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New Day
Trump Talks About Silent Majority; Clinton On Women's Rights; Polls Show Candidate From Outside The Beltway Would Make A Better President; Hurricane Katrina 10-Year Anniversary. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired August 28, 2015 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[07:30:30] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get to "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with John King. Hi, John.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Alisyn, happy Friday to you. Lots to talk about. We will be back to you in a few minutes.
With me to share their reporting and insights this morning is CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson and Ed O'Keefe of "The Washington Post." Let's start. This is a term that if you look at the history of Richard Nixon, still debated 50 years later Richard Nixon's use of the word silent majority and what did he mean?
Donald Trump is surging in the polls, 28 percent among the Republicans. You can see a path to the Republican nomination for Donald Trump. A path to the presidency is a lot more iffy. Donald Trump says there's something brewing in America.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So you have a silent majority in this country that feels abused, forgotten and mistreated. It's a term that hasn't been brought up in years. People haven't heard that term in many years.
It's interesting as to why. There are all different reasons. I think it's a very descriptive term. Every time I speak, I have sold out crowds. Every time I speak, I have standing ovations, every single time. It's the silent majority. They want to see wins and victory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Silent majority. It's a term that hasn't been used in a long time. If you don't know the term, it's a good day to be a student of presidential history. Richard Nixon used it repeatedly. He liked it.
The people who back him say he meant the people in America were sick and tired of elites, people in Washington trying to tell them how to live their lives.
There are other people who took it as racial code language that there were angry whites. This was Nixon's southern strategy. Donald Trump is in the middle of a big debate. NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right. We have a scenario where he's playing to white identity politics on whether it was birtherism or some of his comments about Mexicans crossing the border. Whether or not this is a dog whistling of the same thing, it doesn't matter. We have seen him use the regular whistle in some ways. So, yes, I mean --
KING: Well played.
HENDERSON: I don't know that people will make the connection. Interesting that he uses the idea that these are the people that forgot.
[07:35:07] Because I think Nixon first said it was the forgotten majority then switched to the silent majority. But you know, again, this white identity politics is very much at the center of what he's trying to do.
ED O'KEEFE, "THE WASHINGTON POST": And if you look at the polling, he's polling all of his support from white Americans. He continues to appeal to that. He drew a big, but not a sellout crowd in Alabama and it suggested, yes, he enjoys support among --
KING: Let's dig deeper on that because you hear him all the time. He has a huge problem, if you look at favorable ratings. Among Republicans, he's doing pretty well with women, but if you look at general election polling, that's a huge gender gap.
His unfavorable ratings are high if you look at the new Quinnipiac national poll where he loses to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. If you look here, this is favorable or unfavorable. This is African- American, 79 percent of African-American view him unfavorably, 63 percent of Hispanics, Latinos view him unfavorably.
Now it's August, the year before the election, but he can't win the presidency with those numbers and yet before you get to the conversation, if you listen to Donald Trump, he says, you know, I cherish women. He says he's going to get African-American people to vote for him.
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TRUMP: I have great friendships in the African-American community. They are suffering. Job numbers like they do right now especially African-American youth. It's terrible what's happening. As you see, I have great relationships because you see the poll numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That's where the disconnect is. If he wants to talk about I want a conversation with the community about jobs. He also said the African-American community needs more spirit. He said if you give them jobs, they'll have more spirit. He's just dead wrong about the poll numbers.
HENDERSON: Yes, he's doing terribly. I think in head to head match ups with Hillary Clinton, she gets 91 percent and he gets like 2 percent of the black vote. Romney got 4 percent or 6 percent or something like that. This isn't what he's doing.
He's not the "extend the tent" person like Rand Paul used to be. I don't think he is anymore necessarily either, but the party has problems. It looks like Bush does a little better with Latinos, he's at 35 percent. None of them do well at this point among African- Americans.
O'KEEFE: It's important to note while Trump's numbers are bad among Hispanics, it's not affecting the rest of the party. You would think that's what's happening. If you look at polling in the last week or so, they are now separating Trump from the Republican Party, which does poorly among Latinos. It hasn't driven down the party even more. I suspect his numbers will even get worse based on how he treated Jorge Ramos.
KING: You've raised this point many times before. More and more Latinos get their news from the Spanish language networks in this country, CNN Espanol, Univision and Telmundo. It will be interesting to see the numbers change after this week's dynamics. We'll watch this one.
Here is the question, Hillary Clinton, this is a trademark of her campaign so far. When she's not talking about the Democratic race and Democratic policies, one of the ways she tries to rally the base with tough attacks on the Republicans.
Here is a question. She was talking at an event about what she views as the extreme Republican vision on women's rights, reproductive rights and equal pay and the like. Does this go over the line?
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HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world.
But it's a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States yet they have out of date and out of touch policies. They are dead wrong for 21st Century America. We are going forward. We are not going back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Can you not make your case against the Republicans without saying we expect that from terrorist groups but not from Republicans?
O'KEEFE: You can. The second half of that answer would have been fine, out of date, out of touch.
HENDERSON: It was sort of a madman era that they used in 2012, linking Republican policies, who knows? This wasn't an offhand comment. It was something they prepped, which is sad and they thought this is a way to breakthrough and they will hear it on "NEW DAY." I doubt we'll hear that again in any of her speeches. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was talking about Scott Walker at one point saying that he wants to, you know, drive women back and he wants (inaudible). They go overboard with it.
KING: You can make your case. I'm all for tough partisanship. I'm all for gladiators, but you can make the case without using the terrorist word.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, but as Nia said, on one level, it worked. It worked with their base. It is a window into the politics of extreme. We are bathed in it, my brother. Thank you for doing it this morning.
[07:40:00] I have to encourage everybody to John's too humble, John King and his "Inside Politics" panel break down the news of the week every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
He won't tell you, so I have to. All right, we have a new poll suggesting Republican voters want someone from outside the beltway to be the party nominee in 2016. It's music to the ears of Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson. Any coincidence they are one in two in recent polls? We have a historian tell us whether or not it has a chance of coming true?
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CUOMO: We are seeing it in the GOP, but also among Democrats. Look at Bernie Sanders, not just Donald Trump. Voters are increasingly frustrated with what they see as the establishment.
The latest Quinnipiac polls show 73 percent of the GOP think a candidate from outside the beltway would make a better president. Here's the reflection of what we were discussing. It could explain Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
Remember Carson now in second just as much an outsider if not more than Donald Trump. Let's talk about this rebellion against the establishment with CNN presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley and also the author of "The Great Deluge."
[07:45:07] He joins us from New Orleans where he is marking the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. We want to talk about what this anniversary means, but let's deal with the news of the day first here. Do you think Ben Carson or Donald Trump, looking at it from historical perspective, winds up being president?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Yes, I think they wind up being one of them I think could end up being the Republican nominee. President is a big leap. I think the Republican establishment has had their day. They gave the country John McCain and he lost. They gave the country Mitt Romney and he lost.
Those were establishment Republicans. The insurgence led by Donald Trump includes Ted Cruz and Carson. They have the mojo, the momentum going right now. I don't think the hard right of the Republican Party is going to allow establishment candidate. If something like that happens, Trump would probably run a third party movement.
CUOMO: What have we seen that could correlate to today in terms of a possible outcome? Who has come from so for outside that they win in the party but in the general?
BRINKLEY: Well, remember, Jimmy Carter back in 1976, around this time in the election cycle, he about 101 odds of getting the Democratic nomination. He went to Iowa and New Hampshire and performed brilliantly and beat Ted Kennedy out of the picture, Frank Church and Hubert Humphrey.
So Carter had a populist appeal. Basically I'm not part of Washington. I have nothing to do with the Vietnam War and nothing to do with the counterculture revolution. I have nothing to do with Watergate or Nixon, Kissinger, LBJ.
Carter was able to use that outsider campaign and win. Carter even said, Chris, that the Democratic Party is an albatross around my neck. You see Donald Trump acting like the Republican Party in some ways is an albatross around his neck.
CUOMO: I remember hearing that at home when I was growing up as well. Let me ask you this, though, Jimmy Carter was governor of Georgia, obviously. That makes you a qualified outsider. You are a politician. These guys are a very different cut.
I mean, Ben Carson is a brain surgeon and never had a political inclination, and you have Trump and we know what he is and is not. This is a more dramatic version.
BRINKLEY: Absolutely. It's very hard. I have been saying we are in unchartered territory now. You can't compare what Trump is doing to anybody. One analogy people make, which is useful, is rethinking Ross Perot winning 19 percent of the vote in 1992. He had no political experience.
He was a billionaire running, but in a third party context. Now you have Trump hijacking the Republican Party and the establishment doesn't know what to do. Just like Obama back in '08 was the Blackberry guy, that was the new technology of the moment.
Donald Trump is the Twitter maestro. He's learned how to use that communication tool like nobody's business. He seems to win the media conversation every day since he's entered the race.
CUOMO: All right. That's one part of what could become. You could argue it's made history already. Let's talk to where you are standing. You know the history of it well. I covered that story, so did an entire generation of reporters. What is the lesson of Katrina 10 years later?
BRINKLEY: One of the big lessons is in rescue and relief. When you want to save lives, 1,800 people died in Katrina. You have to get to those people quickly. There were a lot of unnecessary deaths in the hurricane because people weren't evacuated out properly. People with Alzheimer's disease, people that were left to die in hospitals and senior homes, we didn't do well enough as a country in rescue and relief. Also, government is not always there to save you. It was Louisiana saving Louisiana and Mississippi saving Mississippi in those early 72 hour moments after the storm. There was no federal calvary flying in to help everybody.
CUOMO: It introduced Anderson Cooper. He was making that call to the federal government and the president specifically. Thank you very much, Professor Brinkley for reminding us about the 10-year anniversary of Katrina, and the lessons to remember, and giving us perspective of what's happening right now in the election. Take care, my friend -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Chris, there are new details emerging ability the Roanoke shooter. What police discovered inside his car.
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CUOMO: Perhaps the biggest challenge since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans a decade ago has been rehouse thousands of people whose homes displaced by the storm. A major force behind that effort has been "Habitat for Humanity." They staged a ten-day build- a-thon to impact the world and commemorate 10 years of rebuilding what is truly a great American city.
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CUOMO (voice-over): Tens year ago, Dominic Drillo lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. He's just one of thousands who share that same story. Volunteers from the Red Cross and Habitat For Humanity were some of the first boots on the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came to New Orleans as a Red Cross volunteer in 2005. Houses that were shifted off of their foundation. There were structures that were boarded up. A lot of search and rescue team x's on houses. Every morning when we were putting our boots, it was like going into battle.
CUOMO: Some volunteers never left. To celebrate their contribution, Habitat staged a build-a-ton, ten days of construction to build ten homes, one for each year since Katrina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over 80 percent of house and units were lost roughly 98 percent of our population evacuated. Since that time we've not simply built back New Orleans, we have built it back better.
[07:55:09] CUOMO: Whether it's recipients like Drillo and his family or volunteers who remember the storm, rebuilding is personal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to allow us to be a stable family and work towards the future.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just that feeling from today to ten years ago is really heartening to know that all the work leading up to this point has gotten us there. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CUOMO: For more information on how to get involve, go to CNN.com/impact.
CAMEROTA: All right, meanwhile, there are disturbing details emerging about the gunman who killed those two young journalists in Virginia. What authorities found in his car and what else he had planned.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a cold and calculated and planned attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alison would want us to celebrate her life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This world was robbed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's happening to us as a people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More gun control laws are not going to solve this problem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congressmen step up to the plate and stop being cowards about this.
TRUMP: You have a silent majority in this country that feels abused, that feels forgotten, that feels mistreated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're really racially based.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People hear what they want to hear. There is no racism in that.
