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New Poll Numbers: Hillary's Favorability at 46 Percent; Lindsey Graham Joins Presidential Hopefuls; Family of Longest Held American Hostage on Capitol Hill; Apple Watch Sells 7 Million Since April. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 02, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right.

[07:30:01] While you were getting your nails done. Shockingly.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Very nice. Thanks for that.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": All right, we're going to go Inside Politics. We're going to move past creepy parenting or creepy people or whatever it is we're talking about. Let's go Inside Politics.

This morning, with me to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Pace of the Associated Press, Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times".

Let's use our brand new poll out this morning. Some interesting numbers, and we'll use them to go through some interesting things happening in the presidential campaign right now. Yes, 2016 presidential campaign.

Some danger signs though for Hillary Clinton in this new poll. She's right now far and away the Democratic front-runner. But look at these numbers -- is she honest and trustworthy? 42 percent of Americans say that. In March it was 50 percent. March a year ago, 56 percent. Want to move on to one more, her favorability rating. Now, 46 percent Americans view her favorability. In a polarized political environment, you might say that's not so bad. But look at the drop, from 55 percent in June of 2014. Now, she was Secreatry of State, insulated a bit from politics, so the second one doesn't surprise me all that much, but she's going down.

The honest and trustworthy. If four in ten Americans view her as honest and trustworthy, can she be elected president?

JULIE PACE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: I think she can be the Democratic nominee. I think that in the general election that that number could certainly hurt her. I mean, as you say, some of this is inevitable. She's gone from being Secretary of State, being in this diplomatic bubble almost to being back in the political arena. And I don't think you can point to one specific thing that's happened over the last couple of months. It's not just the emails; it's not just the foundation fundraising. But it is the culmination I think of all of them that you're seeing impact these numbers, this reminder of some of the baggage that comes with the Clintons.

KING: And some of the things she has done like the e-mail server, Jon, make it easier to connect the dots to some of the stuff, they just say Clintons, that becomes sort of baggage.

JONATHAN MARTIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, that's exactly right. So, this is a result of two things, a combination of the glow from not being a diplomat any more, and sort of being seen as above politics, and also the fact that she's had, you know, two months now of tough stories about her and about issues surrounding her.

But you made an important point, John, there in your intro, and that is we're in a polarized country. And so these numbers have to be looked at in that perspective. Because, yes, they are not great numbers but we're not at a point now in America where we have these elections where candidates win 49 states. It's not how it happens anymore.

KING: I do think though, whether it's her campaign or her friends in the super PAC community, money is going to have to be spent to trying to bring her credibility, her character, her trustworthiness back up, money that otherwise would be spent attacking the Republicans. Or if necessary, attacking her Democratic opponents. No reason to do that at the moment. They're not moving in the polls. But they are going to have to take a pot of money and use to it try to build her back up, that would otherwise perhaps be better spent doing something else.

Let's move on. One of the Democratic opponents is Bernie Sanders. Now he's still polling at 15 percent. Again, he's pulling some space on the left. He's not a threat at the moment. We'll see what happens; watch him Iowa.

He wants to have early debates. He wrote to the Chairwoman of the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and said I believe that these inter-party debates would put in dramatic focus the shallow and at times ridiculous policies and proposals being advocated by the Republican candidates and by their party's platform.

So he wants to get going sooner rather than later. In the letter, he doesn't go after Secretary Clinton. He said this will help the party. With her on stage and Martin O'Malley on stage and whoever is running for the Democratic nomination. But why does Bernie Sanders want to speed up the clock?

PACE: Well, Bernie Sanders needs to get on people's radar. He is known among sort of the progressive wing of the party, has a lot of support there. But most Americans frankly don't know who this guy is. So if there's early debates this summer, he can get on people's television screens, he can get some attention, and he can start to draw a sharper distinction with Secretary Clinton.

MARTIN: It's a basic rule of politics, right, the one that's lagging behind always wants more debates. More attention, more free attention being the key point.

KING: More free attention. And one person who won't be in the debates and even some of her big supporters are acknowledging that this morning. Run, Warren, Run movement, which we talked about a lot last winter and into the spring, they say have 365,000 signatures on a petition; they're going to give them to Elizabeth Warren now, but they're going to shut down the draft Warren movement.

MARTIN: File it away, John.

KING: Yeah, file that one away. Facing reality. She's not going to run. And a lot of those people drifting, maybe, to Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley.

Let's move on to look at our poll when it comes to Hillary Clinton versus Republicans. And again you can look at this as half full or half empty. Rand Paul comes closest. He's only one point behind Secretary Clinton. She beats him by one in a head-to-head. Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton plus three over Marco Rubio. She's at plus three over Governor Scott Walker; plus eight over former Governor Jeb Bush; plus nine over Ted Cruz. The others are further behind.

Again, you can look at this saying, well, history says the Democrats will lose. Because you've had a two-term Democratic president, so why aren't the Republicans ahead? Or you can look at this and say her name is Clinton. The Democrats have won the last two presidential elections rather convincingly, and if we're that close to her, we're within striking distance, right?

MARTIN: Well, I think it's because of those two factors, John, that you just laid out, that those are where the numbers are. There's a natural itch right now -- President Obama's numbers are OK but they're not great. But at the same time, she does have, and more importantly, her husband has, this sort of glow from being in national politics for the last 45 years. That helps in those kinds of national polls.

[07:35:02] But it's June of 2015. Head-to-head polls are not nearly as important as the other stuff in this poll I think.

PACE: I think one of the things that's really interesting when you break down those numbers is who is she closest with there? And it's three candidates who are younger, newer to the scene, can maybe bring a different energy than a Jeb Bush, who she's got an eight point lead over. Arubio, a Walker, a Paul, who probably won't end up being the nominee though, those types of candidates will be tougher for her in the general election.

MARTIN: And they aren't yet negatively defined in the minds of a lot of people.

KING: Right, they're not as well-known so they tend to do a little bit better among younger voters and independents than some of the others who have the name ID. We'll see how these things play out.

The latest Republican into the race -- Rick Perry comes later this week but Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina, jumped in yesterday and he made pretty clear he's going run largely on one issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm running for President of the United States because I am ready to be commander-in- chief on day one. I have more experience with our national security than any other candidate in this race.

(CHEERS & APPLAUSE)

That includes you, Hillary.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: At the moment, he's at 1 percent in our new poll and we can put up some of the numbers. At the top here you won't see Lindsey Graham. Marco Rubio on top for the first time with 14 percent. Jeb Bush right behind him at 13 percent. So don't celebrate too much, Senator. But that's still movement for Marco Rubio. And Mike Huckabee at 10, Scott Walker at 10, Ted Cruz at 8, Rand Paul at 8, Ben Carson 7, 5. You have Christie at 4, Pataki at 3, and Lindsey Graham is what I call below the trump line at the moment.

But he's a sharp debater. He wants to talk about foreign policy. You mentioned Rand Paul; he's been after Rand Paul repeatedly because of the NSA surveillance debate in recent days. He'll have an impact on the race. It's hard -- in part because he's from South Carolina too, and it votes third. But it's hard to see it right now.

PACE: Yes, it is. Sometimes you get the sense with Lindsey Graham that he's in this race just to jab Rand Paul as many times as he can. He is going to be a national security candidate and that is it. That is his space here. He wants to keep this party honest on national security. He does not want to see any movement back towards this isolationist wing. He feels like he can really shape this debate, and I think to some degree he will.

KING: Republicans, Jonathan, if you look at this poll, they have no clue what they want right now. And we were talking before we came on, a big change, Nevada failed to pass a bill. They wanted to move to a presidential primary. Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were counting hugely on that. They thought a state where they could get out there, play up their Spanish language skills, get the Latino vote, get a win. They wanted -- you have Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada. Then Florida. This field is wide-open right now and that calendar non- change doesn't help the establishment guys.

MARTIN: Yes, it's kind of the forgotten state among the early primary states, and the Bush folks especially wanted this switch. And it's not going to happen now. Unless the governor, for some reason, decides to spend taxpayer money to call them back into session to do this, it seems very unlikely. So that raises the question of does Jeb Bush go out there and compete? By the way, he's already been there twice -- once in Reno, once in Vegas. But does he compete in a caucus scenario, which as you know, John, really favors the more conservative candidates that are organized with the most ideological elements of the party. It's uncertain.

KING: Sometimes, Alisyn, people think we spend a little too much on this early. But these little process questions, the moving around of the calendar, is a little bit of the chess. A little bit of the chess that a year from now we could say aha, because of that, this is where we are. We'll see.

CAMEROTA: Not too much time, John. I like this strategery that you bring us. Very nice.

All right, John, thanks so much.

Well, the families of four Americans held in Iran are trying desperately to free their loved ones. The son of one of the detained men joins us live next.

[07:38:41]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back. Today, the families of four Americans being held in Iran are headed to Capitol Hill to testify before Congress and ask for more help to secure the release of their loved ones. Daniel Levinson will be among those testifying. His father is Robert Levinson; he was last seen in Iran in March of 2007 and is believed to longest-held American hostage in Iran. His son Daniel joins us.

Now Daniel, thank you for joining us. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances. Even the way we have to describe your father's captivity raises a question. Do you know for sure that your father is in Iran?

DANIEL LEVINSON, SON OF HOSTAGE ROBERT LEVINSON HELD IN IRAN: We don't know for sure that he's actually in Iran. We know for sure that he did go missing there and that it was on the island of Kish, which is right off the coast there. And we know that the Iranian government should be able to find out what happened to him because he disappeared in their territory, and for a foreign citizen to go missing and reappear years later after having gone missing in their own territory, should be a major concern for them, especially given the relations with the United States at this moment.

CUOMO: Have they given indications that they may have him?

LEVINSON: No. We -- my mother, my aunt, and I traveled over there in 2007 at the end of the year, and we met with a number of officials. That trip yielded nothing new. We've been in contact with them over the years, the United States government has been in contact with them over the years, but they have offered to help. They haven't really followed up as much as we would have liked. But otherwise we have not gotten any kind of information about his whereabouts.

CUOMO: Every time we do this story, and we do do it often, as you know, I like to reintroduce people to what happened here, to take them back to the original point, because people forget. And that's one of the problems we have bringing men like your father home. The video that we're showing, the picture of him with the sign -- how

do you account for those?

LEVINSON: Well, it's been a few years since we got those videos, the video and the pictures. And we are always appreciative that this stays in the news, because it's been eight years and almost three months, 3,007 days today. And it will be in the news every now and then because of the case, but the attention dies down and people keep forgetting that he's the longest held hostage in American history.

[07:45:06] He's still over there. He's still living a nightmare. And I know my family and I every day we think about what to we need to do next to get him home. We think about all the suffering he must be going through, and being so isolated from everybody he knows and loves.

The American people, and people around the world, need to understand this and be reminded as much as possible. And that's why we're very happy to have this hearing later today, and provide testimony and remind the American people that my father is still out there and he needs to be brought home. And everything that can to be done needs to be done by the U.S. government, by the Iranian government, and it breaks my heart every day that it's been this long and that he's still not reunited with us.

CUOMO: What has the U.S. government been able to tell you about where they think this media comes from of your father?

LEVINSON: Well, the videos and pictures, well, they have been emailed to us anonymously and had been traced to border regions and the travel areas in the east of Iran, Pakistan. But that may not be relevant to the situation, because that can easily be sent; they're media files.

But that's all we know about it. It's very mysterious. Both of the media, the videos and pictures, it's very confusing to us about some of the things because of the signs and his messages. So that, for us, the only thing we got out of that was the fact that he was alive at that time. I still believe strongly that he's alive and that he is being kept alive by his captors. So other than that, we don't know. I honestly don't know where he is. I'm not hearing anything from the U.S. government about where they would think he is.

CUOMO: I know how incredibly frustrating it is for the family to see these ongoing negotiations and everyone on the U.S. side seemingly reaching out to Iran and trying to have better relations and I'm sure the words, "Where is Robert Levinson," you know, you're begging them to be asked in this situation, of what would be a better gesture. Obviously they're trying a journalist right now, but what would be a better gesture?

What is it like for your family to be living without your father and know that he's somewhere but not able to get him and seemingly all your efforts to get help are not getting you where you need to be?

LEVINSON: Every day is a nightmare knowing that this is going on. And as I mentioned, just thinking about him and we miss him every day. He's missed so much with our family. I have six brothers and sisters. And so I'm one of seven children between my parents. And he's missed weddings, he's missed the birth of three grandchildren, he's missed high school graduations, college graduation, every holiday, and family gatherings are not the same. And we just know that he's out there and he just wants to get back home to us and we just want him home with us.

CUOMO: Daniel, we are going to keep telling this story every chance we get. We're here. I wish we could do more.

LEVINSON: Thank you for having me and keeping the word out.

CUOMO: Good luck with the testimony. Let us know how it goes. And we hope there is some good news for you and that it comes soon.

LEVINSON: Thanks again.

CUOMO: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. On a much lighter note, can you guess how many watches Apple has sold? Here's a hint -- it's a lot more than a bushel. That's after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:52:41] CAMEROTA: Time for CNN Money now. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans in the money center. Hey Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. A couple big stories for you this morning.

Goldman Sachs expanding its parental leave policy; the bank offering new fathers four weeks off instead of the previous two-week break, paid. That also applies to partners in same-sex couples. It's part of Wall Street's efforts to keep top talent from fleeing to Silicon Valley.

The Apple watch is the company's most successful product debut ever. Look at that. Apple has sold 7 million watches since April. Compare that to 125,000 iPods in its first quarter back in 2001, or 1.1 million iPhones. The watch was the first product Apple released in more than one country on the same day, so that helps account for those bigger numbers, guys.

CAMEROTA: Looks good on you.

ROMANS: Ha. I tried on a $14,000 one, the rose gold one.

CAMEROTA: Oh that looks really good on you.

ROMANS: I only had $25 in my pocket so did not pick that one up.

CUOMO: You make a $25 watch look like a $14,000 watch.

CAMEROTA: Well played. CUOMO: Six months after making the controversial decision to shut

down their football program, the University of Alabama Birmingham reversing course, announcing they will play football again. Camerota overjoyed.

Andy Scholes has more in this morning's Bleacher Report as Alisyn is pulling out those old jerseys.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Oh I'm sure, right. Yes, this is great news for fans of UAB football, Chris, but you got to feel bad for all those players that were on that team that was terminated. They all had to transfer and leave UAB to pursue other opportunities.

Now the president of the university says the only reason that the program was able to make the comeback is because the school received millions of dollars from individuals and local businesses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY WATTS, UAB PRESIDENT: We are moving forward and we are moving forward together. We wouldn't be here and we have never seen this level of support until we made the decisions that we could no longer afford to do it in a responsible way. So this support is new support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now UAB will not be able to fill the seem in time for the upcoming season. It's not clear if they will be back in 2016 either, but their athletic director said their goal is to be back on the field as soon as possible.

Devon and Leah Still will be honored next month at the Espys with the Jimmy B. Perseverance Award. Leah's pediatric cancer, it's in remission, but she did have a setback last week after having complications with a stem cell transplant. Good news, though, Devon posted this pic yesterday of Leah giving the thumbs up, saying that she is doing better.

[07:55:07] Chris, definitely good to see, because we all know she has been through quite the battle.

CUOMO: Absolutely, an important update. Thank you very much, my man.

All right, we have some major fallout after an investigation finds dangerous items were able to get past airport screeners. When you hear how often, you will be shocked. Perhaps the most alarming detail is how many different places they found the same problem. A look at the airports when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)