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Rep. Carlos Gimenez Discusses Trump Hitting Harris On Immigration, Border; Judge Orders Army To Release Records Regarding Trump's Controversial Arlington Cemetery Visit; LeBron James And Son Bronny Set To Play Together Tonight. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired October 22, 2024 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.
First, I want to ask you about something the president said about the vice president, describing her using several pejoratives, calling her "slow, low I.Q., lazy as hell."
Do you believe that about the vice president? Is that also actually going to help Trump win votes?
REP. CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-FL): I don't know if it's going to help Trump win votes, but I have heard other people say that, you know, she's not -- today, she's took off. I mean, so you're 14 days out from a presidential election and you're taking off? You're not doing anything?
That doesn't bode well for her. So I'll leave it at that.
SANCHEZ: Well, she's doing two different interviews today. And if she takes a day off, I guess that's -- that's her prerogative.
But I do wonder if you think she's low I.Q. or slow. Trump's suggested there was something --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GIMENEZ: I've heard -- I've heard, I've heard -- people said, that know her, that have had interactions with her, that she has difficulty carry on a normal conversation. And again, I'll just leave it that.
SANCHEZ: I would love to hear more about that, Congressman.
GIMENEZ: Oh, I'm sure you would, but I'm just going to leave it at that. So maybe we need to move on. OK?
SANCHEZ: All right. I'll honor that, I guess.
Trump claimed today that the United States would cease being, as a country, that it would turn into Venezuela on steroids. He said the same thing in 2020. And yet the country didn't disintegrate. The vice president isn't pushing for eliminating private property or murdering dissidents.
What do you say to the criticism that Trump is preying on the generational trauma of people that have fled Communist dictatorships, families like mine and yours, as a scare tactic?
GIMENEZ: I don't think it's a scare tactic at all. When you talk about people trying to censor you, which this administration has been trying to censor the American public or dissenting points of view, that's one of the first steps that they did in Cuba and in Venezuela where they just shut out all kinds of dissent.
When people are talking about price controls, price controls sounds pretty -- pretty socialistic to me. And so, you know, there is no doubt that the Democrat Party and Kamala Harris wants to move us to the left.
Remember, Kamala Harris was -- was rated to the left of Bernie Sanders in the Senate. And Bernie Sanders is a self-proclaimed Socialist. So, no, I just don't -- I don't think that that's an exaggeration at all.
And the problem is that the Democrats, especially Kamala Harris, when you peg her down, oh, no, no. I don't believe that. I believe -- I'm OK with fracking now. Oh, I don't believe in universal health care. No, no, no, no, I'm not there anymore.
And yet those were her beliefs for decades. And so the president is just it's calling her out.
And so the news media, I guess this outlet, is trying to say no, no, no, she's really a centrist. She's not a centrist. She is probably the most radical left-leaning or leftist presidential candidate we've had in our -- in our history.
And you can't cover up her past. I mean, all you got to look at, look at all of her interviews she had in the past. Look at our positions of the past. And, yes, they're super left and they're to the left of Socialist Bernie Sanders.
So I don't think --
SANCHEZ: Congressman --
GIMENEZ: -- at all.
SANCHEZ: -- I don't appreciate the accusation that we're trying to cover up for the vice president. I've asked multiple times Democrats that we've had on, lawmakers and analysts, about her moderating her positions, which she clearly has. I don't think you can necessarily --
(CROSSTALK)
GIMENEZ: No, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. Don't tell me that she's clearly has -- there you go, there you go again --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: She's moderated her positions.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: We've asked her about her positions --
GIMENEZ: She's moderated --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: We've asked Donald Trump about his changing positions on a number of issues. Politicians change their mind all the time --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: You know that.
GIMENEZ: But you know what? After decades, after decades, really they change all their mind really on all these positions --
SANCHEZ: Wasn't done --
GIMENEZ: On all these positions?
SANCHEZ: -- on support of reproductive rights --
(CROSSTALK)
GIMENEZ: I'm talking about Kamala Harris.
(CROSSTALK)
GIMENZ: I'm talking about Kamala Harris.
SANCHEZ: I'm saying that, generally, we allow politicians to change their opinions over time --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: -- and ask them about it. And we don't cover up for them.
GIMENEZ: Of course not. OK. What else you have to ask me now?
SANCHEZ: Congressman, I'm trying to have a conversation in good faith with you and pointing out that there's a disparity in the standard to which you're holding the vice president versus your own candidate.
GIMENEZ: No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Because I can tell when somebody's not telling the truth. And I can tell you she's not telling the truth.
She just shifted over to the middle because she knows that her positions, her real positions, she's unelectable, ok?
So I don't believe that she's a moderator of views one bit. And heck, even her campaign, talking about fracking and when she said, no, I'm ok with fracking, her campaign said, well, no, she's not OK with fracking. So what is it? So look, the real Kamala Harris will come out. If she gets elected,
believe me, she'll come out when she's elected and she will be the most leftist president in the history of the United States because that's her history.
[14:35:00]
And for me, the best indication of what you're going to do in the future is what you've done in the past and the positions you've had in the past. That's what I believe.
And I believe in what you do. I don't believe too much in what you say.
SANCHEZ: To that point, Congressman, do you believe that Donald Trump is telling the truth when he suggests that he's going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants?
GIMENEZ: No, I don't think that he's a said 00 he said there's going to be mass deportations. Which, by the way, the majority of Hispanics actually agree with that.
But the mass deportations have to be done under the rule of law with -- and that means that you have to give everybody their day in court. You have to have an immigration judge, you know, adjudicate their claim.
Now, we know that 80 to 90 percent of those claims for asylum are actually denied. And therefore, by law, those individuals have to be deported.
It's got -- you can't deport 11 million people at the snap of a finger. Absolutely not. And I don't think we're going to get there.
But you're going to start out with the criminals that have been let into this country and that have committed crimes in this country. You need to adjudicate them first.
And those that are found to be in violation need to be deported back. And then you go on from there. You've got to add a lot more immigration judges because we've had 10 million, 12 million people enter into this country in the last three-and-a-half years.
Illegally, too, because they've been given mass parole, which is not what the law says. They're supposed to be done on a case-by-case basis.
All done on purpose. Why? I don't know. But that was done under the Biden-Harris administration.
SANCHEZ: Congressman Carlos Jimenez, you sure you don't want to expand on what you we're saying you'd heard about Vice President Kamala Harris. You have an opportunity now --
(CROSSTALK) GIMENEZ: No, no. Look, we're going to - look, that's part of private conversations that I've had. I'm not going to divulge my sources. But I've heard that --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: If you are using unnamed sources, I mean, do you at least have a second source on that --
GIMENEZ: Oh, no. Don't -- don't -- don't give me this unnamed sources thing. I mean, you guys --
(CROSSTALK)
GIMENEZ: -- name unnamed sources --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: That's what you said.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: -- unnamed sources.
GIMENEZ: I'm not going to name my sources because you don't name yours.
SANCHEZ: But we usually have more than one when we publish information --
(CROSSTALK)
GIMENEZ: have more than one. More than one or two.
SANCHEZ: I -- I would love to hear you backup that accusation, Congressman.
GIMENEZ: Well, I'd love to hear you backup all of yours, OK? When you have --
CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: If I may, what accusations, Congressman, what accusations --
(CROSSTALK)
GIMENEZ: I'm talking about -- I'm talking about you're --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: All right.
GIMENEZ: OK?
SANCHEZ: Congressman Carlos Jimenez, appreciate you joining us on CNN. Yet again, you're always welcome to come on, sir. GIMENEZ: Thank you, Boris. I appreciate it.
SANCHEZ: I look forward to hearing about who you were talking to.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: So we could soon learn exactly what happened during Donald Trump's controversial visit to Arlington Cemetery. We have that reporting next. And I assure you, we have more than one source on that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:42:20]
SANCHEZ: Welcome back to CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Now to some of the other headlines we're watching at this hour.
An Italian woman is being mourned after she was pierced in the chest by a swordfish while surfing off of Indonesia's west Sumatra coast.
She's been identified as 36-year-old Giulia Manfrini. Her business partner describes her death as a, quote, "freak accident," but he adds that she died doing what she loved in a place that she loved. Officials say that deaths from such attacks are incredibly rare.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And in Australia, a woman's attempts to retrieve her cell phone, which good fallen between a bunch of boulders resulted in this, her getting stuck upside down for seven hours.
One of the paramedics who worked to save the twenty-three-year-old says, after she crawled hold into a hole, she slipped and slid about three meters down. Miraculously, she emerged with only minor scratches and bruises after she was pulled out.
SANCHEZ: And we are learning more about the two Navy pilots killed in that jet crash near Mount Rainier in Washington State last week. They are Lieutenant Commander Lyndsay Evans and Lieutenant Serena Wileman.
They had just returned from the middle least where they took part in strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The cause of this crash is still under investigation.
KEILAR: A federal judge has just ordered Army officials to release their records on former President Trump's controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery this past August.
Trump was out the site to honor the 13 U.S. servicemembers who were killed in the Kabul Airport bombing during the withdrawal from that country in 2021.
SANCHEZ: Now critics have charged that his actions broke rules prohibiting political activity on the sacred grounds of Arlington.
Trump was eventually rebuked by the Army over his campaign's use of video from that visit, some of which you're watching now. Many details of the incident though we're never revealed.
Leo Shane III is the deputy editor of "The Military Times," and he joins us now.
Leo, thanks so much for being with us.
What do you expect these records to show?
LEO SHANE III, DEPUTY EDITOR, "THE MILITARY TIMES" Well, it's just not clear at this point exactly what they have. We know the Army released a report saying that at least one of their employees was pushed aside when the Trump campaign staff was in there or there was some sort of confrontation.
But the military police we're involved or were at least contacted. A report was filed. So that may shed some light on just how violent of an interaction this was, I mean, was there a real confrontation or was this just a bumping match? Was this some back-and-forth?
But it's just, you know, there's just a lot of questions surrounding exactly what the former president did when he was there, what his staff did, and just how much they understood about what was going on.
But the Trump campaign had said they we're invited by family members, that they we're trying to interact with them, trying to have a nice moment with them.
But the Army report of the little statement that they've put out has said they were violating rules about politicking on this sacred site and seemed to push it too far, even after they got warnings.
[14:45:09]
KEILAR: So American Oversight is this non-profit that brought this suit. What was their successful argument for why this information should be publicly released?
SHANE: Yes, they basically said, look, this is in the publics interests that we have an election coming up in just a few weeks. This is a former president. This is one of the presidential candidates who, you know, may have had really poor conduct at one of the most sacred sites in the country.
And the American public deserved to know exactly what went on, how far it went, how much he was involved.
You know, there's a chance that Trump is somewhat exonerated by this. Maybe he didn't know anything that was going on, even as the report says that this was an overzealous campaign staffer who just go into it with a worker.
But there's just so many questions that are still floating around out there. We don't know if Trump was aware. We don't know if family members were aware of what was going on.
Hopefully, by the end of this week, we get some of those answers.
SANCHEZ: So, Leo, I wonder what this might mean, what we might see from the Trump side of this interaction whenever it comes out.
SHANE: Yes, look, the Trump campaign has come out and said these are all completely false statements. For a while, they were promising to release some videos saying they would completely exonerate them and put the onus on the employee who was being overly aggressive.
They have not released that video though they promised several times that it's out there and it's something they have, though they haven't made that public.
Their successful argument what was their successful argument for why this information should be publicly released?
You know, I'm not sure, at this point in the campaign, at this point with the election just two weeks away, if anything is really going to sway voters that much.
But look, this is -- this is a very sacred site to the military. It's very sacred site to the country. It's not an area that really anybody wants politicking to happen.
And -- and President Trump has insisted that he wasn't -- he wasn't trying to bring politics into the issues. He was trying to comfort families who had lost loved ones.
But it does feel important to figure out what happened here, figure out what the guardrails are, and try and prevent this from happening again in the future.
There will be other presidential campaigns. There'll be other presidential candidates. The ones that visit this site, the president and his cabinet members visit on a regular basis, making sure that it's acceptable behavior is very important to all the families who have loved ones buried there.
To families who just know the site, who just now how important of a place this is.
So just -- just figuring out what happened and how to make sure that we don't have this kind of controversy again in future, feels like a pretty important thing to glean from these records that will come out.
KEILAR: That's a good point.
Leo Shane, thank you so much. We appreciate your reporting.
SHANE: Thank you.
KEILAR: Basketball history could be made tonight when NBA legend LeBron James plays with his son, Bronny, in L.A. Everything that we know about the father-son game next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:52:09]
KEILAR: Big night tonight. Basketball superstar, LeBron James, and his son, Bronny, are going to make NBA history in their home arena.
SANCHEZ: Yes, game's all-time leading scorer and his 20-year-old son rookie will take the court as the first father-son duo to play in the same team in a regular season game.
CNN sports anchor, Andy Scholes, has the backstory leading up to tonight's tip off.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRONNY JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS GUARD: I'm always thinking about, you know, that's my dad, because that's literally my dad.
ANDY SCHOLES: CNN SPORTS ANCHOR (voice-over): Bronny James and his world-famous dad making history this season. And it's been 20 years in the making.
LeBron's legendary career has been defined not only by his basketball greatness, but also by his unwavering dedication to being a father. He's had his children, Bronny, Bryce, and Zhuri by his side during his NBA journey.
And in a 2014 CNN interview, LeBron said his motivation to be a great father comes from his dad not being there for him.
LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS FORWARD: My whole life growing up, I think I just kind of always said, why me? You know, why me? Why wasn't -- why didn't my dad want to be around?
I feel like I'm a pretty cool kid. I'm a good kid. Why wouldn't you want to be around for me?
And then, as I got older and older and kind of have my own family, I started to think, the reason he wasn't there is the reason why I became so strong mentally, so, loving to my mother and I am who I am today because he wasn't there, because I use it as motivation.
SCHOLES: LeBron and his wife, Savannah, had Bronny when he was just 19 years old in his second NBA season. And when Bronny started becoming a star in high school at Sierra Canyon, LeBron and Bronny playing together became more than a dream.
But a frightening summer day in 2023 nearly derailed it all.
(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get an ambulance here now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. All right, sir. All right, sir. I'm going to send help there.
(END AUDIO FEED) SCHOLES: Bronny went into cardiac arrest during a college practice and was rushed to the hospital. He would recover, and after treatment was cleared to return to the court just over four months later.
Bronny would go on to play for one season at USC, and then he declared for the NBA draft where the Los Angeles Lakers would select him with the 55th pick in the second round.
L. JAMES: I know I'm super happy for him. Our family is super proud of him.
SCHOLES: Very proud, but LeBron says they will need to keep it professional on the court.
L. JAMES: We cannot be running down the court, and he'd be like, Dad, (INAUDIBLE). Dad, I'm open. Dad, come one.
B. JAMES: It's probably going to be like Bron -- Bron will be the easiest that I'd be --
L. JAMES: The easiest.
SCHOLES: LeBron and Bronny shared the court in the preseason a moment that LeBron called surreal.
And it's even more than that. LeBron and Bronny on the same court is the culmination of LeBron's legacy, symbolizing the merging of a generational talent with the joy and pride of being a dad.
L. JAMES: For a father, I mean, it means everything. I mean, for someone who didn't have a dad, you know, growing up, to be able to have that influence on your kids and have the influence on your son, to be able to have moments with your son.
[14:55:08]
And then, ultimately, you know, to be able to work with your son, I think that's one of the greatest things that a father could ever hope for or wish for. So, it's pretty cool.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Andy Scholes for that.
It's such a heartwarming story.
KEILAR: I love it. I actually -- I think it's easier just to say, hey, dad, they know -- you know, because --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Yes, but you are going to be like that's, yes.
KEILAR: It's as if they have forgotten.
(LAUGHTER) SANCHEZ: Not to be that guy, but I do wonder how much playing time he's going to get, his time of at the end of the bench, so.
KEILAR: That's not the point, Boris.
SANCHEZ: I know, I know.
KEILAR: It's the principle of the matter.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: It's true. That's true.
We'll all be watching tonight.
We're also just moments away from former President Barack Obama and Tim Walz taking center stage in battleground Wisconsin.
Stay with us. You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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