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Tight Texas Senate Race Between Cruz & O'Rourke Most Expensive Ever; Immigration a Big Voter Issue Amid Trump Ordering U.S. Military to U.S. Mexico Border; GOP Gov. Scott Walker Fighting for 3rd Term in Wisconsin; Dem Takeover of House Could Stall Trump's Agenda & More Oversight, Investigations; Trump Regrets Not Having Softer Tone as President. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired November 06, 2018 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:31:36] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: As the Democrats try to regain control of the House -- don't forget the Senate -- there are key Senate races we are watching across the country, including in Missouri and Nevada.

And a high-profile race in Texas, where the Democrat, Beto O'Rourke, is trying to upset win over the Republican Ted Cruz in a contentious race there.

Athena Jones is at a polling station in South Lake just outside of Dallas.

Athena, a huge amount of campaign money spent by both candidates. A record, big, early voter turnout. How is it looking? Still an uphill battle for Beto O'Rourke?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jim. It is still an uphill battle, because we are in Tarrant County. This is the third-most- populous county in the state of Texas. And the last large urban county that voted red, consistently red. Beto O'Rourke is trying to change that. This is a bellwether county, because President Trump won Tarrant County by nine percentage points. That is the margin by which he won Texas. When you look at the big races, like this race between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke, both sides will be looking at this county. You can hear the Beto supporters behind me. There's also been Ted Cruz supporters out here we've been speaking with.

But O'Rourke said that if he is to win the state of Texas and the Senate, he has to win Tarrant County. We have been talking about early voting numbers and it's been really high. More than 40 percent of registered voters have already voted in Tarrant County. The balloting tops 465,000. It's much higher than past mid-terms and higher than the early vote totals in 2012, a presidential year, according to the election administrators. The question is, where is energy and enthusiasm going? We see a bunch of Beto supporters, but we have to see how it wraps up when the polls close -- Jim?

SCIUTTO: We will be there for it. We'll bring it to you. Athena Jones, in Texas, thanks very much.

And staying in Texas, immigration is a big voting issue. The Pentagon said there are 2600 U.S. troops at the Texas border with Mexico. President Trump ordered them there to guard against what he calls an invasion by a group of migrants heading north through Mexico to the U.S. The migrants are hundreds of miles away. They are playing a support role, these troops, to the border agents there.

This is the scene. You got U.S. soldiers in body armor unspooling what is known as concertina, barbed wire, and seemingly an immediate threat from the caravan, even as it is more than 600 miles away.

Joining me now, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's a CNN military analyst. He also happened to lead the 1st Armored Division in Iraq during the surge. He also was commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe.

General Hertling, I want to ask you this, 5200 U.S. troops at the border. It's going to rise to 7,000 according to the Pentagon. We saw those pictures, what the soldiers are doing. They are in body armor and throwing up concertina wire. We know the fact of their deployment, they are really there to back CBP, Customs and Border Patrol agents. But the show of force, at least in those pictures, and in numbers, and in the president's words, it is one of an "imminent national security threat." Is the caravan a threat that the U.S. military should be responding to?

[13:34:58] LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: No indication that it's a national security threat, Jim. When you talk about a threat assessment, the military does threat-based operations. They say, what is the danger, say what kind of things are happening, and what do we have to pose against that danger to prevent bad things from happening. All the threat assessments that have been done on this Conway show it's not a national security threat. There are certainly people moving. They don't know completely what that convoy is made up of. But the amount of forces going there don't seem to be in line with what the threat analysis says. It is straining the operational tempo of the force. It is degrading readiness of the places where these soldiers are coming from. And it's extremely costly. All of those things make a difference.

The chairman has to give advice to the president. He gives his best military advice on what the president needs when he said, hey, I'm the civilian leader, I want to do something.

SCIUTTO: Right.

HERTLING: The president doesn't have to take the advice. But if he doesn't and he tells the military to execute, they execute.

SCIUTTO: Right. They have to listen to what the commander-in-chief says.

Listen to what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listen to how he described the mission. I want to get your response. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOSEPH DUNFORD, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: There's no plan for U.S. military forces to be involved in the actual mission of denying entry to the United States. There's no plan for soldiers to come in contact with immigrants or to reinforce the Department of Homeland Security as they are conducting their mission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: That is not what the president has said at his rallies, to cheers. He is talking to soldiers defending the U.S. against the invasion. What do you hear in General Dunford's words? Is that a quiet protest, but correction even, as to what the military's role is?

HERTLING: Well, yes, I think it's a little bit of nuance, Jim. I heard Chairman Dunford yesterday, and the other things he said was, I'm looking at the legality of this. He is. He has to do that. He has to take a look at the legality and the course of actions that he gives the president. What he said just now, to me, as a military guy, he said, hey, here is what the force is going to do and I'm going to tell my subordinate commanders on the scene in Northern Command and the Joint Task Force that comes out of Northern Command, led by a three-star Army general, rules of engagement are important, the law of the land is important, Posse Comitatus is important, so you better be obeying all those things. And they will not be placed against any kind of immigrant coming in. That is the Border Patrol's jobs. These X number of troops that will be there will certainly support the Border Patrol. That's their mission. But there's also some optics going on. When you take a look at --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: There certainly is.

HERTLING: Wow. That just amazed me. The number of public affairs soldiers that are a part of this deployment is way beyond what I had for a 30,000- soldier task force in Iraq.

SCIUTTO: I'm glad you mentioned that. You were fighting the war in Iraq during the surge, you had fewer public affairs agents, by a long shot. It makes you wonder what the political role in or the political intention is there.

General Mark Hertling, thanks very much for taking the time.

HERTLING: You're welcome, Jim. Have a good voting day.

SCIUTTO: Right now, in the state of Wisconsin, voters casting ballots as Governor Scott Walker is fighting to keep his job. Wisconsin is one of the dead-heat gubernatorial races around the country today. Next, which candidates are neck and neck in those governor's races in the final hours?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:43:09] SCIUTTO: No shortage of tight races today. And don't forget the races at the state level. The governors' races are among some of the most-contentious and closely watched, including Florida, where Andrew Gillum is trying to flip the state for Democrats in the governor's house. There's also a very close contest in Georgia that's been full of controversy as well.

And in Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker is in the fight of his political career.

CNN's Ryan Young is at a polling place in Waukesha, Wisconsin, outside Milwaukee.

Ryan, how is it looking from you are?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What a tight race. We are in a place they call a purple voting district. We've been talking to several people. They said they are really concerned about taxes and we're concerned about health care. There's a big conversation here about how people were going to vote. I was talking to voters off to the sidelines and they were saying they didn't want to vote straight party ticket. One lady said, look, I have eight grandkids, I want to keep Scott Walker in office, but I want to see a change at the top, especially in Washington. She said, how do we have this conversation? It was interesting because some other people are joining in on the conversation. It was that kind of back and forth and open dialogue.

One of the things they want the change in is the toxic behavior in Washington. They want to see that change.

One young man, who was 19, who talked to us earlier, says it was the Parkland shooting that motivated him to come out and vote.

Already more than 500,000 absentee ballots were turned in. There was a line here this morning with voters standing here, ready to vote. Despite the conditions here, which is rainy, cold, and wet, people have been coming up every half hour or so to put their vote in. Even though Scott Walker is in that tight race, they want to make sure that people in these offices understand they want them serving the people.

And there has been a conversation about tariffs, especially with the people laid off at the Harley-Davidson plant, about a half hour outside of Milwaukee. So we understand the issues here are really affecting the people -- Jim?

[13:45:04] SCIUTTO: No question. Think about Scott Walker, a lot of folks thought he was going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016.

Ryan Young, in Wisconsin, thanks for keeping on top of it.

A rare moment of regret from a place you wouldn't expect it. The president said he could have struck a softer tone since he took office.

Plus, the state of politics, according to Eric Trump, the president's son. Why he says President Obama has a personal problem with his father.

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[13:49:57] SCIUTTO: President Trump's agenda in Congress could hit a roadblock if Democrats do win the House today. And a Democratic takeover of the House is likely to mean more oversight, more investigation.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian, author of the new book, "Leadership in Turbulent Times."

These are turbulent times so I'm happy she's joining us today.

Frist question, results are not baked in. We do not know how people are going to vote today. From a historical perspective, how have presidents fared after losing midterm elections? It happened to Obama. It happened to Clinton. How have they recovered from that?

DORIS KEARNS GOODSIN, HISTORIAN & AUTHOR: Clinton recovered by moving to the center, talking about crime and welfare reform and a balanced budget but still keeping the traditional pocketbook Democrats. But most importantly, when the general election comes, usually, the midterms are a much smaller number of people, so you've got that regular base out there in the general election. Same thing with President Obama. He did so badly in the midterms. By the time the general election came, African-Americans came back in much more numbers. Hispanics voted in greater numbers, and women, his traditional constituency, that hadn't been there in the midterms. The only difference in this one is, because there's so many people voting now, whatever patterns may be showing up here may be more longstanding than they would normally be in a midterm when it's mostly people voting discontents against the administration in power.

SCIUTTO: I love having you on because you bring such a historical perspective. You made a good point about how these midterms -- keep in mind, there are hundreds of candidates running in states and in the Congress and the Senate, governorships, et cetera. You might have an unexpected star emerge or victor. Tell us about that.

KEARNS GOODWIN: Yes. That's what is so interesting about history. Think about 1858, a midterm, and Abraham Lincoln, not well much in the nation at large, and indulges in debates with Stephen Douglas, it becomes nationally known and he then becomes the first runner, becomes Abraham Lincoln, the historic candidate, even though he loses that Senate race to Stephen Douglas. Or think about Teddy Roosevelt. He runs in a midterm, 1898, as governor, becomes Theodore Roosevelt, a president. And FDR in the 1930, in the midterms, wins a landslide governor's race, and becomes FDR, one of the historic presidents. So there's someone out there who may emerge and that history will regard that as the most important part of the midterms. Maybe we don't know it yet.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you to apply your historical perspective on more recent history, the last two years of the Trump presidency. You may have heard President Trump telling Sinclair Broadcasting Group about one of his regrets so far in his administration. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED SINCLAIR BROADCASTING GROUP HOST: Is there anything, as you look back on your first almost two years that regret, that you wish, on you, that you could just take back in you review?

TRUMP: Well, there would be certain things. I'm not sure I want to reveal all of them. But I would say tone. I would like to have a much softer tone. I feel, to a certain extent, I have no choice. But maybe I do. And maybe I could have been softer from that standpoint?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Do you believe the president when you hear that?

KEARNS GOODWIN: There's been glimmers now and then of presumably that softer tone but it never lasts. Even at the hundred days, he was self-reflective, and saying, I didn't know health care was going to be so difficult, I didn't realize the job would be so hard. But then he goes right in and not bring enough people around him who had experience who could have helped him. At the time of the Kavanaugh hearings, at first, he said Christine Basey Ford was credible and then he was mocking her. At the time of bombing plot, there seemed to be talk about unity, and then he even said, I'm doing this just so I can appear good. The next thing you know, he's blaming the press.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEARNS GOODWIN: And the same with the two synagogues. That desire for a softer term is contraindicated by the words and actions that he uses. It's hard to imagine. You keep hoping, but it's hard to imagine that something is going to change that.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Let me ask you this finally, because a lot of folks will say they've never seen the country more divided than it is today. But, you know, I imagine you would say, listen, the country's been divided at various points before in time. In your experience, and with your knowledge of history, how unusual is the division we see today?

KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, it's certainly unusual in my lifetime. Maybe it was worse in the 1850s, but that ends up in the Civil War. We don't want to think about that as a model.

But something's happened to our culture and our partisanship. Teddy Roosevelt warned that democracy would founder when people from different regions or parties or religions see each other as the other. I think that's happened in our country, it's happening in our political systems. It wasn't so long ago, when I was not so old, that people in Washington saw each other as human beings. They played poker together and had cocktails together. And partisanship wasn't as hyper as it is today. Right now, it's become tribal. And we haven't seen that, I think, since the 19th century. And it's really troubling because it's then an example that it sets to the country, and then the country reflects that back to the party. And how we're going to get out of it is very unclear, except it's

going to take leaders to get us out of it and an awakened citizenry. That's what's always changed things. When things get bad, the citizenry gets involved, in slavery, in equal rights, in the women's movement, the gay rights movement. It's now up to the citizens to take charge and say we can't deal with this anymore and we're going to change the toxic culture. We can do it if we need to.

[13:55:23] SCIUTTO: And one way the citizens have the power to do that, is voting.

Doris Kearns Goodwin --

KEARNS GOODWIN: Absolutely.

SCIUTTO: -- thanks so much.

I should mention that Wolf Blitzer, who normally anchors this hour, he will lead CNN's special coverage starting at 5:00 Eastern time, well into the night and the morning hours right here on CNN.

As we get into the final hours of voting on the east coast, we'll walk you through the history that could be made tonight across America.

And what you're seeing there, as we await history, is live pictures from Texas, one of the many contested races. Beto O'Rourke versus Ted Cruz. Just one of the many we'll be following tonight.

Stay with us. We're going to be here all night.

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