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This Week: Trump And Biden Both Visit Autoworkers; Mexico And U.S. Officials Agree To "Depressurize" Border Cities; Drinking Water In New Orleans At Risk Due To Extreme Drought. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 25, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: I mean, he's up by, like, 150 points in the polls, right? He's --

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That's a very accurate number.

BUMP: Yeah, exactly. That's my estimate.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Errol, but I think Phil makes such a great point here because if you look at the Trump administration over the course of four years and you say all right, what was extremely beneficial to labor that administration was pursuing? What was really great for unions in terms of the actual structural dynamics of unions? You're not going to be able to find a lot.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, POLITICAL ANCHOR, SPECTRUM NEWS: No, that's right.

MATTINGLY: And yet, that doesn't matter here and it looks like they're both fighting for the same thing on the same side of things.

LOUIS: Well, that's right. And look, there's a lot of stake here. This really does indicate kind of what the general election strategy would be assuming a rematch between Trump and Biden.

Biden is determined to rebuild that so-called blue wall. He wants to get Wisconsin again. He wants to get Michigan again. He wants to make sure that everybody is clear on where he stands and he's trying to activate the labor movement as a whole as a key part of the Democratic coalition.

Trump cannot win unless he pries away some of that base. And what he has done already in some of his statements -- we'll hear a lot more of it, I'm sure, this week -- is he's trying to separate the leadership of the union from the actual membership, just as Phil pointed out.

I think he couldn't have picked a worse time. I mean, everything is on the line for these autoworkers. And to choose that moment to say your elected union leadership who is fighting for you to get a 20 percent- 30 percent raise, they're selling you out. They doing something wrong. They're not fighting hard enough against the future, which is electric -- you know, electric vehicles. I don't know if this is the right time to do it. I don't know if it's

going to work for him but it does show that he's going to have to really, really try and dig into this stuff because you've got a sitting president who is doing something nobody's ever done. He's going to go out and protest on a strike line.

HARLOW: Right.

LOUIS: It's amazing.

HARLOW: But what makes it even more interesting, to Errol's point, Emily, is the fact that part of the issue that these union workers have is electric vehicles being the future. And the Biden administration has put a huge push behind that. You brought it up with the acting labor secretary a few weeks ago. I mean, that just sort of complicates a little bit here -- Biden being on the picket line.

EMILY NGO, POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO NEW YORK: Oh, absolutely. This movement threatens his green infrastructure agenda and so he has a contrast to play with. Is he for wage hikes and wants to fight this wage gap? But he also, like you said, wants to advance electric vehicles and put the country on a path to a more sustainable future.

And I see also sort of a generational dynamic at play, too. We see the priorities among younger Democrat voters might be combating climate change and fighting this climate crisis. Among older, perhaps more moderate Democrats, it is again about the labor union movement. About making a living. And the way he plays with that in his -- in his remarks -- what he does over the course of this week is something that should be closely scrutinized.

MATTINGLY: What I think is so fascinating is this is absolutely a policy issue for Biden and for his administration, and it has always been the balance that they've had when it comes to climate and kind of the industrial Midwest. And yet, he's being held to account for a policy decision he made that runs against -- runs contrary to where union leadership wants -- from the UAW perspective, wants things to go.

And Trump's entire administration was if not ambivalent to unions, almost outright anti-union, and they don't get held to account. Like, nothing is tied to the policy side of things, right? Like, Biden has to answer for this. Trump doesn't have to answer for any of his four years.

BUMP: Yeah. I mean -- and again, this is the distinction between the workers and the institution itself, right?

I mean, one of the things I think is fascinating about the electrical vehicle issue that Obama and Biden, when they were the administration -- they were pushing very hard and arguing very hard. Look, we need to be the country that's driving on these things. We need to be making the batteries. We need to be making these vehicles and take the lead. And that didn't really happen. There was a lot of blockade and that let other countries pick up the slack.

MATTINGLY: Right.

BUMP: And so now the United States is playing catchup. And now that's being used against Biden and saying well, all you're going to end up doing is getting all of our batteries from China, and it's a disadvantage so we shouldn't have these electric vehicles. I think that subplot is fascinating.

But yeah, you're exactly right. Donald Trump's position as president and as candidate for president in 2024 is anti-institutional against the labor unions, in part because he recognizes that there is this inherent tension between the leadership of the union and the membership of the union. That's just sort of the nature of unions to a large extent.

But also, just because he understands this is -- these are groups that are advantageous for the Democratic Party. And anything that's advantageous for the Democratic Party, Donald Trump doesn't like.

HARLOW: Thank you, Emily, Philip, Errol. Appreciate it.

So, Mexico making a new deal with the United States. It is aimed at easing the migrant crisis that has been overwhelming border cities. We'll tell you what it changes ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:38:40]

HARLOW: Well, this morning, the migrant crisis at the southern border is escalating as Mexico and the United States have made a new agreement. This would deport migrants back to their cities -- Mexican border cities to their home countries. It's part of an effort to fight the thousands of illegal crossings in recent weeks into the U.S. Mexican officials have also agreed to prevent migrants from using railways to reach that border.

This agreement comes as Texas border towns are especially feeling the weight of the crisis. El Paso's mayor says that city is at a breaking point.

Rosa Flores joins us now live from Houston. Good morning.

This comes after a number of things were done at the end of last week by the Biden administration on the U.S. side of this. What is Mexico agreeing to do here?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Poppy, we can't underscore how important what Mexico is doing for the Biden administration. I mean, this is a huge political favor because in essence, what Mexico is saying is that Mexican officials are going to quote "depressurize" their northern Mexican border towns by deporting migrants to their home countries. In essence, they would be rerouting migrants before they get to the U.S. southern border. So they could be -- this could be the difference between the U.S. seeing another border surge here pretty soon and not. It's important to underscore, though, that even though these tactics

have been used in the past, immigration advocates and human rights organizations have condemned these types of strategies.

[07:40:06]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): From Mexico to the riverbanks of Eagle Pass, thousands of migrants have crossed the border, wading across the Rio Grande, crawling under the razor wire, and overwhelming Eagle Pass and other southern Texas cities.

MAYOR ROLANDO SALINAS JR., EAGLE PASS TEXAS: We're here, abandoned. We're on the border. We're asking for help. This is unacceptable. Please, just enforce the laws that are on the books.

FLORES (voice-over): In an effort to quote "depressurize" northern Mexico border cities, the United States and Mexico have brokered a new agreement. Meeting in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on Friday, the countries agreed to a 15-action plan which includes Mexico deporting migrants to their home countries by land and air. U.S. Border Patrol agents will be able to expel migrants to the bridge that connects El Paso to Ciudad Juarez.

Mexico has also agreed to carry out negotiations with Venezuela, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Cuba to determine their willingness to accept citizens deported from the U.S.-Mexico border.

The agreement also includes Mexico submitting a daily report of the number of migrants on its train system, establishing checkpoints along the rail route, and conducting interventions on railways and highways, according to Mexican officials.

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX): Look, what we need to do is to do this. One, we need to have repercussions at the border. What does that mean? You've got to deport people and you've got to show those images of people being deported. When was the last time we saw people going the other way instead of just seeing people flow in?

FLORES (voice-over): On the ground in Eagle Pass, CNN witnessed the reality for migrants.

JORGE CARRULLO, VENEZUELAN MIGRANT: (Speaking foreign language).

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He said "We faint, we pass out. This is crazy to think of when you are here."

FLORES (voice-over): Just like Jorge Carrullo, of Venezuela, and his 3-year-old child.

According to a federal law enforcement source, border patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley are encountering about a thousand migrants per day. This reality leaves Texas border towns, like El Paso, at their breaking point with thousands of migrants in custody. MAYOR OSCAR LEESER, EL PASO, TEXAS: You know, we seem to be doing the

same thing over and over again. They keep sending us money. We keep trying to find shelter and we try and make sure people are off the street, make sure our community is safe, make sure they're safe. But at the end of the day, the immigration system has not changed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now, back to the agreement between the U.S. and Mexico. It's notable that we've learned more from Mexico and Mexican officials about what's in this agreement; not from U.S. officials.

It was U.S. Customs and Border Protection that attended this meeting on Friday. We've asked U.S. CBP a lot of questions and we haven't heard back. But U.S. CPB did issue a statement yesterday from its acting commissioner saying, in part, quote, "The United States and Mexico remain committed to stemming the flow of irregular migration driven by unscrupulous smugglers while maintaining access to lawful pathways."

Now, it's important to note as well that Mexico's top diplomat announced on Friday that Mexico's president is wanting to meet with President Joe Biden in November, in D.C. And Poppy, one of the things that they plan to speak about -- or at least Mexico wants to talk about is migration.

HARLOW: Yeah.

FLORES: Poppy.

HARLOW: Rosa Flores, thank you very much for detailing that for us. Appreciate the reporting.

MATTINGLY: Well, COVID hospitalizations increasing over the past few weeks. And new data finds that the hospitalization rate is rising even faster among children. Those details ahead.

HARLOW: Also, the mayor of New Orleans declaring a state of emergency as increased levels of saltwater in the Mississippi River threaten the drinking water there. How they are trying to reverse that as we look at live pictures of the Superdome this morning.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:47:53]

MATTINGLY: New federal data is revealing a disturbing trend in the recent increase in COVID-19 cases. Hospitalizations are rising faster than average among children.

CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell is here with the details. What's going on?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So we've been seeing hospitalization levels rise for COVID, really, since mid-June, and it's up three times for adults. But for kids, they've risen five-fold in that time period. And the vast majority of hospitalizations are among adults, but the American Academy of Pediatrics is calling attention to this trend and it's particularly alarming in the youngest kids under the age of five.

To put it into context, this is off the lowest base for COVID hospitalizations since the pandemic began and we started tracking hospitalizations.

But now they are reaching a level that experts are starting to draw some -- call attention to the hospitalizations in terms of where in the country they're the worst. Right now, it's really concentrated in the South. If you look at this map from the CDC, the yellow is where it's higher and the orange is where it's highest. Florida has the most concentration of elevated hospitalization levels right now.

HARLOW: I have a personal interest in this.

TIRRELL: Yes.

HARLOW: I'm taking the kids this afternoon to get flu shots and I've been thinking about do I get them the next COVID vaccine shot, et cetera. I'm going to talk to their doctor about that.

Are these hospitalizations in vaccinated and unvaccinated children? Do we know?

TIRRELL: Well, the vaccination rates among kids are extremely low --

HARLOW: Yeah.

TIRRELL: -- particularly for kids under five. Only 13 percent of those kids have actually gotten any dose of COVID vaccine. So there's just not a lot of immunity out there both from vaccine or from prior infection in that age group. For teenagers, it's higher.

And so you expect we haven't seen this specific data breaking it out but --

HARLOW: But that --

TIRRELL: -- most of the hospitalizations are on unvaccinated kids.

HARLOW: OK.

MATTINGLY: Do we have a sense -- you talk about the vaccinations -- how the administration had handled, kind of, this latest -- I don't want to say wave -- this spike? What's the terminology I should even use here? But how the administration is operating in this moment.

TIRRELL: Yeah. We are starting to hear that the White House, of course, is watching this. And today, actually, they've relaunched the home COVID test program so you can order four free tests per household at covidtest.gov.

And experts say this is really important not just so that you can prevent the spread of COVID if you think you might have it yourself to people who might be vulnerable, but also because if you're in a high- risk group treatment is actually available if you test positive for COVID. And knowing sooner rather than later helps you actually get those (INAUDIBLE).

[07:50:05]

HARLOW: Paxlovid, for example. You have to take pretty soon, right?

TIRRELL: Yeah, within five days.

HARLOW: OK. Thank you, Meg.

TIRRELL: Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: Appreciate it.

So, take a look at this. Live pictures of New Orleans this morning. The mayor there just declaring a state of emergency as the federal government tries to delay or avoid a climate disaster that would threaten the drinking water there. Extreme drought throughout the United -- essentially, the United States, means water levels in the Mississippi are dropping. Ocean water is then pushing upward and threatening to get into drinking water systems.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to barge 36 million gallons of fresh water daily into water treatment centers, hoping Mother Nature lends a helping hand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN BEL EWARDS, (D) LOUISIANA: I happen to be one who believes in the power of prayer. I'm going to ask for people to pray for rain. But we're going to -- we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we're bringing in every resource to bear that is reasonably necessary to help us deal with this challenge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Joining us now is CNN chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir. Look, I'm just going to ask the obvious question here. Why is this happening?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Why is this? Well, this always happens, actually, because saltwater is denser than fresh water. And so you've got the Mississippi coming down into the Gulf of Mexico. Here's what it looks like underwater here. And saltwater is coming in from the ocean.

The Mississippi, as it gets lower and weaker -- which normally holds all that saltwater back, isn't doing the job. So they have to construct a sand sill to halt this saltwater as it moves up.

And you can tell how fast it's moving. It's so defined -- the tow of this thing. You can see when it's going to hit Belle Chasse and wind its way up towards New Orleans there. And in here is where all these water treatment plants are that keep folks in Orleans and Plaquemines Parish alive with drinking water as well. And so they're going to actually put that sill another 20 feet on top of it in this location and try to stop it.

But in the meantime, the Army Corps preparing for this. One way to fight this sill of saltwater that's coming in, or the wedge, is to dilute it. So they have to truck or barge millions of gallons of water to mix it both in the water itself and then in these treatment plants. And then thousands -- millions of pallets of bottled water just in case things get really bad.

HARLOW: And this because of climate change, Bill? Lowering the --

WEIR: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Lowering the Mississippi -- that then this happens -- and then you have to do these things that are, by the way, not good for the planet to try to make up for it. Barging in all this --

WEIR: Exactly.

HARLOW: -- fresh water.

WEIR: Well, we've been trying to manage the Mississippi for a very long time --

HARLOW: Yeah.

WEIR: -- and paying the price for that. There's also subsidence as the land sinks beneath and as sea levels rise as well.

But, yeah. If you remember last year we did this very story.

HARLOW: I do.

WEIR: These steamboat racks were showing themselves for the first time in decades as the water went down. It's drought. It's dryness. And this will affect not just water for folks down in Mississippi and Louisiana but food for everybody.

HARLOW: Oh.

WEIR: Because the price of a bushel -- of shipping a bushel of soybeans goes up about 300 percent. That was the case last year because there's this log jam on the river. This is where the Army Corps is making that sill. But last year, you could see this traffic jam of barge traffic because there was just not enough water for a lot of these big barges to clear.

MATTINGLY: Can you quantify for people big picture because you make a great point? We've been trying to figure out and fight and deal with the Mississippi for centuries to some degree. Is there a way to say just how dramatic now is in comparison to then?

WEIR: This could be a record low on the Mississippi -- as long as we've been keeping records. We keep breaking these records -- temperatures, low ice -- all these sorts of things. This is another result of a planet out of balance where water cycles are either too much or not enough these days. And this is the way humans are adapting. You can see it happening in real time with the Army Corps of Engineers leading the way.

HARLOW: Bill Weir, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, Bill.

WEIR: You bet.

MATTINGY: Well, overnight, striking writers in the studios reaching a tentative deal after 146 days and countless picket lines.

HARLOW: There is still, though, no deal in Washington, D.C. to keep the government open. Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales thinks the outcome is inevitable -- listen.

REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): I don't want to see a shutdown. But there is no doubt in my mind that the country is headed for a shutdown and everyone should prepare as such.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Representative Gonzales joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:58:16]

HARLOW: Good morning, everyone. Top of the hour on a Monday. Glad you're with us.

Let's start with five things to know for this Monday, September 25.

The Writers Guild of America says that it's reached a tentative agreement with the studios following days of marathon negotiations. If the union agrees to the terms, it would end the nearly five-month-long strike.

MATTINGLY: But the government runs out of money to pay its bills in just five days. Great for L.A.; not so great for Washington, D.C. The deadline is midnight on September 30 and there are no signs of compromise between Republican lawmakers and themselves.

HARLOW: Also, the pressure growing this morning for Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez as more Democratic lawmakers call on him to resign after he was indicted on federal bribery charges.

MATTINGLY: And President Biden will be traveling to Michigan this week to walk the picket lines with the striking members of the United Auto Workers union. The trip comes after Biden faced political pressure to ramp up his public support for union members.

HARLOW: And after 17 years of pure dominance, Megan Rapinoe hanging up her cleats. Last night was the two-time World Cup champion's 203rd international match and her last as Team USA beat South Africa in a friendly 2-nil.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGAN RAPINOE, 2-TIME WORLD CUP CHAMPION: We have fought so hard on the field and had so much fun. Been so successful doing it underneath all of your guys' cheers. We fought so hard off the field to continue to create --

(APPLAUSE)

RAPINOE: -- to continue to create more space for ourselves to be who we are. But hopefully, in turn, more space for you guys to be who you are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)