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Jordan and Scalise Launch Bid for Speaker; Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) is Interviewed about the House; Biden Allows Border Wall Construction; NYC Sees Migrant Arrivals; DeSantis Campaign Reports Fundraising Numbers. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:51]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Infighting and now revenge plots. We're getting new report just in on the battle to be the next speaker of the House.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden takes action to build a section of wall at the southern border. But in 2020 he vowed there would not be another foot of wall constructed during his administration. The question this morning, why now?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: His mug shot alone has made him millions. The staggering amount of cash that Trump's campaign has brought in as he - as his criminal charges stacked up.

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

Right now the House of Representatives is in recess, but a better word for it is completely and utterly frozen. That's more than one word, of course. The legislative branch really can't move forward until they figure out what -- who will be the next speaker of the House. And with that major unanswered question is another big question, can Republicans prove they can come back from this mess and lead? Tempers are flaring. Republicans against Republicans.

Here's Republican Chip Roy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): You wanna come out me and call me a rhino? You can kiss my ass.

You go around talking your big game and you thumping your chest on Twitter? Yes, come to my office, come have a debate, mother.

I'm not going to go to a nunnery (ph) because (EXPLETIVE DELETED). There are people who were buried over in Normandy who deserve us to stand up for what they fought for. So that's what I'm going to do. And all of you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out there who are out there saying what you're saying out on social media, you stick it. I'm going to go down to the floor and do my job and I'm going to stand up for the people who fought for this country. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Yes, the anger is real. The tempers are really flaring. The job that Chip Roy is talking about there, the job at hand right now is picking their next House later after the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

Two Republican lawmakers have jumped into the race so far. Ohio's Jim Jordan, who's currently the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. A very powerful position in and of itself. And Louisiana's Steve Scalise. He's one of the - he's, well, currently one of the top Republicans in the House. Two very powerful men already.

CNN's Lauren Fox joins us now from Capitol Hill with more.

Lauren, where do things stand with this? What are we hearing now from these two top contenders?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, nerves are raw right now in the Republican conference. And there are questions about whether or not Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise, at this moment, could actually get 218 votes to unite the conference.

I just spoke with Jim Jordan, and he told me that right now his goal is on trying to get everyone on the same team.

Here he was just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Who can - who can bring the eight into the - on, you know, part of the team, who can unite our team. I think I can do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: There's obviously a lot of members and allies of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who want to extract revenge on the eight people who voted against the speaker of the House. Many of them arguing that they should either be removed from conference in the case of Matt Gaetz, obviously that is highly unlikely. You also have some members who say that they were threatened in not so veiled a threat, like Nancy Mace, who said that before she decided to vote against Kevin McCarthy on the floor of the House, she was told that there may not be Republican support to help her campaign for her re-election. She's, obviously, in a tough district. That money is obviously very important to members in those swing districts. So, you're seeing a lot of fallout in the wake of the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy.

It was also interesting, when I talked to Jim Jordan a few minutes ago, he was pressed on how he's going to unite the conference around an issue of Ukraine funding. That is something that's really important to a lot of conservatives in the House conference. But it also is something that has divided members of the Republican conference.

[09:05:01] And yesterday he told our colleague Manu Raju that he didn't support more money for Ukraine. Today when he was pressed on how he will sell himself to people who do support that money, he said that there are two fundamental questions that have to be asked. One, what is the ultimate goal. Two, how is the money being accounted for. But he was a little more vague in his answer about just saying that he was straight up opposed to more of that money. So, obviously, he is trying to win people over right now. And that race is on for the speakership.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And when it comes to Ukraine aid, there seems to be really two camps that are - there's not a lot of gray area within there. We'll see how Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, or whomever becomes the next speaker, how they navigate these chopping waters.

Lauren, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: Joining us now to discuss all this and the congressional chaos, Republican representative from Georgia, Rich McCormick.

Thank you, sir, so much for being here.

I just want to start with this. Just four days ago you said it is not going to happen, that McCarthy is not going to be ousted, that that's just not realistic. Now here we are. You're a freshman congressman. What do you think of what happened?

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): Well, we're in uncharted territory right now. Nobody's gone through what we've gone through in the last week. Not one person in Congress was alive the last time we even brought this up. And so, fairly unpredictable. I'm sure there will be other things I predict incorrectly into the future.

But there's a bit of chaos. There's a bit of discord. But this is nothing new to Congress. This has been going on since the inception of our country. There's been debates over wars, even - even the Revolutionary War. A third of the country wanted to stay loyal to Great Britain. So, we -- we've been through this before.

SIDNER: Look, we've all made bad predictions in our lifetime, so I get it. And I know you were surprised because you made those statements. You were just shocked that this actually did happen. Something that's never happened before in U.S. history.

Two people, as we've been talking about, have officially jumped into the race for speaker, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan. These right now are the potential alternatives. Who can you support between the two of them?

MCCORMICK: I think they're both great choices. They're both well- liked. They're well-respected. They've earned their stripes. They have a ton of experience. I think a lot of us are going to wait and see how the presentation goes. I think there's going to be momentum. I don't think it will be solved in one vote. I think we'll have several votes in - in - behind closed doors. And hopefully we come close to a consensus. And then when we come out, we actually vote together because I think that's really important for the American people to see that we have some unity into the future.

SIDNER: I'm curious because you said both of them are great options for you. Jim Jordan has already said he's against approving new aid for Ukraine. You're on the Armed Services Committee and you have been very vocal about supporting helping Ukraine. So, is failing to fund Ukraine a deal breaker for you for the next person that becomes speaker?

MCCORMICK: So, this is a debate we're going to continue to have. I'm going to put out a podcast on this. I'm going to have a lot of town halls. A lot of Republicans don't want this but, once again, going back through history, we've always had divisions on war. We've always had disagreements. And that's healthy. I think we have to have debate on who we help and how much we help.

But, in my opinion, we made a commitment, that - both in the Budapest Accord in 1994, as well as in the NATO unanimous consent, which we lead, we're leaders in NATO, when we go and put our name on the line, when we say we give someone our work, I don't think that's something we take lightly. And ultimately we're going to deal with either a bigger Russia who sells grain to China, or a smaller - or a bigger, stronger Europe that actually helps us as allies into the future, even through our grandchildren.

SIDNER: You know, you talk about this, and there is some news now, the Pentagon has basically warning y'all, warned all of Congress, it's running low on money to replace weapons that the U.S. has sent to Ukraine. And some Republicans are saying, look, we're getting blowback from our constituents on funding Ukraine. They do not see that it's a priority.

Are you getting that same blowback? And if you are, how are you explaining your position to your constituents?

MCCORMICK: Of course I'm getting blowback. I'm sure everybody who has any support for Ukraine is getting blowback. But I tell you, I also have support. Some people understand the strategical importance of the breadbasket of Europe. Some people understand the -- giving their word, global leadership. That's a big difference between globalism and global leadership. As a matter of fact, they're on opposite side of the spectrum. If we don't have a presence in the world, it will be filled. That void will be filled by Russia, or China, or some other bad actor. So, I think it's important that we continue to be global leaders, that we can do to extract our leadership when it comes to foreign policy. I think it's very dangerous to think that we're going to appease Russia and they're going to continue to all of a sudden change their behavior.

Putin's been very clear on Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova.

[09:10:03] He has aggression stated in everything he says. He literally quotes Peter the Great. These are serious consequences if we don't actually go to bat for our friends.

SIDNER: All right, I'm going to come back to the United States just real quickly and just a yes or no answer, do you think that Matt Gaetz and the other seven, who put this forward and made this chaos happen, should be removed from their committees and punished?

MCCORMICK: No, I think that's a bad precedent. I think what they did was a bad precedent, but I think also doing that doesn't solve the problem.

SIDNER: Congressman Rich McCormick, thank you so much for going through all that with me and for your very short and decisive answer on that last one. I appreciate you.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, President Biden is building the wall, at least part of it. This is something he said he would not do. The Biden administration announced it will waive 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in south Texas because of what they call an acute and immediate need. The plan is to construct up to 20 miles of new border barriers in Starr County. That's in the Rio Grande Valley area. Some 245,000 migrants have attempted to cross the border illegally in just that one sector since October of last year. On the entire border there, the number is closer to 3 million. Hundreds of migrants rushed past border control agents near El Paso yesterday.

So, when he was running for president, Biden made clear that he would not expand the border wall if elected.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (August 2020): Trump campaigned on build that wall. Are you willing to tear that wall down?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (August 2020): No, I'm -- there will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (January 2019): The president also said today that former presidents have said to him that they wished that they had built a wall. Do you recall President Obama ever saying that?

BIDEN (January 2019): I don't know a single one. I can't think of a single one who said that.

We need border security but that's not border security we need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And on the day he took office, President Biden signed a proclamation stating that, quote, building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. Now we should note, today's action does not do that. It's a 20-mile section. Nevertheless, it is very different than what President Biden campaigned on.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez at the White House.

So, why this change, Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: John, the reality the administration was facing here is they had funds from 2019 that were appropriate by Congress for border barriers. According to a source that I spoke with this morning, they had to use those funds by the end of fiscal year 2023. So a decision had to be made, use the funds or lose the funds. They decided to use them, to use them for border barriers, which will also include technology and access roads, and do so in the Rio Grande Valley sector.

This is a sector we often talk about, John, because it is highly trafficked, as you mentioned there. This is an area that since last October to August had nearly 300,000 encounters. And in this notice to the federal register, the Homeland Security secretary sites that and says that it is an area of high, quote, "illegal entries."

But to do so, to do this construction in an expedited manner, he had to waive certain laws, 26 laws in total. That includes, for example, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Now, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had sought public input to do this wall and start the barrier projects. And in that they announced that they would include, for example, Gaetz and cameras and, again, access roads. So this is a more holistic barrier. A little different than what we saw under the Trump administration.

A big point here, John, is that this is not military funds, DOD funds. That was a big, controversial point under the Trump administration. This is congressionally appropriated money that they had to choose to use.

But, look, the White House is acutely aware of the situation on the U.S./Mexico border. It puts them in a politically precarious situation because there is an uptick in border crossings. Republicans have seized on that increase. And Democrats have spoken out against border barriers. For example, Texas Representative Henry Cuellar saying that this is a 14th century solution to a 21st-century problem. So, all of this is unfolding. The White House aware of it. They're also trying to talk to cities nationwide to make sure they have resources for the migrants they're receiving.

So, all of it unfolding. But at least for now the news is that they are going to start construction in this area of the border, the Rio Grande Valley sector.

BERMAN: All right, that explained it really well.

Priscilla Alvarez, this is an issue you've worked on for some time, thank you so much for your reporting. Kate.

BOLDUAN: And from the border, we know that more and more migrants are being moved from the border to cities across the United States. And with that, mayors from some of those cities are heading to the border now themselves to get a first-hand look.

Chicago's mayor is one of the latest, saying that he's soon going to go to the border and see if there's any better coordination that can be had with southern states.

[09:15:02]

Since August of last year, more than 17,000 migrants have been bused to Chicago. This week alone more than 20 buses of migrants have arrived in the city and some 3,000 migrants are sleeping in police stations.

New York City's mayor, he's in Mexico City right now to get a firsthand look there at the causes of the migrant crisis. His city has also been a top destination where migrants have been busses with 600 new arrivals each day.

CNN's Polo Sandoval joins us now from New York with more on this.

What do these numbers say? What do they tell you?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Kate, consider this, just last week alone, according to the city, there are about 3,700 asylum seekers who arrived here in New York over about seven days. That was last week. We are a year and a half into the migrant crisis here in this city. So, that's certainly telling that there shows no signs of stopping in terms of these numbers, especially when you look at the situation on the southern border.

Now, those 3,700 people, they are now part of the 63,000 that are still in the city's care. And those daily arrivals, that number you shared with our viewers, 600, that is up from 300 to 400 a day. So that's one of the reasons why the city continues to see this increase in numbers.

Another factor at play, well, Republican Governor Greg Abbott increasing the number of asylum seekers that he is offering transportation to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMILLE JOSEPH VARLACK, CHIEF OF STAFF, NEW YORK MAYOR'S OFFICE: Last week, Texas Governor Abbott centralized the dispatch, command and control functions of the deployment of buses through the Texas Division of Emergency Management. And he has significantly ramped up the number of buses that are being sent, not just in New York City, but other cities as well. While before we may have received a few hours' notice that buses were coming through back channels and different organizations, even including information on the manifest numbers of how many people were going to be on those buses, this change means that we no longer get even a scant heads-up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So, for New York City there's a lot of hope hinging on a couple of things here. For example, this week that window opened for some of those eligible Venezuelan asylum seekers to begin applying for TPS status, potentially putting them on track for securing a work authorization. But also the city has been implementing its confidential 60 day vacate notice, basically encouraging some of these asylum seekers to leave the shelter system. But here's the thing, Kate, if those numbers coming into the system continue to increase, and the fruits of the city's labor, well, that's going to be very hard to notice.

While, of course, as you mentioned, Governor - rather Mayor Eric Adams traveling to Latin America on what he's describing as a fact-finding trip, trying to tell migrants about the realities that await them once they arrive here in New York.

BOLDUAN: Polo, thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, more indictments means more money. New numbers show just how much money Donald Trump is fundraising off of his legal troubles.

Also, CNN has new video of a deadly car accident involving Senator Bob Menendez's wife. It happened five years ago. So, what does it have to do with the indictment involving her and the senator? Details on that ahead.

And it's happened again, another one of the president's dogs has been removed from the White House. This time it's his two-year-old German shepherd, Commander. And he may have bitten more people than previously reported. We'll talk about it, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:35]

BOLDUAN: One thing that has become clear this week is that Donald Trump is trying to make the civil trial against -- the civil fraud trial against him into a campaign booster for him. And there are now some numbers that may back up that strategy. The Trump campaign is reporting the Republican presidential frontrunner raked in more than $45.5 million in the third quarter that ended in September. Trump's criminal charges mounting all throughout that - all throughout that time period. In comparison, Trump's closest rival, Ron DeSantis, he recorded about $15 million in that same time - time period.

CNN's Jessica Dean, she has much more on this.

You've been looking through the numbers, what we're hearing from the Trump campaign on this. And what do the numbers say? What do they mean? JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Kate.

If you look at these numbers, they're really powered a lot by these small dollar donors. And that's important because, remember, the Trump and - Trump -- President Trump and his campaign can continue to go back to those donors over a large period - a long period of time versus, you know, the big donors, where when they max out with those checks, that's kind of it. They've been tapped out. So, that is one thing to keep in mind.

But also just, this is a very large number, and it represents an improvement over his last quarter of fundraising. And it sets him up to be in a very good position in terms of money, heading into the primary season. And, of course, as you just laid out, this is all coming as so many of these trials and developments in these trials all across the country, in various jurisdictions, are playing out. And we know that the Trump campaign has really made that part of their strategy, that they have tried to turn this into a way to boost his campaign as he is running for president while, you know, being on - being in the courtrooms, and having all of these legal troubles play out across the country in these various cases.

And just to give you -- everyone a snapshot of where this race remains, as we sit in October, before the primaries all begin, starting with the Iowa caucuses in January, Trump, in our poll of polls, so that's taking all of the polling and averaging it out, really continues to just lead with such force and really the runaway leader among all of these Republican candidates running for president.

And then if you kind of distill that down into a state poll, you look at one of the early states, South Carolina. And those early states are important because, obviously, national polling is what it is, but the early states are going to be were a lot of this plays out, and that's where candidates can get momentum. But even there in South Carolina, where you have two natives running for president, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, former President Trump continuing to lead the pack there.

[09:25:08]

So, that is the snapshot that we have right now. You mentioned that his closest rival in a lot of the polling, Governor Ron DeSantis, coming in the $15 million in his fundraising. We're continuing to get numbers from the others, Kate, as this latest fundraising deadline passes.

BOLDUAN: Let's see what those - what the other campaigns have to say and how they stack up.

DEAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Jessica. Thank you.

DEAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: $45.5 million, John. DEAN: Yes, and Ron DeSantis has got $5 million that he can spend on the primaries right now. That gives you a sense of the gap between the two.

And this morning we have an example of Donald Trump putting his legal struggles at the centerpiece of his campaign. He is now urging a judge in New York to dismiss the criminal hush money charge against him. He's got this argument that includes, quote, political interference. Analysts say this is a longshot at best legally, but it really might be about politics here.

Also in New York, for the first time since his business fraud trial started, Trump will not be there today. He is at Mar-a-Lago spending his second full day under a gag order at the very property the judge says he falsely overvalued by hundreds of millions of dollars. For her part, New York Attorney General Letitia James declared the Donald Trump show is over.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, what does the death of a pedestrian have to do with the indictment against Senator Bob Menendez. Ahead, details about surveillance video that has just been released of the senator's wife at a crash site in 2018. Why prosecutors say this is actually relevant to their case.

Also, the Biden's German shepherd, Commander, is no longer welcome on the White House grounds. The details on the biting incidents, there have been several, that we actually didn't know about before. That's ahead.

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[09:30:00]