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Walker Confirming Check To Ex, But Denies That Was To Pay For Abortion; House Committee: Trump Org Charged Secret Service "Exorbitant" Rates For Agents Protecting First Family; Biden Speaks As Student Loan Forgiveness Application Are Now Open; Kyiv Rocked By Deadly Explosions From Kamikaze Drones. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 17, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:42]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Top of the hour here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Erica Hill.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to have you.

The countdown continues to the midterms. Twenty-two days left until Election Day, determining who will control Congress. And a new poll from the New York Times shows that Republicans have a slight edge here, 49 percent of likely voters say that they plan to back the Republican candidate for their house district, compared to 45 percent for Democrats. Now this poll also found it combined 44 percent of likely voters are most worried about the economy or inflation. Today, early voting begins in the battleground of Georgia.

HILL: And the race for Senate there, one of the tightest in the nation, Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock casting his ballot this morning as you see there. There's also a new twist in the drama engulfing his Republican rival, Herschel Walker, who's been denying of course allegations that he paid for an abortion for his ex-girlfriend years ago.

Well, today, Walker confirmed the check in question was in fact his, but then double down the denials in terms of what it was for.

CNN's Eva McKend joining us from Atlanta, Omar Jimenez is tracking another tight Senate race in Ohio.

Eva, let's begin with you there in Georgia. Give us the details, what more is Walker now saying about this check?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Well, Walker still denying the core allegations here about paying for this abortion. But now when he sees the check, he's acknowledging that he did impact pay - that this is his handwriting and that he did, in fact, issue this check to this woman, take a listen to the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HERSCHEL WALKER, (R) U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE IN GEORGIA: This is still a lie, because she's the mother of my child. So you're going to see my check or somebody giving a check, so that - you know what I'm saying? It's a lot.

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS: Do you know what this $700 check is for?

WALKER: I have no idea what that can be for.

WELKER: Is that your signature on the check, though?

WALKER: It could be. I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's my signature or not. This is my check.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So while there is a lot of tension to Walker's many controversies, I just want to note that I was outside of a polling location this morning, speaking to voters voting there. Today in Georgia is the first is the first day of early voting. And they weren't really mentioning the latest sort of us Walker saga. They were talking about other issues concerned about public safety, abortion access, the proliferation of guns in Georgia, frankly.

I'm actually at Georgia Public Broadcasting now because another highly anticipated race in this state, the governor's race, Gov. Kemp and Stacey Abrams going to be debating here tonight.

BLACKWELL: All right. We will certainly be watching out for that. Let's go to Omar now in the Ohio Senate race. Democrat Tim Ryan is up against J. D. Vance, who was endorsed by former President Trump. What should we be watching there?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Victor and Erica, this is the second of two times these two will debate in this election cycle less than three weeks or just about three weeks to Election Day.

Now, this first time around if you saw it, it was pretty contentious. Of course, they hit on issues - on the major issues of this race like the economy, abortion, law enforcement and more, but also they talked directly at each other at points, moderators were trying to jump in.

At one point, Tim Ryan tried to use J.D. Vance kissing up to President Donald Trump against him saying, and I quote, "Ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kisser," especially when it comes to President Trump. Here's a little bit more of some of their exchanges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): This is the crowd that J.D. is running around with, the election deniers. The extremists. He's running with an extreme element there that's very, very dangerous.

J.D. VANCE, (R) U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE IN OHIO: I find it interesting how preoccupied you are with this at a time when people can't afford groceries, people can't afford to walk down the street safely. Let's focus on the significant issues right now, Tim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: So we'll look for a lot of those same issues to come up. Tim Ryan also doubling down on his want for President Biden not to run for a second term, saying he wants to see a generational change on both sides of the political aisle. But as I mentioned, we're about three weeks to Election Day and this Tim Ryan and the Ohio Senate race is one of the eight most competitive Senate races where Democrats have actually outraised Republicans from July until September.

[15:05:04]

In this case, Tim Ryan's over 17 million to J.D. Vance's around 7 million. But the interesting part is that national Republicans have put a lot of money into this race much more so than national Democrats into Tim Ryan's side. So from now, through Election Day, J.D. Vance will actually outspend Tim Ryan by about 11 million to Ryan's around 3 million. We'll see if it makes a difference or if the second debate moves the needle at all.

BLACKWELL: All right. Omar Jimenez, Eva McKend setting the table for our conversation. Thank you.

HILL: Joining us now for that conversation, CNN Political Commentator Alice Stewart, a former Communications Director for Sen. Ted Cruz and CNN Political Commentator Ana Navarro. Nice to see both of you. If we - let's move to Georgia to start first, if we could.

There's been so much discussion. There's a lot of anticipation ahead of the debate on Friday night. Herschel Walker, of course, weeks ago, setting the bar very low as Victor reminded us with the sound that you played on Friday about that. But, yes, I'm wondering, there's so much talk now, the morning after about how he did, how he didn't do.

What's fascinating to me is, as Eva just said, she's talking to people outside the polling places. We're talking about the check, we're talking about the badge, she said they're talking about issues. Did Georgia voters get enough focus on issues do you think?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, part of the question is how many people actually watch the whole debate and how many people form an opinion based on the clips, the clips that I think are making the rounds, the clips that we're all seeing are the ones about the badge, which elicit a chuckle. I mean, at least it wasn't a badge from Toy Story.

And the - and this new interview, where for the first time, he admits that it's his check and that it's the mother of his child. Let us remember that for two weeks he has been like the singer Shaggy, it wasn't me. It wasn't my check. I don't know who this woman is. And now all of a sudden, that story changes.

So the one thing that is confirmed throughout all of this is that Herschel Walker is a liar. There are people who are okay with that, because as long as he is a Republican liar and the liar has an arm behind his name, that's all they need in order to vote for him. But that's the - I mean, the confirmation that came out of this debate and this more recent interview.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Alice, Eva just reported on the check, so I want to move on to this bizarre moment with this sheriff's badge during the debate where Herschel Walker held it up in response to a challenge from Sen. Warnock saying that at least I never pretended to be a member of law enforcement. Here's the exchange with Kristen Welker this morning on NBC about that badge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: If anything happened in this county, I have the right to work with the police of getting things done.

WELKER: Does that have arresting authority or it's an honorary badge?

WALKER: It is an honorary badge, but they can call me whenever they want me and I have the authority to do things for them to work with them all day.

WELKER: That National Sheriffs Association said an honorary badge 'is for the trophy case'. Why make the decision to flash at, at the debate.

WALKER: That is totally not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: He says he carries it around with him everywhere. Listen, beyond the badge, Herschel Walker also said that he had military career. He did that. He said that he went to Quantico and was an FBI agent. He was not an FBI agent. Why continue to make these claims and do they matter to you?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I speak with friends and family back in my home state of Georgia and they're not preoccupied with the badge and the latest story concerning the check, the focus on the issues. I don't think the badge is a great idea. I don't think he should have pulled it out the debate because it took the focus off of the issues that are important and put it on a gimmick that he's trying to promote.

But the goal for the campaign is to put an emphasis on crime and make sure that voters understand that he wants to defend the police and not defund the police as some on the left want to do and put an emphasis on the work he has done talking with law enforcement officers across the state of Georgia on mental health issues.

Look, Herschel Walker is a flawed candidate, but people in Georgia are looking at this now as a binary choice between the policies that he will implement moving forward and Washington versus the policies that Raphael Warnock will implement moving forward. And they're looking at what policies will help them in the future, not what Herschel Walker may have done a decade ago and they're looking at his emphasis on fighting crime, working on reducing the inflation, helping the economy and also supporting our military. And Republicans I speak to in Georgia are looking more at the issues than the intricacies of what happened a decade ago.

HILL: In terms of what one of the issues and I'm Alice I'm going to stick with you on this one, because I'm curious your take on it. So Kari Lake was on over the weekend with Dana Bash. She claims she is all about fair, accurate elections, but as she's doing that, she's continuing to push repeatedly pushing election lies.

[15:10:00]

I mean, she's feeding her own misinformation loop and sadly pretty effectively she's also refusing to accept a loss if in fact she did not win. She was very clear in not answering that question. Why is that still okay for the party, Alice?

STEWART: I don't think it should be, Erica. I've said, ever since this first came up, we should do everything we can to instill confidence in our election process, the same election process that Donald Trump one. It is the same one that he lost and he needs to embrace that fact.

And I'm really disappointed that Kari Lake didn't take that opportunity to tell the people of Arizona that our elections are fair, and they are free and fair for people on the left, as well as those on the right and she was - she thinks she might have been careful not to answer the question directly by saying that she thinks she's going to win and she will accept those results.

But having served as Deputy Secretary of State in Arkansas before, I do have confidence in our election process and anyone who's running for office should do everything they can to encourage people to vote and not discouraging them by continuing false claims of election fraud.

BLACKWELL: Ana?

NAVARRO: Look, the reason that it's okay with so many Republicans because - it's because there's, what, 400 election deniers on the ballot. And so if you started saying it's not okay, that means that you're voting against those 400. And the reason that they stick to this story is because that's Donald Trump's story. And many of them, owe their nomination to Donald Trump. Kari Lake owes her nomination to Donald Trump; Mehmet Oz owes his nomination to Donald Trump; J.D. Vance owes his nomination to Donald Trump; Herschel Walker owes his nomination to Donald Trump and like so many. And they don't want to antagonize Donald Trump. They don't want to lose that Trump support, that's their story and they're sticking to it.

And I think Republicans, many, many Republicans have made the decision that we don't care if he paid for an abortion and lied for about it. We don't care if he's - what they're lying about. We don't care if they're denying the elections, as long as they are Republican. It's a binary choice as Alice just articulated and this is our choice. Everything else goes out the window. HILL: Alice Stewart, Ana Navarro, always good to talk to both of you. Thank you.

STEWART: Thank you.

HILL: This just into CNN. The House Oversight Committee says during the Trump administration, the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service 'exorbitant rates' for stays at their properties while agents were protecting the Trump family.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Kara Scannell has this story for us. How much did they charge allegedly?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Victor and Erica, according to the House Oversight Committee, the Trump Organization charge as much as $1,185 per night. That is what they say one of the exorbitant rates that the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service, despite Eric Trump previously saying and doubling down again today that these rates would - that the runes would be provided either at cost heavily discounted or for free.

Now, according to the House review of these records they obtained from the Secret Service, they say that the Trump Organization was paid about $1.4 million. That was from the Secret Service. So basically, U.S. taxpayers from the period of 2017 through September 2021.

Now, in addition, they also said from - they gather from their findings that the Trump Organization, charge rates that were above the going government market rate at least 40 times ...

BLACKWELL: Kara, we're going to have to interrupt you, we got to go to the White House here, President Biden is holding an event about the opening now of the student loan forgiveness portal.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, I'm announcing how millions of people, working and middle-class folks, can apply for - to get this relief. And it's simple, and it's now. It's easy. It's fast.

At the end of my remarks, I'm going to officially launch this new application site at studentaid.gov, StudentAid.gov.

You'll be able to fill out your name, Social Security number, date of birth, and contact information. No forms to upload. No special log-in to remember. It's available in English and in Spanish on desktop and mobile.

It takes less than five minutes. And if you have any questions, you follow up - we will be able to follow up with you.

This is a game changer for millions of Americans. We're getting moving. And it took an incredible amount of effort to get this website done in such a short time.

I want to thank the Secretary of Education - there he is - Secretary of Education Cardona, who is here with me today. He and his team led a talented group of data scientists and engineers across the federal government and built and tested and launched this new application in just weeks.

And the Secretary insisted that it be test - I mean, that it had to be tested over the weekend. It landed and handled more than 8 million applications without a glitch or any difficulty.

We had over 10,000 people contact the White House and be - either send us letters or calls thanking us.

[15:15:01]

It means more than 8 million Americans are starting this week on their way to receiving a life changing relief that they're looking for.

It started today, with millions more who are going to have the opportunity to do it as well.

As millions of people fill out the application, we're going to make sure the system continues to work as smoothly as possible so that we can deliver student loan relief for millions of Americans as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

My commitment was: If elected President, I was going to make government work to deliver for the people. This rollout keeps that commitment, just as I'm keeping my commitment to relieve student debt as borrowers recover from this economic crisis caused by the once-in- a-lifetime pandemic.

And I hope, God forbid, I say "once-in-a-lifetime," and that gets me to another issue. We need more funding for this. But at any rate - for dealing with future pandemics.

But I want to be clear who's going to benefit the most: working people, the middle class. If you earn less than $125,000 a year, you'll get up to $10,000 knocked off your student debt. If you earn less than $125,000 a year and you received a Pell Grant, you'll get up to an additional $10,000 knocked off that debt - so $20,000 in relief.

In total, more than 40 million Americans can stand to benefit from this relief, and about 90 percent of that relief is going to go people making less than $75,000 a year.

Let me be clear: Not a dime will go to those in the top 5 percent of the income bracket, period.

Now, let's talk about who is against helping millions of hardworking middle-class Americans. Republican members of Congress and Republican governors are trying to do everything they can to deny this relief, even to their own constituents.

As soon as I announced my administration's student debt plan, they started attacking it, saying all kinds of things. Their outrage is wrong and it's hypocritical.

I will never apologize for helping working Americans and middle-class people as they recover from the pandemic, especially not the same Republicans who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut in the last administration - mainly benefitting the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations - and didn't pay for a penny of it and racked up a deficit.

I don't want to hear from Republican officials again who heard - who had hundreds of thousands of dollars - even millions of dollars - in pandemic relief loans - the PPP loans - but who now attack the working and middle-class Americans who are getting relief. And these are members of Congress who received those loans. They didn't do anything wrong, but they qualified. They qualified for up to, in one case, $2 million.

And despite what the Republican officials say, we can afford - we're able to afford this student loan relief. It's because of our historic deficit reduction that Republicans voted against.

On my watch, the deficit fell by $350 billion last year, and we're on track to reduce it by $1 trillion this fiscal year.

We're also set to reduce it another $300 billion over the next 10 years because of the Medicaid being able to negotiate drug prices.

But that's not all. In relieving student debt, we're also resuming student loan programs - a student loan program that we paused during the pandemic.

Come January, folks have to start to repay their student loans if they qualify - I mean, if they don't qualify for this relief. That means billions of dollars a year will start coming into the U.S. Treasury. My administration's plan is economically responsible - an economically responsible course to ensure a smooth transition to repaying and preventing unnecessary defaults.

And it also is focused on going after fraudsters who call borrowers - you're going to receive these calls; I tell anybody who has - who's qualifying for these loans, or trying to qualify for these loans. If you get a call pretending they're from the government trying to help you with your loans, let's be clear: Hang up. You never have to pay for any federal help from the Student Loan Program.

You're going to get calls, "If you do this, it'll pay that. You can get relief." That's fraud.

If you get any questionable calls, please tell us by going to ReportFraud - D-O-T-F-T-C.gov.

My message to fraudsters looking to cheat the American people is: Don't do it. We're going to hold you accountable.

Let me close with this: Today marks a big step, among others that my administration is taking to make education a ticket to the middle class that folks can actually afford. But don't take my word for it.

As I said, we've received nearly 10,000 letters from across the country.

[15:20:02] A woman in Colorado wrote. She grew up, she said, on school lunch and food stamp programs, started working at age 13, and on her way to college, to a good job, until she was injured in an accident and couldn't find full-time work. She said her student loan debt was weighing her down, but now she can "breathe again."

A mom in California wrote how she received a Pell Grant to become a nurse. She just had her fourth child. And the stress of the pandemic pulls the weight of the student loans on her even more heavily, making everyday life really hard. But now she says that weight is lifted, making life easier for her.

And something we don't talk about very much: A lot of seniors still carry the burden of student debt, whether for themselves or for their children and grandchildren. A retiree in Oregon wrote how she never missed a payment, and says this relief "means the world" to her. That's what today's announcement is about.

So, let's get started. The new student loan application is now open.

If you have federal student debt, please visit StudentAid.gov. It's easy, simple, and fast.

And it's a new day for millions of Americans all across our nation.

May God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, a question about inflation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President--

BIDEN: If it's on this, I'm happy to answer the question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, are you concerned that litigation could get in the way of this program?

BIDEN: Yes. Well, that's what's going on right now. Litigation is underway. And I don't think our legal judgment is that it won't, but they're trying to stop it (inaudible) thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, how many people have already applied through this beta testing website, do you know?

MIGUEL CARDONA, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: Over 8 million people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible)--

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And will people who have privately held loans - will they at some point become eligible for this forgiveness, because they no longer are?

CARDONA: We are working on pathways there to support those, but we're moving as quickly as possible to provide relief to as many people as possible.

Thank you. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, can you offer assurances that they will soon be able ...

BLACKWELL: Okay.

HILL: MJ Lee trying to get some answers for us there. Our colleague, when it comes to privately held loans, let's also bring in CNN's Phil Mattingly, who's at the White House now. So this event, obviously, the President wanting to tout that this website is now open, they did sort of a soft beta launch over the weekend to check things.

It's also important, interesting timing, if we look at what is happening 22 days from now, Phil, which we can't ignore and that's an election.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it's not something that shouldn't be considered here, because I think through a very lengthy and arduous policy process inside the White House, everybody was cognizant of the potential political effects, particularly amongst some groups that had helped the President win the White House, had helped Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate but had fallen off dramatically in terms of perhaps their energy or willingness to vote and I'm speaking primarily about youth voters here.

A couple of key things from what we just heard from the President. First and foremost, the website to apply for student loan forgiveness or loan cancellation, if you qualify is now officially open and launched. Over the weekend, as you guys noted, there was a beta launch kind of a soft launch process. It was online, it was taken offline.

The reason why is, look, guys, you don't need to think back far back to recognize the websites and the government and big programs have been problematic for Democrats in the past, many of whom now serve in this administration, including the president who was vice president at the time when the Obamacare website launched.

The fact that 8 million people were able to move through the beta process, according to the president, without any glitch is certainly a good sign for an administration that behind the scenes for several weeks has been pressing hard to reach this moment. Keep in mind, up to 40 million individual borrowers could qualify according to administration officials for the student loan forgiveness. That website is now launched.

The other element the President was asked about, obviously, is ongoing litigation. We've seen lawsuits from Republican attorneys general of several red states, other lawsuits as well. Those will be moving forward and obviously create some uncertainty here. But one thing we do know this program is now launched, 10s of millions of people qualify. The website appears to be working through the beta launch system, we'll see how this goes, obviously with just a couple of weeks as well to the midterms, guys.

HILL: We will be watching. Phil Mattingly, appreciate it. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: A new wave of attacks in Ukraine kills, at least, four. How the U.S. is responding to Putin's latest deadly assault, that's next.

And later, President Biden surpasses his predecessor in days spent away from the White House. We'll discuss with the midterms as we said just weeks away.

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[15:28:59]

BLACKWELL: Ukraine is fighting a new wave of Russian attacks. Vladimir Putin's latest brutal escalation targeted the capital city of Keith with a barrage of missiles and so called Kamikaze drones.

HILL: At least four people are reported dead among them, a pregnant woman. Ukraine says it managed to shoot down 36 of the 42 Iranian made drones use in that blitz including this one that was captured by a police officer's bodycam.

The U.S. says Russia's use of the drones will now factor into future decisions on how to best support Ukraine itself. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Dnipro Ukraine with some more information on the attacks and other developments. Fred, good evening.

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Erica. First of all, it's absolutely chilling video isn't it that you see there from Kyiv with those attacks today, especially the sound when you hear those drones go into that dive bomb mode and almost sound like it's a MOPED (ph) crashing into buildings.

[15:30:04]

That certainly is what happened early today.