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New Day
PA Women Who Won't Vote Trump This Time; Trump Pitches Derogatory Tweet At Fauci; Barrett Confirmation Day Two Begins; CNN Panel On The Impact Of Barrett's Appointment. Aired 8:30-8:50a ET
Aired October 13, 2020 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have a deeply revealing report for you this morning.
In Pennsylvania women voters helped Donald Trump flip that state in 2016. The question is, where are they now?
CNN's Kate Bolduan went to find out and Kate joins us now.
You talked to a number of voters and they really had a revealing story to tell you.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, thanks, John. It was fascinating.
And look, Trump won Pennsylvania in '16, a narrow victory, 44,000 votes. You know that.
We can throw a bundle of facts and figures at you but the point is both campaigns need women to win in 2020 and Donald Trump is facing an uphill battle.
Listening to the white women voters, a key demographic that we spoke to, you will understand why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLI GEITNER, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: You all right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLI GEITNER: I'm probably a good example of someone who's gone through a lot of change in four years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Holli Geitner -- a registered Republican is a working parent of two kids living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
She voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and she wasn't alone. Fifty percent of white women in Pennsylvania did the same, according to exit polls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: What do you feel today about your vote four years ago?
GEITNER: I can tell you how I felt four years ago. Shame.
BOLDUAN: Do you regret your vote?
GEITNER: Where we are today? Yes, I do. I don't think that this is the "great again " that everyone thought it was going to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: So Hollie is voting for Joe Biden and so is Nin Bell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: What drew you to Donald Trump? Why did you vote for Donald Trump then?
NIN BELL, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: For his celebrity, 100 percent.
BOLDUAN: It was the brand?
BELL: It was.
BOLDUAN: The image?
BELL: Absolutely. Successful, funny. Like he was funny, I loved his show, "The Celebrity Apprentice." Never missed it.
BOLDUAN: Was there a moment when you decided I cannot support him anymore?
BELL: It was almost instantly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: It's not just outside the cities where suburban women are questioning their support for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, it's even out here in Westmoreland County, rural Pennsylvania. Considered Trump Country.
We're about to meet two of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIE BRADY, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: She's older.
JOAN SMELTZER, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: I'm older.
BOLDUAN: Oh, you're definitely sisters.
Joan Smeltzer and Julie Brady are registered Democrats and both voted for Trump in 2016. SMELTZER: I feel like I've been duped. I got it wrong and it hurts
my heart. It truly hurts my heart because the things that I saw I didn't take seriously enough.
BOLDUAN: Throughout the campaign he was making sexist, misogynistic remarks and then there was the "Access Hollywood" tape. How did you guys process and digest that, being out there and voting for him?
SMELTZER: It was not easy. I look at myself and I think how could I do that?
BRADY: I feel like I did a disservice to women by voting for this guy.
BOLDUAN: Was there a moment in the last four years when you said, I can't do this again?
BRADY: The COVID pandemic, the way he handled it. That that was the absolute last straw for me.
He didn't create the virus but he kind of left us all in the dark guessing what was going on. And that wasn't fair to us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Among the women we spoke to the coronavirus, the president's handling of the pandemic and the racial unrest following the police killing of George Floyd were the overwhelming driving issues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEITNER: George Floyd's killing was a pivotal moment for me. And when I read that he was begging for his mom, as a mother myself, it just brought me to my knees.
And to see what's happened since, I feel like he's added fuel to flames of hatred. And that really bothers me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: No justice. No peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Nim Bell who registered as a Republican in 2016 just to vote for Trump in the primaries now protests weekly in her town just outside Philadelphia. Often met by groups she used to consider herself a part of, Trump supporters, setting up counterdemonstrations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: I think Trump kind of thrives on that, on that division. I see it in my own town.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMELTZER: Integrity, that's what we're lacking.
[08:35:00]
BRADY: And accountability.
SMELTZER: Yes.
BRADY: Being the mom of a nine-year-old, that's one thing that I push with my son all the time is you made a bad decision, it's your fault, you learn from it, you move on.
We have a president who nothing that happens is ever his fault, it's always somebody else's fault.
BOLDUAN: Well, there are consequences.
BRADY: There are consequences. He's about to find them out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Now the women we spoke to, of course, don't speak for every woman in Pennsylvania. But what they have to say, John, and why really shows the challenge that the president is up against in this battleground state.
The latest polling has him trailing Joe Biden by 23 points among women in Pennsylvania. So no surprise the president is headed to Pennsylvania today.
BERMAN: It's such a vivid transformation --
BOLDUAN: Right.
BERMAN: -- that these women you spoke with went through and it's so interesting they both point -- they all point to the pandemic but also this summer with George Floyd. Something switched, something flipped for so many of those people.
BOLDUAN: And I was also struck, John, when we approached them they were really nervous about speaking up.
Not just because the TV cameras were showing up at their house but because they had not spoken up publicly about this decision, this transformation, this evolution, if you will, in such a public way.
And when I asked them if they were concerned about what it meant because Julie Brady's husband is still voting for Trump, her family is all Trump supporters, they universally, though, said no.
They are decided. And they said very clearly we can hold our own.
BERMAN: Well, look you are very intimidating, first of all. But secondly, we talk so much about the shy Trump voters, there are maybe shy Biden voters now who are coming out and planning to vote.
Kate Bolduan, terrific, terrific report.
BOLDUAN: Good to see you, John.
BERMAN: Thanks so much for doing this.
So moments ago President Trump with a new attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci. Stick around.
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[08:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He was warned but ignored the evidence. Holding rallies indoors, turning a White House into a super-spreader and contracting the virus himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: -- now tested positive.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Now he claims he's learned about COVID.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I get it.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: But he hasn't learned a thing. Putting us and those sworn to protect him at risk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: "Don't be afraid of it."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Meanwhile, America pays the price.
215,000 dead. No plan. And now another wave is coming.
Had enough?
JOE BIDEN, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT AND DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm Joe Biden and I approve this message.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BERMAN: So this just happened moments ago. President Trump attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci in a new tweet.
It reads, quote:
"Actually, Tony's pitching arm is far more accurate than his prognostications."
Of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci had that unfortunate first pitch at a Nationals game.
This comes after Dr. Fauci is displeased, expressed his displeasure that the Trump Campaign took him out of context in a Trump Campaign ad.
Joining us now CNN political editor, David Chalian and CNN chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.
And, David, I put this in a larger context. The president attacking the most trusted man in America on the pandemic as one of those things that might help explain why the campaign is where it is right now. Leaning into things that don't politically seem to help him.
And explains also why the president is where he is --
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right.
BERMAN: -- in this campaign right now and so is Joe Biden. Let's just put up on the screen so people can see the different campaign events, where each campaign is this week.
Trump: Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia. Biden, the Biden team: Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.
When you, with your trained eyes see this, David Chalian, what jumps out?
CHALIAN: Well, the president is playing complete defense, right? He's trying to shore up states that his campaign long ago thought would be off the map by now. Places like Iowa or Ohio where Mike Pence was yesterday and where Joe Biden was playing offense yesterday.
They didn't think those states that he won by eight, nine points in 2016 three weeks out from election day would still be on the map, but they are.
And it speaks to his problem. Because if you look for his path to 270 you see a continuing narrowing path for the president and he's really going to have to start digging into some territory that's already leaning in Joe Biden's direction in a pretty significant way.
But that Fauci tweet, John, you are right. It does speak to precisely what the president's most acute political problem is. It is his mismanagement of this pandemic, it is the dismissing of the science represented in Fauci.
And this is not new, right? We've seen this Trump taking on Fauci and trying to start a war with Fauci flare up several times over the past eight months.
Whether he gets sidelined from briefings or Trump expresses displeasure about him but knows that there is nobody more trusted on the issue that is most front and center for Americans. And so he can't completely just throw him under the bus.
But Trump is clearly in the place where you see desperation now on the part of the president, desperately trying to find a path to reelection.
BOLDUAN: Are we sure president Trump wrote that tweet? Prognostications?
BERMAN: It's a good point. It's a multi-syllabic word.
BOLDUAN: Spelled correctly?
BERMAN: Alarm bells go off.
BOLDUAN: OK. Things that make you scratch your head, Jeffrey. Let's stay on that, in that category.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
BOLDUAN: Mitch McConnell. Senator Mitch McConnell had a debate last night and he said something curious about what we should all expect about the Affordable Care Act if Judge Barrett is confirmed.
Listen to this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): No one believes the supreme court is going to strike down the Affordable Care Act.
What this is really about is trying to change the subject away from this extraordinary nominee who's before the senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: No one believes the Affordable Care Act is going to be struck down, Jeffrey?
TOOBIN: Yes. Someone ought to tell that to the justice department, Donald Trump's justice department, which has a brief before the supreme court in this case asking the court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act -- preexisting conditions, keeping your kids on your insurance till 26, no lifetime limits.
All of that goes out the window if the president's lawyers win their case.
So I suppose the representatives of the State of California and the House of Representatives who are representing the defendants in that case should take some confidence in the fact that the president's biggest supporter doesn't think they're going to win.
[08:45:00]
But I think it's very much an open question what the supreme court does. And if Judge Barrett replaces Justice Ginsburg, there is certainly a
better chance of the whole law going down the tubes.
Because as we know, she has already spoken of how she disagreed with the one time the supreme court has upheld the constitutionality of the Act.
CHALIAN: And Jeffrey, isn't --
TOOBIN: Go ahead -- sorry.
CHALIAN: And Jeffrey -- yes. Isn't Mitch McConnell's timeline here to get her quickly -- to get Amy Coney Barrett quickly on the court because that case is being heard soon?
Isn't that part of the rush here is to have her on the court to be part of hearing that case?
TOOBIN: Yes. That's part of it and it's also part of it to get her on the court in case there are any disputes about the election itself.
That's one reason why McConnell is pushing so hard to get her confirmed before November 3rd.
But certainly the fact that she can be there before that case is argued November 10th is another important reason why they're rushing so fast.
BERMAN: Look at the two of you promoting CNN's special live coverage of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings which begin right after this quick break.
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[08:50:00]
