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Cuomo Prime Time

CNN Reaches Part Of Bahamas Totally Cut Off By Dorian; Dorian Batters Carolinas With Rain, Winds, Storm Surge; Chris Christie Looks To Bring Civility Back To Politics. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired September 05, 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] RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: --underneath the neighborhood, underneath the streets, and they send it back to the Ashley River or whatever water body is nearby. But, you know, in some cases, we saw neighbors trying to use a--

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Yes.

KAYE: --a rake to try and pull the leaves out of the drain system, and try and do it on their own, Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. Well--

KAYE: So, it's a real challenge here in a city like this.

COOPER: Yes. By the way, the houses in that neighborhood of the Dorian are just beautiful, such a great city. We wish them the best there.

Randy, thank you very much.

News continues. Want to hand it over to Chris for CUOMO PRIME TIME. Chris?

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

Breaking news! We can finally show you parts of Grand Bahama Island that no one has been able to get to, until now. Our cameras are there and you're going to see for yourself the magnitude of the destruction, and why people on the ground there fear news about more fatalities.

Now that fear of the unknown spreads to what could be thousands of people missing. Rescuers are battling flooding - flooding that you're going to see. They're very hard to reach areas. There are no communications.

We told you about one young woman's search for family. We have new information on her situation tonight. You're going to want to hear it.

We're also live on the ground in the Carolinas where the eyewall of Dorian is now closing in.

And we have a special guest tonight on a different kind of storm. What does Trump Insider, Chris Christie make of the President's latest war with the truth? Not so Sharpie!

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

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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.

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CUOMO: All right, let's deal with the serious situation first. This is what we've been waiting to see. This is what Dorian left behind on the part of Grand Bahama Island that had been totally cut off until today. Finally, some of the flood waters are receding.

Patrick Oppmann made his way there with his team. I want to show you Patrick, show you that he's OK. I want to talk to him about what that experience was like today. But first, let's show the viewers what Patrick and his team recorded.

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PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This behind me is the clinic, and it has been leveled by Hurricane Dorian's Category 5 winds that came screaming through here.

There are people in the Bahamas who say that the Abacos, different islands, received the worst damage, and they need to come here. They need to come to remote places on Grand Bahama Island that very few have visited.

We're only about an hour from Freeport. But it took us much longer to get here, driving around debris, like this.

You can see, in every direction for miles, all the power lines are down. Most of the poles are down. There are trees down. You don't see any cars coming back and forth because there's nothing or nowhere to go to here.

This was the Town Centre. Over there, come look at this, it's amazing, is - was the police station. Hurricane Dorian came here and ripped the roof clean off.

But not only that, you think of the power that a storm needs to knock down entire cement walls. We don't know if anybody was here. But it's hard to imagine they could have survived because residents say the storm surge, and you can see the line, just up there, got this high, almost all the way to the roof, 17 feet, they said.

They've measured it. You can see the water stains all the way down to the ground, the devastation everywhere you look. And the town goes all the way back to the water. There are some 300 homes here.

Every home is they're damaged or destroyed. You can see where the wind smashed in this sign, but somehow it didn't tear it off. These are slabs of concrete, and they've been thrown around like they were nothing, like they weighed nothing. This is the High Rock prison. There's only one jail cell, and it's not guarding anybody now. We don't know if anybody was here when the storm came, behind bars. They certainly didn't stick around.

There's nothing left in this town. And the people say they've yet to receive any help from the government. Like so many Bahamians, they are waiting for that assistance to come.

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CUOMO: Boy, the silence is so scary. I mean that situation checks every box. Who is gone for good? Who is missing? How do you rescue? How do you restore law and order, and power, and essentials?

Now, Patrick, first of all, thank God you and your team are safe. I know you've been working around the clock. Thank you for bringing our viewers the information so that they can stay connected.

What about people? Who did you see there? What have you heard about? What is the untold story of concern in that area?

[21:05:00] OPPMANN: It was a ghost town, Chris. And it took us days to get out there. We kept trying and the water was just too deep. When we drove out there, the water came halfway up the car. Our driver a couple times wanted to go back. The road was missing in several areas.

We went forward because we knew there was a great story out there. The damage was absolutely stunning. I've seen a lot of really awful things in the last week. And this was up there.

I don't want to get too graphic. You could smell death, the stench of death. Everywhere we went, we were told by residents that crews came in today to look for bodies. We don't know exactly what they found.

It was a ghost town out there, Chris. That town, just that one time we were, 300 people lived there. They're still on their own.

CUOMO: So, it is the unknown that is the biggest fear. Now, how many places like that are there that still need to be surveyed and accounted for?

OPPMANN: There are town after town.

And the reason we wanted to go there is because that - you look at the map that is where the Category 5 winds came in. That is where the absolute height of the storm surge. That was ground zero. So, we knew that is where people were going to be in the greatest need.

We've been in touch with people in that area ahead of the storm. So many people said "We're going to ride it out. We have a house that's on stilts. It's 12-feet high. We'll be OK." We have not been able to re-establish contact with any of those people. We went out there to find them. We couldn't find anyone.

CUOMO: And those are the good structures that you were showing there in the Town Center, those with the masonry. A lot of those houses in that - those areas there are not like that. How far was that particular village from the water?

OPPMANN: That - that - that town was maybe half a mile, a mile from the water. There were other residences that you can see the water, and cars have been picked up and thrown in to second storey houses.

There was a girl, had ridden out the storm with her dad there. He just built the house, and - and quite a carpenter, and they showed me, it was the top of the second floor. That's where the water got.

CUOMO: Holy Cow!

OPPMANN: And I said "Well how long did it go on for this?" "Two days." I mean people are traumatized. You can tell they're dealing with post- traumatic stress. There is no help. Everywhere we went, we said, "What can we get you?" And they said, "Water."

CUOMO: Yes.

OPPMANN: And luckily, we've been on a - a run to buy water that day, and we gave away all our water. And - and, you know, you give somebody a bottle of water here that's been sitting in your car, it's hot, and they drink it like it was champagne.

It's just the - the - the one item, the - the hardest-to-find item here and, you know, it's the difference between life and death for so many people who are still stuck out in these areas where help has not arrived.

CUOMO: And it's going to take time. And time is a killer post-storm. A mile away from the water, the water was still 17-feet high in surge. That is incredible. I know you're doing a lot of good work--

OPPMANN: Yes.

CUOMO: --for people on the ground. Take care of yourselves. Keep sending us back information so we can keep people connected. Patrick, be safe. Good to have you, Brother.

All right, so we're going to keep hearing stories like that, as we get exposure to places, where the people left, where were they not able to stay, where are they gone, who's missing, we're going to take you through all of it as we learn about it. We've got to stay connected to that story.

Now, here in America, Dorian is moving. It's causing a lot of damage. There's a death toll here, five. We got to go slow on those numbers. There's a long way to go. Let's see what happens.

It's a Category 2 storm. That means winds in the 90s, up to a 110 miles an hour, now battering Myrtle Beach. We're going to take you there.

Martin Savidge is standing by with the latest, next.

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TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.

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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.

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CUOMO: OK. So, here is what we know.

The power of this Category 2 hurricane has already taken lives in the United States. And hundreds of thousands are powerless in the Carolinas tonight, where the future holds more of the same, if not worse. People there are battling strong winds, flooding, and tornadoes.

Martin Savidge is on the ground in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where they're feeling some of the worst effects of the storm.

Martin, what can you tell us, and how are you doing?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Chris, of course, the storm is just a mere shadow of what it was when it went through the Bahamas. But it's a testament to the power of the storm that it still is able to continue to pummel, even five, six days after that.

The winds are down significantly from what they were earlier in the week, but they're still delivering a punishing blow to the Carolinas.

You saw what it did to the earlier part of South Carolina. Myrtle Beach, which is now closer to North Carolina, is feeling the full brunt. It was not just the winds and the torrential rains, but a new threat today, tornadoes.

These were spin-off tornadoes that came out of the darkness in the early morning hours. And they did do damage, destroying, in some cases, mobile homes completely, and others, tearing the siding off of other community homes, bringing down trees.

It's a pretty rough night still ahead here. Chris?

CUOMO: Well, you know Martin, you're a pro, and you're always so measured, and your voice is always so calming. But I know that that isn't comfortable what you're standing in.

Even though it's dark, and it's hard for people to see, please, you and the team stay safe, stay out of the worst of it, if you can, and stay in touch. Be well, OK?

All right, let's go now to Meteorologist Tom Sater. Let's figure out where the storm is now? Where it's going? What the chances are?

What can you tell us? TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well Chris, we still have the hurricane warnings that are in effect.

And now, they actually come all the way up to the lower neck of the Chesapeake. And as we look at the core of the system, it looks like it wants to kind of die out, but the winds continue to broaden.

[21:15:00] This is such a wide storm. Hurricane force winds out 60 miles now, and we're seeing the edge of the eye. Now clips are part of the coastline, little concerned about the curvature of the Outer Banks, taking those bands and that storm surge straight on. Notice the bands. This is what Martin was talking about. We had over

two dozen tornado warnings today. And usually, they're EF-1, EF-2, they're small. Come down, they can do damage.

But the video shows otherwise. Those were large today.

Now as we watch the possibility of landfall, this will be up near Cape Lookout. The Outer Banks around the entire globe are some of the most susceptible areas for a storm surge, and we're going to see that.

Broadening out now, we may have flight delays up and down the entire Eastern Corridor. And really, when we look at the spin of this, we're not over with this yet. We've had heavy rain on those bands, well in advance, and then you get the core of that heavy rain. Flooding inland is a problem.

But really, when we talk about the entire thing about this, I mean, even with tropical storm warnings up at Nantucket, and around Martha's Vineyard, this system now, we're ending the 13th straight day of forecasting this. Tomorrow's day 14. It's traveled 3,000 miles.

And get this, where is it going next? Take a look at the forecast up toward Nova Scotia, it's going to have some problems there, south of Greenland, it becomes subtropical, it moves across the Northern Atlantic, and they're going to have strong winds in Scotland by the middle of next week. It is amazing.

One thing for sure is there will never be another hurricane with the name Dorian. I mean it's not for some kind of Hall of Fame. It's for the sadness and the tragedy of it all. No doubt about it.

This one's going away. Give it a couple more days, I think, by tomorrow morning, Chris, we'll say goodbye off the Outer Banks.

CUOMO: Oh! God willing! Tom--

SATER: Yes.

CUOMO: --keep a track - keep an eye on it, and we'll be back with you when we need you.

SATER: Sure.

CUOMO: All right, now we're going to switch topics here. We have a former Governor who has a lot of experience in how to lead during a weather crisis. Former Governor Chris Christie is back on PRIME TIME.

We're going to talk Hurricane Dorian, and why it's added to this President's problems. But then, we're going to tackle the tough part, and this Governor's new focus, solutions to what ails our politics most.

Let's get after it, next.

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TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.

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CUOMO: Look, we're living in strange times. We've got a hurricane going up the coast. And the President is fighting with the media about something that he said. That was wrong.

Well about a dozen times, since Sunday that the President has made it a point to insist he was right about Dorian heading toward Alabama. It isn't, and never was, in any real way, in any model, we've ever been shown.

This isn't about fact. It's about where we are in our discourse. This is where we are.

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CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: Right now, I'm much more concerned about preventing any other loss of life, getting people to safe places, and then we'll worry about the election. The election will take care of itself.

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CUOMO: It's not this is where we were. No, this is where we are. I want you to remember Governor Chris Christie.

Do you remember? During Superstorm Sandy, "I don't care about Bush. I don't care about Obama. I don't care about anything. I care about helping New Jersey. I'll hug anybody who comes here to help us."

That's what he did. He got criticism. He didn't care. He's been in the mix.

Now, he's watching what's happening, and he thinks it is too much. He's trying to bring civility back to politics. Yes, I know. Put the smile on your face, we'll talk about that too. We're going to talk problems and solutions.

Governor, great to have you here.

CHRISTIE: Good to be here, Chris.

CUOMO: And - and I mean that. I don't mean it to be confusing. We have to remember that's what a leader does.

CHRISTIE: Yes.

CUOMO: The game stops when people start dying or at risk. No more Left, Right anymore.

CHRISTIE: No.

CUOMO: Only what's reasonable.

CHRISTIE: Listen, 365,000 homes destroyed in New Jersey in 24 hours. When that kind of disaster happens, what we're seeing in Dorian right now, you can't be worried about politics. And if you are, then you're not - you're not being a leader.

Political fights could be kept till later. And part of what I'm trying to do with this new Institute is to say there has to be ways for us to begin to talk to each other again, in order to solve problems.

And what we're not doing now is we're not solving problems, we're not talking to each other, and I want to try to get a forum where people can actually do that.

CUOMO: Now, let's look at just this one moment as metaphor. And then, we'll go anywhere you want with it, in terms of how you diagnose the problem. People get information. They misinterpret it, in your position. President too.

Let's assume he was getting real-time data on it. Let's assuming they showed him a model. He was wrong about it going to Alabama. OK. End of the story. The National Weather Service came out and corrected it. He couldn't let it go. He took it as an insult.

Now the media picks up on it. Why? That's what we do. If the President, powerful people are into it, we're into it. He doesn't let it go. He says that we're being fake. He's got poor McAleenan standing up there with a map that he drew a circle on.

Now, he's got some Rear Admiral coming out and saying "Well he did get a briefing that one showed that Alabama might get." Who does that in the middle of a hurricane?

CHRISTIE: Well, you know, what's happening here, and this is a part of the symptom of the disease we're talking about, is the fight never ends.

And so, the President feels like he's under siege constantly, so he's never going to stop fighting. The media feels like they're under siege from the President, they're not going to stop fighting. The Congress feels like they're under siege, they're not going to stop fighting.

And what's getting lost in all of this is the real concerns of real Americans who want the government to operate whether it's at their local level, their state level, or the federal level.

And I think this is just another example of it, Chris, that - that people are never taking their uniforms off, ever. We're never sitting down together and having that conversation anymore when the uniform is off. And--

CUOMO: So, I heard some guy on Anderson's show. His name doesn't matter. I'll keep him out of it. I don't want him to get any more heat than he's going to get already.

And he said, "You know what? You guys just shouldn't pay so much attention to it. You know, you guys just never let it go."

[21:25:00] Since when does a President making a mistake about where a hurricane is going or any of the things that he said, I could literally waste our whole time now, just telling you things that are demonstrably false that he said, many intentionally so.

It's not our job to let it go. It's our job to expose it. We've just never dealt with somebody before who refuses to admit when they're wrong. What are we supposed to do?

CHRISTIE: Well listen, and I - and - and - this is what I think is that I think everybody's gotten out of hand. And I do think that there're elements of the media who have lost control because they feel under attack, right? So now, they're going to attack back.

And - and you and I both see this. Now, two wrongs don't make a right on either side of it. And what I'm trying to do through this Institute is to say to everybody listen, no one has fought harder than I've fought at times. And I've had sharp elbows. And I've had critical things to say.

That's why when people, you know, are being critical of us trying to bring an Institute together that's going to talk about bipartisanship and civility, and getting things done, they'll "Well you haven't always been civil."

Well show me the person in public life who has always been civil. Tell me the person in public life in the last 25 years.

In my view, this all started back in the mid-90s in a serious way with the Contract with America and the attitude and tone that went on during that campaign in the mid-90s.

CUOMO: Gingrich's campaign.

CHRISTIE: Right. Then--

CUOMO: Why? What did you see as a shift in that?

CHRISTIE: What - what - what I saw there was that it became much more personal during the Clinton years. And then the Clinton people got back to being personal as well.

CUOMO: Newt Gingrich was quoted at--

CHRISTIE: To his re-elect.

CUOMO: --the time as saying, you know, they don't teach you guys to be mean, or something to that effect.

CHRISTIE: Right.

CUOMO: That you got to learn to be mean again, not compassionate conservative.

CHRISTIE: And - and I think that's where it started. I - I really do. And - and I think that it's just evolved over the course of time and gotten significantly worse. I think a lot of things that President Clinton was involved in helped to make it coarser and worse.

Then we had an election where people were saying that George W. Bush was an illegitimate President, and that caused more anger, and upset, and division in the country.

You - you moved from there to Iraq, and the people who had different sides on that, instead of saying "The President did what he thought was best. He may have been wrong about some of the Intel that he was given. But he was doing what he thought was in the best interest of the country." "No. No. No. He was a war criminal." So--

CUOMO: Well the Weapons of Mass Destruction thing turned out to be fake, so--

CHRISTIE: Well--

CUOMO: --people felt deceived.

CHRISTIE: Well this--

CUOMO: And you had Congress that had mud on them because they voted for a war. They said they got duped.

CHRISTIE: Well guess what? I think the President felt deceived too. You know, I've talked to the President about this. And, you know, he was given Intel that they told him this is a slam dunk. He absolutely has this stuff. They turned out to be wrong.

So, what we do, Chris, now is instead of people being wrong, they're liars, they're evil.

It continued on with the stuff with President Obama, and where was he born, and was he a real American, one (ph) illegitimate President there.

CUOMO: I agree with the whole trajectory.

CHRISTIE: The trajectory is--

CUOMO: Except for one thing.

CHRISTIE: --really bad.

CUOMO: We have never seen a President like this one.

CHRISTIE: Well no.

CUOMO: We've never seen somebody. And you got to use the word because otherwise you - if you ignore it, you empower it.

He lies to the American people. I had the Head of his Campaign on the other day who said - his - his Press Secretary for the Campaign said "He's never lied to the American people."

CHRISTIE: Yes. I saw that. And I--

CUOMO: That's a lie.

CHRISTIE: Listen, I think that what you're dealing with now, and you know, I've known the President for a long time.

I've known him for 18 years, and this is someone who was never involved in politics before, never involved in the nuance or subtlety of the way you can at times in politics have to talk around issues, until you really know what you're supposed to do.

And - and I think, you know, Chris, the bottom line is the American people voted for Donald Trump because they were tired of what was going on in Washington, they wanted a disrupter. That's what they're getting.

Now, some people are now going "Well that's too much for me. I don't want that disruption." The other people that I talk to really love it, and want him continue to do it.

What I want to see happen is regardless of the personalities involved, because we just talked about the fact that there's been 25 years of history on this, where Republicans and Democrats just don't deal with each other anymore.

Obamacare passed without one Republican vote, all right? The tax cut passed this year with not one Democratic vote. That's just wrong. And it's no way that we can govern the country.

I had a - a Democratic legislature for eight years in New Jersey, solidly Democrat, nearly veto-proof. And yet, we got all kinds of things done in our state because we were willing to sit down with each other, reason with each other, and have personal relationships.

One of the elements that I think is really missing here is--

CUOMO: And you fought but you fixed.

CHRISTIE: Right. You fought towards an end. You didn't fight just to fight. You fought because you believed in something and then you were willing to compromise. "OK. So, I'm not going to get everything I'm going to get."

CUOMO: But we're not seeing that.

CHRISTIE: No. And - and I think those are the conversations we need to have.

I want to use this Institute as a forum to do that, to have these conversations, so that people can see examples of how bipartisanship can work, and is good for our country. And we need to do that.

And - and - and I hope that the President is persuaded by this. I hope that Nancy Pelosi is persuaded by this, that Members of Congress are persuaded by it ultimately, because I think the American people are near exhaustion from the fighting. And--

CUOMO: Here's the part I don't--

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CHRISTIE: --it's about time that everybody has to get with it.

[21:30:00] CUOMO: Listen, I can't disagree with any of that. I'll be honest. I hear it all the time, you know, and I respect it.

And frankly, we kind of designed the show around it. You know, I open the forum to everybody all the time. I believe in disagreement with decency.

Doesn't matter what I'm going to be called. As long as my kids aren't around, you know, I'm going to take it. I'm going to try and make it better for the audience, right, in my professional life.

Here's the one part I don't get, and then we'll go to break, and we'll come back and talk about the ideas you have for solutions.

I don't know that it can get better if there's no accountability. And I know that everybody does something like what we're seeing happen now in the White House, but not like this.

And it doesn't matter who it is, nobody on this President's side of the team, defense, the line, whatever you want to call it, says, "Yes. He's got to stop lying. He's got to stop attacking people the way he is. It's no good. It's unproductive."

Nobody says it. Why would he ever change, Gov?

CHRISTIE: Well in our system, the accountability is there, Chris, and it's called the--

CUOMO: The election.

CHRISTIE: --it's called an election.

CUOMO: But it's short of that. I mean, come on.

CHRISTIE: But - but he - but that is the key to - listen, I think our Founders designed this country to be an argument, to be a perpetual argument, with the three branches of government, dividing up power, a lot of that power being co-equal, and stressful, and intention.

You know, if I had a nickel for every time a legislator said to me, "Hey, Governor, we're a co-equal branch of government," I'd be a wealthy guy.

CUOMO: True.

CHRISTIE: Right?

CUOMO: And if the President were coming out with charts and graphs about why this hurricane proves what he wants to do for global warming or what he doesn't want to do for global warming, and why, and he wanted to argue that all day long, and he got angry, and hot, and he yelled at people, he told the media "You're too stupid to follow what I'm saying," I get it.

But he's not taking on any brave fights. It's always personal.

CHRISTIE: No. I don't think that's true, Chris. I don't think that's fair.

CUOMO: Look at this with the hurricane.

CHRISTIE: Well but yes, but OK.

CUOMO: He literally drew with a Sharpie on a map something that's not true.

CHRISTIE: But - but let - let's - let me take - let me take issue with one thing you just said.

CUOMO: Please.

CHRISTIE: You said, you know, it's never about anything big or anything like that. It's always about something personal. I don't think that's the case. I think we've seen a President here at times where he is fighting for things that he really believes in.

He is fighting with China over something he really believes in that's spoken about for 30 years, which he doesn't believe the theft of intellectual property created by Americans, and they're not being paid or compensated for it, is fair.

He thinks it hurts our country, it hurts our citizens, and he's willing to take on that fight. That's not a personal fight to him.

In fact, I only hear him say good things about President Xi. I never hear him say anything really bad about him. I think one time he called him an enemy. But other than that, given what he's said about other people, he's been pretty nice to President Xi, right?

CUOMO: It's pretty low bar.

CHRISTIE: Right. Well but-- CUOMO: That you're giving him.

CHRISTIE: Well but - but - no, but my point is that that fight is a much bigger fight. That's a fight for the American people.

CUOMO: It is. But he's not fighting to articulate--

CHRISTIE: The inventors, the workers.

CUOMO: I totally get what you're saying. But conceptually, that's not what his rhetoric is about. It's about why tariffs are a good thing, and the farmers are OK with it, and it's only going to be--

CHRISTIE: That's a political--

CUOMO: --short-term. They're getting hurt more.

CHRISTIE: But that's a political argument.

CUOMO: It's all untrue.

CHRISTIE: The underpinning of what he's doing is he believes that American inventors and American manufacturers have been treated unfairly by the Chinese who are stealing our intellectual property from us and not compensating for us.

CUOMO: Well you're not going to get an argument on that.

CHRISTIE: Right. So my - so my point to you is that--

CUOMO: Right.

CHRISTIE: --I think there have been real times when this President has argued on matters of principle.

But what happens in the environment we have now is that even reasonable people like you, and we know each other for a long time, and I know you're a reasonable guy, you know, it gets obscured, because of the - the heat of the rhetoric, and the unwillingness to say that someone is not my enemy, he's my adversary. And there's a huge difference in that. And that's what we need to get back to in politics.

I'm not going to, you know - listen, I didn't vote for Barack Obama twice. But when he came to New Jersey, and he did his job, and he said I'm going to help you, and he followed through with it, you're damn right I'm going to say nice things about him because he deserved it. He earned it.

CUOMO: And that was your job.

CHRISTIE: And - and, by the way, my number one job was not to be Mitt Romney's surrogate.

CUOMO: Taking--

CHRISTIE: But to be--

CUOMO: All right.

CHRISTIE: --the Governor.

CUOMO: Let me take a break. Let's come back. And let's talk about what the initiative is, and what you think can get done, and how you're going to do it.

CHRISTIE: Great.

CUOMO: All right? Gov, thanks very much for being with us.

CHRISTIE: You got it. Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: We'll take a quick break. You heard what we're going to do. Let's get after it.

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CHRISTIE: You want to have the conversation later? I'm happy to have it, buddy. But until that time, sit down and shut up.

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CUOMO: All right, now, Governor Chris Christie was known for a lot of things when he was at New Jersey. Attitude was one of them. But now the point he's making to us is civility is about a lack of animus. You can have attitude, but not animus.

CHRISTIE: Right.

CUOMO: Not animosity. Now, you know the obvious one. You're starting an--

CHRISTIE: Right.

CUOMO: --initiative on civility.

CHRISTIE: Yes.

CUOMO: You were the tough guy. CHRISTIE: Yes. But this isn't--

CUOMO: Why you?

CHRISTIE: This is what drives people in political life crazy is when you show a clip like that, because if you showed the 45 seconds before that, when the guy was standing up and interrupting, that was a Sandy anniversary event, and - on the first year anniversary of Sandy.

And I offered to the guy, I said, "Listen, if you have a problem, let's - come over and see my staff. I'll come over and meet with you after the event to try to help you and work you through."

There's 45 seconds of me saying "I want to help you. But we can't do it in front of 400 people here."

It became clear to me after offering that and he just kept yelling and screaming that like he didn't want that.

CUOMO: Right.

CHRISTIE: What he wanted was just to disrupt the event. So, at that point, you have to make a decision, and you have to say like, "OK, you're going to be that way? Well then you're going to get hit back."

The - the difference of what I'm talking about is that didn't ever affect my ability to get things done. If you talk to the Senate President in New Jersey or to the two people who were Speaker in New Jersey, we'd have our back-and-forth.

One time, the - the - the Senate President in New Jersey, on the front page of the state's largest paper, said he was going to punch me in the head. Now, like I knew he wasn't.

CUOMO: Right.

CHRISTIE: And he was venting. And he was playing to his base. But after that, we got in a room, and we resolved the issue.

CUOMO: So, explain this to people, because again, I understand this a lot better because we grew up--

CHRISTIE: Yes.

CUOMO: --the same way.

Full disclosure, the Governor is friends with my brother, the Governor of New York right now, which by the way is a testament to civility, in and of itself, because if there were ever two alpha males that shouldn't have gotten along, it would have been you guys too, but the opposite became true, because you bonded on a personal basis, and you - you trusted each other.

They'll say "Hold on a second. You're a tough guy. You made political traction on being tough."

CHRISTIE: Right.

CUOMO: "You kept the media at bay because they were scared of you, they were nervous. That's why they put gotcha clips out like that--

CHRISTIE: Yes.

[21:40:00] CUOMO: --about you. You're having it both ways." What did you learn? What is the difference between you bringing the tough-guy attitude to situations and civility?

CHRISTIE: To get things accomplished, you have to show people that you're tough, and you're willing to fight. If they think you're going to roll over every time then no one's going to be in - incentivized to compromise when you're principally at difference.

So, Republicans and Democrats have principle differences about the way a government should operate, and what it's proper role and function is, and how that manifests itself.

The difference is, are you willing to get into the room, develop a personal relationship with the person on the other side of the table, and the other side of the aisle, and are you willing to - to use that personal relationship as a way to get things done, which means compromising?

And so, what we're - what we're missing in today's environment, in my view, is A, we're not willing to sit down with the other side, B, we're not willing to take the risk of developing personal relationships, and as a result, C can never happen, which is compromise.

That's why Obamacare passes with no Republican votes, why the tax cut passes with no Democrat votes. They're afraid because they don't trust each other. And the only way to really get the true bipartisanship is to be willing to take the risk to trust each other.

CUOMO: The line you get the government you deserve.

CHRISTIE: Yes.

CUOMO: What is the incentive for someone to be highroad, sit down with the other side, compromise, when it's being articulated from the highest seat of power as that is a recipe for weakness?

CHRISTIE: Because you can do what I just did in that clip, which is when you have somebody who's a complete - and, by the way, that guy went up running twice for the State Assembly as a Democrat after that, and losing both times. He had a political agenda. You have to, as a - as a public official, make that decision (ph).

Now, I'll tell you where I made mistakes like there was one time in a Town Hall meeting where a guy was going after me, and I called him a jerk.

CUOMO: Yes. CHRISTIE: Wrong thing to do. I apologized to him for it afterwards. There are times when we're human. We're going to lose control of our temper. And especially, when you're in a stressful job like Governor, or a President, or a Speaker, you're going to do that.

CUOMO: The apology part matters though.

CHRISTIE: It does matter.

And - and - and there's no question that what we've also lost, of late, not only from the President, but from people in Congress too, is, and at the state level, in some places, the - the ability to be able to admit "I made a mistake." "OK. I was wrong. And I'm moving on." And it doesn't make me lesser. In fact, it makes me more. So--

CUOMO: A 100 percent.

CHRISTIE: --so when I - when I apologized to the Navy SEAL who I called a jerk, that doesn't make me a lesser person. But, on the other hand, if a guy's going to act like that and you're in public life, there is a moment where you have to say enough is enough.

CUOMO: If that's who - if that's who you are. So, when does the Initiative start? It's at Seton Hall University.

CHRISTIE: Right.

CUOMO: How can people find out about it?

CHRISTIE: Well people can find out about it. It's - it's been publicized all over. We have a website. It's the Christie Institute for Public Policy.

And what - what we're going to start is, three weeks from tonight, we're going to start with a conversation between me and someone you're familiar with, the Governor of New York.

CUOMO: Wow.

CHRISTIE: Now--

CUOMO: That's going to be a brawl.

CHRISTIE: Well it'll be fabulous, right?

And - and the great thing about - about Governor Cuomo and I was that we dealt with each other on a personal level, on issues both political and policy. And we were candid with each other. We were honest with each other. And then we executed and kept our word to each other.

Now, we didn't always agree on everything. He raised the minimum wage, for instance, in - in the New York airports. I didn't think it was necessary in the New Jersey airports. We disagreed on that. He did his thing. I did mine.

I didn't then come out and say, "Oh, you know, Andrew Cuomo's a crazy liberal." And he didn't come out and say, "I was a heartless SOB."

That's where things start to get out of control. He said to me, "I disagree with the Governor." I said "Well I disagree with Governor Cuomo." That's the end of that, next issue, because we have bigger things to do.

And think about what happened, and we'll talk about this in three weeks. Some of the biggest infrastructure projects in the history of our two states happened because we worked together, the Goethals Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge, the expansion of LaGuardia Airport, the modernization of Newark Airport, a Path train from Lower Manhattan to Newark Airport being built now.

All those things happened because he and I worked together and cooperated. We didn't agree on everything. I'm sure we never voted for the same person for President. But we can't allow that to define who we are.

And what the Institute wants to do is to bring people like that together. It's not always going to be me involved. We'll bring other people in for quarterly lecture series on these issues to try to say you can have an adult conversation about this, and disagree--

CUOMO: Yes.

CHRISTIE: --and not kill each other.

CUOMO: Well I get the angle and I had to play to it about it being you, it's actually you're the right guy to do it, you know, Seton Hall, New Jersey University.

You're the right guy to do it because you're a tough guy, and you want civility, and it shows that that kind of dimension can exist at the same time in politics. I wish you very well with it.

CHRISTIE: Thank you. Our country needs it, Chris.

CUOMO: Yes, 100 percent.

CHRISTIE: We need it.

CUOMO: Got to get better than where we are right now.

CHRISTIE: We do.

CUOMO: Governor, you're always welcome here.

CHRISTIE: Thank you.

CUOMO: Thank you very much.

CHRISTIE: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: Good luck with the initiative.

CHRISTIE: I'm looking forward to it. CUOMO: Absolutely!

[21:45:00] All right, so back to the storm. Lot of people, part of the story is where are my loved ones, OK? You saw with Patrick Oppmann, down there in Great Bahama, why they can't find anybody.

We have an update to a story that many of you've been asking about, a young woman who's desperate to find her family, news ahead.

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CUOMO: So, let's just talk about the fake storm map here for a second. It's now an example of something much more important than this President's seeming inability to own a mistake, is a case study of exactly what not to do in a crisis.

So first, the Press Secretary says this President was getting hourly updates on where Dorian was headed, and where. Remember that, hourly updates. This is while he was golfing throughout the holiday weekend.

[21:50:00] This is what the maps looked like on Sunday morning. That's the actual map, OK? There is no other map. This is the map. The storm's path had shifted north, days earlier, so now it looked like the storm would just skim Florida's Atlantic Coast, thankfully.

At the time, there was a 5 to 10 percent possibility that a small sliver of Alabama could see tropical storm force winds maybe. If you look at it, that's what the map says, never a direct hit. Same possibility for Washington D.C., and Delaware, and New Jersey.

But here's what the President tweeted.

"In addition to Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit much harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already Category 5. Be careful! God bless everyone!"

By the way, right sentiment. He just got something wrong. And the map shows it.

Poof! 20 minutes after the President's tweet, the National Weather Service, not the most partisan place in the world, sent this out.

"Alabama will not see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east."

Why the clarification? So that you don't freak out people, in and around Alabama, because clearly the National Weather Service took the President's tweet as wrong.

So, instead of just being quiet or, God forbid, admitting the error, this President doubles down an hour later.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It may get a little piece of a great place, it's called Alabama. And Alabama could even be in for at least some very strong winds and something more than that, it could be. This just came up, unfortunately.

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CUOMO: It did not just come up.

He gets something wrong, he gets corrected, he gets offended apparently, doubles down, creates concern in a state where there need be none, distracts the conversation from the places and people who need notice, and then does something that is right out of a B-comedy.

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TRUMP: That was the original chart. And you see it was going to hit not only Florida, but Georgia. It could have - it was going toward the Gulf. That was what we - what was originally projected.

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CUOMO: It's a Sharpie line. Someone drew it to extend the cone out to Alabama. Are you serious? Drawing a mustache on someone's photo is more subtle.

Look at poor DHS Acting Secretary, McAleenan, all the serious work he has to do, and there he is, trying to touch the tainted map as little as he can.

Then, just now, we're told, the President directed some poor Rear Admiral to say the President was given a briefing on Sunday that had a model that showed Alabama could get some Dorian exposure.

Look at the models from Sunday again. You see wind advisories. But there is no major storm impact. He loses on a fact-check. Period!

Now the big question, who cares? Two ways to look at it.

One, no one cares. It's another discrepancy. POTUS wasn't right. But what's so wrong with being off and spreading extra caution in a storm? There was a chance of getting some nasty winds. Better safe than sorry, right? Right? "Why does the media have to chase everything? Leave him alone. Let him be himself."

Or people are piling up dead. Real problems are mounting that is - deserve attention, and concern, and urgency, and focus.

You are literally in the middle of a hurricane, and this President is all about defending himself, and his erroneous claim, fake maps, compelling people to justify his claims, and not really focusing on the people who should be getting help, which is what a leader does.

"Oh, he's just fighting back." Against what? The truth?

Even if he were right, and he was wrong, you really think this was the time, and this is the way for a President to act? I argue this. You can't. You can't support doing this, this way, during this time. It is not on us.

He is the leader of the Free World. It begins with him. This is not strength. It is arrogance. It does not deserve respect because it is inherent disrespect for you and the oath of his Office.

And if you think it isn't a big deal that only reinforces the point. If he will go to this length, to justify something this small, at a time like this, what else will he do?

Be honest. We know the answer.

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TRUMP: 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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[21:55:00] CUOMO: Look - and that is just a touch of what we learned. He'll mislead you about everything, from crowd size to how we're containing children, celebrations after 9/11 to Russian interference.

It is easy to ignore. But what you ignore you empower. And what we see here is proof that the people around this President, and those in his party, have created a hurricane of hypocrisy, that is every bit as threatening as any storm.

All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, I have an update on a story you're going to want to hear, next.

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CUOMO: So, on Tuesday night, you remember 20-year old Romea Roelle? She came on this show, asking to help find her family in the Bahamas. Here's a little bit.

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ROMEA ROELLE, BAHAMIAN RESIDENT SEARCHING FOR FAMILY: The last we've heard for them - from them were - was days ago. And now, we're getting information trickling in from one or two settlements.

But, like I said earlier, there are nine settlements in the far northern end of Abaco. And it seems as if our relatives have just washed off the planet like we're not hearing anything from them.

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CUOMO: Good news! Romea contacted us tonight. Her family has been located. All are safe. But there are thousands still looking. So, please stay connected.

Thank you for watching. CNN TONIGHT with D. Lemon starts right now.

You know, D, we like to give them a little bit, give the audience a little bit of hope, let them know that some good things are happening as well. But there's a lot of hurt in the Bahamas.

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