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Trump Dominates In New GOP Poll Despite Legal Woes; DeSantis On Trump's Insults: "Voters Don't Like That"; Lori Vallow Daybell Sentenced To 5 Life Terms In Prison For Murdering Her Children, Conspiring To Kill Husband's Ex-Wife; Shipping Firm Yellow Shuts Down, 30K Out Of Work; Illegal Child Labor On The Rise In Tight Job Market; CDC: Hospitalizations, Positive COVID Tests On The Rise. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 31, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Time will tell if that is the most effective strategy. He may be better off just continuing to focus on his vision for America.

As I was speaking to voters in Iowa ahead of the Lincoln Dinner, that's what they were telling me, that they were less interested in candidates going after each other and more interested in hearing what these folks can actually do for them.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We've been talking over the last couple weeks, Jessica, specifically about Ron DeSantis' effort to restart his campaign, to get a different look to the primary voters.

Another thing that stood out about the poll, they do see him as more moral than Donald Trump, by about 8 percentage points, but that speaks to something about the priorities among this electorate.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that was the one place and the one area where DeSantis did beat Trump, was on the question of, who is more moral?

SANCHEZ: Right.

DEAN: What I think are other two really good data points that struck me, only 19 percent of these Republican voters believe that Trump's 2020 behavior threatened democracy. And 17 percent see him as having committed serious federal crimes. Only 17 percent.

So this idea that any of these other candidates had about, I'm just going to talk about my idea and wait to Trump to implode, because we haven't really seen anyone really going after Trump in a very direct way, except for Asa Hutchinson or Chris Christie --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Right.

DEAN: -- campaign, right? DeSantis is doing it more, but only when he's asked about it, not doing it from the stump.

It's remarkable to see these numbers. Because if you're waiting -- if you're a candidate and you're waiting for Trump to implode, these numbers just don't show that.

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: -- one in four in that poll, one in four Republicans have that appetite who are truly anti-Trump. So if it's so little of the electorate, you could see why some of these candidates would be hesitant to go after Trump directly.

Because when you speak to Republican voters, that doesn't seem what they are interested in hearing.

SANCHEZ: To your point, I think Will Hurd is another name --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: -- you can throw in that list of Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson and Will Hurd. They're not really doing that well in the numbers. Do you see a viable path for a Republican outside of Donald Trump?

MCKEND: I think we still have a lot of time yet. We still haven't seen the first debate. So, you know, let's give all of these candidates a hearing.

But in terms of the strategy of going directly after Trump, like former Congressman Hurd has advocated for, that in particular does not seem to be working.

Chris Christie says, look, you really have to draw a contrast. The only way is through him, not by trying to sidestep him.

But if you go to voters -- that's who matters at the end of the day -- and they are telling you, we don't want to hear this, then I question the strategy to continue to do something that voters explicitly, in the polling and anecdotally, are telling you that they don't want to hear.

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: Boris, you have such a good point to remind us we have almost six months until the Iowa caucuses.

SANCHEZ: Right.

DEAN: However, I think, too, if you look at the trend lines with all of these polls that we're getting, Trump's numbers have remained remarkably consistent.

That's something -- that is also something worth considering. We haven't seen this trend downward. We've seen consistent support for him. And that is worth taking note of. SANCHEZ: The resilience is notable. We'll see if perhaps Chris Christie or someone else at a debate maybe make a breakthrough. Notably, Trump may not even attend.

We have to leave the conversation there. Eva McKend, Jessica Dean, always a pleasure.

Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: A 99-year-old trucking company is shutting down now. This is despite getting hundreds of millions of dollars in government assistance. What we know and how this might impact you. That's coming up.

[14:33:55]

And with the tight labor market, illegal child labor is, if you can believe it, on the rise. What the U.S. government is doing to combat it. Do stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:38:31]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This just into CNN. Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho mother who was convicted of killing two of her children and conspiring the murder of her husband's first wife, has just been sentenced.

CNN's Camila Bernal is following this story for us.

Camila, what was the decision?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, the judge is still on the bench, but his decision is life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The judge telling her that this was essentially a mother murdering her children and saying this really was the ultimate crime. He described it as horrific, said it was unimaginable.

And she sat there listening to the judge this entire time.

But what was interesting in this case was that she took the stand during the sentencing. She started out by reading verses from the Bible, saying that her children have come to visit her, to speak to her, saying that her children say she did not kill them.

She was saying that she didn't kill her children or Tammy Daybell, who was her husband's first wife.

What the judge then told her, she was still in this bizarre religious rabbit hole. He was saying you're clearly still down there. That was directly from the judge.

As she continued to say that she was in a good place, that she has heard from her children. She says she went to Heaven and came back.

[14:40:00]

And she told this courtroom that her children came back to hug her and tell her that she did the right thing here.

Again, the judge saying that this is a crime punishable by its maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

And so, of course, we'll have to see what happens in the next case. She is accused in Arizona as well, so it's not over for Lori Vallow Daybell -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, very, very strange case and there will be more, as you say.

Camila Bernal, thank you for that report.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: Now to some of the other headlines we are watching this hour.

An Arkansas judge has blocked a law which targeted librarians and bookstores. That law would have made it a crime for them to provide minors with certain materials deemed harmful.

Libraries, librarians, bookstores and publishing groups are among those challenging the law, arguing that part of it violates the First Amendment. It would have gone into effect tomorrow but will remain blocked while this case plays out.

Also, dramatic video out of China, which shows a harrowing rescue after a car got swept away by floodwaters. Flipped over even. The driver was trapped in the rushing water.

A rescue worker hanging from a line -- you can see it was stretched over the water -- was able to reach the man and lift him to safety. Boy, a close call.

One of the strongest storms in years has dumped torrential rain across China, killing four people and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate. We're seeing extreme weather all over the world.

And another big step for Damar Hamlin's comeback. The Buffalo Bills safety seen here practicing for the first time in pads. This, since he suffered cardiac arrest on the field back in January.

Hamlin has since made remarkable progress in his recovery. He was cleared to play just three and a half months after the cardiac arrest. So good to see him back on the feel.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: One of the country's largest freight carriers has just shut down, putting 30,000 employees out of a job. The ripple effects for shippers and consumers don't look good. Yellow has been in a battle with the Teamsters union after the company

failed to contribute to its pension and health insurance plans. Yellow's largest customers include Walmart and Home Depot.

CNN consumer reporter, Nathaniel Meyersohn, joins us now live.

Nathaniel, tell us more about Yellow. What went wrong here?

NATHANIEL MEYERSOHN, CNN CONSUMER REPORTER: Boris, whichever way you look at it, this is a mess. Yellow is one of the largest and oldest truckers in the U.S. It's been around 99 years.

And 30,000 people will be out of work, including 22,000 union Teamster members.

Yellow has been undone by a series of corporate missteps. It owes about $1.5 billion in debt.

And more recently, we've seen consumers shift from buying physical goods into taking trips and going to the movies. So that's led to a freight slowdown for Yellow.

SANCHEZ: Nathaniel, Yellow received a $700 million federal loan from the Trump administration in 2020. What happens to all that money?

MEYERSOHN: Yes, Boris. Not only is this terrible news for employees and customers, but also the U.S. taxpayer.

Back in 2020, Yellow took a $700 million federal pandemic loan to help it stay afloat. And in exchange, U.S. taxpayers took 30 percent of the company's stock. That's all wiped out.

Yellow still owes more than $700 million. Back in 2020, there was a lot of scrutiny on the Trump administration for this loan. Clearly, the scrutiny was warranted.

SANCHEZ: Part of that scrutiny had to do with charges that Yellow was under for all sorts of alleged wrong things that they were doing.

Nathaniel Meyersohn, thank you so much for the reporting.

Brianna?

KEILAR: A tight labor market may be to blame for the rise in child labor incidents in recent years. Now the Department of Labor says it's cracking down.

Last November, the government found that at least 31 children as young as 13, in some cases, were being employed at Packer Sanitation Services. That is a meat packing company that operates in eight states.

The Department of Labor fined them $1.5 million in civil penalties.

I'm joined by Reid Maki. He's the director of child labor issues and the coordinator of Child Labor Coalition at the National Consumers League.

Reid, thank you so much for being with us.

Why do you think there's been this significant increase in illegal child hirings in recent years?

REID MAKI, DIRECTOR OF CHILD LABOR ISSUES, NATIONAL CONSUMERS LEAGUE: Well, employers are citing a labor shortage, but we don't think they should be balancing a labor shortage on the backs of teen workers.

[14:44:59]

We think they should be raising wages. We think that comprehensive immigration reform could supply adequate workers for these jobs that most Americans don't want to take.

KEILAR: And in some cases, we have seen deaths, right?

MAKI: Yes, we've lost three 16-year-olds this summer. One in a sawmill in Wisconsin, one in a landfill in Missouri, and one in a poultry plant in Mississippi. Really horrific, tragic deaths.

KEILAR: These are deaths involving heavy machinery. Obviously, serious consequences when you're talking about those kinds of accidents here.

By June of 2023, you had several Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey, New Hampshire signing bills to lower age restrictions for work. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said that her state would allow young adults to develop their skills in the workforce.

In Wisconsin, there's an effort to let kids as young as 14 to serve alcohol in bars. That may not be this industrial labor that we're talking about that is so dangerous.

But we're talking about allowing kids around drunk adults in an industry that accounts for a hugely disproportional amount of workplace sexual harassment.

What do make of this overall effort to reduce this age?

MAKI: We don't really understand why it's happening now. We have seen the consequences of what happens when child labor laws are not enforced. Over a hundred kids in meat packing plants.

I think you're right with the bill that would allow kids to serve alcohol at 14. Do we really want to balance that with sexual harassment training? If we have to provide sexual harassment training to 14-year-old, something is horribly wrong.

KEILAR: There's a former Obama official telling CNN, in many of these cases -- and we saw this in the case of one of those deaths of the 16- year-olds. It's the children of migrants who have somewhat recently arrived in the U.S.

Do you find that to be true broadly? MAKI: I think they're ending up -- some of the unaccompanied minors

are ending up in some of the worst jobs. We do know there's been a huge increase in the number of unaccompanied minors in the last four years. Last year, there were over 130,000 of these kids.

They are extremely vulnerable. I think they have no idea how horrific these jobs are, some of these jobs in the meat packing plants and they take the job there and they walk in. I don't think they have any idea of how bad the conditions will be.

KEILAR: How do you ensure you don't have kids ending up in these vulnerable situations?

MAKI: Well, we really -- I think, you know, the current Biden administration is doing a pretty good job of trying to enforce the laws, but they're a bit handicapped in that they don't have enough inspectors for the task at hand.

We think there's about 800 inspectors for the country. Each one has to basically cover 200,000 workers. We think they probably need twice as many inspectors.

We've been working with Congress for more inspectors to do that important job.

KEILAR: Hope they have a better read on the situation.

Reid, great to talk with you. Thank you so much for taking us through this and helping us better understand this issue.

MAKI: Thank you.

KEILAR: Jim?

SCIUTTO: Such an important story.

Well, the summer cold some are feeling may actually be Covid. Details on the latest Covid wave and what you need to know, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:53:03]

SCIUTTO: So, there is a chance that if you have a cold right now, you might actually have Covid. New CDC numbers reveal the U.S. may be headed toward another wave of the virus this summer.

Don't panic, though. Experts predict it will be far less intense than previous surges.

CNN's Meg Tirrell joins us now.

Meg, this was predicted, of course, right, because as it becomes more normal out there and we get more immunity against it, you'll see more of these but it won't make us as sick.

What do we know from the data?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, that's exactly right. We have seen a pattern where sometimes in the summers we see a little bit of a bump.

We are starting to see that right now through some of the CDC's Covid indicators, specifically looking at hospitalizations, emergency room visits, test positivity rates, and the level of the coronavirus seen in wastewater.

Those are all up between 10 percent and 20 percent over the last week of data the CDC has looked at. But it's extremely low levels.

Look at the wastewater monitoring, in particular. The little bump we are seeing, experts tell us it's even perhaps starting to level off already, which would suggest we aren't going to see a major bump like in previous summers.

SCIUTTO: Is there a good side to this? In other words, as each wave comes, it's less intense, therefore, indicating that we as a population are more protected against this?

TIRRELL: That's certainly the hope. There is an expectation that, through all of the immunity we've built up, the protection should be there against severe disease.

There will be an updated booster offered in September, targeting the version of Omicron, recommended for folks. We'll see how wide it is.

But of course, we are seeing increased cases because we don't have built-up immunity to that.

I think the real, you know, thing that people are worried about is there could be a variant that comes out of nowhere. We hope that doesn't happen.

[14:55:06]

SCIUTTO: Well, the take-up rate for the latest versions of the vaccine have not been particularly high.

What about other viruses out there?

TIRRELL: Yes. There are a lot of other things circulating right now. Rhinovirus is more prevalent than coronavirus, another common cold- causing virus.

Adenovirus, norovirus, rotavirus, the CDC says, are all at higher levels now than they were last summer. There are other things circulating out there. It's not all Covid.

But a remind to wash your hands, stay home if you're sick, do all the things we know to try to stay healthy --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TIRRELL: -- and keep others around us healthy, too.

SCIUTTO: That's a lot of viruses out there.

(LAUGHTER)

SCIUTTO: Makes you want to wash your hands.

Meg Tirrell, thanks so much.

Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, one of Donald Trump's co-defendants in the classified documents case has made his first appearance in federal court. How the Mar-a-Lago property manager has gotten tangled in this legal web. We'll have that next.

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