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Clinton Tops Sanders by 53 Points on Foreign Policy; Trump/Bush Feud Escalates Over 9/11; Authorities Closing in on Drug Lord 'El Chapo'; Poll: 62% of Dems Say Clinton Won Debate. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 19, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton winner of the first Democratic debate, at least according to the latest CNN/ORC poll.

[05:58:44] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Anyone who looks at what I have fought for, knows that I have been very steady.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you blame George W. Bush for 9/11?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When he said we were safe, that's not safe. We lost 3,000 people.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My brother responded to a crisis, and he did it as you would hope a president would do.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm angry with the direction of the country, and I blame politicians.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lack of focus on solutions.

CAMEROTA: What sorts of things have politicians promised they were going to do when they get to Washington but then not deliver them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "El Chapo" Guzman got hurt slipping away from Mexican authorities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was injured in his face and leg.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of people in Mexico that have a financial stake in El Chapo being on the run.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

It is Monday, October 19, 6 a.m. in the East. And we have the first national polls since CNN's record-breaking Democratic debate. And guess who won? No, not Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton is the winner, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. We have new insights into who and what is working for voters. Take a look-see.

Democratic voters who watched the debate say Clinton was the winner by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. Clinton now has a 16-point lead over Bernie Sanders, with an undecided Joe Biden at 18 percent. There's also insight in this poll into Biden's potential, as well, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes, so many interesting things to look at with these numbers, because at this hour, we have the very first look, also, at which issues voters feel are most important and which candidates they think are best equipped to handle things like gun violence and the economy.

So let's take a look. As far as satisfaction with the field, 71 percent of voters say they like their choices now. Thirty percent say they are not very satisfied. Now if Joe Biden does not jump into the race, Clinton's lead over Sanders widens to 23 points.

And the vice president's window may be closing. A slim majority of Democratic voters now believe he should not enter the race.

So a lot to talk about this morning.

CUOMO: Absolutely. Let's do that with CNN senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar, live in Washington, digging deep into the numbers. What do you see, my friend?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Chris.

Well, looking at all of those polls, so what all Americans would think, Hillary Clinton, her favorable rating at this point, 46 percent. That is up from 44 percent in August. Her unfavorable at 50 percent. That is down from 53 percent in August. So the glass half full here is that she's making progress. The glass half empty is that you can see she's still under water when it comes to her favorable/unfavorable.

Now, among Democratic voters, Democratic leaning voters, as well, when asked which Democratic candidate do you trust most to handle a myriad of issues, Hillary Clinton besting Bernie Sanders by a lot here.

Certainly, let's look at foreign policy, for instance. This is an issue that Republicans are going to make a big issue of, come the general election, especially if Clinton is the nominee. And she's heading into this week, right, where she's talking about foreign policy. She'll be testifying before the Benghazi committee.

She's at 62 percent of -- of Democratic-leaning, Democratic voters saying that she is the one they trust on this issue. Forty-two percent advantage over Joe Biden, 53-point advantage over Bernie Sanders. That's huge.

And how does she stack up in these head-to-head matchups? Well, up against Ben Carson, this is a statistically tied matchup against one of the top two Republican frontrunners. She has five points, though, on Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, plus or minus three points there. It just goes to show you that it is a competitive general election matchup, Michaela, but she certainly does not have this in the bag at this point.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Interesting to see those numbers develop. All right, Brianna.

Now to the escalating war of words on the Republican ticket. Donald Trump says his immigration stance would have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Jeb Bush, meanwhile, defending his brother's record, telling CNN that giving Trump access to nuclear codes would be a grave mistake.

CNN's Athena Jones is live in Dallas with more for us. My goodness -- Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: My goodness, exactly. Good morning, Michaela.

Both of these candidates believe this feud is good for them. Jeb Bush gets to show he has the fire in the belly to fight for this nomination and that he's not low energy, as Donald Trump has been saying for months now.

Trump gets to poke at Jeb Bush and link him to the past.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: I'm not blaming George Bush, but I don't want Jeb Bush to say, "My brother kept us safe."

JONES (voice-over): The feud between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush is heating up.

BUSH: For him it looks as though it's -- he's an actor playing the role of a candidate for president.

JONES: From the Sunday shows to social media, with Bush defending his brother's handling of the September 11 attacks.

BUSH: He united the country. He organized our country, and he kept us safe.

TRUMP: Bush said by repeatedly bringing up 9/11, Trump shows he's not, quote, "a serious person." And that he has grave concerns about Trump being in charge of nuclear weapons.

BUSH: Across the spectrum of foreign policy, Mr. Trump talks about things that -- as though he's still on "The Apprentice."

JONES: Trump said he was just taking issue with Jeb saying during the CNN debate that his brother kept America safe.

TRUMP: The World Trade Center came down. So when he said we were safe, that's not safe. We lost 3,000 people. JONES: The latest chapter in this battle of GOP contenders began

Friday, when Trump told Bloomberg Television...

TRUMP: When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hold on. That -- you can't blame George Bush for that.

TRUMP: He was president, OK?

JONES: Bush quickly fired back on Twitter, calling the GOP frontrunner pathetic.

TRUMP: You know, dealing with killers.

JONES: Now his campaign is mocking Trump in a new video, using his own words.

CHUCK TODD, HOST, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Who do you talk to for military advice?

TRUMP: "Well, I watch the shows.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's one of the ways that he bones up on our national security.

GRAPHIC: "Not a deep thinker on foreign policy or anything else."

JONES: And fundraising off the dust-up, sending this appeal to supporters, arguing that under Trump's logic, FDR should be blamed for Pearl Harbor.

This as Trump insisted he could have prevented 9/11, because his tough stance on immigration would have kept the hijackers out.

[06:05:03] TRUMP: There's a good chance that those people would not have been in our country.

JONES: Meanwhile, Ben Carson made an unusual claim, saying President Bush could have used oil as leverage against Arab states to find Osama bin Laden sooner.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think they would have known where he was.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Now, Carson is also defending George W. Bush, saying it's ridiculous to suggest he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Huckabee is echoing Carson, saying the blame lies with Islamic Jihadists -- Alisyn, Chris.

CAMEROTA: Athena, you've given us a lot of material to work with. Thanks so much for all that background. Joining us now, CNN political analyst and presidential campaign correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman; and CNN political commentator and political anchor for New York One News, Errol Louis. Great to have both of you back. Happy Monday.

So Errol, this fight about 9/11, who's -- who does this benefit? Who's winning, Jeb or Trump?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it really locks them into their positions. About 85 percent in a recent poll of Republicans said that they think that George W. Bush kept us safe. That pretty much tracks with the percentage of people who don't want Donald Trump to be president or who say that they have a different preference than him. He's, I think, speaking to his base, and that's what he does.

For the establishment Republicans, represented in this case by Jeb Bush, I think that that's really where a lot of people think George Bush's place is history is going to be. That he kept the country safe, that he did what he had to do, that the proper time to start sort of counting all of that is after the attack and not before the attack.

And the rest is, you know, Bush versus Trump. I mean, for Donald Trump, George [SIC] Bush is in some ways his worst nightmare. He's got a super PAC with $100 million waiting in the wings. He is the Republican, the embodiment of the Republican establishment. If Trump is going to have a hard time when the votes actually start getting cast, it's going to be from the part of the party that Jeb Bush leads.

CUOMO: Here's what we know. The cognoscenti, the big brains within the Republican Party are telling Jeb, "Be calm. Play your own game. Let this play out. Don't lose who you are." Isn't this an example of him doing exactly the opposite? You know, playing on this specious premise that Trump comes up with and playing in a way that only Trump does well.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Errol is right, to the extent that it is true that there's a large part of the Republican base that think George Bush did a very good job after 9/11.

CUOMO: Then why play the game?

HABERMAN: Because I think that, to your original question, I think Trump is trying to getting under Jeb Bush's skin, and I think it is succeeding. I think that he is basically running an active campaign to what is essentially Donald Trump hectoring him and heckling him at this point.

CUOMO: But if he has all these advisors and stuff, Maggie, they say, "Don't tweet that. Don't tweet that."

HABERMAN: Well, I don't think they are saying, "Don't tweet that. Don't tweet that." I think they're saying, "Go ahead and tweet that."

CUOMO: What's the calculus? HABERMAN: I think the calculus is, No. 1, George W. Bush remains

popular with a large swath of the voters who Jeb Bush needs in Iowa and South Carolina, in particular. A lot of evangelical supporters really, really still like his brother. I think as we've seen, Jeb Bush struggled to figure out how he wanted to handle his brother. This gives him, I think, in his mind a clear way of dealing with it, and something he was comfortable with and something to embrace.

Listening to Donald Trump, Donald Trump sounds much more like Michael Moore, circa 2004 than anything we've heard within a Republican primary on the topic of George W. Bush. And there's a reason why, as you were saying, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee are separating themselves.

It's an unclear question. A lot of Republicans don't like the aftermath of what happened with 9/11. They don't like the extended fight in the Mideast. And you saw Trump try to turn it toward that. I think Trump may have dealt his initial blow inartfully and tried to clean it up. That is where you, I think, are going to see him playing toward, more than the idea of George W. Bush having some blame.

CAMEROTA: But he's also playing it towards his immigration policy. I mean, he's saying that, "Because of my tough immigration policy, where I wouldn't be letting people in, I would have been able to prevent 9/11." Let's hear him make that case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration. I'm extremely tough on people coming into this country. I believe that if I were running things, I doubt those families would have -- I doubt that those people would have been in the country. So there's a good chance that those people would not have been in our country.

With that being said, I'm not blaming George Bush, but I don't want Jeb Bush to say, "My brother kept us safe," because September 11 was one of the worst days in the history of this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Errol, this is what Trump supporters believe about him, that his immigration policy will keep us safe.

LOUIS: Yes, well, it's very -- it's very simplistic and quite wrong. I mean, we should just say, factually, that.

CUOMO: Eighteen of the 19 came in legally, and the 19th came on a student visa, and then he just never showed up to class.

CAMEROTA: But I think that his point is that he would crack down on tourist and student visas, I think.

LOUIS: Well, no. I mean, you have to really sort of press him on that the next time you get a chance to talk with him. And this is where, I think, he gets on to very shaky ground. I mean, Maggie is exactly right that he's trying to pivot away from that. Because if you want to make the case that visa overstays are not

the major source of undocumented people in this country, which is in fact, the case. I mean, most people come, they come as tourists; they come as students and they just overstay their visa. They're not scrambling over the border, you know, over the southwest border.

CAMEROTA: But isn't he saying that he would send back people who overstayed their visas? That's part of his plan. Right?

HABERMAN: That was one of 19, though.

[06:10:11] LOUIS: If this is going to be solved by the wall, it's up to him to explain how building this wall was going to stop these people. And then secondly, you know, if you want to make this larger case that somehow George W. Bush was responsible, then you have to go into an area that -- where Donald Trump is not comfortable at all, which is you're going to have to parse what was known. What did the 9/11 Commission come up with? What could they have? What dots could they have connected before September 11? He's not prepared to do that at all.

CUOMO: It's a smart wall that doesn't just keep you out, but it also gets a read on who you are and whether you should be here.

CAMEROTA: Like a giant phone. Brilliant.

CUOMO: How do you figure that Carson beats Clinton in these recent numbers?

HABERMAN: I think that Clinton's general election numbers have taken a giant beating. I think that, if you look at it a generic Republican ticket against her right now, I think is going to look better, and I think it's going to be that way for a while, I think, depending on how her testimony goes this week. I think that could be another step toward getting better. The debate obviously helped her fight a bit.

CAMEROTA: Ben Carson also said something interesting this weekend. He said he was opposed to the war in Afghanistan. He would not have gone to war in Afghanistan after the U.S. was attacked on 9/11.

In fact, he would have just told Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia to hand over Osama bin Laden, and he would have made a threat; and they would have done it. Listen to his logic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSON: I think they would have been extremely concerned if we had declared, and we were serious about it, that we were going to become petroleum independent. Because it would have had a major impact on their finances. And I think that probably would have trumped any loyalty that they had to people like Osama bin Laden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: There you go, Errol. There's a foreign policy idea. We didn't have to go to war in Afghanistan.

LOUIS: That's an interesting concept. I would just point out for the viewers, the No. 1 oil producer in the world in 2014 was the United States. I mean, I'm not sure where Ben Carson is coming from, and the logic of it is very hard to follow.

Again, we should -- you know, we should really ask him, what exactly do you mean by this?

I mean, the Taliban, I think, had every indication that the United States was very serious. As the president spoke before Congress, spoke before the world as the greatest army in the world, the armed forces started to crank up and were clearly on their way to Afghanistan. I mean, I don't know if we could have been any more serious about the intention of finding and dismantling al Qaeda.

CAMEROTA: Yet they didn't hand over Osama bin Laden, is your point.

LOUIS: Strangely enough, they did not.

And actually, look, there were some issues around the terrain. Right? And the no man's land, where much of al Qaeda was hiding out, you know, impenetrable to radar and sonar. You know, hard to get, even through human intelligence, your traditional spy networks. It's not as if the nation didn't try.

CUOMO: It makes you wonder how much of it is just pandering. I remember interviewing the president of Pakistan at the time, Pervez Musharraf. And I asked him, if you find bin Laden, will you turn him over? He was like, let's not talk about that right now.

Now, this is America's greatest ally at the time in the region, and he's like, "Let's not talk about that. It's very complicated. Let's just figure out some other things first." So that was him. So sometimes these positions play to what your common sense is on it. Yes, yes. We could have pressured them with money. That's what they want, but it doesn't really bear fruit if you look at it a little deeper.

CAMEROTA: Maggie, Errol, thank you. Great to see you.

Let's get over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, it is being called one of the most brazen attacks in the month-long wave of Israeli/Palestinian violence. A shooting at a bus station, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding at least 11 others. The attacker said to be armed with a gun and a knife was shot and killed.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pledging to work with Israel during his first trip there. Secretary of State John Kerry also plans to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming days.

CUOMO: So a 6-year-old in Chicago shoots and kills his 3-year- old brother. You've heard this kind of story before, but this time, the police are charging the boy's father, Michael Santiago, with child endangerment for knowingly leaving a loaded gun on top of a refrigerator, where the boys could easily get it. Accidental shooting? Yes, but it happened when they were playing cops and robbers. And the police are saying, if not for improper storage, that kid would be alive.

CAMEROTA: Another terrible story to tell you about. The weekend death of a high school football player in Texas. This is the sixth nationwide since early September. Alto High School junior Cameron Matthews collapsed and suffered a seizure on the sidelines during a game Friday night. He had told teammates earlier that day that he felt dizzy. The cause of his death still not known.

Mexican authorities could be closing in on the notorious drug king pin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who staged a daring prison escape over the summer. The drug lord apparently suffering injuries to his leg and face after eluding authorities during an attempt to capture him last week. A pilot suspected of helping the fugitive is under arrest. Could that help track down El Chapo soon?

CNN's Rafael Romo is live with all the very latest on this ongoing manhunt -- Rafael.

[06:15:02] RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, the Mexican Marines have launched a massive operation by air and land, targeting several villages in the rugged mountains of northwest Mexico. Their goal, capturing Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel and one of the most wanted men in the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO (voice-over): New video emerging in the intense manhunt for fugitive international drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, burnt- out vehicles riddled with bullet holes, the gritty aftermath of massive military operations carried out in several small villages where the elusive Sinaloa cartel leader was suspected to be hiding.

Federal authorities confirming that the notorious drug lord suffered injuries to his face and leg while making a hurried escape but, once again, evading capture. Marines storming several small towns in the rugged borderlands between Sinaloa and Durango, known as the golden triangle.

Shell-shocked residents describing a rain of bullets as their homes came under fire. Hundreds of terrified villagers forced to flee and seek shelter in neighboring towns.

Mexican authorities say they're closing in on one of the world's most wanted men, who has been on the lam since breaking out of the maximum security prison and escaping into an elaborate underground tunnel in July.

A new clip with audio emerging of the now infamous grainy prison surveillance video, broadcast on the Mexican network Televista. It reveals loud hammering noises were being made in Guzman's cell before walking toward his private shower and virtually disappearing into thin air. The video's time stamp indicates the prison guards didn't check on El Chapo until about 30 minutes after he had already vanished from his cell. And it took about ten more minutes for prison authorities to enter the cell and follow the drug lord into the tunnel, arguably giving one of the world's most sought-after criminals a big head start to freedom.

And the U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for his capture. Mexico is offering an additional 3.8 million. This is the second time El Chapo has escaped from a maximum-security prison.

Now back to you guys.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you. Keep us in the loop on this. We'll check back with you later in the show.

All right. We're going to take a little break here. Now we know with our new poll, that after the debate, more Democrats say that Hillary Clinton won than Bernie Sanders or anybody else.

But the results also reveal a little bit of a troubling trend for team Hillary. Her lead over Bernie Sanders hasn't really changed that much. And what about the trust issue? We'll take a deeper look into the numbers and what they tell us about this moment in time in the race, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:44] CUOMO: All right. Forget about just sitting at the bar saying who won. We have the first round of polling since our CNN Democratic debate. What do the numbers show?

Hillary Clinton firms up her grip on the top spot. But a debate win did not help her poll numbers the way you might think. So let's get into it. We've got Maggie Haberman and Errol Louis helping us with this.

Let's take a look, just at first, though. Who did the best job in the debate? OK, let's look at that number, basic enough. All right, 62, 35, 1, 1, you get a star for participation.

What do these numbers tell you, Maggie?

HABERMAN: Well, the star tells a lot.

CUOMO: Everybody gets an award these days.

HABERMAN: Exactly. This is a participation trophy.

The -- Clinton and Sanders have basically frozen the race. So you saw them go into the debate a certain way. You saw them come out a certain way. Sanders has die-hard supporters who, I think, are always going to be with him unless he literally fell apart and disintegrated before your eyes on stage.

That isn't what happened. Hillary Clinton had a great night. Bernie Sanders did not have a bad night.

CAMEROTA: He had a good night. A lot of people thought he had -- he also had a great night.

HABERMAN: His supporters. I don't think he set himself up to grow particularly, although these numbers indicate that he got some support, either from her or from the Biden hangers on or holders out.

But I never thought the horse race was actually going to change that substantially. What I did think was going to change was her favorables might creep up a little bit, and that did happen.

CAMEROTA: Let's look at that. In fact, we have that number. So the opinion of Hillary Clinton since the debate has ticked up slightly. In August, she had 44 percent favorable; 53 percent unfavorable. Now, after the debate, 45 percent favorable, 50 percent unfavorable. What do you see, Errol?

LOUIS: Well, I mean, she's got to get those unfavorables lower and lower. She's got to sort of make it clear that she's clearly liked by at least the Democratic base. That's going to take a little bit more time.

You know, the Sanders surge is not going away. It's very well- funded. She's got a lot of work to do.

But her theory has always been that she was going to be the front-runner, that she was going to have more money, name recognitions and endorsements than anybody else, and that she was going to kind of grind this out.

You know, and so for this month, she's accomplished the first of the three major things she has to do in October. She had the debate. She did well. She's got the Benghazi committee coming up. We'll all be watching that. And then toward the end, there's the Jefferson Jackson dinner, which is an important speech that gets a lot of -- a lot of attention. If she can pull off all three of those, she's well on her way toward a successful launch to this campaign when the votes start getting cast.

CUOMO: So at this moment in time she's looking good. That's all a poll can help you with anyway, especially coming off a big event.

Also, we've got to look at where she has work to do and where she doesn't. Put up the issues of where these voters fell, that among Democrats how does she do with Sanders?

So I know, a little tough to read on your screen. We'll take you through them real fast. Foreign policy, that's her big thing. Right? But look at income inequality, as well. You would have thought that Bernie would have run away with that. But no. She's up.

So what does that tell you, Maggie, in terms of the soberness of the Democrats on no matter who is kind of tickling you with how well they articulate it and the passion where the competency lies? HABERMAN: There's not a whole lot of distinction between these

candidates. There are some certain specific policy differences, especially on things like regulating Wall Street. That's where you saw among the bigger issues guns, where you saw Hillary Clinton really try to point to that. But basically, you don't see the same kind of divisions that you see on the Republican side.

And so I think that is a lot of what's in the numbers. To your point, though, the foreign policy drop is staggering between Clinton and Sanders, who is right now her nearest competition.

[06:25:13] CAMEROTA: Right. Sixty-two percent to 9 percent.

HABERMAN: Yes. I mean, that is -- that is stunning. And so that is really where you are going to see her, I think, press her case, especially in the next debate. I would say I expect Bernie Sanders will do what he didn't do the last time, which is prepare. He barely prepared for this debate. I do think he is going to come more prepared next time.

CAMEROTA: He didn't prepare in a traditional way, because he didn't have mock debates, but they said that he was talking to lots of policy experts and reading up on things. Not good enough?

HABERMAN: That's not -- that tends not to be the same as trying to imagine what it's like when people are coming at you on stage. So you had early on, for instance, both Martin O'Malley and Hillary Clinton sort of tag teamed him on guns. He seemed caught off-guard and never quite totally recovered.

CAMEROTA: Before we move on to Joe Biden, I just want to talk about that issues poll that we had there. She wins on everything. Isn't that striking? She wins on everything. There's nothing that Bernie Sanders beats her on.

LOUIS: That's right. And this is exactly the case that she was trying to make on, for example, income inequality. Sure, she's not going to come out and say we need a nationwide $15 minimum wage. Or she's not going to come out and say we should pay community college tuition for free for every student in the country.

What she says is I'm going to give you a program that might actually be able to implement. And so that practicality, the centrist Democrat approach to this stuff apparently is resonating with voters. And that, for Bernie Sanders, is bad news.

CUOMO: But there's also a very important metric in a poll that this is going to help her with on the issue front. It's not which issues matter. It's how much. Right? They call it the amplitude in a poll, how big the curve is.

She's got a very good sense of that now, Maggie, about where they're putting their focus. And I think her people are going to look at this and say, "The bigger our lead is over Bernie on things, that's where these voters matter more." Now that will put you in a counterintuitive sort of place. So it will mean the Democrats care less about income inequality

than they do on foreign policy. But could that be a fair reflection or not?

LOUIS: The logic is right, but the last election that turned on foreign policy...

CUOMO: Is that terror, is that safety, is that what foreign policy envelops now?

HABERMAN: It's what's in the news at that moment. Right? That's where you see people reacting.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's look at what happens with Joe Biden. Because his numbers have changed after the debate. So in August, should Joe Biden run for president? Fifty-three percent said yes. Now post-debate, 47 percent say yes. No, back in August was 45 percent. That number has gone up to 49 percent. So Maggie, this -- you know, the trend is not right for Joe Biden getting in.

HABERMAN: He had a real streak of momentum in his favor among donors, among polls as she was having a very, very hard time heading into this first debate. A lot of people looked at this first debate, including some of his supporters and say I no longer see the window for him.

That having been said, if you talk to other people who have had conversations with him, they will say that's not what he's basing his decision on. This has never been about how she was going to do in the debate. It was never about how she was going to do in any of these things. It's about what he thinks. If we're being honest, some of it is about how she's doing. Right? I mean, she has...

CAMEROTA: Doesn't he have to pay attention to that?

HABERMAN: The case for him was, in part, always going to rely on her crumbling and him claiming to be the rightful heir to the Obama legacy. It is harder to see a path. I do think that time is running short, because I think to Errol's point, the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa this weekend, it's a really important event. It was a really important event for Barack Obama in November 2007 was when he really started to pull away from her. If she delivers a convincing case there two days after she testifies before the Benghazi committee, the clamor, I think, among Democrats becomes...

CUOMO: She's going into it with 70 percent of Democrats saying they're satisfied with the field.

HABERMAN: Yes. So there you go.

CAMEROTA: Errol, Maggie, thanks so much. Great to talk to you.

CUOMO: So you heard what these big brains had to say about it. What do you think? Tweet us using the hashtag #NewDayCNN or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay. Alisyn can't wait to read them. Alisyn Camerota, Alisyn with a "Y." CAMEROTA: We can see what you're doing right now.

PEREIRA: She's going to sip her coffee and read the tweets.

CUOMO: Put some clothes on. Not you.

PEREIRA: OK. I was going to say, what is happening?

All right. It's 6:28 here on the East.

Ahead here, he has been on the run for months. Could "El Chapo's" capture be imminent after being injured during a raid? There are new details emerging on the manhunt. We'll have them next here on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)