Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Republican Presidential Candidates Prepare for Debate; Paul Ryan Set to Take Over House Speakership; Officer to Learn His Fate After Violent Arrest. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 28, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: -- a real challenge for him. It's a CNBC debate discussing economics. So they're going to take the stage. We have Trump in second. And we have the rest of the field desperate for some kind of attention, Alisyn. And that is why we are all looking to tune in.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so with the spotlight on Carson what will Trump do tonight? And will another candidate pop to the top tier? Let's go first to CNN's Sunlen Serfaty. She is live for us in Boulder, Colorado. She also has some great music. And she has some better stuff, which is fitting.

CUOMO: Sunlen Serfaty, also known as the better snuff.

(LAUGHTER)

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys. I have to tell you when Ben Carson hits the stage later tonight he comes with momentum on his side. He'll be standing side by side with Donald Trump where this tug of war that has emerged recently between the two will really be on center stage.

Now Carson has been preparing for the debates over the last few days in Florida, and aides to the Carson campaign say that he is ready and planning to take on Donald Trump. He likely will get hit by Donald Trump. This is what we've seen from Trump in the last few days really zeroing in on Ben Carson on the campaign trail. Very clear that Donald Trump is not taking his drop in the poll very well. Here is how he put it to Iowa voters last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Iowa, what the hell are you people doing to me? I don't like being second. Second is terrible. Iowa will you get your numbers up, please? Will you get these numbers up? I promise you I will do such a good job.

By the way before I forget, will you get the numbers up, Iowa please? This is ridiculous.

And please do me a favor. Let me win Iowa. I refuse to say get your asses in gear. I will not say that. Now if I lose Iowa I will never speak to you people again. That I can --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now this comes as John Kasich, meanwhile, is taking a much more aggressive and combative tone on the campaign trail. At a sendoff rally yesterday he really laid into each and every one of his Republican opponents for what he called hysterical policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KASICH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do you know how crazy this election is? Let me tell you something. I've about had it with these people. I am sick and tired of listening to this nonsense. And I'm going to have to call it like it is as long as I'm in this race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: The Kasich campaign has acknowledged to CNN that this certainly signifies a shift in the strategy that he will take up there on the debate stage. Certainly Michaela we can counted mile as one candidate really going to flip the script tonight.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: It is going to be very interesting, Sunlen. Thanks so much for that.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton opening up about what motivates her. The Democratic candidate appeared on "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert last night, dishing what it's like to run for president, why she wants it so badly, and how she can get America back on track.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": You look in the last couple of weeks that you are having fun.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Right. Right.

COLBERT: Is it fun to run for president of the United States?

CLINTON: Some days.

COLBERT: Yes.

CLINTON: Some days it really is fun. Some days it is just very hard work. And you do so many events you do kind of lose track of where you are. But most days something happens during the day that really makes you feel like yes, I know why I'm doing this. I am so committed. And it is because somebody said something to me on a rope line --

COLBERT: Well that leads me to my next question. Why are you doing this?

(LAUGHTER)

COLBERT: Why do you want -- this is the question Ted Kennedy could not answer in 1979. Why do you want to be president of the United States? CLINTON: I want to be president because I want to build on the

progress that we've been making and make it possible for more people in our country, particularly young people, to live up that own God given possibly. And that means we've got to get back to providing opportunities. We've got to get back to making the economy work for everybody. And we have to defend the progress we've made in women's rights and gay rights, and we have to protect voting rights and immigrant rights and everything else.

(APPLAUSE)

COLBERT: So how do we do that? Those are noble goals, and you are the fifth presidential candidate I've had on the show so far. And Bernie Sanders was sitting there. And he said many of the same things. And his answers are a Democratic socialist answer. And in the debate with Senator Sanders, you said the United States is not Denmark. Denmark has those things and they have those things with high taxes on the middle class.

CLINTON: Right.

COLBERT: And how would we achieve them in the United States? Aside from the political paralysis of Washington, how do you get those things?

CLINTON: First we have to get back to putting the middle class at the center of our politics. And we've got to make it clear that what has been tried by the Republicans every time they get a chance, cutting taxes on the super-wealthy, getting out of the way of corporations, doesn't create broad based prosperity. It creates more inequality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:05:04] CUOMO: All right, so there is Hillary giving her best with Steven Colbert. Let's discuss with CNN political commentator and former Reagan White House political director Mr. Jeffrey Lord and CNN political commentator and Jeb Bush supporter Ana Navarro. Let's put Hillary aside for one moment. Help us, Mr. Lord, understand the mind of Trump. What's going on with him up there talking about the poll numbers. He seems a little lost.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No I think he's having a good time. I think he's a little amazed at these latest poll numbers. One of the things I found very interesting in that CBS-"New York Times" poll. It said that 55 percent of the Trump voters said that they were committed. They were for Trump, period. And 80 percent of the Carson voters said they were not so committed, that they might eventually wind up somewhere else, which doesn't show a lot of, you know, sort of rock solid commitment at this point. So I think that is very, very interesting.

CAMEROTA: Ana, I want to ask you about Jeb Bush, because you come to us fresh from Houston, the Jeb Bush family retreat that everybody sort of regrouped and figured out what to do about Jeb. So what will we see tonight? What is the new and improved Jeb? ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's interesting because

it had actually been scheduled for weeks and weeks. So it wasn't some sort of emergency donor meeting or anything like that. It just happened to coincide with all these things happenings in the press. I think Jeb is looking forward to this debate. It's a debate that should be about financial issues. It should be about economic policy. It should be more policy focused perhaps than the five hours of debate we've seen so far. He was making a comment to me the other day. There's been five hours of debate. There hasn't been a question asked on the national debt.

CAMEROTA: Is he changing his tone? Is he changing his style?

NAVARRO: I think he's going to be more comfortable with the topics. He has been working very hard on this. He knows. He understands that debates matter and that he needs to improve his performance. He doesn't live in a bubble. He's heard it. He gets e- mails from people like me and others saying, look, you know, you have got to step this up. I think he's putting a lot of effort into it. Let's see what we see tonight.

CUOMO: What I keep hearing from the campaigns of those who were the underperformers right now is 71 percent, 70 percent of our field, GOP, they haven't decided yet, Jeffrey. So those numbers are the all artificial in these polls because seven out of 10 Republican voters don't know what they want to do yet, and that is what they are holding on to. What is your message the a John Kasich, to a Jeb Bush, to a Marco Rubio who are saying to themselves this is going to pass and I've still got seven out of 10 who are looking for something?

LORD: Yes, it is a very simple message. The reason all of this anger is out there is because the base of the Republican Party feels that they abandoned, the leadership of the party abandoned conservative principle, that they in essence through Ronald Reagan over the side after a successful eight year presidency and went down the path of moderation. And typified by this debt ceiling deal that is going on right this minute in Washington, which I think it's safe to say the base of the party is just furious over.

CUOMO: Jeffrey, the debt ceiling --

LORD: I'm sorry, what?

CUOMO: Let me ask you something strategically about the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling seems to be played by those critical of this deal and others like it that you just referred to as some type of allowance of spending. Isn't that intellectually dishonest when the debt ceiling is actually the opposite? You have already agreed to spend the money. Now you must pay for it. Messing with the debt ceiling doesn't change your spending. Why play it that way?

LORD: The question is, what are you going to use for leverage? What else are you going to get? "The Wall Street Journal" the other day published in their "Notable and quotable" section something from Ronald Reagan's memoirs in which he said he learned to get 70 and 85 percent and then go away and come back and get the rest. The problem here is that people on our side feel that there is just a total surrender to President Obama, to the American left, as it were. And frankly Republican moderates, that they just give in. We're not even talking 70 to 80 percent. We're talking nothing. And that is the problem. And that is the cause -- I think this is what east really fuelling the Trump and Carson campaigns, which between them are anywhere, depending on the policy, anywhere from around 50 to 65 percent combined.

NAVARRO: I think tonight could be very interesting. We are for the first time going to see a leading Ben Carson. He's still not going to be in the center of the stage, but he's beginning to lead in polls. I think we should watch for how Donald Trump reacts to him. Donald Trump is lost out there. For all of these months he's been flailing around sheets of paper saying the polls love me. I love the polls. And now all of a sudden he doesn't love the polls that much and the polls don't love him anymore. Is he going to go after Carson? How is Carson going to react? I suspect the contrast in personality between those two is going to be a very interesting dynamic.

CUOMO: What about the subject matter, though? For Ben Carson, talking about economics has not been his strong suit so far. He's most unorthodox there. This debate tonight is very tailored to those issues. How do you think that plays?

[08:10:06] NAVARRO: I don't know, Chris, because I don't think either Trump or Carson have gotten into the weeds on policy in either of the two last debates, and it hasn't hurt them. So this is going to be supposedly a more policy specific debate. Will they be able to kind of coast and be personality driven as they have been in the last two debates?

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, talking about -- I think you fastened upon why Trump has such a surge. There is anger out there. We've done lots of voter panels to try to get the pulse of how people feel. So Jeffrey, because you are a Trump supporter how do you explain the dip he's experiencing?

LORD: Oh, I do think polls go up and down here and, you know, the coverage goes up. It goes down. It will change a few more times.

One of the things I think we should keep in perspective here. We're all sort of Iowa centric. But even if Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses, Ronald Reagan lost them and still was nominated. Senator Santorum and Governor Huckabee both won them and never got close. So in other words, just winning Iowa by itself, whether he wins or loses, isn't the game here. You have got to go on to these other states. In Ronald Reagan's case this took months to settle until George H. W. Bush finally withdrew in May of that year. But there was a battle in New Hampshire and South Carolina and Pennsylvania and Michigan.

NAVARRO: We're beginning to see the volatility of the race, not just of the polls. And I just hope this thing lasts less than that baseball game last night or we're going to be talking about the Republican primary till we die.

(LAUGHTER) CAMEROTA: There is a good analogy there. But also this

morning, it's official. Lindsey Graham is the most fun GOP candidate because he was at a bar last night. There is a CNN initiative called the - "Politics on Tap."

CUOMO: Initiative. It's not an initiative.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Yes it is. It is an initiative to show the candidates in an informal setting. There you see Dana Bash having fun with Lindsey Graham as she played this pajama party game with him. It is a little like truth or dare. She cleaned it up to call it date, marry, or make disappear forever. And she posed some questions to him. And he said the women he said he would marry is Carly Fiorina because she's rich.

(LAUGHTER)

NAVARRO: Listen, you know, first time you marry for love. Second you marry for money. Lindsey might be doing it the other way around.

CUOMO: He hasn't married. He's making the smartest choice.

NAVARRO: He missed the first one. He's now in time for the second one. Let's just shoot for the mother lode.

CAMEROTA: That's exactly right. Ana, Jeffrey, thanks for having fun with us. We'll all be watching tonight. Thanks, guys.

One quick programming note for you, after tonight's debate tune in to a special two hour "AC 360" that starts at 10:00 eastern. Anderson Cooper and the best in the business will break it down for you tonight.

PEREIRA: And beer will not be served at that one?

CUOMO: No, only initiatives.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: All right, other news here to get to, in fact breaking news. House speaker in waiting Paul Ryan now says he'll supports a bipartisan budget deal. But he's blasting outgoing speaker John Boehner, Senate leaders, and the White House for what he calls their secret negotiating process. Let's get right to senior political correspondent Manu Raju live on the Hill with all the breaking details for us. What do we know, Many?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well today really marks the end of the John Boehner era and the beginning of the Paul Ryan era. There are two major developments happening on Capitol Hill today. Republicans will nominate Paul Ryan to succeed John Boehner. Ryan will actually get to become speaker tomorrow when the full House votes to put him in that position. And then today the House is pushing through a major budget deal

on John Boehner's final days in office, a deal that Boehner has cut himself. The one he has cut behind the scenes with other leaders and the White House who would raise defense and domestic spending by roughly $80 billion. In addition would raise the national debt limit until March of 2017, effectively taking that big fight off the table for Mr. Ryan heading into his speakership.

Paul Ryan has been mum about this all along. He's been critical of the process, but he just released a statement that he said "What has been produced will go a long way towards relieving the uncertainty hanging over us. And that is why I intend to support it." Now John Boehner was asked about his strategy to help Paul Ryan, and here's what he had to say yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: I made it clear a month ago when I announced that I was leaving that I wanted to do my best to clean the barn. I didn't want him to talk into a dirty barn full of you know what. So I've done my best to try to clean it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:15:02] RAJU: Indeed, that's what he's trying to do. Paul Ryan will have one opponent today. That is Daniel Webster of Florida. And that speaker's nomination contest.

It shouldn't even be a contest. Ryan is expected to win very big and then he'll have to deal with other issues now that the fiscal matters will be taken off the table. Of course, the House still has to pass it and the Senate and we're expecting the votes to be pretty close -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Manu. Thanks so much for that preview.

Now to another top story. We will know later today whether that South Carolina sheriff's deputy who slammed a female student to the ground in her classroom will be fired. His boss says the girl bears some responsibility for the incident.

CNN's Martin Savidge is live in Columbia, South Carolina, for us.

What is the latest there, Martin?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, even though the sheriff has said that maybe the girl does bear responsibility here, he has said his investigation is focused solely on the school resource officer. Said he was going to act quick. He heard a press conference slated for noon. It could be high noon for Ben Fields.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): The 16-year-old high school student violently thrown to the ground by school resource officer Ben Fields claims she does have injuries to her arm and face, at least according to her attorney. The FBI now is investigating.

SHERIFF LEON LOTT, RICHLAND COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA: She may have had a lot of rug burn or something like that, but she was not injured.

SAVIDGE: In the incident report, the South Carolina sheriff's deputy said she used muscling techniques, after she refused his request to get up. Then according to the report, she hit him in the chest with a closed fist.

LOTT: I don't want anybody to think just the fact that she did strike an officer, that's justifications for some of the actions he took.

NIYA KENNY, STUDENT: We've heard about his reputation and we've heard that he's a really, I guess I could say, dangerous man.

SAVIDGE: The second student arrested, 18-year-old Niya Kenny, says it all started when the 16-year-old refused to hand over her phone to the math teacher and that is when Fields was called in.

Kenny says she was crying, screaming at the officer. Fields then arresting her for disturbing school.

KENNY: He said you got something you want to say? You got something you want too say? You want some of this too? And I was just like no. And I just put my hands behind my back.

SAVIDGE: In 2007, Army veteran Carlos Martin filed a lawsuit in 2007 against Officer Fields, claiming that he used excessive force when questioning him and his wife about the noise complaint. The jury ruled in Fields' favor in 2010. But Martin claims race was a factor in his arrest.

CARLOS MARTIN, SUED BEN FIELDS IN 2007: When I saw the video it reminds me of al the nightmares and what I've been going through for ten years.

SAVIDGE: A student at the classroom who posted this video wrote that Fields is, quote, "a cool dude and not racist."

Still, many parents of the Richland two school district are outraged, as are school officials.

CHIP JACKSON, SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER, RICHLAND COUNTY DISTRICT TWO: This individual, we've made it clear we do not want him back on our school grounds and in our schools that's been a permanent request that we've made.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: And so the next big significant action in this case is not going to happen in the high school behind me here but likely at the sheriff's office a little less than four hours from now -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Martin. We will stay on that story to be sure.

So why does the election matter? Here is a reason. For the first time in more than two decades, scores on national math exams slumping. Feds say the average fourth grade math score this year was 240 out of 500. That's down two points from 2013. Average eighth grade also down from 2013.

Why? Some cite the new Common Core standards. Others say those new standards are exposing the deficiencies.

PEREIRA: Pennsylvania police are looking for two burglary and assault suspects. Caught on camera.

You need to see this -- they snatch a sleeping man's bag. The man wakes up, chases them. But then a female suspect reaches into the bag, took out taser and tased him several times. The last jolt -- yes. Sends him tumbling onto the tracks and onto the third rail.

He stayed there for some 90 seconds. Here is what's amazing, he comes too. He survives. Bottom line he survives suffers a concussion and other injuries.

But he's going to be OK. They say somehow he was insulated from third rail. Third rail is usually insulated from weather but not people. But he wasn't electrocuted which --

CAMEROTA: So you can touch the third rail --

PEREIRA: Let's not --

CAMEROTA: Tested beyond this.

PEREIRA: Never suggest that.

CUOMO: Well, there's the issue of whether or not you were grounded or not. But I'll tell you is what's going to be very interesting or not is when they catch those people and hopefully they do, the charges are going to go from robbery to perhaps attempted murder.

CAMEROTA: Horrifying.

PEREIRA: Horrifying.

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, we should find out today whether that South Carolina police officer who threw the female student to the floor on her classroom will remain on the job.

[08:20:01] Deputy Ben Fields has been accused of using excessive force. He's been accused of it before.

So we'll speak to the mother of a young man who is currently suing this officer. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us on NEW DAY.

The South Carolina school resource officer who's violent arrest of a female student has sparked rage nationwide. The FBI and the Justice Department are both launches investigations.

Joining us this morning from Columbia, South Carolina -- Samantha Taylor has a son currently involved in a lawsuit against Deputy Fields. Also with her is Bakari Sellers. He's a CNN contributor. He's an attorney and a former South Carolina representative.

Really glad to have both of you here.

Ms. Taylor, given your son's situation and interaction with this officer, which I'll duet to the meat of that in a second, I'm wondering your reaction was when you hard and saw this video involving the same deputy.

SAMANTHA TAYLOR, SON IS SUING OFFICER FIELDS: Good morning.

My reaction actually when I saw the video was that I wasn't surprised, unfortunately. I was outraged. But I was glad that someone was able to get it on tape.

PEREIRA: So the lawsuit you have is going to go to trial in January. The background here for folks, there was a fight off school grounds after school. The resource officer Fields handled the accusations. He alleged that it was a gang-related fight.

[08:25:03] That was never proven. It was never proven that your son was part of a gang, but your son Ashton was expelled and not allowed to graduate. And you believe that Officer Fields fabricated that claim of him being involved in a gang correct?

TAYLOR: Absolutely. Yes.

PEREIRA: What's happening now with your son? Was he able to graduate?

TAYLOR: Unfortunately, he did not get a high school diploma. He wasn't able to be allowed to attend any of the Richland Two high schools. So, he did have to attend a program to get his GED instead. And currently, he is in the reserves and working a regular job because he could not go to college based on the expulsion.

Most colleges wouldn't accept him that he was interested in attending and it kept him from being able to join the military as well.

PEREIRA: And, Bakari, this is exactly the issue is when a situation like this happens, that the concern is about the impact it has on a young person's future.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Exactly, Michaela. I mean, what we're talking about is criminalizing young people, and we are reinforcing and building that pipeline to prisons here, especially for persons of color. The travesty of this story is not just Ms. Taylor's son but you have two young ladies now who not only are expelled from school or kicked out of school, but you have two young ladies now who actually have criminal records, one for just videotaping what she felt to be a wrong, and the other for being obstinate in class.

Now, I think there has to be a clear difference. Nobody is excusing her being obstinate in class.

PEREIRA: Right.

SELLERS: But what we're saying is the behavior afterwards is excessive and outrageous.

PEREIRA: Well, let me ask you then, because -- you know, I was a teenager. Both y'all were teenagers. Being an obstinate teenager, we know that comes with challenges.

We don't know if there are other mitigates circumstances with either of these two girls. We don't know. We don't know. The investigation continues.

But in your mind, Samantha, do you feel there is a role for police in the classroom?

TAYLOR: I do feel there is a role. I think that the role should be for situations that might be a tad more excessive than what happened in the school day before yesterday.

PEREIRA: Right. I mean, generally, we've understood that the school resource officers are there to protect the kids from situations. And police officers are supposed to be correcting kids from that. In terms of accountability Bakari, we nose these investigations are ongoing, whether it is a civil rights investigation on the Justice Department. We know the FBI is leading an investigation.

Do you have confidence in this process?

SELLERS: Well, I have confidence in the sheriff of Richland County to do what is right. I look forward to his announcement later.

But I can honestly say to you this morning -- I don't have much confidence in the FBI coming in and handling this investigation. The comments of the FBI director dealing with incidents like this in social media and his newfound ideal of the "Ferguson Effect" somehow being chilling on good officers. But it always seems to catch the bad officers doesn't really make much sense to me and it's been rejected thoroughly by the White House and by Loretta Lynch.

So, no, the director of the FBI doesn't inspire confidence in any of us doesn't here. But we do hope these young ladies get justice at the end of the day and we hope they are able to understand this community loves them and they matter.

PEREIRA: Well, we should find out the fate of that officer later this morning.

To both of you as parent, Samantha I know you have another child. Not going to attend Spring Valley high I understand.

TAYLOR: Correct.

PEREIRA: And that is because of what happened with your son and ongoing issues?

TAYLOR: Yes. Yes. My older three children were choiced into the school. We did not actually live in this area that would have assigned us to the school. And I thought that Spring Valley was a really good place for them to be. But based on what happened with my son and the continuing issues with this resource officer, we decided that when our youngest son goes to high school next year, we will not be requesting for him to attend Spring Valley.

PEREIRA: Well, Bakari, I know you have a 10-year-old stepdaughter. It brings in this conversation into our homes, right? Of how do we talk to kids about what these videos show us? We haven't rush judgment. How do you talk to your kids about these kind of things we're seeing, especially for families of color?

SELLERS: Man, I honestly didn't know what I was doing or getting into trying to raise a young daughter a young girl. It is a learning experience every day. I'm just very blessed and thankful for her mother and the support.

But yesterday at dinner for her mother's birthday she was asking what did she do? Why did this happen? Why did the officer treat her this way? Why did the girl who videotaped, why did she get in trouble? I would have stood up for, and all you can say is that, you know, we love, we hold you up, you mean a world to us.