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White House Press Secretary: Kelly Totally Unequipped To Handle The Genius Of Our Great President; Photos Show Rudy Giuliani With Indicted Associate At Baseball Game; Joe Biden Campaign Singles Openness To Super PAC; California Utility Shutting Off Power To Nearly One Million People To Prevent Catastrophic Wildfires; Astros Look To Even Series, Nationals Aim To Stretch Lead In World Series. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired October 26, 2019 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:00]

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ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. An alarming statement from the Former White House Chief of Staff: I warned Trump he'd be impeached with the wrong people around him. This comes amid Saturday testimony that wasn't expected to be explosive, but has Democrats saying they got a lot more than they thought they would.

Plus, hurricane-force winds and bone-dry conditions fanning these wildfire flames in California. Hear the remarkable story of a firefighter who risked his life to save a couple in dangers and new today, U.S. military vehicles roll into war-torn Syria. Just yesterday the President said troops would be, "Coming home".

It's 7:00 Eastern, 4:00 in the afternoon out west. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM and here where we begin. President Trump and his former right-hand man in the White House going back and forth today over advice on how not to get impeached.

John Kelly retired Marine Corps General and Former White House Chief of Staff. He told reporters this weekend that if he had stayed on the job the President would not be in the impeachment predicament he is in now.

The Former Chief of Staff told an interviewer that when they were looking at his replacement last year, he told the President "I said whatever you do, don't hire a "Yes-man", someone who won't tell you the truth. Don't do that because if you do I believe you will be impeached".

President Trump is flatly denying Kelly ever said that. CNN's Sarah Westwood is at the White House. The President responded directly to CNN about this reporting. What is he saying?

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Ana an aggressive response to John Kelly even by this White House's standards the Former Chief of Staff words prompting on the record responses not just from the Press Secretary, but also from the President himself. I want to read you those statements now. President Trump said John Kelly never said that. He never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does.

And Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham's statement said: I worked with John Kelly and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President. That's just a remarkable statement for the Press Secretary to be making the genius bit of the statement aside, here we have a savaging widely respected former colleague in suggesting that this retired four-star general is somehow not equipped to handle the job that he did for a year and a half.

In fact, Kelly's arrival in that position was widely celebrated at the time and so were his early tenure and the White House here quick to disparage his comments to the Washington examiner but contrast that to the way the White House has handled the impeachment inquiry. The White House has met many of the new developments in that investigation with silence they decline to dispute the specifics of new allegations as they've emerged.

But when it comes to something that the President apparently perceived as a personal insult in the case of John Kelly, you will notice here that the White House was quick with a coordinated response and a coordinated pushback. That's something, Ana that Republicans have complained about, the lack of strategy and the lack of coordinated messaging when it comes to the issue of impeachment.

CABRERA: Right, Sarah Westwood at the White House for us. Thank you, joining us now Former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush Scott Jennings and CNN Political Commentator Ana Navarro. Guys I want to start with that alarming statement from General John Kelly, very similar to something Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last year remember this?

So often the President would say, here's what I want to do and here how I want to do it, and I would have to say to him, Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can't do it that way it violates the law. Scott the fact that two former top officials have essentially said without anyone stopping him the President will commit illegal acts, should that give Republicans pause?

SCOTT JENNINGS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESS SECRETARY GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I - look, I agree with General Kelly that it's vital that you have staff around to push back on your ideas and to try to give you best-case scenario, worst-case scenario and really give you the best advice you can get.

Where I disagree with him, is that I don't think it was his departure that precipitated impeachment and I think the Democrats were always going to impeachment the President no matter who the Chief of Staff was or any other staff was. They have spoiling to impeach him that really since he got elected and they finally got around it on this Ukrainian matter. So on the one hand, I agree, but the other hand I think it was inevitable and here we are. CABRERA: You served in the Bush White House, did Advisers or Cabinet

Members ever have to stop Bush from committing illegal or impeachable acts?

JENNINGS: No, I don't recall anyone trying to stop the President from committing illegal acts, although I do remember Democrats in some liberal media outlets clamoring to impeach President Bush which, of course, they didn't go through with, they're going through it now.

[19:05:00]

JENNINGS: But again the point that General Kelly is making is not incorrect. In a White House in any government agency White House, or city hall, wherever you happen to be, it's important to have people around the table with whom you can pressure test your ideas. So I think that point is correct. I just think he is a little bit misguided about the intention of the Democrats who I think they were always out to impeach the President.

CABRERA: Ana, also add in this reporting today speechwriter for Former Defense Secretary Mattis claims President Trump ordered Mattis to, "Screw Amazon out of a government contract". He also says Mattis was constantly trying to translate Trump's demands into ethical outcomes. What do you think the way these former officials are portraying themselves after the fact?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think the lack of adults in the room which is what we call them like Mattis, like John Kelly, like Rex Tillerson, like McMaster around Trump who does need restraint, who does need disciplining and who does need to be told how the institutions work and what is legal and not legal and who needs to be protected from himself, frankly and the country needs to be protected from him, there's now a lack of that kind of person with such gravitas.

A lot of times with military titles attached to them and let me say this, Ana. I know John Kelly. John Kelly served in Miami as Demander of South Com for a few years before heading back to Washington, and he and I know each other well. I disagree with him viscerally on some of the things he did and said as the DHS Secretary and the White House.

But I know him to be an honorable man. I know him to be a patriarch who loves this country, who I believe served a President whom he doesn't agree in a lot of things because he thought it was his duty. And so to now attack somebody like John Kelly who has paid frankly the ultimate sacrifice, lost a son in service to this country while Donald Trump is feigning bone spurs on his feet - not to serve.

And that's the kind of man we're discussing now with such chivalry and just throwing around kind of, you know, questioning his motives and questioning his honor in the case of the Secretary - the Press Secretary of Trump.

CABRERA: Let me read, in fact, again, that statement from the White House Press Secretary, Stephanie Grisham, defending President Trump. She writes, "I worked with John Kelly. He was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President". Scott, this sentence, the way it's almost dear leadership, does it prove Kelly's point that the President is surrounded by yes men, or in this case, yes women?

JENNINGS: Well, I disagree with the statement. I don't think it's an appropriate statement for the White House to make about someone who served our country with such distinction. And by the way General Kelly, I think he had a pretty job as Chief of Staff. I think he had a few moments that were missteps certainly including the handling of the White House Staff Secretary situation which was mishandled.

But overall, I think General Kelly did a great job for the administration and I would just advise the White House that these people who leave your administration, you know, they're still around. They're still making public statements. They're still prone to being called to testify before Congress like John Bolton.

CABRERA: John Bolton, yes.

JENNINGS: So I would just say that it's better to keep people close to you and not push them away or to disparage their character or their patriotism the way that we're seeing going on here with General Kelly.

By the way, I didn't take General Kelly's comments as necessarily a negative comment about the President I just took it as his opinion about what could happen if you get certain kind of staff. I didn't see it as a disparaging to the President. So my advice to the White House would be celebrate the people who have come to work with you, because a lot them have done a good job for you and they've served their country and they don't deserve to have their character and their patriotism disparaged this way.

NAVARRO: I do think, though, his statements went further than that because basically what he said, look, I told the President that if he got himself a "Yes-man" he'd end up impeached and in fact, that seems to be where we are heading and you know, you're right.

There were some extremists that wanted to impeach Bush at some point, but he never gave them basis to do it. There was never evidence of impeachable offenses. There was never evidence of unethical and criminal behavior. Were there mistakes? Many, many, many mistakes made like by every other President because they are human, but this goes beyond that.

What Trump has done in terms of abuse of power, in terms of inviting foreign interference in our elections, those are, for many of us, for many Americans viewed as impeachable offenses.

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CABRERA: Scott, the bar for Republicans does seem to keep moving. First, this is hearsay and then it was there was no quid pro quo. Both of those defenses were blown up this week. Do you think there should be a red line for Republicans? A point where they say if this is proven, Trump loses our support.

JENNINGS: I think what you're going to see Republicans come down on this. It's obvious that something happened. The President says it wasn't a quid pro quo. A lot of people are going to testify to the fact that it was, and some people are going to say that that's impeachable and the Republicans are likely going to come down and say it may have been bad judgment. We don't agree with the policy, but we don't think it's impeachable.

So I think at some point you have to look at the body of evidence and the body of facts and if the facts bear out and testimony bears out which by the way, we haven't seen the full testimony of these people just selected leaks.

But if the full testimony bears out that it did happen I think Republicans are going to have to not - not disown the facts, but own it and own their attitude which I think is probably going to be I don't like it, bad judgment, wish he hadn't done it and I don't think it's impeachable and I would rather trust the American people in an election rather more than I trust Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff in an impeachment.

I think that's likely where this is all going to fall out for Republicans, because I don't, frankly, out here in the middle of the country where I live, I don't see Republicans breaking support for the President one bit over this.

CABRERA: Okay. And I got to ask you really quick about Rudy Giuliani and this pocket dial. Here's what he accidentally left on a reporter's voice mail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: Tomorrow I've got to get you to get on Bahrain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Hold on.

GIULIANI: You got to call Robert again tomorrow. Is Robert around? The problem is we need some money. We need a few hundred thousand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: An argument could be made that Giuliani is the one that got President Trump into this mess when he convinced him of this conspiracy theory involving Ukraine and Joe Biden. Why hasn't the President cut ties with Giuliani?

NAVARRO: Well, first of all, they're both grown adult men in their 70s with a hell of a lot of experience. I don't think Giuliani got Trump into it and I don't think Trump got Giuliani into it. They're both accountable for their actions.

I've known Giuliani as well for a very long time. I don't recognize this Rudy Giuliani that I see and hear nowadays. It is a complete 180 from the person who was America's Mayor just - I guess what? 15 years ago, and my advice to Giuliani would be Rudy, get you a flip phone, man. Get yourself one of those old-fashioned flip phones because you obviously can't handle a smart phone, get one of those that closes and it won't dial out, but I think Giuliani's attitude here has been - and it's one that he doesn't get a pass on because he knows better, because he's been a prosecutor because he's been a U.S. Attorney because he's prosecuted cases of public corruption.

So, you know, if there is somebody out there who cannot plead ignorance, who could not say I didn't know this was illegal and I didn't know this was unethical, who cannot say oh, I didn't know what these Ukrainians were about. He should have known. He should have looked into it.

He owned a security company, for God's sakes. There's just - he gets zero pass on his lapses of judgment and ethics on this, I think.

CABRERA: Scott, would you like to see the President Part ways with Giuliani, Scott?

JENNINGS: Yes, my views on this are well known. I've said it on these airwaves many times. First of all, your lawyer is supposed to get you out of trouble and not get you into trouble. I would just say to the President, I think Rudy Giuliani has taken on--

NAVARRO: When your lawyers need lawyers, you're in trouble.

JENNINGS: I think it sounds to me like he's taken on some information and some clients and some interests here that have not served the President very well. Now the President's responsible for what he believes and what he doesn't believe and how close he lets certain people get, but in this particular case, I think Rudy Giuliani has hurt him on the Ukrainian issue.

I would cut ties with him, and to the extent that it can be shown that Giuliani was the genesis of some of these bad actions and not the President, if it can't be shown and that's what the facts bear out, I think the President will need to go in that direction.

CABRERA: Scott Jennings and Ana Navarro, great to have you both with us. Thank you. Happening right now, the House Committees involved in the Presidential impeachment inquiry are holding a rare Saturday session. This as we're just learning of two new depositions planned for next week. Live to Capitol Hill next.

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CABRERA: On Capitol Hill right now the House Committees involved in the presidential impeachment inquiry are holing a rare Saturday session putting a top State Department official under oath behind closed doors. Republicans who have been inside say there's nothing new coming out.

Democrats, though, are saying not so fast. CNN's Kylie Atwood is on Capitol Hill for us and Kylie the deposition of Ambassador Philip Reeker literally just wrapped up. What are you hearing from inside?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, so after about eight hours this is finally coming to a conclusion and what we're hearing differs based on who we're talking to a fair Republican or they're Democrat.

So Republican Congressman Mark Meadows, just spoke with reporters and said that this testimony today was a good day for President Trump and he said that that is because what was said behind closed doors backed up what Republicans are saying which is that Trump didn't do anything that constitutes an impeachable offense. Let's listen specifically to what he had to say on no quid pro quo.

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REP. MARK MEADOWS, (R) OVERSIGHT AND REFORMS COMMITTEE: I think there was certainly a number of questions that continue to try to convey, is there an impeachable offense here? Was there some quid pro quo, and now you have another high-ranking State Department official that didn't provide any support for that allegation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now one of the things to note, however, is that in our reporting ahead of this testimony we were told that Philip Reeker who is the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs didn't actually know at all that the Trump Administration had been pressing Ukraine to publicly announce that they were going to be doing an investigation into Biden in 2016.

So it may be a question of what Philip Reeker knew and what he didn't know and that would, of course, challenge the notion here that there was nothing that was done wrong. Philip Reeker may or may have not known those details and we are hearing from Democrats coming out of this.

Specifically Congressman Lynch, who said that this was, "A much richer reservoir of information than we originally expected", indicating here that there are some new details that we are going to learn out of this testimony and one of those we do expect is with regard to the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine who was abruptly ousted at the order of President Trump,

And we know that Philip Reeker was one person who knew a lot about those conversations at the State Department at the time. So maybe not anything on the quid pro quo, but we may learn more about her ousting back to you.

CABRERA: Okay. Kylie Atwood, thank you very much. And Kylie referenced Congressman Lynch there. He will be joining us tomorrow night here on the program. Now the President's lawyer now looking for a lawyer himself. Up next, what a CNN investigation uncovered about a trip Rudy Giuliani made to London CNN's "KFILE" is still ahead.

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[19:25:00]

CABRERA: New questions tonight about Rudy Giuliani's involvement with two associates who have been indicted for violating campaign finance laws. These pictures from June show the President's Personal Attorney sharing a VIP experience at a Yankee's game in London with Lev Parnas right there next to him.

Parnas and Igor Fruman pleaded not guilty this week to charges they funneled foreign money to U.S. campaigns. But now these pictures are shedding light on how Giuliani may have been able to use the men to dig up dirt on Former Vice President Joe Biden a Biden's son Hunter in Ukraine all of this at the center of a new "KFILE" by a report by CNN's Andrew Kaczynski.

Andrew is here with me now. What does this trip to London tell us about the relationship between Giuliani and these associates?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: So, it's really interesting because the trip sort of brings together a lot of these different elements of their relationship. It shows how close they are. It looks like they had a great time at the Yankees game. They're on the field. They got to meet Aaron Boone, Manager of the Yankees but there was this part of the trip where he spoke to this charity group connected to Fruman and Parnas and this politically connected Ukrainian rabbi.

And with that we can see sort of how the pair between them, Parnas, Fruman and Giuliani, he was able through them meet all sorts of other additional other Ukrainians connected to the government, connected to people in the government and things like that, and this is all going on right around the same time he's looking to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.

CABRERA: So going back to the picture, do we know how they got on the field?

KACZYNSKI: So we do not know how they got on the field. I was very interested in that, again because it looked like they had a fun time but I reached out to the Yankees who told me Giuliani bought four tickets from us for the game, but we don't handle who goes on the field at these overseas events. A major league baseball spokesman said to me neither Parnas nor Fruman were credentialed and I have no idea how they ended up on the field. So Rudy might even like these guys are with me, you know, come on down to see the Yankees.

CABRERA: How did you come across these pictures?

KACZYNSKI: So Giuliani, he posted some of these on social media and there were some getty images that show him at the game and we were able to piece together this trip because many of his tweets were geo- tagged so we can see when he's in Chicago when he says he's flying to London and we can see the tweets that are tagged in London and when he gets back to New York on July 2, we can see that the trip's over and he's not there anymore. CABRERA: You mentioned the lunch in that Giuliani also participated in

involving the Ukrainian Jewish community and what more can you tell us about this, charity and how it may relate to Joe Biden and Ukraine?

KACZYNSKI: So back in May we remember some people might remember that Giuliani was supposed to go to Ukraine and on that trip, what he was going to do, it was reported that he was going to meet or try to meet with the Ukrainian President to push for more investigations into Joe Biden.

Now the official reason for his trip or so he said was actually to speak to this Ukrainian charity group that's tied to Parnas and Fruman and it's a group to help build new communities for Jews who were fleeing conflict that's ongoing in Eastern Ukraine near Kiev and it sort of all connects to them in that he was set to go there in May.

He ended up meeting this rabbi over in Paris at the end of the month, I think, and then this is sort of the same group that he's speaking to when he's in London and there are all sorts of other people there who are Ukrainian connected or tied to the Ukrainian government as well but could have possibly aided Joe Biden or meet Giuliani.

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CABRERA: Well, Giuliani and his request for dirt on Joe Biden. All of this is fascinating. Andrew Kaczynski, thank you for your reporting.

KACZYNSKI: Thank you.

CABRERA: Good to have you here. As Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden battle for front runner status, the Former Vice President is shaking off new concerns over campaign cash. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Former Vice President Joe Biden striking a presumptuous tone when comparing himself to his Democratic opponents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have less than 9 million in the bank. Bernie Sanders has nearly $34 million in the bank. Senator Warren has 26 million. How do you compete against that?

[19:35:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just flat beat them. We're on the course to do extremely well. I'm not worried about bring in more fund to this campaign. I really am not, truly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABREARA: That's Biden in a "60 minutes" interview set to air this weekend. With us now CNN Political Commentator and Democratic Strategist Aisha Moodie-Mills and also Democratic Strategist Nayyera Haq Former Obama White House Senior Director and State Department Spokeswoman.

Ladies, good to have you with me. Aisha let me start with you. Biden sounding pretty confident there in that clip but we did hear his campaign this week at least opened the door to the possibility of a Super Pac to help support him in this race, that certainly exposed him to some criticism from his rivals tonight. He's sort of denied his position has changed, but at the end of the day do voters care about this?

AISHA MOODIE-MILLS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, voters care about this. I mean, I think that if voters care deeply about Joe Biden we would see that translate more into grassroots support on the ground whether it be dollar, whether it would energy enthusiasm activity.

And we're not quite seeing that and so his major donors are getting really anxious about it. Here's what I'm nervous about though, I'm really nervous about this primary turning into super donors who're just low dollar donors that are just give and give and give, because they're really enthusiastic versus Super Pacs.

I think that that would actually be bad for the Democratic narrative all of the way around and I also think that it's problematic when you have a group of donors who think that they should be able to dictate and determine who the candidates are going to be just because they have money to throw around.

And so I would caution us that if we want to spend money on getting rid of Donald Trump, some of those dollars should be going towards dealing with voter suppression combating that and then also pushing back against and combating the disinformation campaign that is railroading Democrats generally as opposed to just trying to find other ways to sink money into an underperformer.

CABRERA: So not just necessarily throwing money at candidates but like you said then you will add other issues. Nayyera, let let's talk about the race, because I want to look at a couple of polls this week. The CNN Polls showing Biden with a double-digit lead over his closest challenger Senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders but another respected survey from Quinnipiac shows Warren out front. Is Biden over confident?

NAYYERA HAQ, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE SENIOR DIRECTOR: Well, Biden certainly is coming into this with the value of name recognition. Eight years of him tying himself to Barack Obama and speaking about that on the campaign trail. He's recognized. He's familiar.

The questions are going to be out of policies all familiar enough that they seem outdated right? Elizabeth Warren maybe as close as in age as close to the same as Joe Biden, but this is a concept and a feeling that she is fresher and that she is really looking to shake things up.

If this is going to be another change election in which people want to see dramatic change, then Joe Biden is coming into this hampered not just by money, but also by the legacy that he's bringing to the table?

CABRERA: Aisha, you mentioned enthusiasm and we've seen Warren this week pick up an endorsement from Rep. Katie Hill or Katie Porter I should say of California. She's obviously somebody who has been seen as a rising star within the Democratic Party, Sanders also picking up an endorsement this week in Iowa by somebody who is well known there.

Who is also got some good enthusiasm around her. Last week Sanders was endorsed by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Omar. Does that generate you know resonate with voters in a way?

MOODIE-MILLS: For sure because all those people who are endorsing are bringing their constituencies along. I think it matters that candidates are demonstrating that there are people on the ground that support them as opposed to just simply special interest and big money. And I think that that's going to be a real division here and that's what we're seeing that the Democrats are honoring the new rules and honoring grass roots energy and support.

It matters that you have people on the ground who have your back and those are the folks who are going to win is going to be people who actually have a groundswell of supporters not just on folks who have couple of rich people who are trying to push them forward.

CABRERA: Nayyera, we saw on that new polling, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is holding on in the middle of the pack. I want to show some video from today. This is a decent-sized crowd that showed up for his town hall in South Carolina and notable because Buttigieg is doing poorly among the states most important Democratic voting bloc African-Americans who is just at 1 percent there with that group.

Just in terms of primary strategy. That being said, should he be focusing more on the early voting states with earlier voting states because South Carolina obviously it's early as well but places like Iowa and New Hampshire?

HAQ: Everybody needs to have presence at Iowa and New Hampshire but let's not forget, Barack Obama didn't win New Hampshire and now with the restructuring and you have Super Tuesday, 14 states everybody's going to feel scrapped for money in this case. Joe Biden is not drawing the 20,000, 30,000 crowds that Bernie Sanders is.

The question is Buttigieg is going to fall? Is he going to fall - he is able to bring more people to the table and create a new coalition or is he going to have to fall back on relying on some of the money that that's already pledged for Joe Biden?

CABRERA: Buttigieg trying to progressive voters as a moderate alternative going after Warren for example on Medicare for all. Aisha, can that strategy broaden his support?

[19:40:00]

MOODIE-MILLS: You know, I don't know. I really like Mayor Pete I think that he's certainly a rising star and we're seeing that in the polls. Here's the challenge though, when you look at the delegate game you look at the path to victory, I don't know if Mayor Pete doesn't do well in Iowa, New Hampshire and then South Carolina and Nevada Super Tuesday I don't know where his pathway to victory is? The truth is that in most of those states - the first two are 91 percent white and 3 percent black. The rest of those states we're talking about - I mean the rest of those days we're talking about like upwards of 20 percent of African-Americans as a part of the Democratic base that he needs to at least have some inroads in, even if he comes in third or so he still gets some of those delegates.

CABRERA: Why is he struggling so much with that?

MOODIE-MILLS: He's struggling because he's from the Midwest and doesn't know any black people and because he has had some real serious calls into question about how he dealt with the police chief there who was an African-American and how he's doing with police shooting there? And so he has got a lot of work to do in terms of authentic relationships and I think that he is doing a good at the outreach. We just have to see if he has the time available to really connect to people on the ground.

CABRERA: A new national poll shows voters see the Democratic Party as too liberal. This is according to Quinnipiac 47 percent of people believe the Democratic Party is moving too far left and far left than the 37 percent who say there Republican Party has moved too far to the right. Nayyera, is that a problem in Iowa for the most progressive candidates like Elizabeth Warren that so many people believe that they're too liberal?

HAQ: Iowa maybe first, but it is not determined over the rest of the country and until somebody gets elected with new ideas or there is a first woman or a first black person nobody believes it's going to happen until it happens. So I think this idea of electability is what we're really trying to rap our heads around when it comes to particularly ideas.

At the end of the day this is going to be a binary choice between Donald Trump and a Democratic nominee and I think every person in a Democratic primary right now is better for the democracy and values of our country than President Trump. The question will be who's going to have the enthusiasm as a candidate that will have people actually want to turn out in this election versus staying home? If Democrats stay home then Donald Trump will win.

CABRERA: Nayyera Haq and Aisha Moodie-Mills, thank you, ladies.

MOODIE MILLS: Thank you.

CABRERA: A dire situation in California is getting worse as high winds and bone-dry conditions fuel a number of wildfires. To the West Coast next live in the CNN Newsroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:45:00]

CABRERA: Wildfires in Northern California are getting so dangerous people have had to flee an evacuation center. We're hearing this as the state's largest utility is turning off power to nearly a million customers to prevent what it says could become catastrophic wildfires.

50,000 people have been evacuated in Sonoma County as the Kincaid fire there continues to grow and in Southern California firefighters are battling the tick fire that's devastated more than 4500 acres. CNN's Lucy Kafanov is in Sonoma County where some families have lost absolutely everything.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, I am standing in the heart of Wine Country where residents are bracing for the worst. Thousands more forced to evacuate. There are now new mandatory evacuations as officials prepare for the winds to pick up at around 8:00 pm local tonight.

They are expecting strong gusts, 40 miles per hour sustained winds and gusts of up to 80 miles per hour and that means this blaze could spread very quickly. All morning long we've seen crews driving up and down. They're trying to dig new containment lines and they're trying to protect the structures.

There are thousands of structures at risk, and you can see behind me what this damage does. There is a bed that used to be a bedroom. This is the remains of a home the burned-out husk of a stove. That used to be a kitchen. Almost nothing left in between and in the distance, if you can see it, there is the burnt-out shelf a car.

The only thing left standing here are the vineyards behind us and that is one silver lining. These are largely rural areas. There's a lot of farmland here and it's not as densely populated as Southern California where more fires are raging and that has resulted in the fact that we haven't seen too much disruption.

A lot of disruption, but no loss of life and matters what the firefighters are working hard to prevent. Some folks have been spared the flames. We met one local resident who got lucky, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN SPIERS, HOMEOWNER: It's all completely burned and the bark of the landscape caught fire and you can see it spread in both directions and then the structure caught on fire. You can see the fire department pulled the siding off and all their hoses are still here and it looks like they put the fire out quickly and went to the next stop. I do think had they not been here I probably would have lost certainly this structure and quite possibly all of the structures.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: Now the state's largest utility PG&E has announced that it is cutting power to nearly 1 million customers 940,000 customers across 36 counties. They're going to be doing this in stages in order to limit the impact, but the Governor, California's Governor is not pleased. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAVIN NEWSOM, GOVERNOR, CALIFORNIA (D): Years and years of greed, years and years of mismanagement, particularly with the largest investor-owned utility in the state of California PG&E. That greed has precipitated and a lack of intentionality and focus on hardening their grid, undergrounding their transmission lines. They simply did not do their job. It took us decades to get here, but we will get out of this mess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[19:50:00]

KAFANOV: Now there are going to be a lot of questions about what actually sparked this fire whether faulty PG&E equipment could have been to blame, but right now the focus is on prevent anything more damage on saving lives and preparing for this historic wind event scheduled to begin this evening. Ana?

CABRERA: Lucy Kafanov, thank you for that reporting. Overseas now authorities in the UK have filed charges against the 25-year-old man after the bodies of 39 people were found stuffed into a truck trailer outside London on Wednesday.

The truck's driver Maurice Robinson is now due in court Monday on 39 counts of manslaughter. He also faces charges of money laundering and conspiracy to traffic people. Three other people are also under arrest. Police say they are aware of reports of missing individuals in the Vietnamese community but say they won't speculate on the victims' nationalities.

One day after President Trump tweeted that U.S. troops would be leaving Syria for other places and then coming home, a convoy of U.S. trucks and armored military vehicles crossed back into Syria from Iraq today.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper says U.S. forces will protect Syrian oil fields from ISIS. Also today Turkey rejected a German proposal for an internationally enforced safe zone and CNN's Sam Kiley reports Turkey is setting yet another deadline, this time for Kurdish-led fighters to pull back from Syria's border with Turkey.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: More than a dozen American armored vehicles were seeing crossing from Iraq into Syria. It is assumed to make good on the promise from Washington, D.C. from the Trump Administration that they would be heading to protect the oil fields in the south central part of Syria from recapture by the so- called Islamic state and from capture by the Assad regime.

They will be heading away from where there has been continued fighting not very far inside Syrian territory, inside the zone that the Turks have said they want to see completely demilitarized following a retreat from the - by the Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces.

Now, those forces continue to clash with militia sponsored by Turkey and there have been reports of drone strikes or artillery strikes that have killed both fighters and civilians the Kurds are saying. But this is all against a backdrop of a deadline which falls on Saturday by which time the Turks are insisting that the SDF, that Kurdish dominated militia, will have had to have withdrawn 32 kilometers away from the Turkish border, deep into Syrian territory, or face a renewed offensive. Sam Kiley, CNN.

CABRERA: From twins marrying twins to a twin's day festival Lisa Ling learns about the special bond multiples share in a new episode of "This is life."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA LING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How are you? Jill and Jenna, Jenna and Jill. How would one tell you apart?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty much by our colors red and blue. So we have the red, Jenna red and Jill blue.

LING: Okay. I'm going to have to work on remembering that but I will. How would you describe the bond between the two of you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're pretty close. Our bond is special. Growing up our mom treated us as a, more like a unit of one person.

LING: A unit. Did you ever go through a period where you felt like I need to just totally do my own thing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I've always enjoyed having my sister.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We always wanted to be together. We didn't know the difference.

LING: The two sisters say exactly the same thing at exactly the same time like they share the same brain. So she is literally your other half and she literally is yours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Be sure to tune in "This is life" airs at 10:00 tomorrow night right here on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:55:00]

CABRERA: The Astros and Nationals are about to square off in game four of the World Series. Huston, Kendra even with a win tonight. Washington on the other hand can stretch their lead to 3-1 with a victory in front of the home crowd. CNN's Andy Scholes joins us from Nationals Park with the preview.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN REPORTER: Well, you can just feel the excitement here in Washington, D.C. as the Nationals prepare to host game four of the World Series. This is the first time they've had the World Series in this city in 86 years.

You walk around town all you see is people wearing red and "Go Nats" signs everywhere. This stadium it was rocking last night for game three the fans here just waiting to explode. But unfortunately, the Nationals didn't give the crowd a chance to go wild. They scored just one run in the loss. They hope for a much better outcome tonight in game four. Both managers spoke moments ago about their team's approach to this pivotal game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE MARTINEZ, NATIONALS MANAGER: I want them to be aggressive in the strike zone today. We were one or two big hits away from blowing the big game open so hopefully we get those today.

A.J. HINCH, ASTROS MANAGER: I think the game in itself I am going to trust myself to read the game, I'm still going to utilize as many guys as we need to. The fear of using so many predetermined pitchers is going to be the back end of the game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now with the Astros' win in game three that does guarantee a game five tomorrow night. President Trump says he plans on attending. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says he spoke with President Trump and in order not to disrupt the fans getting in and out of the stadium, President Trump says he will arrive after the first pitch and then leave before the game is over.

Now for tonight's game four, this continues to be one of the hottest tickets we've seen in sports the entire year.