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Candidates Clash at Debate; Trump Skips GOP Debate; Second Presidential Debate; Houst to Begin Impeachment Inquiry Today; Two Days Left for Funding Deal; Biden Speech to Target Trump. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:56]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Uncontrolled and messy. The gloves were off at the second GOP presidential debate. The border, TikTok, even Donald Duck came up, but the winner may have been the candidate who wasn't even there.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, with the government due to shut down on Saturday, House Republicans roll up their sleeves for the first hearing of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It begins shortly.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Out of North Korea and now back on U.S. soil. So, what happened to Army Private Travis King after he crossed into North Korea and what happens to him now?

I'm Kate Bolduan, with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: This morning we know who Mike Pence is sleeping with, because he told us. But what else have we learned from the Republican debate? Seven candidates not named Donald Trump were on stage in what may have been their last best chance to derail his runaway train candidacy. According to the latest CNN poll of polls, Donald Trump is leading the candidates on stage combined by 21 points. All of them combined. He's beating the field by 21.

This morning, we're getting our first sense of who the pundits and the fundraisers and the voters think might have changed that dynamic, if any of them did, at all.

CNN's Kyung Lah is at the debate site in Simi Valley, California.

Good morning, Kyung.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Certainly we're hearing a lot of spin from the various pundits, from the various campaigns. We're not hearing of any change from any of these candidates. All of them basically saying what they did before.

But what we did notice during the debate is that there were a few more pointed attacks at that frontrunner. The frontrunner who has this tremendous gulf between all the seven who were inside the debate hall as compared to where Donald Trump is currently standing.

But I want you to take a listen to some of these notice -- some of these moments that we noticed when Donald Trump was mentioned directly by name by some of his competitors.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL) AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight.

MIKE PENCE (R), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My former running mate, Donald Trump, actually has a plan to start to consolidate more power in Washington, D.C., consolidate more power in the executive branch.

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is where President Trump went wrong, he focused on trade with China. He didn't focus on the fact that they were buying up our farmland. He didn't focus on the facts that they were killing Americans.

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you're afraid of being on this stage and defending your record, you're ducking these things.

You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We'll going to call you Donald Duck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: Yes, so plenty of name calling, plenty of finger pointing, you know, pointing to records. But what we didn't hear a lot of specifics about were the indictments that Donald Trump faces. What these candidates are trying to do still is try to gather some of that support that Trump has and move it into their column.

So, in the context of this entire two hours, we didn't hear the current news involving the former president and we didn't hear his name all that much over the entire two hours. There were discussions about Ukraine and the divisions that represent the larger party. Also causes of the UAW strike and the various remedies. There were divergences upon that, John.

But this campaign is still moving forward. The semantics, the broad trends not changing at this moment apparently. And these candidates are continuing to move full steam ahead, John.

BERMAN: All right, Kyung Lah, in Simi Valley.

Kyung, thanks very much.

Kate. BOLDUAN: So, instead of debating last night, we know that Donald Trump was in Michigan, making his appeal to union workers and effectively counterprogramming the food fight that played out on that debate stage in California. Trump only really dismissively addressing his Republican challengers.

Listen.

[09:05:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, they're all job candidates. They want to be in the -- they want to -- they'll do anything, secretary of something. Even -- they even say VP. I don't know, does anybody see any VP in the group? I don't think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Alayna Treene has much more on this. She's joining us now.

So, Alayna, I mean, interestingly enough, he was trying to appeal to blue collar voters, union workers, speaking, though, at a non-union auto parts company in Michigan. What did he say? How did it land?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Right. Well, Kate, you're exactly right, I mean his goal with this speech was to break further into the working-class voter coalition that he knows he's going to need to win over in order to be successful in 2024. And that's true in states like Michigan, which he did lose - he won in 2016 with the help of some of these workers and people who were in the room last night, but he lost that state to Biden in 2020. And he's also trying to do the same things in states like Wisconsin and Ohio.

But, look, his speech was really - it was a bit dark. He was talking about a dire picture of the future of American jobs. He described President Biden as a vulture and warned that his policies, particularly those relating to electric vehicles, could be very damaging for the auto industry. And he tried to paint himself as a savior for auto workers and the trajectory of the auto industry.

Now, as part of that pitch, he also called for these members' endorsement. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Your leadership should endorse me. And I will not say a bad thing about them again. And they will have done their job. They will have done a proper job. In fact, if they endorse me, they will have the easiest labor leadership job anywhere in the country. They just have to sit back and watch as our auto industry reignites.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TREENE: Now, Kate, you don't typically associate Donald Trump as a pro-union leader. That's normally a title that's more associated with President Biden.

And you did see Biden actually got a much warmer welcome from union leaders on Tuesday when he was in Michigan than Trump did last night.

But he was speaking to a crowd, Donald Trump, of an invitation only. It was a curated group of people. And a lot of those people in the room, the auto workers, the current and former union members, including those -- some of them who are on strike right now, they are very supportive of Donald Trump, and you could hear that in the room last night.

BOLDUAN: So interesting.

Good to see you, Alayna. Thank you so much for that.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. With us now to discuss, Republican strategist Joseph Pinion and Sarah Matthews, former Trump administration deputy press secretary and former spokeswoman for the Trump 2020 campaign.

Thank you both for being here.

First to you, Joseph.

When you look at this field, was there someone who stood out who you think voters are going to say, hey, that's a possibility?

JOSEPH PINION, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, look, I think they all distinguish themselves in their own way. I think Nikki Haley had some shining moments. But, ultimately, I still believe the person who had the best night was President Trump. Most of the candidates on that stage were talking about him. Certainly, he had the opportunity to give his own direct appeal to those auto workers. And I think while much has been made about the fact that it was a non-union shop, I think you have to remember that all the people leading those auto unions have been endorsing Democrats for quite some time, did not endorse Trump in 2016 or 2020. But it's really about the rank-and-file members, according to some estimates, close to -- anywhere 25 to 30 percent of those workers still support President Trump.

So, again, at the end of the day, certainly there were candidates that spoke well, that made some points about the Republican agenda. But it really comes back to, again, the man who was not present, Donald J. Trump.

SIDNER: Literally the elephant in room. He is the one you believe won. And you're not alone.

I want to talk to you about Nikki Haley. Let's listen to some of what happened last night. She probably had the line of the night that is the most memorable when she was going after Vivek Ramaswamy over the use of TikTok. And she went after him, she said, look, this is a Chinese social media company. You shouldn't be using it. We should ban it. And this is what she said to him after he pushed back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That was sort of a line that everybody can remember.

Sarah, now to you. Will this -- did she have another moment? Do you feel like she had another moment with that argument back and forth?

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER TRUMP 2020 SPOKESWOMAN: I definitely think the pressure was on because she had a really strong performance in the first debate. And I think she continued that in the second debate. Delivered another standout performance. Obviously, I think she does best when she's bodying Vivek. It was another moment for her to draw contrast between the two, show off her foreign policy chops. And I think it was really strong for her.

SIDNER: All right, I do want to talk to you about what is a bit of a stunning moment, I think. Tim Scott challenged Ron DeSantis on what the school board had decided on slavery.

[09:10:05]

Basically new middle school student curriculum says that teaching about slavery should include how a slave developed skills that were helpful to their personal benefit. DeSantis shot back, and here's how he responded. But there is an exchange with him and Tim Scott that ended in a way a lot of people weren't expecting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson's great society.

Where they decided to take the black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that in unemployment, in crime, in devastation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right. So, Tim Scott is making the argument that welfare was harder to survive than slavery. Is that going to play well with the -- sort of the Trump base, the voters?

PINION: Well, look, I don't know if that's necessarily what he was saying. I think that he probably could have executed the delivery a little bit better. But I do think that we do know that the fatherless epidemic is real. We do know for a fact that we have passed policies as a country that have left African American families and minority families writ large struggling from the aftermath of the red line, all of those things are well documented.

So, I do that that, you know, every four years we pretend those things aren't real when it comes to presidential elections. But, no, I don't think that the American people are ready or want to hear this false notion that slavery is somehow going to be equitable to what has happened in the great depression (ph). It is a different type of pain. It is a different type of reality. But nothing can really be given a one-to-one comparison to human subjugation. But we should not be dismissing out of hand the very real reality that there is economic despair and personal despair that has been brought around by decades of policies that we pretend don't matter simply because the party that has brought us those policies pretends that they are the only friend back people have when it comes to their political problems.

SIDNER: You thought is it was a very unartful way of making that comparison. And I think a lot of people caught that.

All right, I want to go to talk about the border because that's one thing that it seems all of the candidates agreed on. Let's take a listen to some of the excerpts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He said he was going to build a wall across the whole border. He built 52 miles of wall and said Mexico would pay for it. Guess what, I think if Mexico knew that he was only going to build 52 miles, they might have paid for the 52 miles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Sarah, to you. Does this differentiate them at all? It certainly doesn't differentiate them from each other. They all said to militarize the southern border. Does this have any effect on their fight against the frontrunner, Donald Trump?

MATTHEWS: Obviously, what Chris Christie said is true. But I don't know if a lot of voters necessarily feel that way, especially when you compare it to President Biden, who they feel has been totally absent on this issue. Obviously, this was a top issue for Donald Trump, and he spoke about it often and frequently. Whereas, it seems like the Biden administration refuses to acknowledge the crisis at our southern border.

So, I don't know if that's necessarily the strongest place where you can draw a contrast between yourself and Donald Trump. And at the end of the day, obviously, Donald Trump wasn't on stage but it is really hard for those candidates to break out and have a moment without him there. And I think that while we might see a bump in the polls for Nikki Haley, like I said, I think she had a really strong performance last night. Until the field narrows down, no one is going to be able to effectively challenge Donald Trump for the nomination. His lead is just too dominant right now. And so that's why folks need to start dropping out so we can coalesce support around someone else to actually challenge him.

SIDNER: Sarah Matthews, thank you so much for coming in early this morning.

Same to you, Joseph. Appreciate your time.

John.

BERMAN: So, with two days left before the government runs out of funding and shuts down, House Republicans have decided today is the best day to hold the first official hearing of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. In just a few minutes, the House Oversight Committee, they will begin with a heavy focus on the president's son, Hunter. And no evidence that we have seen yesterday that President Biden profited off of his son's activities.

CNN's Sara Murray, in Washington, with a look at what we might be hearing very shortly.

Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, I mean this is a hearing that's sort of going to set the stage for the Republicans' impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. And they put out their framework last night that gives you an indication of what they want to focus on as this impeachment inquiry progresses. And there are essentially four questions here. I mean the first of these three questions really has to do with whether Joe Biden, at any point, decided to trade access, the appearance of access, or perform any sort of official acts in exchange for money for either him or for his family.

[09:15:03]

And then the last one has to do with his son, Hunter Biden, and the ongoing investigations and whether Joe Biden ever interfered in those investigations.

And as you point out, and we should reiterate, House Republicans haven't been able to find any evidence of this yet. They haven't found any evidence that Joe Biden profited off of what his son, Hunter Biden, or other family members were up to. They haven't found any evidence at this point that he performed any official acts, for instance, when he was vice president in exchange for money for some kind of foreign interest.

But this is what they're looking to dig into with this first hearing today. And the panel of witnesses they have, they're not fact witnesses. These are not, you know, the IRS whistle-blowers who have raised concerns about the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. These are not people who are doing business with Hunter Biden. They're people like a forensic accountant, like a former DOJ tax official, a law professor who has been very sympathetic to Republicans. People who might, you know, say these kinds of payments raise concerns or this kind of plea deal should have been rejected, as it was by the judge.

And, John, as you pointed out, you can't ignore the backdrop of this. We are days away from a government shutdown. And we expect to see Democrats just hammering their Republican colleagues about focusing on this impeachment inquiry today rather than the shutdown on hand. BERMAN: All right, it all begins very shortly. Sara Murray, thank you. Of course, we'll be watching for any new revelations, if there are any.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Coming up still for us, President Biden preparing for a big speech today. Set to lay out the threat that he thinks Donald Trump continues to pose to democracy and the country. Also setting up for his really maybe most direct attack against Donald Trump yet ahead of a potential rematch between the men. A preview on that ahead.

Plus, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is back on Capitol Hill today after pleading not guilty to bribery charges in federal court yesterday. What is he going to tell fellow Democrats now in a closed- door meeting this morning. A majority of them already calling for him to step aside.

And the manhunt in Baltimore is over for the dangerous suspect accused of killing a 26-year-old tech CEO. What more police are saying now about this arrest.

We'll be back.

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[09:21:19]

BOLDUAN: With a government shutdown looming and days away, the Senate did something that the House can't seem to do right now, come to a bipartisan agreement, approving a stop gap spending bill which could be heading over to the House. But hardline House Republicans quickly threw cold water all over it, which leaves us, the federal government, military members expecting to be paid, millions of federal workers, leaves us all where?

Let's get to CNN's Lauren Fox. She's tracking this for us.

Lauren, what now?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, House Republicans are actually huddled behind closed doors right now behind me in a conference meeting where we expect to get more details on what their plan for the rest of the week will look like.

What we know right now is tonight they are going to start voting on a series of individual one year spending bills, all of which would not prevent a government shutdown. Instead, it is intended to try to get some of those hardliners to build trust with leadership, to show them, look, we're voting on these individual appropriations bills, like you wanted. Will you help us rally around a Republican short-term spending bill to try and avert a government shutdown?

I asked multiple members going into this meeting if the plan is still to vote tomorrow, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been saying, on a short-term plan. But rights now McCarthy doesn't have the votes he needs to pass the short-term measure. The hope is that after the votes tonight perhaps that will build some momentum for leadership, but it's just not clear that's going to be the case.

Meanwhile, in the United States Senate, you're right, they have a bipartisan agreement. They're going to try and start the process of voting on that today. Later. We will be waiting to see if they can get it passed in time before that Saturday night deadline. But, again, you have the House and the Senate really talking past each other right now with no clear resolution that there won't be a government shutdown when employees of the federal government wake up on Monday morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. All right, Lauren, outside the Capitol Hill club. We'll see what they say when they're coming out of this meeting.

It's good to see you, Lauren.

Oh, really quickly, before - before I go, Lauren, on the other side of the Capitol, with - with in the Senate - in the Senate, I'm so sorry I forgot I wanted to ask you about this, Bob Menendez, he's back on The Hill for the first time since pleading guilty -- not guilty to federal bribery charges. He's going behind closed doors to speak with fellow Democrats this morning. The majority of them have come out to say that they think he should resign facing the charges that he is. What is he going to say? What are you hearing about this?

FOX: Yes, I mean, this is, obviously, a very important meeting for Senator Menendez, who has been defiant against calls asking him to step aside. There are now 30 Democrats, Kate, who are asking that Senator Menendez resign, including his fellow New Jersey senator and close friend and political ally, Senator Cory Booker, as well as the number two Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, the majority whip. So, you can expect that this could be a tense meeting.

Of course, we expect that Senator Menendez will continue to be defiant, as he has been. That he does not want to step aside. That he wants to go through this process. But when he returns to Capitol Hill today, you know, he is no longer acting as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Yesterday his Democratic colleagues voted that Senator Ben Cardin would become the interim chairman while Senator Menendez battles these charges in court.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Lauren Fox, thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, I know, I know, we are more than a year out from a general election, but so far the prospect of a Biden/Trump rematch in 2024 looks even more likely. A major address today from President Biden is expected to demonstrate his days of trying to hold Donald Trump at arm's length are finished. [09:25:05]

In a few hours, the president will speak at an event in Tempe, Arizona, honoring the legacy of his close friend, the late senator, John McCain. But his speech is also expected to deliver blunt, new warnings about the state of American democracy and the threat it faces from Donald Trump.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is at the White House for us.

Jeremy, the timing, setting, the message of this speech are very deliberate. Tell us more about what we expect to hear.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, no doubt about it. And, listen, today's event, today's speech is being billed as an official White House event. But make no mistake, what you will hear from President Biden today on democracy is going to be central for his message for his 2024 re-election campaign and central to his argument against Trump in a potential rematch come next year. The fight to preserve American democracy was, of course, central to Biden's 2020 campaign. And a senior White House official telling us this morning that fighting to preserve democracy has been the central cause of Joe Biden's presidency.

And the president has been sharpening his attacks on Donald Trump and the threat that he represents to democracy in recent weeks at fundraisers. And we expect to see him take that to new levels in this speech today. We have some excerpts from the president's remarks, and this is what he's going to say. Quote, "there is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy, the MAGA movement." And so the president is effectively going to say that he is trying to defend America's democratic institutions from this threat that he says is embodied by former President Trump's MAGA movement.

And he's also going to make clear that he believes democracy is not a partisan issue but an American issue. And he's going to emphasize that point by delivering these remarks in Arizona, the home of late Senator John McCain, a Republican who repeatedly took on Donald Trump directly. And President Biden also set to announce today that he is steering federal funds towards a McCain library that will be housed in his home state.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much for that reporting.

And CNN will have special coverage of that speech with Jake Tapper starting today at 2:45 Eastern.

Over to you, John.

BERMAN: All right, here I am.

New video this morning of Army Private Travis King arriving back on U.S. soil just a day after he was released by North Korea. We've got new information about why they let him go and the possible punishment now that he is home.

Baltimore Police set to hold a news conference shortly after they caught a convicted felon, accused of murdering a young tech CEO.

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