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S.C.'s "Post and Courier" Says "Run Joe"; Trump Tops Polls, Bernie Surging; Fear in China of More Explosions, Chemical Exposure; Disney Announces "Star Wars" Expansions at 2 Parks. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired August 17, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:32:20] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In the world of primary politics, South Carolina matters a lot. And in the world of South Carolina, an endorsement of sorts from "The Post and Courier" matters a lot. When that paper comes out and says, "Run, Joe, run," practically begging Vice President Joe Biden to get into the presidential race, it is big.

Joining me now from South Carolina is editorial columnist and assistant editor of "The Post and Courier," Frank Wooten.

Mr. Wooten, thank you so much for being with us.

You didn't exactly endorse Joe Biden because he's not running right now, but you all but begged him to get into the race. Why? What does he represent that is more than just being not Hillary Clinton?

FRANK WOOTEN, EDITORIAL COLUMNIST & ASSISTANT EDITOR, THE POST AND COURIER: Well, I would think not being Hillary Clinton is a lot for a lot of Democrats who are worried about electability, and in general, yeah, I'm glad you pointed out and sometimes you write things and you think you're saying one thing and people take it another way. We are encouraging him to run. We're not endorsing him to be the president of the United States or even to win the Democratic nomination, but since we're talking about the editorial, down at the bottom we point out he's not the only American weighing his presidential race options. Voters are weight their options, too. The choices they have, the better. That was the sum up of the thing. I'm flattered you called me in one of the promos a power broker. I'm not often called that. I appreciate that. We're not trying to wield any kind of influence to make Joe Biden the nominee or the president, but I would think -- and I have been struck by people complaining there's too many candidates and yet at the same time they don't like any of them. Well, the more that come in, the more the chance you find somebody you like, and I do think more and more Democrats, they're seeing Mrs. Clinton having her difficulties and not just with the e-mails, maybe with connecting with voters, and Bernie Sanders is making a real move. I would think realistic Democrats understand that if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, their chances are going to be pretty slim and they're looking for some alternative as more or less the anti-Hillary, I reckon, and I heard from that Democrats down here, too.

BERMAN: In this column you call Joe Biden a proven winner. Yes, he was a Senator from Delaware for a long, long time. Won a lot of races there, but they weren't competitive. The guy ran for president twice, one time he had to drop out in 1980 and in 2008 he got shellacked to say the least in Iowa. Proven winner at the presidential level? Really?

[11:34:57]WOOTEN: Well, no, he's a proven winner at the political level, a proven political winner. When you're elected it the United States Senate at age 30, the youngest anyone can run for the Senate, then you win re-election by large margins six straight times, I would think you qualify for that. He's also been on the ticket with President Obama that has the two largest popular vote totals in the United States history. It's true. In 1988, he ran for president and fell far short. In 2008, he also fell far short. But, no, you know, I would think compared to the rest of the Democratic challengers he would be more of a bona fide challenger. Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, doesn't seem to have taken off, and Sanders has drawn big crowds. But again, I think a lot of Democrats would be very wary about Bernie Sanders being their nominee. As far as Biden being too old, he's younger than Sanders is.

BERMAN: Too old is not an argument that particularly concerns too many people one way or the other. Bernie Sanders is getting 30 percent of the vote and rising. Joe Biden doesn't tap into the Sanders field. Politically speaking he's pretty much in line with Hillary Clinton so where does he pull votes other than from the former secretary of state?

WOOTEN: Well, that's who he would have to pull votes from, and even with her slump, she's still nationally in the lead right now. No, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying Joe Biden is the be-all, end- all vote-getter on the Democratic side but right now I think there's a lot of concern about Hillary Clinton and looking for an alternative and not seeing them among the announced candidates.

BERMAN: The influential and powerful, Frank Wooten. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

(LAUGHTER)

Really appreciate you joining us.

WOOTEN: Yes, sir. Thank you, John.

BERMAN: All right. Coming up for us, this time, it is serious. The new poll that has the establishment realizing Donald Trump is here for real and not going away. So what are they going to do about it? We'll ask next.

Then, pure devastation, and no satisfying answers as to what will be done about it. Is China hiding something after this toxic blast?

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[11:40:59] BERMAN: Big political news this morning. A new poll has Donald Trump out in front by a lot and not slipping, and not slipping, and Bernie Sanders surging. Joining me now to discuss this, CNN political commentator and

Republican strategist, Kevin Madden; and Daniella Gibbs Leger, a former senior advisor to President Obama.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Kevin, let me start with you.

And you're an establishment guy. I don't mean that in a nice way or a bad way, but it's true, you work for John Boehner --

(CROSSTALK)

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It sounds like it. Thanks.

BERMAN: You worked for John Boehner, Mitt Romney and George Bush. That's establishment. A lot of people have been looking at Donald Trump and saying it's going to end at some point, he's going to go away. But deep down inside right now as we sit here in august, is there any part of you that thinks he may not be about to go away. He may be in it for the long haul.

MADDEN: I think it's more broad and sustained than we might think. Remember about these polls, polls are snapshots in time and what this snapshot of 25 percent of the electorate is telling us is that that portion of the electorate really what they want right now is somebody who is disruptive to the political system. They want somebody who is new. They want somebody who is bold. They want somebody who is not a conventional politician. But ultimately, and we've seen this before, we've seen folks go up in the polls and seen them go down and ultimately what happens is voters begin to look for a candidate that is presidential, somebody who is focused on governing, somebody who has a much more advanced vision on what they want to do on some of the big issues facing the country. But I think it's wrong to make the assumption that Donald Trump is just a flash in the pan and that he's going to fall back to earth. I a lot of these campaigns that were past the summer and we're into the fall season where we have a bunch more debates and voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are really going to start making their final decisions, whereas these other campaigns have to go out and fight for these voters.

BERMAN: I was going to say, what are you going to do about it? If he's not slipping by his own weight, if you're working for Jeb Bush or John Kasich, how do you push him down?

MADDEN: You have to go out and draw these contrasts. I think it's a combination of a couple things. First is the media is going to give a lot more scrutiny to Donald Trump. We've seen him put out a policy statement. Let's see if they follow up with the requisite scrutiny. The other campaigns have to hit back. At this point we haven't really seen any of the top tier candidates, we have seen Rick Perry do a little bit of it, rand Paul has done a little bit of it, but Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, they haven't really hit back and got into a one-on-one fight with Donald Trump in a way where they can start to consolidate the other 75 percent of the electorate that right now is not supporting Donald Trump and has said that they haven't yet made up their mind.

BERMAN: Danielle, I will ask you the same question about different people on the Democratic side. If you look at the poll numbers between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, yeah, she's still winning, Hillary Clinton is by 19 points, but a few weeks ago it was 29 points, and before that it was 40 points. Is there any part of you that thinks this could slip away from Hillary Clinton for real?

DANIELLA GIBBS LEGER, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: You know, I don't know. I mean, I think the only people who thought that Hillary Clinton nomination were inevitable were folks in the media. If you ask anyone on her campaign they always thought they would have a competitive primary and the polls would get closer as more people got into the race. And it is early. I think people are still making up their minds and are learning more about the candidates. So we'll see where the polls go in the next couple months but I don't think it's any cause for alarm per se within the Clinton camp that Bernie Sanders is surging right now.

BERMAN: You're saying we're going to look for the next couple months. For the last couple months they've been going in one direction and that is down. How do they stop from going down if you're involved with the Hillary Clinton campaign?

GIBBS LEGER: I think the first debates will be an interesting test for all candidates on the Democratic side. Let's see when that happens in the next couple weeks where things go from there. But, you know, the other thing, I don't like the parallel between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. I think they're two totally different circumstances. If you look at what Bernie Sanders is talking about and what he's saying and the way he's saying it, you know, there's not a lot of difference between really the policies that he puts forth between him and Hillary Clinton. But the big difference between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is that Bernie Sanders isn't out there insulting people. He's not out there making sexist and racist remarks and alienating a huge part of our population with a terrible immigration policy. So I know we like to talk about them together but I think we should separate the two.

[11:45:31] BERMAN: OK. Fair enough.

Kevin Madden, let's talk about Jeb Bush. Let's separate him for a moment because his numbers are going in a certain direction in the latest national poll, down. He's dropped six points. He's in single digits now in this new FOX News poll, and, you know, and there's a little bit of the whiff of concern inside that campaign. His super PAC just said they're going to spend 10 million bucks in ads in early states. Should they be concerned, the Bush campaign, and what can they do to turn things around?

MADDEN: I always think it's wrong to -- I always say worrying is for those without a plan. So I'd be much more worried if I didn't think that the Bush campaign had a plan for September all the way through those first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. I think one of the big challenges that they have right now is, again, there is this premium being put on the candidate that seems like they're the person who is taking on the status quo and has taken the mantel of being the fighter for the Republican Party and also somebody who is taking on the Obama administration. What Jeb Bush hasn't really done yet to this point is really show voters that he has that energy and that he is that fighter, that he's head and shoulders above the rest on policy but also head and shoulders over all the other candidates when it comes to taking the fight to what many Republicans believe is the last eight years of going in the wrong direction against Obama. So he has to start doing that all the way through until those first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

BERMAN: Kevin Madden, Daniella Gibbs Leger, both with the same message, telling me to be patient about the polls, not to get excited. To both of you say, I say no way, not a chance.

(LAUGHTER)

Thanks so much for being with me. We appreciate it.

GIBBS LEGER: Fair Enough.

MADDEN: Thank you.

GIBBS LEGER: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Coming up, more than 100 dead, thousands of homeless, tens of thousands looking for answers. Could another toxic blast be coming?

Then breaking news. A bomb at a popular tourist attraction, surveillance video catches it all the very moment the bomb went off.

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[11:51:10] BERMAN: In China this morning, fear. Fear of a new possible exPLOsion and new chemical exposure. This, after the huge chemical explosions in China's fourth-largest city. Pictures there just stunning. Military inspections show there were several hundred tons of cyanide materials stored there and it's a mystery what else was inside the warehouse. The death toll has reached 114 people, dozens are still missing.

Will Ripley is in Tianjin with the latest.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, I'm standing less than half a mile from the blast site. The damage is truly staggering. Look at this. This is the second floor of a dormitory where 20 migrant construction workers were sleeping. Everything came crumbling around them but most were able to walk away without being hurt.

That's not the case for 698 people who remain in 10 different hospitals around the city. At least 114 people confirmed dead and some 70 missing. Most of them firefighters, who ran to the chemical fire Wednesday night unaware of what they were walking into. Some of them used water to fight the flames only to find out water created that reaction that created those huge fireballs and shock waves and propelled debris and toxic chemicals throughout a large radius several kilometers from the epicenter.

I visited the blast zone. I was able to see the scope of the damage. Thousands of cars were incinerated. Shipping crates that would go on the back of a tractor-trailer tossed around like toys. Black smoke rising up. All of it within sight of people's homes. Some homeowners are angry, protesting, demanding the government compensate them for the cost of their apartments because they say they cannot go back, they have children and they don't feel safe. They think the environment is contaminated even as the government has more than 2000 troops and hundreds of biochemical experts on the ground right now testing the air, soil and water, and insisting the environment around here is safe -- John?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Will Ripley, for us. What a mess there.

Up next, it's bigger than Jawas, taller than Chewbacca, Disney's biggest attraction ever "Star Wars"-style. Yes.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[11:57:10] BERMAN: The happiest place on earth is headed to a galaxy far, far away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

DARTH VADER: We would be honored if you would join us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I love that clip! I'm so happy we chose that.

Disney announced the creation of two "Star Wars" expansions at its California and Florida parks. They will be the biggest Disney expansions ever, covering 14 acres each, featuring new rides and new restaurants. There's no story bigger than this, folks.

Let's bring there senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter, who has a special guest, my C-3P0 from my office.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I'm surprised at you that you don't travel with this.

BERMAN: It wouldn't fit in my carry on. This is a big deal, "Star Wars" coming to Disney.

STELTER: Yes, and perhaps everyone will own these soon. These will be gift shops as well. They won't open for a couple years, probably 2018 but already as you can imagine fans like yourself Mr. Berman are very enthusiastic. This was announced at a Disney conference. There were thousands of fans applauding when this was announced and it goes to show what Disney will be doing with the "Star Wars" world. It was three years ago Disney spend $3 billion to acquire Lucas Film and the intellectual property. I have a feeling we'll look back and say that $4 billion was a steal because they are putting it to so many new uses.

BERMAN: Well, to make it pay -- because $4 billion is a lot of money -- they have to make "Star Wars" a cornerstone of Disney.

STELTER: Exactly. We think of Disney as being the magic kingdom. We think of the castle, the Cinderella castle, the center of the theme park. But increasingly it will be just as much about "Star Wars." You will see new rides, new roller coasters, new amusements at these parks and it will come at the same time as we see new films every single year, even spinoff films more than ever for fans to enjoy.

BERMAN: And just a few seconds left, Brian. There will be a new millennium falcon ride I hear? I'm told. I may not have read about it -- a lot.

(LAUGHTER)

STELTER: You saw in the conceptual art's a whole new environment, a whole new planet they're creating where they can have these attractions. It's the kind of thing that is sure to create more enthusiasm around the "Star Wars" universe. As if there couldn't be enough of that already.

BERMAN: I, for one, hope it's more like Tattooine than Dagobah. But you may feel differently.

Brian Stelter --

STELTER: I'll put this back. But I'll be careful with it.

BERMAN: Yes. I don't even let my boys play with that.

Brian Stelter, thank you so much.

STELTER: Thank you.

BERMAN: That's all for us AT THIS HOUR.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to "LEGAL VIEW."