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Trump's Influence Put to the Test in Pennsylvania, North Carolina Senate Primaries; Supreme Court Sides With Sen. Ted Cruz (R- TX) in Campaign Finance Case; Ten Killed in Shooting Fueled by Racist, Extremist Conspiracy Theories. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 16, 2022 - 10:30   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]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Former President Trump's hold on the Republican Party is one of the issues on the ballot in primaries tomorrow in a number of states. We have been following them, we continue to follow them closely. Some of them have his endorsement, some don't. We'll see what effect that has.

Primary elections take place tomorrow in five states, Kentucky, Idaho, Oregon, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, among the key races in that group, Madison Cawthorn's scandal-plagued bid for re-election in North Carolina's 11th congressional district. Today, the former president urged voters to give Cawthorn a second chance.

Joining me now, CNN Senior Political Analyst and Anchor John Avlon, and Margaret Hoover, CNN Political Commentator, Host of PBS' Firing Line. Good to have you both on.

John, just a straight check-in with the race in Pennsylvania first, because this is already a surprise. It was going to be a race just between Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick, but now you have Kathy Barnette, who was a long shot, really polling right alongside McCormick. And I don't want to overestimate what the polls state at this point but can you give us a check-in on where that race stands?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND ANCHOR: This is a crazy race. I mean, you have got basically a statistical three-way tie for first place on the Republican side. You've had Mehmet Oz endorsed by Donald Trump, reality T.V. doctor. You had McCormick, who was really being pushed by more establishment lane, as well as Mike Pompeo, some fissures in Trump land there, but then Kathy Barnette coming out of the right lane out of nowhere, a really hardcore, saying that she's the real MAGA candidate and the other folks are out of staters. So, this one is too close to see, but you're going to see around 20 percent turnout, maybe here, millions of dollars being spent, too close to call, crazy.

SCIUTTO: Margaret Hoover, the Trump endorsement might help you in the primary, in some cases, it has and hasn't helped. Does the Trump -- is the Trump-endorsed candidate in the bulk of races the stronger general election candidate or weaker, because we know Mitch McConnell, among others, doesn't love all Trump-endorsed candidates, might say he is working behind the scenes against some of them.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Jim, it is an easy question to ask, but the truth is you can't make an easy generalization, because every single one of these states is different. What we know happened last time in the presidential election is that Pennsylvania went to Biden. It didn't go to Trump. But it was only by like a hundred -- less than 100,000 votes, all right? And Pennsylvania is a closed Republican partisan primary, all right? So, it means the person that they nominate in Pennsylvania is not going to even necessarily represent the moderate lane of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania because such a minority of Republicans, only 20 percent, turn out to vote in the primary election.

Turnout in North Carolina, it's an open primary, all right? So, North Carolina and what you see in North Carolina is something very unusual that you don't have in Pennsylvania, you have a group of Republicans who you would consider mainstream Republicans or you would even maybe consider them MAGA Republicans pulling away from the MAGA candidates and endorsing opponents to MAGA-endorsed candidates. You have Senator Tillis who has supported a primary challenge against Madison Cawthorn, against Donald Trump's endorsed candidate. So, every state is different and I don't think a broad brush stroke works.

Trump helps in these multicandidate primaries. But when you have an endorsed incumbent, when you have an incumbent like Brian Kemp, who is again running in Georgia, we'll see that the week after next, he is going to run away with it.

SCIUTTO: Yes. John Avlon, as we look at -- and, listen, there are so many factors in all these races but, one being watched closely is Madison Cawthorn, and it seems to be his sin here in the Republican Party, the third rail, right, attacking the party, right? Because candidates giving enormous leeway to spout election lies and also to spout things like replacement theory, he went too far against his own party. Is this the end of his career here?

AVLON: Well, again, this is going to be a question of margins. And any rational universe outside primaries, this would be game over. I mean, you're not talking about the tonnage of scandals and sins you can't count on two hands, I mean, this stuff that should absolutely alienate him from the Republican base, let alone the general electorate. That said, Donald Trump's apparently still playing footsy with him, so we'll see what happens.

But this is a stunning number of scandals and Thom Tillis actually standing up from a typical Republican thing to do and standing to a candidate that he feels is irresponsible and doesn't deserve to serve in Congress.

HOOVER: And Chuck Edwards, who is running against Madison Cawthorn, does the represent the district. He's a state senator in North Carolina. He's is a mainstream Republican but he's who's -- his contrast is that he is going to do the work of the people, not be caught in these sort of sexual exploitations and call Zelenskyy a thug and earnestly representing people of the 11th District in North Carolina.

So, one more thing, it's 30 percent threshold in North Carolina.

[10:35:00]

So, everybody is going to be watching. And this could come down to the last vote just to see if Madison Cawthorn is able clear that 30 percent, or if they're able to keep him under it, then they will go to a runoff.

SCIUTTO: Well, a lot to learn tomorrow. We'll be watching. John Avlon, Margaret Hoover, thanks so much.

HOOVER: Thanks, Jim.

AVLON: Take care, man. Be well.

SCIUTTO: Just ahead, we will bring you some Supreme Court decisions just released this hour, including one involving campaign finance and the Texas senator, Ted Cruz.

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SCIUTTO: Just into CNN. The Supreme Court has now issued opinions in two cases, one dealing with immigration, another, campaign finance involving a case with Senator Ted Cruz.

CNN's Jessica Schneider, she is outside the Supreme Court today. Jessica, these were not Roe v. Wade, they were not other gun control decisions, but they do have impacts. Tell us what we know.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, not the big cases that we're looking for down the road, Jim, but the Supreme Court, in fact, issuing those two opinions today, the first opinions since that unprecedented leak just two weeks ago.

So, the first opinion that they issued, the Supreme Court siding with Senator Ted Cruz, striking down a campaign finance regulation that had restricted how much money and in what manner candidates could get back money from the funds that they loaned their campaign.

This is really a dismantling of campaign finance reform that we have seen from this court, the last major decision coming about 12 years ago with that Citizens United case, where the court said that groups and corporations could spend unlimited funds for free speech purposes, so, a similar ruling coming today from a 6-3 court, the conservatives siding with Senator Ted Cruz, striking down that campaign finance regulation.

And then another case that we are seeing from the Supreme Court today was on immigration. This was actually a 5-4 decision with Justice Neil Gorsuch siding with the liberals and writing the dissent. This was a case involving a Georgia man who was fighting his deportation. He says that he mistakenly checked a box on an application for a driver's license, wrongly saying that he was a citizen. An immigration court said that they didn't believe him, that it was a mistake and they ordered his deportation.

So, the question was could a federal court then issue a decision on the immigration court's ruling. And the Supreme Court saying here in a 5-4 case, saying that, no, federal courts in this instance, they cannot step in to review an immigration court decision.

So, Jim, two opinions coming down from the Supreme Court today, but a lot of time left in this court's term. We have about six weeks left here, expecting monumental decisions on abortion rights, also, of course, Second Amendment, religious liberties, and a case dealing with the EPA that could implicate climate change. So, a lot to come, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Decisions with real impact on folks' lives the moment they are decided. We'll be watching closely. It's going to be a busy next few months. Jessica Schneider at the Supreme Court, thanks so much.

Still ahead, the gunman in Buffalo cited a number of influences in his alleged manifesto, including a racist, hate-filled conspiracy theory, known as the replacement theory. Up next, how that idea went from the fringe to the mainstream now, being echoed by sitting lawmakers in just a few years.

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SCIUTTO: The racially motivated shooting that killed at least ten people at a supermarket in Buffalo is just the latest piece of evidence that what was once a fringe white supremacist conspiracy theory is now becoming more mainstream in this country. The manifesto attributed to the suspect says that he was motivated by posts he read on the message board, 4chan, that made him believe the white race is dying out here in America, among other racist beliefs. A growing number of Republican lawmakers are openly promoting the far right's so-called great replacement theory, that is the white people in this country being replaced by immigrants and people of color.

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REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA): What appears to them is we are replacing national born American -- native born Americans to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation.

REP. BRIAN BABEN (R-TX): You know what the Democrats are up to here, they want open borders. This is exactly their strategy. They want to replace the American electorate.

J.D. VANCE (R), U.S. SENATE NOMINEE, OHIO: Democrat politicians who have decided that they can't win re-election in 2022 unless they bring in a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here. That's what this is about

BLAKE MASTERS (R), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE, ARIZONA: They're doing this so that someday they can amnesty these people and make them voters who they expect to vote Democrat. This is an electoral strategy for Democrats.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): This administration wants complete open borders, and you have to ask yourself why. Is it really they want to remake demographics of America to ensure that they stay in power forever?

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SCIUTTO: Joining me to discuss is Mara Schiavocampo, she's co-Host of the Run Tell This podcast, also a former ABC Correspondent. Mara, good to have you on this morning.

MARA SCHIAVOCAMPO, HOST, RUN TELL THIS PODCAST: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: This has been a steady but relatively swift drift of fringe points of view that now you see sitting lawmakers talk about. You see in the primetime hours of Fox News replacement theory. How did this accelerate? How did it get from the fringe to the mainstream so quickly?

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Yes. Well, certainly, this concept is not necessarily a new one, the idea of stoking white fear by claiming that Jews or brown people or immigrants are going to replace you somehow is as old as this country. But when we're talking about this kind of new iteration of it, this great replacement theory, this is something that has been on the far-right fringe. And about a year ago, Tucker Carlson really started talking about it a lot on his show.

Now, you certainly can't blame Fox News solely for bringing something like this to the masses but they are hugely responsible for mainstreaming and amplifying this kind of messaging.

[10:50:04]

And so that's when we saw it really picking up some steam. And one of the big reasons here is that Fox has a massive audience. Tucker Carlson is tremendously influential and so we see that influence playing out, not only with politicians but in how it is affecting the public, a poll in December finding that almost 50 percent of Republicans and almost 30 percent of Americans overall believe that this is somewhat true.

And to be clear, this is not believing that there are some demographic change that's taking place, which is a fact, this is about belief that this is an orchestrated plot to change the electoral makeup of the country by bringing in people who otherwise should not be here. And now we're seeing an increasing number of people who believe this.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, it's also this sort of fear of a higher birth rate among people of color, I mean, so many things. And it is a great point that this feeling has existed for a long time, didn't come out of nowhere. But I suppose the alarming piece is that it has become something you can say quite openly as you are running for Senate, we see it in a number of races.

From a political standpoint in the barest terms, does this stay with us because it works for Republicans at the ballot box?

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Yes. I think the key to what you just said is because it works. What we saw at one point in recent history with the Republican Party is that they were really doing an autopsy to see how they could widen the tent and how they could bring in more groups and more minorities and appeal to those voters.

And then when Trump came into office, they realized there was another strategy that was incredibly effective. We saw in his response to Charlottesville in calling white supremacists very fine people, saying there are fine people on both sides, and appealing to this very nationalistic messaging, that has been incredibly effective. I mean, Donald Trump got almost more votes in the election than any other president in history. I believe Biden certainly got more than anyone in history and he got more number two.

So, the point being, this has been an incredibly effective messaging on the right and they have found that this is useful for them. And we have seen that this great replacement theory, what it has managed to do is unite what were disparate groups of white supremacists, say, the KKK to neo-Nazis. And they've all but told us this. The Unite the Right rally in 2017 was called Unite the Right, and they were chanting, Jews will not replace us. So, this has been a very clear, galvanizing strategy that's been taking place on the far-right.

SCIUTTO: So, let me ask you this, because Trump did better in some respects among both Latinos and African-American voters, as have some Republicans, in other words, it is not an automatic loser for Republicans even in those groups. How and why is that the case?

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Well, I would challenge that a little bit. I would say that perhaps he did better than was expected, but I certainly wouldn't make the case that this is a strategy that has brought appeal to minorities.

SCIUTTO: Not appeal, despite as opposed to because of is my point.

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Yes. I think there are always going to be those who are drawn to parties that you may think are counter to their self-interest for different reasons. But I think, certainly, this is a strategy that really appeals to kind of the worst impulses of this country, of nationalism, ultra-nationalism, its racist roots of this country.

I think that if we are talking about building a political argument on the idea that there is a plot to replace voters with immigrants and those who should not otherwise be voting, that is not something that, by and large, is going to appeals to black and brown voters.

SCIUTTO: Mara Schiavocampo, thanks for joining.

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And still ahead this hour, passenger who had to land a plane in Florida when his pilot became incapacitated, you may remember the story, speaks for the first time. His incredible do or die story and a pretty good landing all told, coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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SCIUTTO: Imagine being called to land an airplane with zero flying experience. Remember that story? That's exactly what one passenger turned pilot was forced to do last week after the pilot became incoherent and unresponsive during the flight. Here's the audio from that midair emergency.

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DARREN HARRISON, LANDED PLANE WITH NO FLYING EXPERIENCE: I have got a serious situation here. My pilot has one incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane but I'm maintaining at 9100.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Number 333 Lima Delta, Roger. What's your position?

HARRISON: I have no idea. I can see the Coast of Florida in front of me and I have no idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: I have no idea. Well, with the help of that air traffic controller who was also a certified flight instructor, Darren Harrison successfully landed that plane and pretty damn well in Florida. Listen to what he told the Today Show about all this this morning.

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HARRISON: All I saw when I came up to the front was water out the right window and I knew it was coming quick.

I kind of put my arm over toward my elbow sitting here and I grabbed the controls of the airplane and slowly started to pull back on the stick and turn.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: How did you know how to do that?

HARRISON: Just common sense, I guess, being on airplanes. Because I knew if I went up and yanked that the airplane would stall. And I also knew at the rate we were going. We were probably going way too fast and it would rip the wings off the airplane.

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SCIUTTO: Goodness, the plane was diving.

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