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New Polls on Biden; Increased Migrant Crossings Strain Border Cities; Free At-Home Covid Tests Again. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 25, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Senate Democrats are weighing in this morning on President Biden's poor polling numbers and they're telling CNN they are concerned. A new NBC News poll shows the president's approval rating at just 41 percent. And potentially a more alarming sign, a "Washington Post"/ABC News poll shows Biden ten points behind former President Trump among registered voters in a head-to-head national matchup. But the "Washington Post" is acknowledging this poll may be an outlier. The NBC poll found Biden and Trump tied, each getting support from 46 percent of registered voters nationally.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny joining us now to discuss.

Concerned is a word. I feel like that word might be a little more extreme, if you will, looking at these numbers.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Sara.

There's usually an adjective in front of concerned when you talk to Democrats about how they are feeling about the White House and the state of Joe Biden's re-election effort. But, of course, all of this must be put into context. We are more than a year before the general election next year. That's why all of these polls certainly offer us a sense of where things are. But as you said, that ABC News/"Washington Post" poll is an outlier. All of the other recent national polls show that this is a -- essentially a dead heat between President Biden and former President Donald Trump should they actually face off next year in a rematch.

But one thing that's very clear, the specifics of these polls are not as important as the underlying dynamics here. And that is that there are challenges for the White House that they have not overcome concerns about the economy. They have not overcome concerns about immigration, inflation, on and on. So that is, of course, the backdrop for all of this.

Now, this is a big week in presidential politics. One, President Biden is going to Detroit tomorrow to appear with the striking workers. Former President Donald Trump is going on Wednesday to appear in Michigan. Of course, Michigan at the heart of the blue-collar workers, at the heart of the blue wall, if you will, the states that Trump won in 2016 and Biden won four years later. Of course, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania so important.

There's also a Republican presidential debate on Wednesday in California that former President Donald Trump is skipping, but his rivals certainly are there.

When you look at a couple other numbers in these weekend polls, Sara, this is very interesting. When you ask Republicans if they are satisfied with the choices that they have, of course, they have a deep bench, so many candidates. Look at this number, 86 percent of Republicans say they are satisfied with their choices. Of course some prefer the former president, others prefer other candidates. But when you look at Democrats, are they satisfied? Would they like to see someone challenge Joe Biden? Take a look at these numbers here. Fifty- nine percent of Democrats say they would like to see a challenge. Of course, the question remains, who would that be? There is no one stepping forward. There's no consensus. And the reality is that it's very unlikely to happen.

So on this Monday morning, that is where things stand. But certainly for the next year plus a very tight race in this deeply divided country, Sara.

SIDNER: Yes, it's a -- it's a snapshot of where we are right now, but it does tell you how people are feeling.

ZELENY: Right.

SIDNER: Thank you so much, Jeff Zeleny. Appreciate you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now is former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. He is the CEO of the Messina Group. And Alice Stewart, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator.

Jim, you have, in recent weeks, accused members of your own party of being bedwetters, or in your words f-ing bedwetters. To what extent do new polls like this fill the bladders of some Democrats before they go to bed?

JIM MESSINA, CEO, THE MESSINA GROUP: Oh, I'm sure it will - it will lead everyone to want a bigger glass of chardonnay tonight. But, you know, Jeff's exactly right, this thing -- this race is going to be really tight. American presidential elections are very tight. And in the battleground states that matter, the blue wall, this race will be very tight.

But a little history matters as well here. Joe Biden's numbers are almost exactly what Barack Obama's numbers were in 2011 when people were counting out President Obama. We had the same challenges with messaging on the economy. That takes some time. And polls -- you know, I've been very critical of polls because, as Jeff says, we're 410 days out here. They're just not predictive. What is actually predictive is these 30 special elections that we've had in this country in 2023 where Democrats are performed 11 percent better than they did in the last two presidential elections, largely because of the abortion issue and some other issues. But, you know, those -- the polls don't show that.

And so polls are nice. Everyone gets all excited about them. What actually matters are real numbers. And a real contrast between the Democrats and Republicans. And that's what you're going to see on Wednesday night in the Republican debate.

BERMAN: Alice, there's no debate that President Biden's poll numbers are tepid at best. To what extent are Republicans giving him a gift by threatening to shut down the government in five days. They're almost guaranteeing there will be a government shutdown in five days. And the leading Republican presidential contending, Donald Trump, is calling on them to shut everything down.

[09:35:06]

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, to that regard they're giving them a gift on a silver platter with a big red bow on it because that's going to put all the emphasis on Republicans' inability to get things done in Washington as opposed to the current Biden administration and how people feel about the economy.

Look, to Jim's benefit, he had the good fortune of working for Barack Obama at this time and were able to work on his favorability numbers as -- leading up into the election. Here's the reason I believe fully why Democrats are engaged in such bedwetting is because President Biden is under water on these approval numbers. And look, we're seeing this with regard to how does he handled the economy, immigration, foreign policy. And the numbers are in double digits. And that is not an outlier. Those polls are consistent with regard to his unfavorabilities across the line. And that is going to be a very difficult hill to climb as he moves further -- closer into the general election.

And another thing in terms of who is going to stand up and challenge him. "Politico" reported this morning that Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips says I'm considering it. He says, if Democrats are going to be the so-called adults in the room, we need to start looking at a better electoral strategy. And so we do have some that are seriously concerned and potentially others getting in the race.

BERMAN: Jim, you brought up the Republican debate, which is two nights away. Now, it's not usually your business to give Republicans advice, but if you're one of those candidates who will be on that stage and Donald Trump will not be one of them, do you choose this time to train your focus on Donald Trump or does Ron DeSantis have to care about Nikki Haley or a Vivek Ramaswamy?

MESSINA: Well, it's a great question. Look, right now this tier v bench of elected officials seems to be running for vice president. No one's had the guts to take on Donald Trump directly here. And to beat the king you have to actually go after the king. And so if I was advising one of those campaigns, and thank God I'm not, but if I was, I would say, look, at some point, if you want to be the Republican nominee for president, you have to contrast yourself to Donald Trump. He leads by huge numbers, historic numbers in that primary. Or I would look at my candidate and say, OK, what you're really running for is vice president. If you're doing that, let's not make Donald Trump mad. And I think that's pretty much the strategy that most of these folks have.

BERMAN: Alice, what do you see happening on Wednesday night?

STEWART: Look, I think the first debate, as often is the case, is more of an introductory opportunity to introduce yourself to a national stage. I talked to all of the candidates that are going to be on the stage and the gloves will be off on Wednesday night. They are going to go directly at Donald Trump. DeSantis says he's frustrated that the other challengers haven't gone after Trump as much as they should and sort of given him a pass. Nikki Haley has gone after Trump with regard to how he handled the economy and his current positions on abortion. And all of the candidates are going to show a much stronger contrast between themselves and the other candidates. And specifically Mike Pence. He saw the opportunity in the last debate to show a contrast with Vivek. He certainly will do that. And Tim Scott as well. Going to be very forceful in showing where they stand, not just against the other candidates on the stage, they're going to go directly at Donald Trump.

BERMAN: All right, you really think they are, because they really didn't the last time, and now there's this four-way tie. The New Hampshire polling is really interesting. You have a four-way tie for second with everyone around 10 percent, Alice.

STEWART: Yes, that's going to be the difficult dance that they will make is going after Donald Trump without alienating his base. And they fully understand that. But they also realize what they've been doing is these soft punches or pokes at Trump isn't working. Trump's 40 points ahead of the field. And they realize you have to get Donald Trump out of the way in order to get to Joe Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee will be. And they realize this is a very important opportunity to do so on Wednesday night. And it might be in their best interest that Donald Trump won't be there. He'll be on the picket line instead of on the debate stage. And they're going to definitely take this as a more forceful opportunity to make their case against the candidates, specifically Donald Trump.

BERMAN: I've got ten seconds left. Jim Messina, the shutdown, if it does happen on Saturday, what should the White House do?

MESSINA: Do their day job, point out why we have a shutdown, the history problem in the Republican caucus. And to her point earlier, this is exactly what you need to say. You need to say, hey, Republicans can't govern. Joe Biden can. It is a gift exactly, you know, 400 days before the election.

BERMAN: Jim Messina, Alice Stewart, great to see both of you.

Sara.

SIDNER: With one mayor saying his city is at a breaking point amid a rise in recent border crossings, we have details on a new agreement between the United States and Mexico.

And we are standing by, this morning we will hear from Senator Bob Menendez for the very first time since his shocking bribery charges.

[09:40:03]

That's ahead.

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SIDNER: Mexico's president says he wants a meeting with President Biden to talk about the recent spike in migrants at the southern border. This comes after the U.S. and Mexico did come to an agreement to deport migrants from its border cities back to their home countries. The mayor, though, of El Paso, Texas, warns they are reaching a breaking point. The city is receiving more than 2,000 migrants each and every day.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Houston.

Rosa, do we have a sense of what is causing this slate of really huge wave of migrants coming to and through the border?

[09:45:01]

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, what I've done is I've talked to contacts and sources on both sides of the boarder from the tip of Texas all the way to California. And what I've been able to learn from these individuals who work with migrants every day, who talk to migrants every day, is that a few things have been driving this current surge.

First of all, they tell me that it's misinformation. And not just the cartels distributing this information, but also when migrants actually enter the country, are processed by U.S. immigration authorities, and then released into communities. These community leaders tell me that when migrants send videos back to individuals, to migrants on the border, showing that they have been processed and are now in America, that gives individuals on the Mexican side a lot of hope. And that that has been driving some migrants to go ahead and try their luck and enter in between ports of entry.

The other thing that - that one community leader tells me from the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas is that kidnappings in Mexico, in that part of the border, so in the area of Matamoros and Reynosa have increased. And so migrants are having to decide, do they stay and wait for a CBP 1 app appointment, for example, to actually enter the U.S. legally, or do they go ahead and try their luck in fear for their lives crossing the Rio Grande, hoping that they are processed by U.S. immigration authorities and actually allowed to get an immigration court date.

But if you ask Customs and Border Protection, what they'll tell you, and U.S. Border Patrol chief tweeted about this yesterday, is they believe that it's the cartels. They say that it's the cartels distributing a lot of this misinformation, using organizations like Facebook and other social media to distribute information prompting migrants to then cross the border at certain areas, also so that they can be used as decoys, Sara, so that they can traffic, whether it be drugs or firearms or what have you in between the ports of entry to make sure that they can conduct business. Because, as you know, at the end of the day, cartels run a business and their goal is to make a buck. Whether they are transporting migrants or drugs or firearms, that's what they're up to and they say that that's what's causing this current surge.

Sara.

SIDNER: Rosa, we touched on it a little bit at the very beginning, but there was this agreement on Friday with Mexico to try and deal with this - this issue of this surge of migrants coming to the southern border. Can you give us some sense of what - what is in that deal?

FLORES: You know, this is really important because this could actually mean that the U.S. could avert another surge of migration because what Mexico is saying, and this is Mexico making this decision, Mexico says that what they're going to do is to, quote, "depressurize" their northern Mexican cities that have perhaps thousands of migrants waiting to cross into the United States, that they're going to deport those migrants back to their home countries.

So, Sara, what this means is the net effect is that Mexico could be rerouting these migrants back to their home countries, whether it be in the Americas or otherwise, before migrants get to the U.S. southern border. So, could that avert another surge? Possibly. We'll have to see.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Rosa flores, for all those details.

John.

BERMAN: All right, the Alabama dock worker who was assaulted in a brawl that drew national attention is speaking out this morning. Hear his version of events for the first time.

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[09:52:30]

BERMAN: So, starting today, you can once again order free at home Covid tests through the mail. Every house can get four free tests by registering at covidtests.gov. The Biden administration is relaunching the program as hospitalizations are on the rise and there does appear to be the beginnings of what could be a winter surge.

CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell is with us now.

Talk to us about the numbers that the White House is seeing that led to this decision.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, you know, we've been seeing hospitalizations increase since essentially mid-June. They are up three-fold overall and among adults. And adults, of course, over the age of 70 are the ones predominantly being hospitalized for Covid right now.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics is drawing attention to some concerning trends among kids. Hospitalizations among children are up by 5 times since June. And they're particularly rising in kids under the age of five.

Now, it's important to put into context that this is off of the lowest levels of hospitalizations that we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic, but they are now getting high enough that some doctors are calling attention to this and they're concerned about how sick people are, some people, when they come into the hospital with Covid.

Now the places in the country we're seeing the most hospitalizations right now tend to be in the south. Florida has the highest concentration of hospitalization, the highest rates right now according to CDC data. But when you look at those levels in kids, the American Academy of Pediatrics is pointing out that the vaccination rates for kids under the age of five are really low. Only 13 percent of kids zero to four have gotten any dose of Covid vaccine, compared with about 68 percent of kids who are 12 to 17 years old. So that's a lot of kids who don't have any prior immunity to Covid, either from getting infected or from vaccination.

BERMAN: So, the test that you can get, same tests as were available before? Do they work against this new variant, or whatever the newest variant is I should say.

TIRRELL: Yes, they do still work against the currently circulating variants. And the expiration dates are getting extended. So, they've been doing more testing as the tests have been out there longer. So, you can check the FDA's website if you're worried your tests might have expired.

BERMAN: On the expiration date. Took a test this weekend. The liquid that - as I opened it, there was none in there because it had been sitting in my closet for probably 18 months.

TIRRELL: You might not want to depend on that one.

BERMAN: Yes. Good idea.

Meg Tirrell, thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, overnight, Russia launched a widescale drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian port city of Odessa killing at least two people and injuring another. The strikes damaged infrastructure facilities, granaries and an abandoned hotel. Ukrainian officials called the attack a, quote, "pathetic attempt" at retaliation after Ukraine's assault on the Russian Black Sea fleet headquarters Friday.

[09:55:09]

Ukraine is also now claiming that it killed the Russian commander of that fleet in the attack. We are hearing for the first time from the Alabama dock worker at the

center of the Montgomery brawl this summer. Dameion Pickett says he asked a group of boaters to move their pontoon so he could dock a ship. They refused. He says, when he went to move their boat himself, as his captain told him to, the men attacked him. He and a teenage co- worker who swam to the dock to try and help him, spoke to "Good Morning America." Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAMEION PICKETT: Because when he just put his hand on me, like, if it's my job, but I'm still defending myself at the same time. So, when he touched me, I'm like, it's on.

HAMILTON RUDOLPH: When he first started hitting on him, no one helped. I couldn't just watch and sit around and just let him get beat on while everybody else was just recording.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Montgomery police charged four white people in that incident. They pleaded not guilty and are set to appear in court this week. A black man who hit someone with a folding chair has also pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault.

And Taylor Swift was seen cheering on rumored boyfriend Travis Kelce during the Kansas City Chiefs game on Sunday. You see her there enjoying herself. Swift was in the Kelse family's suite wearing red and white right next to his mom. They have not officially confirmed if they are dating, but Kelse has said he finds the focus on their possible romantic connection, as he put it, hilarious. So, who knows.

John.

BERMAN: I mean they're just a few dates in, potentially, allegedly, and already Taylor Swift's hanging out with the mom. I mean that's the headline there. That's like a big deal. That's a major step in any case.

As more and more Democratic lawmakers call for Senator Bob Menendez to resign, he is preparing to speak this morning. We are awaiting the first public statement from Senator Bob Menendez since these new charges were brought against him. We're going to bring that to you live.

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