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Trump's Rivals Battle for Breakout Moment in Chaotic GOP Debate; American Soldier Who Crossed into North Korea is Now Back in U.S.; House GOP Calls Emergency Meeting to Cut Ukraine Aid from Defense Bill. Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired September 28, 2023 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Seven Republicans aiming to follow on Ronald Reagan footsteps in the closing remarks of their second debate of the Republican primary.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Polls don't elect presidents. Voters elect presidents. This is our time for choosing.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC) , PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is like a football game. You go on the field and play to win.
CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No one appears to call you Donald Trump anymore. We're going to call you Donald Duck.
MIKE PENCE, (R) FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to revive federalism in America.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You see a young man who is in a bit of a hurry, a bit of a know-it-all it seems at times.
NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
SCOTT: America is not a racist country. Never, ever doubt who we are.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's nothing from this debate that is going to push down Donald Trump's favorability.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: They're fighting for the bottom of the race right now.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Clearly, this debate was a sign where these candidates are trying to emerge as the second place in this race against Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP) POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, top of the hour. We are so glad you're with us.
We just heard the voice of our friend and colleague, Abby Phillip, there saying they're in a race for the bottom, which is just so fascinating. And the question was did they succeed in breaking through last night at all against Trump?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: I think the big question going into the night was, are they in the race to actually win the race or are they in a race for some other position. Abby suggests, bottom, others suggest vice president. We're going to actually dig in and see what takeaways were.
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Donald Trump's rivals fighting for the spotlight last night at that chaotic primary. Yet again, the GOP frontrunner a no- show and his opponents battled for a breakout moment.
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RAMASWAMY: I believe in these people. These are good people on the stage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, we will have to cut your mic and I don't want to the do that. I don't.
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MATTINGLY: It's like my house at Bed and Bath time. The moderators had a hard time stopping the candidates from speaking over one another.
Now, candidates have been struggling to put a dent in Trump's significant lead. Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis ended up having most of the speaking time. HARLOW: Border security, government spending. Those are the two
issues talked about the most onstage. Several candidates slammed Trump's record and his failure to show up. But, overall, they didn't spend a lot of time talking about him or attacking the former president.
Instead of debating, Trump was in Michigan. You see him there. He was speaking to auto workers trying to upstage President Biden, who was there the day before. Trump joked that his primary opponents are running for a job in his future administration.
And President Biden seemed focused on a likely rematch with Trump. He is set to give a big speech on democracy just hours from now, warning that, quote, something dangerous is happening in America. There is an extremist movement, this is what he's going to say, that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy, the MAGA movement.
We'll get to all of that ahead. Kyung Lah joins us live from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. After quite a debate, where a lot of people talked over each other and at points it was hard to understand what they were even saying.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right. And the bath time comment, Phil, 100 percent right. If you have kids, that's what it felt like at times, because this was messy, it was loud and it was difficult to hear what they were saying at times from that debate stage.
And if the goal here was to try to chip away at that enormous lead that Donald Trump has over this field, it's hard to see how that they accomplished that.
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LAH (voice over): A chaotic second GOP presidential debate with seven candidates all vying for second place behind Donald Trump, criticizing the frontrunner for not showing up.
CHRISTIE: You're not here tonight because you are afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. You're ducking these things. And let me tell you what's going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We're going to call you Donald Duck.
LAH: The candidates invoked Trump's name more this time around, zeroing in on the economy and possible government shutdown.
DESANTIS: The people in Washington are shutting down the American dream with their reckless behavior. They borrowed, they printed, they spent and now you're paying for more everything. They are the reason for that.
And where's Joe Biden? He's completely missing in action from leadership. And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record.
LAH: Pence took direct aim at the president's Bidenomics agenda.
PENCE: Joe Biden doesn't belong on a picket line. He belongs on the unemployment line.
Bidenomics has failed. Wages are not keeping up with inflation. Auto workers and all American workers are feeling it.
LAH: On the auto workers' strike, a range of views and blame.
SCOTT: They want four-day French work weeks but more money. They want more benefits working fewer hours.
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That is simply not going to stand.
GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND) , PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The reason why people are striking in Detroit is because Joe Biden's interference with capital markets and with free markets.
LAH: The debate hit on many red meat issues for the Republican Party, including immigration and border security.
CHRISTIE: Our laws are being broken every day at the southern border, every day, and Joe Biden and his crew is doing nothing about enforcing that law.
HALEY: Defund sanctuary cities. You see what's happening in Philadelphia right now. It's got to stop. We need to make sure we put 25,000 more Border Patrol and ICE agents on the ground and let them do their job.
RAMASWAMY: Well if the kid of a Mexican diplomat doesn't enjoy birthright citizenship, then neither does the kid of an illegal migrant who broke the law to come here.
LAH: The Vivek Ramaswamy, who faced direct attacks during the first debate, was forced to defend his business record in China and his use of TikTok.
RAMASWAMY: I have a radical idea for the Republican party. We need to win elections. And part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are.
HALEY: This is infuriating because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have. And what you've got, honestly, every time I hear you I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
LAH: And the two candidates from South Carolina sparred over gas taxes in their home state and curtains.
SCOTT: Nikki offered a 10 percent, 10 cent gas tax increase in South Carolina as the U.N. ambassador. You literally --
HALEY: Bring it then.
SCOTT: -- put $50,000 on curtains in a $15 million subsidized location. Next --
HALEY: you got bad information. First of all, I fought the gas tax in South Carolina multiple times.
Secondly, on the curtains, do your homework then because Obama bought those curtains and then it's in the press. It's the state department.
SCOTT: Did you send them back?
HALEY: Did you send them back? You're the one that works in Congress.
SCOTT: Oh, my gosh.
HALEY: You get it done.
SCOTT: You hung them on your -- your curtains. HALEY: They were there before I even showed up at the residence. You are scrapping (ph).
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LAH (on camera): Here's something you didn't hear after the debate. Any candidates saying that they were going to take their foot off the gas from here, some of the candidates will be heading directly south to Orange County, California. Ramaswamy, DeSantis and Scott will all be speaking at the California Republican Party Convention, which begins tomorrow. It will also feature, Phil and Poppy, the big name in the room, Donald Trump.
HARLOW: Yes, there you go.
MATTINGLY: He's important because he's leading by 30 or 40 points.
HARLOW: That's right.
MATTINGLY: And, Kyung, very impressed with being able to pull sound we could actually hear as you went through the debate last night. Kyung Lah for us, thank you.
HARLOW: So true. All right, Kyung, we'll get back to you soon.
At the table with us, CNN Political Commentators Scott Jennings and Van Jones, Bloomberg Senior Washington correspondent Saleha Mohsin and Josh Barro back with us. All right, guys, thank you very much for being here.
I was struck that that Vivek Ramaswamy was different last night. He wasn't totally different but he seemed to have gotten some feedback from the last one, which his polls went up. But just listen to this part of what he said last night.
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RAMASWAMY: I'm here to tell you, no, I don't know it all. I will listen. I will have the best people, the best and brightest in this country, whatever age they are, advising me.
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SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, so here's what happened. A consultant said, they don't like you, they think you're a know-at-all, you're off putting and you need to stop doing that. So, then he went out and then repeated those exact terms that the consultant said.
And so -- but here's the thing, when it's just who you are, it doesn't really work. And you saw him get a little spike after the last debate. It's come down. As soon as we turn the lights on on this guy, everybody was like, oh my God.
I mean, and watching Nikki Haley take him over her knee and spank him for the entire debate was the most pleasurable thing about this. MATTINGLY: Can I just say, though, because I think that was --
HARLOW: It is morning television.
MATTINGLY: It was an important moment because it brought up some historical context that I wanted to show everybody.
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HALEY: This is infuriating because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have. And what you've got, honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
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MATTINGLY: The best political consultant, Billy Madison movie.
Van, though, we laugh and joke, and, honestly, that was the first thing when I heard it that came to my mind, which I'm not sure what it says about my youth and how I grew up and my influences. We were talking last hour about the attacks, some of which felt very forced, some of which are consultant-driven, as Scott is pointing out, versus where the party actually is, the actual policy issues itself, and does any of this break through.
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I think you're very frustrated about what you saw last night.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, yes, because it's not just who winds up getting a nomination. What happens to the country along the way? And what I saw was a debate that was normalizing stuff that's really shocking.
I mean, the idea that you're going to attack the babies of immigrants, tell me don't belong here, strip away their citizenship, that's a completely bonkers idea. It just went down like ice cream last night, the idea that you're going to abandon Ukraine, the idea that you're going to make it impossible for people who are transgender to get medical care. These were horrific ideas, not just bad ideas, horrific ideas that are being mainstreamed in the process.
So, while we all try to figure out, well, is anybody going to get two points closer to Donald Trump before they get defeated, the country is, I think, getting not just dumber, but worse, everyone needs debates.
HARLOW: On the economy, which is where Biden is pulling so poorly right now, I didn't hear as forceful attacks on how I will be different for you, what I can actually get through, et cetera, how your life will be materially different on that front, as much as I thought, Saleha, last night from them. I mean, there were some broad strokes, but a lot of those broad strokes are things that, no, they can't do alone as president. What was your take on that?
SALEHA MOHSIN, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: I agree with you, Poppy. So far, what we're seeing is a personality campaign, not a policy campaign coming from the debate stage. It was kind of a sideshow. The real news this week has been in Michigan, where the current and the former president have been to hear and address the economic situation.
On that stage, it was a bit of a sideshow. We had seven candidates who, if you combine them in the national surveys, they don't even add up to be able to beat Trump together.
HARLOW: So, to that point, just let me play the sound from Trump in Michigan talking about them on the debate stage. Here it is.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, we're competing with the job candidates. They're all running for a job. No, they're all job candidates. They want to be in the -- they want to tell, do anything, secretary of something. They even say V.P. I don't know. Does anybody see any V.P. in the group? I don't think so.
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MOHSIN: I think what the next election will be about is the economy and it's the current and the former president who went to Michigan to hear the economic woes. Everyone on stage, it was hard to hear anyone. They were fighting like children. The hosts were threatening to cut off their mics just to get some kind of order on stage. No one was talking about the economy.
So, if you ask people from Middle America, you're from Kentucky, I'm from Ohio, then people are saying all those men and that one woman, they're just fighting amongst each other. There are two real candidates who are talking about our wallets and our grocery store checkout.
MATTINGLY: Josh, I want to tease this out a little bit, because I do think that the -- both the contrast, but also just the picture of President Biden, former President Trump in Michigan and back-to-back days, President Biden today giving a speech on democracy, which I think is a through line from his first campaign, through his first three and a half years in office, and into 2024.
On the policy itself of economic policy, in Michigan, the difference between the two, not just in terms of what we saw on camera and kind of the messaging, but the policy here.
JOSH BARRO, WRITER, VERY SERIOUS NEWSLETTER: Well, I mean, I think when we talk about that this is going to be a campaign about the economy, it's really a campaign specifically about inflation. Unemployment is low right now. That is not doing a lot for the president's approval on the economy. And it's because real wages were falling. That's improved somewhat. Now, they're about flat from a year ago, up a little bit, but not up a lot. People -- they feel like they're working and they're not getting as much value as they used to.
And I think the reason that that doesn't turn into a really more specific conversation is, first of all, it's fairly easy to just go up there and say, Joe Biden came in, inflation was out of control. Look at all this stuff he did. I'll stop doing it and inflation will go down. Now, that's not actually how it works. If they want to bring inflation down, they can raise taxes, they can cut spending. And if they start talking about specifically what they're going to cut spending on, that ends up being unpopular. They're going to repeal Obamacare. They didn't want to talk about that, or they can raise interest rates even more.
So, when you talk about specific things you do about inflation, that's unpopular. But because inflation is basically a mystery to most people, you can basically point out, first of all, Joe Biden did do certain things that did cause part of the inflation, including the stimulus package we did in 2021 was too large. You can basically say, look, he screwed this up. I won't screw it up like that. I think the messaging there is fairly simple.
And also, I'd note, this isn't just the leading political issue in the U.S. It's the leading political issue around the world. Governments are unpopular all over the place, in Canada and the United Kingdom and Ireland, Germany. And it's because of this one issue that I think is dominating politics all around the world. Joe Biden needs to find a way to deal with that. But I'm not sure how specific the Republicans even need to get on the issue.
HARLOW: You know, the fact that the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve said to us on the show yesterday, to the American people, I said, what do you say to them?
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Do not take on more debt right now. That should be a warning to so many people about what the Fed may have to do here with interest rates. Jamie Dimon this week saying, worst case scenario, we hit 7 percent.
This is the reality, Scott, that Americans need to brace themselves for as a possibility. Not a surety, but a possibility. And I just didn't feel like that was directly addressed.
JENNINGS: Well, the format for addressing things like this is terrible. I mean, this is a coliseum. I mean, they throw them out there. They pit them against each other. And it's more for entertainment than it is for addressing something really serious, like, hey, you can't buy a car, you can't buy a house, you don't feel like you can afford any of the things that you need to live on.
HARLOW: It takes 42 weeks of full earnings in America right now to buy a car for Americans, 42 weeks. JENNINGS: And this debate is -- and the way we set these people up and pit them against each other is not designed to deal with any of that, which is a travesty. I agree with Van about that. But I do agree with you that the two people who were talking the economy this week are Biden and Trump. And Trump has obviously already pivoted out of this and thinks this is all an academic sideshow.
But it is what people want to hear, because it is the single thing that might re-elect Donald Trump, is this, Biden has no answer on inflation, none. You can't show people charts and graphs when they don't feel like they can afford just a basic vehicle. A chart or a graph isn't going to fix that gut instinct of anxiety that you have about, am I going to be able to afford to live?
HARLOW: Nodding.
JONES: Yes, I think a lot of what's going on -- I agree with you 100 percent. They would just fight and they would have embarrassed a high school teacher, a kindergarten teacher, how they were going back and forth, and they managed to diminish themselves. Like you're supposed to be diminishing Donald Trump or whoever the frontrunner is. They just made each other -- it was like the incredible shrinking candidate pool. So, they went from maybe being cabinet secretaries to under secretaries, and that's pretty much all they accomplished.
Meanwhile, I think people at home, like you can't buy stuff. I mean, you literally -- they're not wrong. You're taking stuff out of your basket. You go up there, you're like, holy crap, you go back.
And so I do think that there's a deeper pain here. And Donald Trump could just be the alternative to the pain. I think that's just going to be his -- you like what you got, stick with what you got, or you go with me. And if he's able to pull that off, you got a problem.
JENNINGS: Trump was a better candidate in 16. He was not the incumbent. He didn't have to answer for the decisions he had made, really. Now, he's not the president. He does have a record, but he's a better candidate outside in than inside out. And I don't think the Biden people understand yet just how effective he can be.
JONES: That's the danger.
JENNINGS: It's dangerous, and I don't think they get it yet.
HARLOW: Coming up in just about 10 minutes, we have Chris Coons joining us, obviously, senator, but also part of the Biden 2024 push. So, we'll talk about all of that in a lot more heads. Thank you for a very thoughtful discussion, guys. We appreciate it.
MATTINGLY: Well, Senator John Fetterman's fits became a -- outfits to be clear, not actual fits -- it became a national flashpoint. Now, the U.S. Senate passing in a unanimous vote legislation banning shorts and hoodies on the chamber's floor. We'll show you how Fetterman responded. It was apt.
HARLOW: Also, the American soldier who ran into North Korea is now back on U.S. soil. Where he is headed now, what it took to get him back home.
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HARLOW: Welcome back. This morning, U.S. Army Private Travis King is back on American soil after being expelled from North Korea. King flew in on a military flight which landed at Joint Base San Antonio overnight. He is a soldier who crossed into North Korea during a tour of the demilitarized zone This was in July. And just before that King was released from a South Korean detention facility after an alleged assault at a Seoul nightclub.
Oren Liebermann has been following all of this. He joins us from the Pentagon. Oren, good morning. This trip to get him home took an assist from a number of countries. How did he get back here?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It did and it's one of those rare, very rare situations I would say where you see senior administration officials thanking China for their role in helping all of this.
It was Sweden that acted effectively as the intermediary between the U.S. and North Korea after North Korea made the decision to expel, in their words, Private Travis King after concluding their investigation of him. But why exactly they chose to expel him or what the investigation found, that all remains unclear.
What is clear is that King was on his way out of North Korea, a Swedish convoy brought him to the Friendship Bridge, and that's the bridge between North Korea and China where the U.S. defense attache to China met him and that began his journey home from China to South Korea and then back to what you're looking at here. That is him landing at Joint Base San Antonio just a few hours ago, about six hours ago after some 70 days in North Korean detention.
He has had a chance to talk to his family, according to senior administration officials who brief reporters on this whole process, and he'll be taken to Joint Base San Antonio where he'll go to Brook Army Medical Center for medical evaluation. That's where those who have been in detention are brought to re-acclimate and make sure they're doing okay. That, for example, is where Brittney Griner and Trevor Reed were brought after they were released from detention by Russia.
The question, what happens now, Poppy? The military officials that said he could be brought up on military charges for being absent without leave, but that remains unclear and we're not getting a definitive answer on whether or when that might happen.
HARLOW: And why he was expelled and allowed to come back to the United States? So, many questions, Oren, thank you for all the reporting. Phil?
MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, House Republican hardliners are defiant in refusing to work with Democrats, their speaker is following suit with only two days left to reach a spending deal and avert government shutdown.
Now, they are demanding cuts that won't pass the Democratic-controlled Senate and the House Rules Committee actually had to call an emergency meeting overnight to strip $300 million in Ukraine aid from the annual defense spending bill. This has been long existing funding.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is standing by the bipartisan agreement he worked out with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and top appropriators, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says will not get a vote in his chamber without significant changes.
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CNN's Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill with more. Lauren, is there any optimism at this point with two-plus days left and the clock continuing to tick down that there is any outcome besides a shutdown?
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If you ask aides, if you ask members, Phil, on Capitol Hill who have been close to these shutdowns in the past, they will tell you, they do not know how this ends.
Here is veteran appropriator Tom Cole, and what he told me yesterday when I pressed him on whether or not Americans waking up Monday would be assured that there would not be a shutdown.
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REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): Obviously we've got our challenges here as well, and the two chambers are a long way apart. So, again, I'm not at all confident we won't end up in a shutdown.
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FOX: And Tom Cole would know. He has been through many of these showdowns in the past, Phil.
But here's what you're going to see over the next couple of days play out. The House of Representatives is going to continue to try to move on individual spending bills. These bills are going nowhere in the Senate. They would not prevent a government shutdown, but that is where House Republicans are focused right now because you have hardliners demanding that Speaker McCarthy brought these bills to the floor.
The hope from leadership is that, as members start to see these bills are failing or are not going to stop a shutdown, that they will start to rally around a short-term solution. But, so far, Phil, that just has not happened. And as you noted, we are now 2 days and 16 hours away from that shutdown.
MATTINGLY: Yes, no rush, guys, plenty of time.
Lauren, I do want to ask you before I let you go, Senator Bob Menendez, who was indicted last week, is expected to speak behind closed doors to the Senate Democratic Caucus. I think there's now more than 30 Democrats have called for him to step down. What do we expect him to say?
FOX: Yes, Phil, this is a really important meeting for Senator Menendez. And to this point, Menendez has been defiant, saying that he will not step aside, that he deserves the presumption of innocence. But as you noted, there are now 30 of his Democratic colleagues who have called for him to resign, including the number two Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, and his fellow New Jersey Democrat, Cory Booker.
So, this is going to be a very key and important meeting for Senator Menendez as he faces many of his colleagues who have called for him to step down. Phil?
MATTINGLY: All right. Lauren Fox, great reporting as always, thank you. Poppy?
HARLOW: President Biden a prime target during the debate last night. Today, he's expected to send a dire warning about the state of democracy with a key focus on the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, who skipped the debate. One of the president's closest allies, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, is here next.
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