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Biden and Trump Win Michigan; GOP May Block IVF Bill; Wonka Experience Shut Down; Adams Calls for Changes to Sanctuary Policies. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 28, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: The big winners in last night's Michigan primary. But that's not the whole story. Biden captured roughly 81 percent of the vote, but 13 percent of Democrats, 100,000 strong, voted uncommitted. A protest of the president's support for Israel and its war with Hamas. After failing to mention the uncommitted voters in an initial statement, the Biden campaign later acknowledged the protest, saying that he, quote, "shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted."

On the Republican side, Donald Trump looking formattable, trouncing Nikki Haley by more than a two-to-one margin. But many Republicans, of course, still refused to back him. And that is a major concern for the campaign in a general election. In a call to supporters, Trump looked ahead to the general, telling them, quote, "we win Michigan, we win the whole thing."

Still, Nikki Haley staying in the race for at least another week, telling CNN's Dana Bash she'll continue to campaign and she's looking forward to Super Tuesday, now just six days away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are in all the Super Tuesday states now. That's what this is all about, is making sure that we hit every state and letting them know -

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: So, yes.

HALEY: Look, there is a voice out there for you. There is a way out. Yes, we are fighting through. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, joining us now from Waterford, Michigan, is CNN's Omar Jimenez.

Omar, good morning to you.

This was a pretty significant message that these voters sent to President Biden. OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is. I mean, look, these

were wins, but with some general election warning signs. There weren't really expectations that Joe Biden was going to lose this primary. There weren't expectations really that Donald Trump was going to lose this primary. But if you want to start on the Biden side of things, yes, there was a large movement led by Arab American activists over Joe Biden's handling of the Israel Hamas War.

Now, before this they said victory for them would be getting 10,000 votes. We had seen in previous elections, this campaign or not, that usually uncommitted is double that in most cases. They got over 100,000 votes in this state based on that movement, and likely some other motivations for people voting that in other parts of the state as well. So definitely they are declaring it a victory because for them they wanted to be able to send a message to President Biden that there is a large community that is upset. And when you look at President Biden's margin of victory in this state in 2020, it was around 150,000. So, this is a relatively - a huge slice of that if that, again, persists to the general election.

What's even more interesting, as we made our way from Waterford a little bit earlier here to Dearborn, Michigan, this city is home to one of the largest Arab American populations in the country. And based on the city's unofficial results posted, uncommitted actually beat Joe Biden here, 56 percent to 40 percent based on what's come in so far. Total, though, around 11,000 votes.

All of that said, Joe Biden did win this primary by a large margin. And a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, though, did put out a statement acknowledging some of the uncommitted enthusiasm we've seen, saying, "President Biden shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace. That is what he is working towards."

Now, on the Republican side of things, Donald Trump obviously won this state by a large margin. But Nikki Haley got around 27 percent of the vote. That's close to 300,000 votes. Showing that there is enthusiasm there. But, at the ended the day, you've got to win states to win delegates, and it shows a pretty tough path ahead for Nikki Haley.

HUNT: Yes, it sure does. All right, Omar Jimenez for us in Michigan. Omar, very grateful for that report. I appreciate it.

HUNT: All right, I want to turn now to an issue that's likely to play a central role in November's election. It is going to play a central role in the election, reproductive rights. And in the wake of Alabama's supreme court ruling that embryos are people, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth is leading the charge on legislation to try to federally protect IVF treatments.

But Senate Republicans, who have been told to say that they large -- that they should support IVF, and largely do -- still, there's a plan to block Duckworth's bill.

Let's bring back our panel, Audie Cornish, Ron Brownstein, Kate Bedingfield, and Geoff Duncan are all here with us. I want to show all of you how Republicans are talking about this

because this is one of those situations -- and this happens a lot in Washington. Duckworth is planning to bring this bill up in the Senate. It's likely it will only take one person to object to it and make it so that it doesn't go forward. It's pretty common to do that on things that are unplanned in terms of the floor. But this is, obviously, such an emotional issue.

Here's how Republicans answered some of the questions that our team put to them on The Hill yesterday. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): And I support IVF. I've got family members going through IVF. It's a way to build a family. It's a -- you know, I've - I've know a lot of people go through IVF and it's - it's their opportunity to have a baby. And think I - I completely support it.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I'm for IVF. I mean I'm - I'm pro-IVF, and its protected and law in Missouri, in my state, and I think should be everywhere.

[06:35:00]

I'll look at Senator Duckworth's bill. I'm - I'm a little skeptical. Usually those bills are about abortion, not IVF. So - but, we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Geoff Duncan, as the Republican at the table, you know, this -- this -- before the fall of Roe, Republicans were in a different place on this conversation. With Roe gone, that's why we're here, right? That's why IVF has suddenly been thrown into contention.

How do you think Republicans should be talking about this issue? And do you think it's smart for them to - to block it from being federally protected?

GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's important to make sure that you don't just make a point, but you make a difference when you talk about this subject, because at the end of the day, this is probably, in some people's lives, the greatest miracle that's ever shown up is -- is IVF treatment and being able to have a child. I certainly have a number of folks -- my wife and I were talking about this the other day -- that the folks and friends that we have that are in that category.

And so Republicans need to steer away from trying to make a point, trying to just pontificate and blow hot air to win a primary. This is an issue that's important to so many families, and it's an unwinnable issue if they just try to -- to grandstand on it.

You know, I'm addicted to Tim Alberta's book and listening to this.

HUNT: Highly recommend. Yes. DUNCAN: It's just -- I can't -- I can't put it down. I'm almost done. It's just this -- this tug of war that goes on with this evangelical crowd and how they continue to just negatively influence the direction of the Republican Party. And I think this is one of these instances where we need to make sure that we don't fall victim to trying to follow that lead because this is truly - and it's not just technology, it's quite honestly a miracle in so many people's lives.

HUNT: I mean the -- where this really - and - and hits kind of the policy, right? Like, you've heard these Republicans -- and we just showed some of you -- some of them say, like, I support IVF.

A lot of them are also on a bill -

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

HUNT: That would define life at conception, right? And it says, "the term 'human person' and 'human being' include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being."

So, an embryo, Kate, has, by nature, you know, jump in, Ron, has, by nature, been fertilized. So, they're on a bill that would -- if that bill were to become law, it would define an embryo as a life.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Same as Alabama did.

HUNT: And put the same circumstance -

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly, same as Alabama did.

BROWNSTEIN: Same as Alabama did.

BEDINGFIELD: Right. Exactly. And so this is why -- this is why Republicans, you know, they've -- they've -- they've fought for decades and decades to bring Roe down, and now they're grappling with the - the consequences of that and are not able to talk about how they landed here. It's a huge problem for them. And I think this -- you know, Senator Duckworth bringing this forward is smart because it's - it's forcing the mechanism. I mean you see Republicans across the board trying to say, oh, I support -- I support IVF. This will be an opportunity, frankly, in ads for Democrats to say, Republican x, y or z didn't support this bill protecting IVF. So, this is a way to draw that concrete contrast, kind of a forcing mechanism, to force Republicans to be candid about where they are on this issue, because the difference -- there's a difference between rhetoric and how you actually vote.

BROWNSTEIN: You know, it's easy to forget that Dobbs hadn't happened in the 2020 election, you know?

HUNT: Yes.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR AND HOST, "THE ASSIGNMENT WITH AUDIE CORNISH": Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: It's after. And what we were talking about before in the last segment, and Nikki Haley leaving breadcrumbs in the suburbs, I mean if you look -- the role of abortion in the '22 election was complex. In red states it was not enough to drive away voters who said they were pro-choice but otherwise leaning Republican. I mean governors like Brian Kemp, Greg Abbott, DeSantis, Mike DeWine, they did very well among pro-choice voters in their states. But if you look at the swing states, places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, in those governors races, you know, 65 percent of the state said they wanted abortion to remain legal in all or most cases, and upwards of 75 percent of those voters did vote for the Democrats in places like that.

And the - this - the whole eruption of this debate about IVF just -- just -- just underscores how powerful these concerns are going to be.

HUNT: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Don't forget, Republicans are going to be very reluctant to do anything at the federal level to secure these rights, even when, in 2022, when the House voted, after Clarence Thomas' suggestion in the - in the decision that they might go after contraception, there was a bill to provide a federal right to contraception. Virtually all Republicans voted against it.

This isn't over.

BEDINGFIELD: But - but I -- can I just quickly -- I would also say that even in Republican states where this was front and center, where you had ballot issues in Kansas, for example -

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, they - it wins on the ballot.

BEDINGFIELD: It wins on the ballot.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: So, the challenge for the Biden campaign and for Democrats is going to be keeping this issue front and center, which is part of what they're doing here.

HUNT: Audie, what do you see here?

CORNISH: I see that Democrats, after some very smart polling, figured out how to talk about this issue. And it's now framed in the context of protecting liberty, rights, freedom, reproductive freedom. It's not a pro-choice kind of language anymore, and that that's been very effective.

The other takeaway from the midterms for them was to keep putting it on the ballot, keep putting it in front of voters. And until Republicans can figure out how they talk about this now, it's going to be a struggle.

BEDINGFIELD: Right. DUNCAN: It's interesting, Republicans set our policies around abortion and IVF and whatnot as it - as it plays out, set it up for the primary.

[06:40:02]

I think Democrats do a better job of setting up their position to win the general. And we've got to figure out a way to not stop, you know, feeding (INAUDIBLE) -

CORNISH: Or that those things are more aligned, right, because fundamentally you do have a more -- I think some of the more mainstream views around abortion rights are more aligned with what Democrats are thinking, specifically in the area of enforcement. Where Republicans are running into trouble over and over again is saying, OK, you can't do this, OK, actually this is a crime now.

HUNT: Right.

CORNISH: You know, the fetal personhood thing was out of a liability case. So, it's one thing to have a kind of ephemeral and philosophical discussion, even rooted in Judeo Christian values about where life begins. It's another thing to take a woman to court -

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CORNISH: A doctor to court and start offering jail time based on those ideas. And I think mainstream wise, that has been a hard sell.

BROWNSTEIN: And purple states watching that unfold and red states, that has been very powerful. Like I said, it wasn't enough to topple Abbott.

HUNT: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: It wasn't enough to topple DeSantis or DeWine, but in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, that state supreme court election in Wisconsin last year, voters have over and over said, we do not want this here. And the threat of it being imposed on them anyway at the national level probably is the best asset Biden has in holding those states.

HURT: Right.

BEDINGFIELD: And Republicans don't just have a messaging problem, they have a policy problem, right?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

HURT: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: I mean, at the end of the day, they support policies that are out of step with where the majority of Americans are on this issue.

HUNT: I mean, and I will say, I mean I -- I do have frozen embryos. And when Roe fell, the first thing I thought was, well, are they in a blue state or are they in a red state.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

HUNT: And what does that mean for what my choices are.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

HUNT: And what like -

CORNISH: So, you -- you've got your hand over your heart.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Yes.

CORNISH: Imagine that happening over and over again in a lot of households with men across the table as well, right?

HUNT: All across the country. Right. Yes.

CORNISH: All kinds of families use this. And that's the problem. It's a visceral reaction to that enforcement effort. And I don't think that that - that that's going to be very difficult to manage going forward.

HUNT: It is.

All right, our panel's going to stick around with us. Thanks for a great conversation, guys. I really appreciate it.

Coming up next, the Supreme Court is ready to weigh in on bump stocks and whether the Trump Justice Department had the right to ban them.

Plus, the Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow that left little kid in tears. We'll bring you that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:46:12]

HUNT: All right, a live look at the Supreme Court this morning.

Forty-five minutes past the hour.

Here's your morning roundup.

Today, that court you can see, the Supreme Court, considers whether the Trump Justice Department had the authority to impose a ban on bump stocks. The device turns semiautomatic rifles in something closer -- into something closer to a machine gun.

All right, jurors in the trial of "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed hearing an exchange she had with a local detective just hours after the fatal shootings of -- shooting of the film's cinematographer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANNAH GUTIERREZ-REED: I can't believe Alec Baldwin was holding the gun. That's so (EXPLETIVE DELETED). (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Whoa.

Gutierrez-Reed is facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins. Alec Baldwin will go on trial this summer in July.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENE WILDER, ACTOR, "CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY": Make a wish. Count to three.

WILDER (singing): Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That's what parents and kids in Scotland were expecting to see when they paid $40 a head for an immersive Willy Wonka experience. So, what did they get instead? This. A sparsely decorated warehouse with a sad, bouncy castle. There was no captivating entertainment. No paradise of sweet treats, as was advertised. One actor who was hired to work the event described it as, quote, "where dreams go to die." Attendees were so furious that one person even called the police. The organizer of the event has offered full refunds.

CNN's Max Foster joins us now live from London.

Max, good morning. You are our general all topics assignment reporter this morning and I'm grateful that you are game to do this. People are looking at the website that advertised this event, which is still up by the way, you can look at it. And they think that AI basically played a role in the images and the script used to promote it. I don't know if we can show that. Yes, there we go. So, that was what -- that was what they thought they were going to see, right? I mean that looks great. I'd pay for that.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: With a - with a beautiful commentary. Absolutely. I was a big fan of "Wonka." I would have been drawn in. They promised them an enchanting world. "Willy's chocolate experience where dreams come to life. This full immersive experience designed for families and children promising their (ph) pure imagination and wonder." And you end up with this.

HUNT: Yes.

FOSTER: And, you know, a huge reaction to it. And we've seen the images.

HUNT: Can we show that - that warehouse, that bouncy castle again, just -- just throw that up to see what people actually got, right? Yes.

FOSTER: Um. HUNT: OK. That's what it actually looked like.

Go ahead, Max.

FOSTER: And to be fair to the organizers -- by the way, nothing to do with our company, which made Willy Wonka, of course -

HUNT: Right, we should -

FOSTER: But this was an event gone wrong. The House of Illuminati, as they're called, will not be holding any other event in the foreseeable future. I do, though, think, Kasie, they discovered their own movie. You can totally imagine this, can't you, as a sort of -- a documentary behind the scenes in the most disastrous sort of warehouse mash up of something that didn't exist in AI. It is the AI story, though, isn't it, where you can literally create something that looks wondrous, which is a complete lie.

HUNT: Right. You really can't - I mean, look, some of the headlines here, let's just walk through them. "Willy Wonka immersive event leaves kids in tears. It looks like a meth lab" is one of the things that they said. I guess we don't have that headline tear.

I will say, Audie Cornish, you said that this -- the story of Willy Wonka is a little bit about -

CORNISH: Yes. But I jumped the gun. I mean that looks depressing. This path (ph) looks truly depressing. Of all the things I'm scared about when it comes to AI, this was unexpected.

DUNCAN: I think there's a lot of parallels to politics here.

CORNISH: It is.

DUNCAN: I mean it almost looks like, you know, like a Donald Trump campaign.

[06:50:00]

Like, I'm going to cut taxes and build a wall and do all this amazing stuff, and then you actually get it and it's not anything what you expected.

BROWNSTEIN: You get an empty warehouse. Yes.

HUNT: The ultimate not meeting of expectations.

DUNCAN: Yes, there you go.

HUNT: Which is a big sin when you're running a political campaign.

All right, Max, you're a good sport. Thank you very much.

And our panel is going to join us up next to actually talk politics.

New York mayor -- New York's mayor is calling for sweeping changes to the city's sanctuary city policies.

And we'll bring you an update on wildfires in Texas that are forcing a nuclear weapons facility to temporarily shut down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right, there's a live look at New York City this morning where the mayor, Eric Adams, is calling for drastic changes to the city's sanctuary policies. For the first time Adams said publicly he endorses a shift that could put undocumented immigrants who are accused of a crime in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The mayor's comments follow a series of high-profile incident involving migrants in New York City who have been accused of violent crimes, including a recent shooting of a tourist during a robbery at a clothing store in Times Square.

Our panel is back with me now.

I want to show a little bit of what - you know, let's hear from Adams himself on this. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK: I don't believe people who are violent in our city and commit repeated crimes should have the privilege of being in our city.

There's some people that feels that they should be able to remain here, keep doing the actions until they eventually convicted. I don't subscribe to that theory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, again, Kate, Democratic mayor of New York City, I mean this is really, really telling in terms of how this issue is playing out across the country right now.

[06:55:01]

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, absolutely.

HUNT: It's tough for Democrats.

BEDINGFIELD: It is tough for Democrats. And I think it's smart for Democrats to be more aggressive on it because people are feeling frightened now. I don't subscribe, to borrow the mayor's language, I don't subscribe to the Trump vision of America as a decaying wasteland where, you know, packs of people are running wild committing crime. But it is true that people across the country, particularly in cities, are concerned about crime. It is smart for Democrats to be more aggressive about it, to be more responsive to what people are feeling.

Now where -- where I think it gets dangerous is when you veer into the demagoguery and the bashing immigrants and making immigrants scapegoats. Now that - that, I don't believe, is where the Democratic Party should be. But I do think taking on this issue of crime, being tougher, it is - is a good thing for Democrats and will renowned (ph) to their effect - to their (INAUDIBLE) I should say.

DUNCAN: Yes, this -- this illegally immigration issue has become three-dimensional. When you watch these cities start to swell and you watching Democrat mayors really struggle with just how to deal with just the structure and the technical details of dealing with this influx. Brian Kemp puts it well, he says, every state is now a border state. And, you know, we've watched in Georgia, over the past couple of weeks play out just the awful scenarios of UGA student Laken Riley, who was murdered by an illegal immigrant. And the juxtapose is, there are two separate issues, but they are - they are blurred into one just horrific issue in Georgia.

And I think Democrats have this wrong. I think the Biden administration has this wrong. I think Democrats know that. And I think it's up to mayors to step up and say that out loud, not just tongue in cheek, but out loud say, Joe Biden, you're wrong, move your feet on this issue.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, they are moving, I think.

You know, look, I think immigration really encapsulates, to me, the larger dynamic in this election, broadly speaking, in that a majority -- a big majority of Americans are dissatisfied with Biden's performance on the issue. And Democrats are being forced to move in response to that.

But while there's a majority that disapproves of the way Biden is handling it, that doesn't mean there's necessarily a majority for the alternative that Trump is offering, which is mass deportation, using the National Guard, internment camps, restoring family separation at the border.

The country does want to move to the right. I mean there's a poll out yesterday. Now we're up to 60 percent support for the - for the remain in Mexico policy, which was so controversial under Trump. So, there's no doubt.

But the question on so many fronts, I think, is, will voters who are dissatisfied with the way things have played out under Biden be willing to take the leap all the way to what Trump is offering, which on many fronts is much more militant than he ran on in '16 or '20.

CORNISH: We talked earlier about abortion -- excuse me. We talked earlier about abortion and how Democrats were able to reorient the conversation in a way that could appeal to the public. And I think Republicans fundamentally have been effective at that with this. At the end of the day, after the outrage, the Texas governor's move to literally bus people to various cities worked for them in that it brought the White House into the discussion in a more visceral way to the point now where you have the former president and Biden both visiting the border. That was -

HUNT: On the same day.

BROWNSTEIN: On the same day. CORNISH: On the same day. I mean, and you have even just the little trial balloons in the press of like, maybe there might be a proposal for executive order that might perhaps shut down the border. That's just like getting stuff out there to show, we hear you, we're interested, but it's a long way away from the party that was campaigning on, we're not going to put kids in cages, we're not going to separate them from their families, we're not going to be them.

And you hear less conversation about overwhelmed immigration courts, about the fact that asylum is already weighed down, that dysfunction has already brought those numbers down tremendously. And you never hear anymore a values-based argument about America being a welcoming place for your tired, poor, and hungry. All that is out the window now. So, it makes for a different race and makes for a different discussion. And Adams and others are leading the charge of that.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, reality counts. I mean the scale of people seeking asylum is beyond anything we've experienced -

CORNISH: Seeing but not getting.

BROWNSTEIN: But -

CORNISH: Eighty percent of them don't get it.

HUNT: Right, but it lets them stay in the country.

BROWNSTEIN: Ultimately, but - but it lets them stay.

CORNISH: Of course.

BROWNSTEIN: I mean and the key of that bipartisan bill that the House rejected was to raise the initial standard so that more people are reject -- don't get to first base, to continue our baseball discussion, and that -- so that - so that you don't have them in the system for five, six, seven years. And that is something that Biden, I think, will be looking to do.

CORNISH: But the entire conversation now is framed in the context of crime specifically. And that is going to be a problem for the administration.

BEDINGFIELD: But -- but there is also now -- don't forget, I mean you raised the bipartisan bill. There is an opportunity for Democrats to be on the offensive because it was Republicans who scuttled that bill, who -- which included -

HUNT: (INAUDIBLE), right?

BEDINGFIELD: Which includes an enormous number of very tough measures that would have had an impact.

BROWNSTEIN: Changing the standard really (INAUDIBLE).

BEDINGFIELD: And so Democrats can say -

DUNCAN: If unicorns -

BEDINGFIELD: It's Republicans who wouldn't come to the table.

DUNCAN: Right. If unicorns and rainbows showed up today and we could remove politics from this whole discussion, we all know that there's two parallel lanes that have to develop. We have to have border security. And you have to have immigration policy.

[07:00:00]

And one can't happen without the other. And so we've got to figure out a way to lock ourselves in a bipartisan room and make actual budgetary concessions to make sure that that happens.