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Third Quarter's Fundraising For Trump Campaign Raised $45.5 Million; Third Quarter Fundraising For DeSantis Campaign Reports Raising $15M; A Third Of DeSantis' Campaign Staff Moves To Iowa; Trump Says His Campaign Will Focus On Haley; More Incidents Of Dog Biting Reported Involving Biden's Dog; 11 Biting Incidents Confirmed By Secret Service; Appeal Of Adnan Syed Heard By Maryland Supreme Court; Study: 2023 Shaping Up To Be Hottest Year On Record. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired October 05, 2023 - 10:30:00   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: So, this morning we're learning that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is moving a third of his campaign staff to Iowa. The more really does seem like a make-or-break moment for DeSantis as he is trailing Donald Trump in the polls and in fundraising. We just learned the Trump campaign raised more than $45 million last quarter, DeSantis reported $15 million, but the key figure there is he's only got $5 million in the bank that he can spend on the primaries, which relatively speaking isn't a lot.

With us now, CNN Political Director David Chalian. A third of the staff to Iowa for DeSantis, we always knew Iowa was crucial, but now it feels a little like Iowa or busted?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, I think we're approaching that four-year anniversary, you may recall, when Now-Vice President Harris said using a profanity that she was effing moving to Iowa. Campaigns that find themselves with one strategy at the start of a cycle don't always end up with that strategy available to them at the end, and that's the case with Ron DeSantis, John. Remember, he and his campaign started, they were going to compete in all four of the early states, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. They even had some plans to organize and some big super Tuesday states.

When you move a third of your campaign staff to one state, you're putting your eggs in that basket, and that's what's become available to them as their path to the nomination has been narrowed by Donald Trump's dominance in the race, maintaining both polling-wise and as you just noted in fundraising. That narrow path now centers on Iowa. They see that as the place where they will have their best shot at trying to make a dent in Trump and allowing themselves into a more contested battle for the nomination.

[10:35:00]

BERMAN: So, when we talk about the polls, David, I do understand it is a state by state race, but sometimes nationals polls which are largely reflective of the state too tell a similar story here. We took the latest Marquette Law School poll which came, I think just this morning here, and the way we broke it down is Donald Trump's at 56 percent in this poll. The second through sixth place candidates combined are at 29 percent, undecided or other are 15 percent.

And the reason I wanted to show this is it gives you a sense, you know, there's so much talk about these debates without Trump and who's in second, who's in third place. But if the numbers look like this, none of that matters.

CHALIAN: Yes, I -- by the way, I agree with your caution about national polls, except as you noted the national polling mirrors a lot of what we are seeing in the early states. The same story is being told which is Donald Trump has such a formidable lead that something out of the ordinary is going to need to happen here to upend the trajectory. I'm not saying that can't happen but it would be out of the ordinary at this point given what a lead he's built up.

You are right to note, when you are at 56 percent, John, you can add up everything else, you're not going to overtake that. That's a pretty significant majority.

BERMAN: So, we just got some news in my ear. This is just in, the Trump campaign is now saying, David -- and this is, sort of, a double troll here, that they are now going to turn their focus to Nikki Haley because it is their feeling that they've already knocked out Ron DeSantis. That is the word for the Trump campaign there. It is not a very settle -- subtle message, I should say, but what do you see is going on there?

CHALIAN: Well, first of all, I assure you the Donald Trump campaign is not done taking on Ron DeSantis, because they are not going to let their foot up off of the pedal on that. So, rhetorically, they may want to act like they've already taken care of him, but let's watch carefully what they are doing in the last three months of the race.

But obviously, Nikki Haley is another Republican candidate who has been gaining some traction in that battle for second place that you've been describing. She's had two widely positively reviewed debate performances. We've seen her numbers come up, most recently in our New Hampshire poll with the University of New Hampshire. We saw her in a battle tied for second place. So, she has some traction here. But again, traction to what?

So, the Trump campaign understands nobody is voted yet. So, nobody is knocked out of this until we actually begin the voting process, and this is still a little bit more than 100 days away. Let's just see in those early state where the voters are a bit more engaged than what we see nationally, if there is an ability for one of these candidates to coalesce that non-Trump support and actually make a run at Trump to emerge, John, into a more one-on-one race.

Every Republican strategist I talked to says, if there were a one-on- one race, this dynamic would look different. I am sure that that's true, but as you noted, it still does not mean that that second-place person would be leading Donald Trump at this point.

BERMAN: It also is just a huge if at this point, still they can dream for now. David Chalian, great discussion. Thanks so much for coming on.

CHALIAN: Sure.

BERMAN: Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: All right. The Biden's dog Commander is in huge trouble. So big that that guy has been removed from the D.C. grounds. CNN has learned that the first dog had more biting incidents than had been previously reported. The secret service is warning its own agents to avoid certain areas to dodge interaction with Commander.

CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Jonathan Wackrow joins us now with more perspective on this. You're also a former secret service agent, and your served under President Obama. I do remember when Obama's dog Sunny bit a guest at the White house. Tell us why it is difficult to have -- and Commander's a puppy, he's like two years old, why it is very difficult to have a dog in the White House with all the people that go through there?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST AND FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT FOR PRES. OBAMA: Well, you know, Sara, you know, when I was at the White House, we would often talk about what an insider threat would look like. Never in my wildest dreams that I imagine that that insider threat would actually be the president's dog.

Now, I say that a little bit tongue and cheek, but the reality is that the secret service, you know, acknowledged that 11 of their personnel have been involved in biting incidents with the -- you know, with Commander. Now, what does that actually mean? These are the officers and agents that are at the White House 24 hours a day to protect, not only the complex, but the first family, the president, and you know, other protectees that are there.

So, we start getting into, you know, operational issues. And Betsy Kline who, you know, had the reporting on this actually talked to some sources that said that the secret service is altering some of their operational patterns when the dog Commander is on the ground floor or out on the White House grounds. That actually has a measured impact on security.

[10:40:00]

But I think that there are two things that we want to address here as contributing factors. One, it's the operating environment. Think about the White House, right. You know, we're talking about this being a family pet, but the operating environment of the White House is different than any other home in America.

SIDNER: Right.

WACKROW: There are hundreds of employees that are there 24 hours a day, and there are over 1 million guests that come on tours there for, you know, east wing and west wing tours. This environment can overstimulate even the most well-trained dog because it is a hyperactive environment.

The second thing goes to training and training in behavior. And, you know, what you have to do is you have to ensure that in that operating environment, which again is anomalous for a normal dog that it's trained very, very well.

You brought up a really good point about the Obama's dog. One thing that was different that we're not seeing here is that I spent a lot of time watching the first family, you know, train Sunny and Bo directly on the White House grounds. You have to put the time and effort in -- you know, to make sure that this is a well-trained dog for an environment, quite frankly, that is high security environment where socialization opportunities for these dogs may not be present.

SIDNER: Jonathan, you said something that I think is important here because you said that the dog, that Commander may be creating a security risk for potentially the president or those who work inside of the White House because people do not want to go, including secret service members, to certain areas of the House. Is that what you are saying?

WACKROW: Well, what -- you know, listen, it's not -- you know, in my experience has been when I was there when the dogs would come down, the secret service would put out notification. Now, the foot pattern of uniformed division officers that are on the south grounds inside, what they're doing is they're not giving up any of their protective methodologies or the overall protection of the White House, let me be very clear on that. What they are doing though is they're altering their patterns to try to avoid Commander.

Now, does that have a measured impact on the, you know, total operations? It may, I'm not saying it does. But again, why do you actually have to be in that environment? At the end of the day, what has happened is that instead of being a family pet that's beloved in, you know, what the Biden's wanted, Commander has become a workplace hazard, and quite frankly, a public relations distraction.

SIDNER: All right. Jonathan Wackrow, thank you so much for all of that. I love dogs, but I get it. You don't want a dog biting people as they're trying to do their work.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: To say the least.

Coming up for us. It was a case that gripped the nation. A man convicted of murder, that conviction vacated, and Adnan Syed set free after being behind bars for 23 years. Why his case is now back in court today in yet another twist. We have more on that next.

Plus, new data is in showing the fourth straight month of record- breaking heat. The extremes of September has one climate scientist calling it gobsmackingly bananas. We'll be back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:00]

BOLDUAN: This morning, the murder conviction made famous by the wildly popular podcast "Serial", is now facing another twist, the case is back in court. You may remember Adnan Syed, he spent more than two decades behind bars for being convicted of murder -- the murder of his ex-girlfriend. Well, he was then freed after the conviction was vacated. But that was not the end of this story. Maryland Supreme Court now considering whether the rights of the murder victim's family were violated along the way.

CNN's Jean Casarez is tracking this one for us. And Jean, we have seen proceedings are happening in this Maryland courtroom. What is happening now?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the highest court in Maryland, so this is a very serious situation. They're looking at constitutional issues, of course. But the fact that it got here is significant. Remember, his conviction was vacated but it was also reinstated by the Court of Appeals. But the facts are that when Marilyn Mosby who was the district attorney in Baltimore asked the court to vacate the conviction, it was based on that exculpatory evidence had not been given to the defense, and that there were two potential suspects that the defense had never been told about.

And so, the court did vacate the conviction. The issue is the family wasn't consulted. The victim's family was never notified until, according to legal documents, the evening before this was going to happen. And the representative was in California. He couldn't get there in time. He was allowed to watch it on Zoom, but he wanted to know what's the basis for this. Let us know what is the evidence you have? Why is this being done? Because they had lived for so many years believing that it had been solved.

Because of that, that spun into constitutional issues and rights of the victim and the victim's family, and that is what led to the Court of Appeals to reinstate the conviction. So, now you have this going on. And I heard the judge this morning say, don't we need to look a bit into the merits of all of this, you know, within the issue of the family not being notified? So, there could be huge ramifications here. Could he end up back in prison, I think anything is --

BOLDUAN: That's a -- that's the kind of -- obviously, that's one of many questions of this very confusing, but people have taken a huge interest in this case.

[10:50:00]

I mean, he was behind bars for 23 years. It's not settled now clearly of where this is going to end up. And the big question is, could he end up back in prison?

CASAREZ: And that podcast really led to so much and people so en masse being for him, believing that this was a wrongful conviction, and a lower court decided that also. Could he end up in prison, the court decided not to, even though conviction was reinstated.

BOLDUAN: True.

CASAREZ: So, the Supreme Court could rule. They could possibly send it back down to an appellant court.

BOLDUAN: Yes, we will see what happens here. It's good to see you, Jean. Thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right. A bad kind of record to break. 2023 on track to be the world's hottest year ever.

President Biden building that wall, at least part of it. Why the White House just reversed course to support a new border barrier.

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[10:55:00]

BERMAN: So gobsmackingly bananas, that is what one climate scientist is calling the extreme heat experienced around the world last month. This new climate report shows the world is on track to mark the hottest year ever. And it's really just one of the climate records being broken.

With me now, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: That's not the appropriate video of this story.

BOLDUAN: Diving in.

WEIR: People swimming. No, this is like code red danger time here. Let's look at this chart right now. Just look at the Septembers going back to 1940 according to Copernicus, they're the European space agency. And this is how the variation differs, if we've got this chart here, and you can see for years, for decades, it was colder than normal, all the way up until we get into the 2000s. And look at the line -- red line on the right, that is last September.

And then the first three days of October, John, one historian said, one of the most extreme climate events in European history. They're shattering records from Spain, Poland, Austria, and France right now. So, yes, it is stunning how much we're breaking these records.

BERMAN: And it's just a clear shift from then to now, and now is getting worse and worse and worse.

WEIR: Exactly. Exactly.

BERMAN: Is anything we're doing making a difference in the other direction?

WEIR: Yes, because there is a new International Energy Agency report out right now, and they say that things are taking off so much in terms of renewables if you look at these charts, they're far exceeding the wildest expectations of even 2005, 2012. IEA now saying we're on track to hit 2.4 degrees of warming by the end of the century, that's well above Paris, it's not great but it's way better than 4.8 that we were talking about back in 2011, which would have meant extermination of life as we know it.

So, it is working. People are adapting. Heat pumps, solar panels, EVs are exploding. The question is, how big of a fight big oil is going to put up.

BERMAN: I was going to ask you, which one of those is doing the most or doesn't it matter, it's all of the above?

WEIR: It's all the above. All this clean energy is coming online but it's not replacing the old stuff. We haven't seen Exxon or Saudi Aramco announce, this is an oil well we're not going to tap. We're walking away from these stranded assets because we know a better way.

Even regardless of their resistance, the IEA says, we'll hit peak emissions, so planet cooking pollution by 2025, only a couple of years from now. And so, then the question is, how much is damage is down on the way down that other side of that curve?

BERMAN: Great to see you, Bill.

WEIR: You too, John.

BERMAN: Thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: From depressing to chaos, the battle to be the next speaker of the house has begun and we're now learning new information about what the leading candidates are planning. That's ahead.

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