMO: --on the basis of clinical data, and understanding of psychology, and impact on kids, you can't keep them indefinitely. You can't do to them what you do to adults. Keeping them together--

SANTORUM: We're keeping them together as a family.

CUOMO: --isn't going to make the - make them not traumatize. But however, that's your point.

GRANHOLM: And--

CUOMO: What is your point, Jennifer?

GRANHOLM: And - and I just want to say, I mean if you are going to do this in a humanitarian way, you would put enough judges in there, to be able to adjudicate these cases more quickly.

Right now, on the front page of The New York Times, there is a story of a young girl who came here when she was seven years old from Guatemala, who had a rare de - degenerative genetic disease. She came at the invitation - at the invitation of doctors who wanted her to participate in a clinical trial--

CUOMO: Right.

GRANHOLM: --so that the FDA would approve medicine that would - that would lengthen her life, and the life of others like her. She was not on the public dole. Her parents paid for her via private insurance.

She got this letter. She's now 24 years old. She's been here 17 years. She's getting treatment as a result of this disease that she has. She's been getting awards for having advocated on behalf of children with disabilities, rare genetic disabilities like her. She gets a letter saying you have 33 days.

CUOMO: Right.

GRANHOLM: That is just wrong. It is--

CUOMO: Rick, are you OK with that letter to that person?

GRANHOLM: --inhumane.

SANTORUM: I - there is a process that she will go through to get a humanitarian exemption. And she should go through that process.

GRANHOLM: But ICE will not adjudicate these.

SANTORUM: And she will be - and there - I have no doubt--

[21:30:00] GRANHOLM: That's the problem, Rick.

SANTORUM: --she'll be granted that.

GRANHOLM: ICE is saying that they can't do this.

They - they - this is another example of the Trump administration adopting a policy where they have not put in place the mechanism to make sure that policy is done well.

They don't have judges. ICE doesn't want to do this. They're quoted in this article--

SANTORUM: ICE - ICE has the discretion--

GRANHOLM: --saying we don't want to do anything with this.

SANTORUM: ICE has the discretion to prosecute or not prosecute, and that's and - and - and then there's - there's a process by which--

CUOMO: All right.

SANTORUM: --you can go through if you are prosecuted. That's what the law has been--

CUOMO: Here's--

SANTORUM: --up until Barack Obama changed it--

CUOMO: It's never just about the rule.

SANTORUM: --and allowed it.

CUOMO: It's about how you enforce the rule, and here's the reality. We will see what decisions are made, why they're made, and how they turn out, and then we'll see how the American people feel about it. And this will all come to a head right in a 150-something days when people start voting.

Jennifer, thank you. Rick--

SANTORUM: Thank you. CUOMO: --thank you.

GRANHOLM: Yes.

CUOMO: Whoever's going to take on this President in 2020, you got to have a counter to this argument that these two are having. How will you be better? What is the positive opposite to what this new harshness is from this administration?

Andrew Yang says he knows. Let's put him to the test, next.

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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.

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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.

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CUOMO: All right, so half of the Democrats vying for the Presidency qualified, they're going to make it into the next debate, all right? So, you're going to have 20 now, right? And here's your set of 10 here, on the stage, and here's how they're going to look up in there.

[21:35:00] Andrew Yang, see a good-looking guy, a couple to the right on your screen from Biden (ph), he will likely continue - that was funny, right, he will likely continue to push his proposal to give every American a $1,000 a month in what he calls the Freedom Dividend.

Bernie Sanders, who will be standing just four podiums away, says guaranteed federal jobs are the way to do it, not just a hand-out.

We got Andrew Yang here. Thank you very much.

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TEXT: ONE ON ONE.

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CUOMO: But, as promised before, on immigration, look, Rick Santorum, the President, Ken Cuccinelli, they're not wrong. There are rules. And what they're saying is we've been too lax on the rules for too long, and somebody needs to restore order. What's your counter?

ANDREW YANG (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think Jennifer had it exactly right that we don't have the resources on the ground to actually implement the rules on the books, where you have rules saying judges need to adjudicate these cases, but then you get there, you're talking about a 10-month, 15-month waiting period to see a judge. So, you end up with chaos, not enough facilities, not enough case managers, not enough--

CUOMO: Now, their answer is--

YANG: --social workers.

CUOMO: --because you're arguing "Justice delayed is justice denied. If you can't do it efficiently, don't do it."

They say "That's crazy because these people aren't supposed to be here. They've been given a free pass. What about me? What about my resources for me and my family? You're just finding an excuse to be soft."

YANG: Well though the rules are the rules on the books, hard or soft, we just need to actually implement them, as they're written. And to me, a lot of the discussion around immigrants--

CUOMO: That's what they're saying, by the way.

YANG: --is missing the point, where we're scapegoating immigrants for economic problems, when if you go to a factory, it's not wall-to-wall immigrants, you'll find in Michigan, or Ohio, or Pennsylvania.

It's wall-to-wall machine arms, robots, automation. To me, the immigration discussion is unfortunately scapegoating people for something they have nothing to do with.

CUOMO: But unless you want to live out the matrix, people attach animus to other people. And if they want to talk about, you know, who they're afraid of, and what they feel displaced by, they're going to look to people.

This President knows that. That's why the focus of his demagoguery is this group that I call the Brown Menace, the way he's articulated them. The problem for you is--

YANG: Well--

CUOMO: --let's say you win.

YANG: Yes.

CUOMO: You make it out of this field. Now you're going to be standing with a guy who says one of - this is one of the oldest oppositional statements in politics. "I'm about being tough on crime. You are soft. And tough usually wins."

You say "Well, you know, you can't enforce the laws on the books," I don't think that's enough.

YANG: Well we have to solve the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.

And when I go around the country and I talk to people in Ohio, or Iowa, or Pennsylvania, and I say, look, it's not immigrants, it's automation, thousands of Americans' light bulb goes off.

I've yet to have someone say "But I really think it's the immigrants," because as soon as you say it out loud to someone, they realize "Oh wait, when I go to my supermarket, what do I see? One of those self- serve kiosks. When I go to my Walmart, what's going on? A robot patrolling the aisles."

They see it around them. And then, immediately, they realize, "Oh wait, it - there's - there's something bigger going on here."

CUOMO: So - but do you think that works? If he's hammering on the fact that he's going to be tough on this, he's building a wall?

We know that a majority of the American people think that a wall, as part of a system of keeping us safe, is good, a boundary system is good, you're just going to say, "Don't worry about that?"

YANG: Well we need to enforce our borders. We - we, again, we need to actually have the resources in place to - to enforce the rules, as they're written. But we also have to think bigger about the forces that are driving Americans to feel like they don't have a path forward.

And a lot of it is the fact that we've automated away millions of manufacturing jobs, and we're now going to do the same thing to millions of retail jobs, call center jobs, truck driving jobs, which will be an utter disaster for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

CUOMO: So, I read into your plan about the dividend, and I discovered a few things. One, that was a great thing to call it. Now, your - your opponents--

YANG: I'm doing (ph).

CUOMO: --will not call it a dividend.

And I understand now going through your reasoning, and obviously your understanding of finance, why a dividend, you know, just for people at home where they figure out the way I did, a dividend is something that you get on the basis of an investment, OK?

So, it's not a handout. It's that you're getting this back for something you put in.

And the reason you justify giving it to everybody, even someone who's making a lot of money, like me, thank God, is well then it reduces the stigma of taking it. It makes it universal. And I'll pay more in to what funds that dividend, so I'll wind up getting less actually than I probably fund in, so it's OK, it balances out.

Now, here's the stick that you get hit in the head with.

"You are the leftiest of Leftist. You are a gift-giving something-for- nothing guy. And I'm killing myself working to take care of my family, and you're going to give everybody 12 grand a year, on my back? No thanks!"

YANG: Well, again, Americans are - are wising up to the fact that you have Amazon, this trillion-dollar tech company that's closing 30 percent of our stores and malls, and paying zero in taxes while doing it.

So, you have to ask who are the big winners in the 21st Century economy? It's Amazon, Google, Facebook, Uber, companies that are excellent and not paying a whole lot in taxes.

CUOMO: I agree. Make them pay a lot of taxes, and use it to pay down our debt, and all those other things, so I pay less taxes.

YANG: Well what - what we do is--

CUOMO: They're dividends, not freebies.

[21:40:00] YANG: --what we do is we get our fair share of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad. A study just came out that said our data is now worth more than oil. And what I'm asking people's - Americans around the country, do you remember getting your data check in the mail?

CUOMO: Never.

YANG: Never, right? And - and that's what how people are--

CUOMO: But why should I get any check I the mail?

YANG: --profiting right now.

CUOMO: People who say "No something for nothing. This is America. You earn it. This is not a socialist country where you get given an income."

YANG: Well this is a deeply American idea. And one state has had a dividend for almost 40 years, and that state is Alaska. It was passed by a Republican Governor. He made this argument, "Who would you rather get the oil money? The government who's just going to mess it up somehow--

CUOMO: Or you?

YANG: --or you, the Alaskan people?"

CUOMO: But that--

YANG: And we're at the same point where what oil is to Alaska, technology is to - to the entire country.

CUOMO: So, what do you say to Bernie saying, you know, because it's not like he's known to not be Left. He says, "No, no, no. It's too much of a hand-out. You got to have federal jobs. That's how it makes more sense."

YANG: Well to - to me, Bernie misses a - a few really important truths.

Number one, if you put money into our hands in a dividend, we're going to spend it right there in our economy, it's going to be trickle up in towns and communities. It's going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs at restaurants, garages, tutoring services, daycare where we live and work.

CUOMO: Why isn't the same true so if you were working from a federal job? You get income. You spend it.

YANG: No. Well, you know, in this case like if we have the money, we spend it in local businesses, and then that economic growth ends up creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The second thing is a federal jobs guarantee doesn't touch people like my wife who's at home with our two boys right now, one of whom is autistic, nurturers, caregivers saying that, you have a federal jobs guarantee does not recognize the work that's actually going on in our homes and communities every day.

The third thing is that Bernie somehow imagines that millions of Americans aspire to work for the government, which we do not. You know, if you think about a Federal jobs guarantee in practice, who says what the jobs are, what if you don't like that job, what if you're not good at that job--

CUOMO: Yes.

YANG: --who manages you, there are all of these really tricky details in implementation that make a federal jobs guarantee much, much better in the abstract than in real life.

CUOMO: That third point is going to be your strongest as a counter to him.

His strongest to you is going to be that feel of something for nothing, and there's subtlety here, and there's nuance, and that's hard to get across in politics. But that's why we invite you on the show to be tested and make your case.

Andrew Yang, congratulations on being on the big stage.

YANG: Thanks, Chris, appreciate it.

CUOMO: All right, I'll be seeing you there, all right? Thank you very much.

All right, a lot of heavy news this week. You see what's happening in the Amazon. Some want to close their eyes. But soon, you're going to be seeing the smoke, all right?

Now we have the Atlantic with this storm, what does this mean? Why so many 100-year storms every year? Why do all of these natural things start getting worse and worse? All right, that's the rough stuff.

How about the beautiful stuff? Shouldn't we pay some attention to that as well? A beautiful demonstration of what makes us who we are, with D. Lemon, next.

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CUOMO: Now, some stories define putting the "We" before the "Me," no matter what, and I often look at them as AmeriCAN stories, and I'll often say to you on social media, this is who we are too, this is us at our best.

Now, what are you looking at? This is four-year old Braysen, laying in the aisle of a United flight from San Diego to Houston. Braysen has autism.

His mom says he usually loves flying. This time, you know, all the kinds of things you may have seen with your own kids doing, but even more exaggerated form here, because of what Braysen deals with, would not put a seatbelt on.

The crew bent the rules, allowed Braysen to sit on mom's lap during takeoff, while dad held him, and then they let him lay on the cabin floor.

Other passengers, what did they do? They were gracious when Braysen would crick their seats. Now, look at this, all right? So, they did the right thing by this kid. They didn't have to. The rules said it shouldn't happen, but humanity came first.

Again, Kansas, eight-year-old Connor, he's the one on the left, also lives with autism. He's in tears on his first day of school. Christian, another eight-year old, kid on the right, takes his hand, nobody prompted him, and walked him into the school.

This is who we are--

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, CNN TONIGHT WITH DON LEMON: Yes.

CUOMO: --at our best. Am I right, D. Lemon?

LEMON: Absolutely, Chris. And you and I have been talking about these stories. We both saw them.

I posted on social media. And I said we need more of this because there's so much negativity. There's so much toxicity in the - in the - the world in - on social media and all over, we need good stories like this story. And people, you know, children, you have - you have young kids. You have young children. Children have to be taught to hate. Children are very loving people. They love everything. They love everybody. They love the dogs. They love everything, they love.

What they don't like, they don't like, sometimes they're nervous about flying, sometimes they're a bit nervous about going to school.

But I posted it because that story, the one with the kid, who is apprehensive about going into school, I mean, that happened to me when I was a kid.

I remember when I was in, I think it was first grade, it was first grade, and I didn't want to go to school for whatever reason. And my mom was dropping me off, the same time my friend Tina, the same one who talked to me about the Popeyes sandwiches - same.

Her mom was dropping her off. And I was crying, and sobbing, "I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to go to school."

And my mom said we had backpacks on that were bigger than us, and Tina put her arm over my shoulder, and I remember it, and she said, "Come on, Don. It's going to be OK. Let's go into school."

And we went into school and we have been the best of friends ever since. We've been - we've known each other since nursery school. It's my oldest friend. But--

CUOMO: People can be great. And we often look these kids.

LEMON: --but you don't forget things like that.

CUOMO: We do. We - we forget it. But we don't - we forget and--

LEMON: I never forget it.

CUOMO: --we don't. It's what we decide to focus on. And, you know, there's something special and referential about kids, not just reverential, but referential in that--

LEMON: Yes.

CUOMO: --out of the mouths of babes, we often say, comes wisdom, because they don't have the layers on them that clouds our own intelligence.

I can't tell you how my kids, in parenting has become more of a situation about what they teach me. Just today, I got sideways with my oldest one, and it was a mistake, and it's what she teaches me about how to be my best. It's about what she reminds me of how she acts with a sense of tender mercy, even when she's been wronged.

[21:50:00] That's what we see in these stories. We need to remember that's who we are too. The bad stuff is true, so is the good stuff.

LEMON: But you don't want to be sideways with her because that's - listen, that's your retirement. She's got a voice on her. She is--

CUOMO: She is so talented.

LEMON: --and can play the guitar, she's so talented.

CUOMO: She can - she can do it all.

LEMON: Yes.

CUOMO: She is a gift. She is a gift that I certainly didn't deserve.

LEMON: Well all three of them are.

CUOMO: And I'll do my best to cherish her.

LEMON: They're - all three of them are.

Listen, you said out of the mouths of babes, we have two young men, very young, nine and 10, I think, or nine and 12 - how old are they, producers? Nine and - nine and 10, and they're brothers, and they showed up at a Joe Biden rally, and they stumped him. And it's going viral. So, we're going to talk about them.

We also have Sam Donaldson on to talk about the news that's happening and, you know, all the--

CUOMO: Sam Donaldson, I worked with him as--

LEMON: I know.

CUOMO: --as a tandem crew. We had a segment called Stump Sam.

LEMON: And you can never stump him?

CUOMO: Nobody ever stumped him.

LEMON: Oh! Also, we're going to get new forecasting on the hurricane.

CUOMO: Yes.

LEMON: But I got to tell you the thing that we're going to go off the beaten path here because we often discuss this.

There is a massive study when people ask "Are you born this way if you're gay? Are you - is it genetic? What is it? Is there a gay gene?" We're going to get to the bottom of it. There's a new study out, and we'll tell you.

CUOMO: Can't wait.

LEMON: Yes.

CUOMO: Talk to you in a second.

LEMON: See you. CUOMO: All right, last night, interview blew up all over the place online. Kayleigh McEnany, these - mouthpiece for the campaign refused to acknowledge what is painfully obvious about this President. There can be no rational debate about whether or not he has lied to you.

But really, it's not about his lies. It's about how they're treated by the people around him, and what that means to you. That's my argument, next.

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CUOMO: There can be no rational debate about whether this President has lied to you. More than we have ever tracked, since tracking began, that is the case. The argument to make is how those around him enable, and therefore own the same behavior.

Exhibit A is, of course, his Campaign Press Secretary from last night.

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KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN NATIONAL PRESS SECRETARY, FORMER RNC SPOKESWOMAN: --called out a New York--

CUOMO: You don't think this President has lied to the American people?

MCENANY: Let me finish, Chris.

CUOMO: You--

MCENANY: No, I don't think the President has lied.

CUOMO: --have to answer that question, first.

MCENANY: I don't think the President has lied.

CUOMO: He has never lied to the American people?

MCENANY: No, I don't think the President has lied.

CUOMO: Kayleigh McEnany, your credibility will be shocked with my audience--

MCENANY: I think CNN has lied to the American people.

CUOMO: --if you don't back off that statement.

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CUOMO: And I was right. Now, we know what's happening here.

She is saying that President Trump isn't lying when he says he's already built the wall, when he says Muslim people cheered in the streets of New Jersey after 9/11, when he says his dad was born in Germany, when he says a dozen other things, all fugazi.

What's their playbook? Give no ground, deny any lie. And that move is now shared by too many who work for you, and those who say they uphold conservative values, like this man.

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CUOMO: I'm not asking you why they lied.

MATT SCHLAPP, CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION, GOP CONSULTANT & LOBBYIST, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH CAMPAIGN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I don't - I can't look inside the--

CUOMO: I'm asking you to condemn them for lying because they shouldn't lie to the American people.

SCHLAPP: I'm not going to condemn them for lying.

CUOMO: Why?

SCHLAPP: I don't have any idea why there was - why he didn't go to that meeting, I have no idea.

CUOMO: Yes. But you know that they lied about the reason that he didn't go.

SCHLAPP: Why - why - why do I get to be the person that determines whether someone who else speaks is lying or not?

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CUOMO: He asked the right question, because each and all of us are, especially if you're in the punditry game of constantly judging your opponents on that basis, but you all have to make that call, all right, because it's not just OK to call out lying when it's one of your opponents.

And if they don't outright deny a lie, they will pretend the lie was something less. Look at this.

"I don't think they're lies," said this Press Secretary, "I think the President communicates in a way that some people, especially the media, aren't necessarily comfortable with. A lot of times they take him so literally. I know people will roll their eyes if I say he was just kidding or was speaking in hypotheticals, but sometimes he is."

Maybe sometimes he is. Sometimes he's lying. And your job is not to make that OK because your job is technically to the American people, and that's your responsibility.

So, you can say oh, it's a joke he says migrants are mostly murderers and bad hombres, ha, ha, ha, and then puts kids in cages, it's a joke when he talks about shutting the border, ha, ha, and then puts all these rules in that effectively do just that, it's a joke when he says he believes Putin over his own intelligence agencies on the world stage.

You get the point. And once it's OK to deny a lie or say it's something else, it was only a matter of time before the cover-up would get more profound. It's not that he's lying. It's that there's no such thing as truth. And this, from the President's attorney.

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CUOMO: If fact-counting is anything, we've never had anybody with the level of mendacity that he has. Not even close. But we'll leave it there.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: It's in the eye of the beholder.

CUOMO: No, facts are not in the eye of the beholder.

GIULIANI: Yes, it is. Yes, they are.

LEMON: You're always welcome here to argue the case.

GIULIANI: Nowadays, they are.

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CUOMO: Nowadays, they are! No, nowadays, some want them to be. But no, because when you can't explain what people can see and hear, what happens next? Now you start to attack the people who expose the truth to them.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news.

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TRUMP: What you're seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening.

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CUOMO: "Don't believe your lyin' eyes," straight out of a dystopian fever dream, literally ripped from the prophetic pages of Orwell's 1984. You remember this line? "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears."

Politicians used to talk about the two Americas, right, haves and have-notes? My father did it until his last day. There are two Americas in this era as well, the true believers, and everybody else, and those are some intractable groups.

It's why President Trump's approval ratings never get above 50, and never go below about 35 percent. But this kind of time spent on division is withering, to you who deserve better, certainly, even those who have to defend it. Look at Scaramucci.

How many others will there be? Not sure. How many will do what he did or what General Mattis just seemed to do, subtly, in his new book? Or how many will do the opposite, hold on, even double down as the divisiveness kind of creates a near-delirium?

Just be clear what this is about. It's not about petty gotchas. It's not about pitting one side against the other. It's not about playing to advantage. And don't ever cheapen it by saying it's about personal an - animus towards this President. This is about something much more basic.

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