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Republicans Extend Party Dominance in South; New National Poll: Trump & Carson in Dead Heat; Search Area Expands for Metrojet Flight Crash. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 04, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our strength is in our unity.

[05:58:45] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has a really interesting story, but I wouldn't call him charismatic.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you add Ben and myself, we're beating every by a lot.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I never felt like I was a frontrunner, because we hadn't earned it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uncharacteristic sounds on the cockpit voice recorder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The U.S. satellite detected this heat flash while the plane was still in flight. ISIS has given no proof it was responsible.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: There are as many ways to put a bomb on the plane as there are people at the airport that touched that plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lieutenant Joe Gliniewicz was found shot to death in a wooded area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Northern Illinois police officer, his death sparked a huge manhunt. He apparently committed suicide.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The middle of the night. Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, November 4, 6 a.m. in the East. Up first, a big night for the GOP. The Republican Party looming large in the elections, Kentucky electing its second Republican governor in 40 years. His name is Matt Bevin. He promises to protect religious freedom and roll back Obamacare. The party also holding onto or gaining statehouses. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: There were also some notable ballot

measures, and they went in the way of conservatives. Voters in Houston rejecting an initiative on gay rights, Ohio rejecting marijuana. We'll look at the implications for the 2016 race.

Plus, we will get reaction from GOP candidate Donald Trump when he joins us live in the 7 a.m. hour. Stick around for that. We have complete coverage. So let's begin with John Berman, who's been tracking all of the election results.

Good morning, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, a big upset in Kentucky and a big win for Republicans there. Matt Bevin, elected governor in the state of Kentucky. He'll be just the second Republican in more than 40 years to hold the statehouse. He's a Tea Party favorite. He pretty easily defeated Jack Conway, the sitting attorney general in this state. Matt Bevin, you'll remember, he ran against Mitch McConnell in a Senate primary more than a year ago.

An outsider, someone who does not have Republican establishment support. Ran on social issues, a big supporter of Kim Davis there, against the gay marriage licensing and also against Obamacare in a state where, by the way, Obamacare has been largely successful, signing up a lot of people there.

Matt Bevin tweeted overnight. He said from the bottom of my heart, thank you to all who voted today. We are Kentucky. What does this mean? This means that the south, look at the south right in you, the only state that will have a Democratic governor is Virginia right here. The rest, solidly red.

Also in the south, Phil Bryant, he's the incumbent governor of Mississippi. He easily won re-election there.

Alisyn, as you noted, a couple really interesting ballot measures. First in Ohio, Ohio voting to be -- was deciding whether to be the first state in the Midwest to legalize marijuana for recreational and medicinal use. It voted no, 64 percent to 36 percent. This was a weird measure, though, because it would have also enshrined a monopoly for marijuana growth to just a few farms, including one owned by former boy band star and Chris Cuomo favorite Nick Lachey.

Lachey tweeted overnight, he said, "While I may not agree, the people of Ohio have spoken, and that's the way it's supposed to work. Change takes time, democracy, respect."

No marijuana monopoly for Nick Lachey.

Finally, in Houston, they were voting on what's called the hero measure, the equal rights ordinance there, an ordinance passed by the city council several months ago that protected all sorts of groups, banned discrimination based on race, gender, more importantly, more approximately sexual orientation and protected transgender people.

This ordinance was repealed, 61 percent to 39 percent. This became an interesting battle. Opponents of this measure made it about bathrooms, saying that the ordinance protected the rights of men to go into women's bathrooms and perhaps be sexual predators. That measure, again, defeated 61 percent to 39 percent. That despite support from Hillary Clinton, despite the support from a lot of people in Hollywood and even the White House -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. You get points for working in a boy band reference into politics. "A" grade, John Berman.

Meanwhile, the race for the Republican presidential nomination is growing tighter by the day. Take a look at this. Just-released national Quinnipiac poll, taken after the last GOP debate. Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson locked in a dead heat as the top choice of Republican voters.

Let's get straight to Athena Jones, live in Washington with more on these new numbers, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

This poll is different from two other national polls out in recent days that had Carson opening up a lead. But it's still more evidence that this race is shifting a bit. You can see there, Trump and Carson are neck and neck. And they're within that poll's margin of error. And when you compare the numbers now to September, you can see that trouble's numbers are pretty much unchanged but that Carson and Ted Cruz have each gained six points, and Marco Rubio has jumped five points to third place.

Meanwhile, Jeb Bush, you can see there he's way down at 4 percent. He's lost six points in that time. And there's more bad news in this poll for Bush. He has the worst net unfavorability numbers of any candidate. Fifty-eight percent view him unfavorably, and just 25 percent have a favorable view.

Another interesting point to highlight here is that, while Trump is tied with Carson at the top, when the candidates are matched up head-to-head against Hillary Clinton, Trump is the only one of the top three Republican candidates that loses to her.

There are also more new numbers out this morning from the WBUR poll in the key early voting state of New Hampshire. That poll shows that Trump and Carson are at the top, and other candidates like Marco Rubio and Chris Christie are making gains.

Now, Trump is in New Hampshire today, filing his paperwork to get on the ballot there, and I'm going to guess he's going to bring up these latest poll numbers -- Alisyn, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Athena, let's break this down. We have CNN chief national correspondent and host of "Inside Politics," John King and CNN political commentator and political anchor at New York One, Errol Louis, and CNN political commentator and presidential campaign correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman.

J.K., I start with you. It starts with a "T." It rhymes with bubble. And the word is "trouble." That excerpt a great way...

CAMEROTA: "The Music Man."

CUOMO: ... to capture the feeling. Is that what it was?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

[06:05:01] CUOMO: I love show tunes and Nick Lachey.

The mood this morning in the Democratic House is grim because of what happened yesterday. Tell us why.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it is grim, and let's be very clear. It's dangerous to over-read off-year elections, especially the odd year off-year elections when only a few states vote. So it's dangerous to over-read any mandate.

But it's also important what happened here. Look at the state of Kentucky. As John Berman just outlined, this was the state Democrats held up as a national poster child for Obamacare. They said here was a Democratic governor, Steve Bashir, who just retired, who is retiring. And he expanded Medicaid in the state. He put tens of thousands of poor people and others on Obamacare. They said, "Look, this law works."

Matt Bevin ran against it. There also were, you know, the gay rights issue, the Kim Davis issue in that state. So you can't say it was any one issue, but Republicans win in a state where gay rights and Obamacare were the big issue.

In Virginia, the Democratic governor invested a lot. He's a close friend of Hillary Clinton. He wants to keep that state as a Democratic presidential state in 2016. He invested a lot of money, a lot of personal time and a lot of his personal prestige in trying to win back the state Senate. He failed. Again, taxes were an issue. Tolls were an issue.

But Democrats tried to call the Republicans in those races not jobs on guns and extremists on social issues, and they lost. So the question now, Chris, is how do the parties react to this and perhaps overreact to this?

Might Republicans overplay their hand and think they have a mandate? Maybe. Might Democrats get scared and change how they campaign in 2016? I would look for that, especially in the short term, especially in the Senate races in these tough states.

But there is no question, we always talk about how Republicans have a problem in presidential years turning out and winning when Democrats turn out African-Americans and Latino voters. We've learned in 2010, in 2014 and again last night, Democrats have a huge structural problem in off-year elections. Their base simply doesn't come out and vote. CAMEROTA: John, I want to stick with what happened in Kentucky

for a little longer with Matt Bevin. Because he's likened to Donald Trump. He's written about -- that he's this outsider. He traveled the state in a gold Cadillac Escalade and ran as a self-funding businessman who couldn't be bought off. He also had lots of feuds with reporters and said he was black listing some of their outlets. Is there any parallel to be seen with him winning and what's going on with Donald Trump?

KING: Well, of course. Outsiders are doing well this year. And we see that in -- we see that in the national poll that we just discussed, in the state presidential polling that was just discussed. And now you get an example of it here.

And again, it's dangerous to over-read these things, but Matt Bevin got crushed literally last year by Mitch McConnell. He was Mitch McConnell's opponent. And now Republican Senate majority leader. And Mitch McConnell says his goal in 2014 was to crush the Tea Party, and he did, including crushing Matt Bevin in a primary, where Bevin, frankly, was not a very good candidate.

Bevin runs this time. Mitch McConnell is now his friend. You know, Bevin runs again this time as an outsider, and he beats Jack Conway, who also lost to Rand Paul.

So what the Democrats will say is Jack Conway is a bad candidate. Jack Conway didn't turn out the African-American vote in Jefferson County. But what Republicans will say is career politician against the businessman Tea Party outsider who said he wants to fundamentally change the way government works. And the outsider wins.

So as we talk about is Carson up, Trump up, you know, can Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz surge up in the presidential field? Make no mistake about it: voters, especially Republican voters, are looking for something different, and they're willing to broaden their horizons as they look for something different.

CUOMO: Does that end the conversation? All right, Lee (ph).

Look, you know, John is right. The question is, when you don't want to read too much into it, it's an off year. It's an odd year and all that, but sometimes there are anomalies. We can look at what was happening on the national level with Perry and others. It's still not what we're seeing with Trump and now with Carson. So sometimes things change.

You know, what's the argument, that that's what we're seeing right now, Maggie, that this is a culture shift politically in terms of where people are coming out? Especially when you look at those referendums.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I do think, to John's point, it is very easy to over-read these elections. And I think that we have collectively gone through that repeatedly since 2010. So I think you have to be very careful. And I think Ohio, in particular, was weird. I think that ballot measure was weird. I think it's very hard to make a greater read.

Kentucky, you have seen an erosion of Democrats holding state offices in the south. That basically closed last night. You saw the end of that. The fact that you saw Bevin, I think, to your point -- it's very smart -- running very similar to Donald Trump in a year where being an outsider is a huge plus. It is seen as you're anti- establishment, particularly if you're running for a gubernatorial seat. Much different than a Senate seat.

In terms of Virginia, that one I think may have the biggest electoral implications for next year. Obviously, we're talking about one state senate seat. This is one legislative seat, where there were enormous resources poured in on both sides. The Kochs came in on one side; Mike Bloomberg came in on the other.

CUOMO: McAuliffe is one of the Democrats' main tacticians. He knows how to raise money; he knows how to organize. So he is a good look at Democrats at their best in terms of playing the game.

[06:10:08] HABERMAN: Absolutely. And that state actually looks a lot like what the general electorate looks like -- general election electorate looks like for next year, as opposed to some of the other states, like Kentucky that we're seeing.

CAMEROTA: Errol, let's move on to presidential politics, because there's this new Quinnipiac poll out just minutes ago, and it is the first poll taken completely since the last debate. OK, so this is a snapshot of how people are feeling since the debate. And look at this: Trump and Carson, neck and neck.

What's interesting, of course, is that Marco Rubio's support has risen quite a bit since September. Look at Ted Cruz, basically doubling his support. Look at Bush, basically halving his support. What do you see?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The final answer to the question of who won and who lost the debate. Right? So now we know who lost the debate. That would be Mr. Bush. And we see that the three senators seem to be doing well, that Rubio and Cruz are sort of making some headway with voters in a way that maybe was coming from the Bush voters.

You know, I mean, these are both seriously conservative guys. These are people who have gone on the floor of the Senate and have made all kinds of statements and tried to stand on principle in ways that the Tea Party actually likes and respects. So they're in sort of the same lane as Bush, and they're kind of edging him out. I mean, that's what I see there.

You also see Carson, of course, this pop. I mean, he's been doing better and better. And then we see Trump kind of leveling off. And the question becomes, what will happen as we get closer and closer? We're under 90 days now until Iowa, and you know, every new debate, and certainly the first of the caucuses and primaries, is almost an entire sort of reset, you know. The whole national audience is watching all of what goes on with this stuff. And lots of people will be making up their mind based on the actual performance of the candidate. So we're getting into a real race, which is I think where we always wanted to be.

CUOMO: And the micro, it has to be true. You had the debate. You saw who did well. It's now reflected in the poll. Empirically, it has to be true. The proof is in the poll.

However, in political science, to the extent that there's any science, they have something they look at called tolerances, and that is the space between the extreme and the middle. The GOP, the silent majority that has been re-introduced by Donald Trump, is probably misidentified by him as his group. It's probably the main part of the party that we haven't really heard from.

Do you think some of that is being reflected in this latest poll, these more traditional GOP voters who are looking for some people with some experience to pop, and they saw that with Rubio and to a lesser extent with Cruz?

KING: I think they saw stronger debate performances by Rubio and Cruz, who are also newer faces. Yes, they're senators, but they're freshman senators. So they can, more than a Jeb Bush or more than a long-term politician, more maybe even than another governor, say they're, quote, unquote, you know, "new to the system." They're going to have that problem.

Trust me. As Cruz and Rubio rise up a little bit, now they're going to get more scrutiny. But I talked to a lot of people lately who are studying this data, who are doing the focus groups and looking at this, and their bottom line is that Republican voters care deeply about this election, more so than Democrats at the moment from a passion standpoint. But they're so frustrated with their own victories.

You know, not only are they mad at President Obama and losing the White House twice, but they have 31 governors. They have a big House majority and a new Senate majority. I don't think they're getting anything more, so they're willing to look outside the traditional box.

Now, if Rubio and Cruz can try to crash that, you know, so be it. We'll see the scrutiny.

But the challenge for those guys is, there's -- Errol made a great point. They've taken some votes from Jeb Bush. They might have taken votes from Carly Fiorina. But if you look again at Trump and Carson, whether you're looking at a national poll or an Iowa poll, or a New Hampshire poll, or a South Carolina poll, those two outsiders, the more bellicose one in Donald Trump, and the kinder, gentler one in Ben Carson, they're holding somewhere between 45 percent and 52 percent of the vote nationally and in the big key states. If you want to move in this race, it has to come from them.

But the other candidates are petrified about attacking -- directly attacking Trump or directly attacking Carson. Trump because they think he might use a chain saw on them, and Carson because Republicans love him. Republican voters, even voters who aren't supporting for him, view him -- aren't supporting him view him so favorably they risk attacking him.

So as Errol noted, we're inside 90 days. Candidates have been reluctant to go after either Trump or Carson or both in a sustained way, including spending TV dollars. Someone who wants to change this race is going to have to take that risk and take it pretty soon.

CAMEROTA: Things are getting interesting inside 90 days. John, Maggie, Errol, thanks so much for all that.

Coming up in our next hour, we will speak to Donald Trump about the tightening poll numbers and last night's election results. Stick around for that -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: News breaking overnight. A Russian cargo plane with five Russian crew members at the helm crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport in south Sudan. Police and local media reporting that at least 17 people killed. Two people survived. The number of dead is expected to climb higher with reports of people on the ground also being killed. The tail of the plane and other debris scattered across the banks of the west -- the White Nile River near the airport of Juba.

[06:15:02] CAMEROTA: OK. Now to the investigation into that other crash, the deadly commercial airliner crash in Egypt. Investigators expanding the search area this morning. This as we learn new details about the final moments of that Metrojet flight before it crashed.

CNN's Erin McLaughlin is live in Sharm el-Sheikh this morning with all the latest. What have you learned, Erin?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've been getting bits and pieces of information, some of that information conflicting, causing plenty of confusion. At this point, there are lots of questions and very few answers.

Now this morning, a focus of the investigation is on the tail of the plane, found, according to Russian state media, about three miles away from the wreckage, the rest of the wreckage, and it was found unburned. And that's potentially significant because of something that happened in 2001. The very same plane clipped the runway in Cairo and was taken for repairs.

And experts say that, if those repairs are done incorrectly, that could lead to negative consequences for the plane years, even decades later. At the same time, the airline saying that the plane was in perfect condition, that it passed all of its maintenance checks.

Egyptian officials are urging people not to speculate, calling reports that there was a bomb on the plane or it was struck by a missile, as speculative. And at the same time, urging people to wait for the conclusion of this investigation that is still ongoing today at the site.

Russian media reporting that they've expanded the search area to 15 square miles. Footage from the site shows Russian investigators on the ground being guarded by Egyptian military, because after all, it is an area of Islamist insurgency. And we're waiting for the results, the analysis from the two black boxes. No timetable for that analysis just yet.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much, Erin. You make a key point there. This is a little bit of a dicey area where the plane went down. But so far they have had access, and that's allowing them to get answers as quickly as possible. We'll stay on that story.

We do have more breaking news to report. At least four Egyptian officers killed and others wounded after a suicide bomber slammed its car into a police social club in northern Sinai. State media reporting ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack. The jihadists have carried out a string of deadly attacks since the military overthrew Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

PEREIRA: We'll have more on the mysterious crash of Metrojet Flight 9268. Why are officials expanding the search areas? New clues in the case, next.

Also, we're going to talk with Donald Trump at the top of the hour. Stay tuned for that.

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[06:21:41] CAMEROTA: Some new clues this morning in that Metrojet plane crash in Egypt. What do these mean? Let's analyze them by bringing in Jonathan Gilliam. He's a CNN military analyst who worked as an FBI special agent, federal air marshal and Navy SEAL. And Mary Schiavo, as well, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation. Great to have both of you and your expertise on with us this morning.

Mary, let's start with these reports that are coming out of this Russian news agency about some sounds that were detected in the cockpit. They are described as unexpected, nonstandard sounds. What do those mean to you?

SCHIAVO: What that means is a big and most likely an explosive event was captured on the cockpit voice recording, and this is something that they look for in many crashes.

For example, in TWA 800, the explosive sound that they captured on the cockpit voice recording is really all they had. Because the explosion tore way the leads from the instruments to the flight data recorder.

And so what the National Transportation Safety Board was compared that explosive sound on the cockpit voice recorder with other crashes, like Pan Am 103 or United Airlines 811 where a cargo door ripped off. And they found harmonic signatures that they could compare one catastrophic event with another, and that gave him important clues.

CAMEROTA: But Jonathan, even if there's an explosive sound, it doesn't necessarily tell investigators what it came from and if it was a bomb or some sort of structural deficiency that blew the plane apart.

JONATHAN GILLIAM, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's absolutely correct. And I think that's where our biggest issues are going to be with this investigation. It happened in Egypt close to where the vacation area is. So they may not want to give out all the details that they may be coming across.

CAMEROTA: Meaning you're concerned that the Egyptian officials, not just the Russian officials, may engage in some sort of cover-up?

GILLIAM: We could call it cover-up, or we could just say that they're not going to investigate this as fully as they could. It could be a cover-up. I mean, you have the Russians, who are at war over in Syria, not far from there. You have Egypt, where it's logistically much easier to get a bomb on board of one of these planes than it would be here in the United States.

CAMEROTA: Why?

GILLIAM: Well, it's just harder to get the -- there's all kinds of explosive material all over the Middle East, because there are so many wars over there. So for ISIS or a group like this to get a weapon onto a plane is just logistically easier to have it there.

CAMEROTA: Mary, are you concerned that, because the investigations are happening in Russia and Egypt, that we won't get the full story?

SCHIAVO: I'm very concerned about that, particularly the -- some of the statements from the airline. The airline saying, "Well, it couldn't be our plane."

Look, there are some things they could produce right now that would determine that. There's something called the LOV, the limits of validity. And for some planes, that's as low as 35,000 hours or 35,000 cycles. And after your plane reaches that age, even our own Federal Aviation Administration requires testing for widespread fatigue damage. And you have to do that with ultrasound, extra, magnetic particle testing, et cetera.

The airline can produce evidence that they did those tests. And if they did not, then the plane is suspect.

CAMEROTA: The -- St. Petersburg's newspaper, the oldest one in St. Petersburg, very well-respected has a new report out this morning. I want to bounce it off both of you in terms of what they're finding in terms of the injuries of the passengers.

[06:25:02] Forensic experts who are working on identification of bodies divide trauma into two types: burns and trauma received as a result of falling by passengers in the front part of the plane from the tail section.

But another type has signs of explosion trauma, with metal pieces in bodies of passengers. Forensic experts say it's too early to make conclusions of the nature of those injuries, but they're working on all possible scenarios, including explosion. Would this tell us, if there was shrapnel injuries, would this tell us if there was a bomb or a structural explosion?

GILLIAM: I think Mary might be able to speak more to that specific thing. But what I'm very interested in is the fact that a lot of these bodies seem -- appear to have been burn. That plus -- coupled with this heat flash that they got from the satellite, I believe from an investigative standpoint, if the plane had just had a catastrophic failure, we wouldn't be seeing as many burn injuries, and we probably wouldn't be seeing a heat flash. Because the air is so cold up there before it started burning, you wouldn't necessarily have a flash. Now I may be wrong about that, but that's what I'm seeing.

CAMEROTA: Mary, this St. Petersburg paper is the only source we have thus far that's talking about these, you know, metal pieces in bodies. Other -- other agencies have said they haven't seen that. What does this tell you?

SCHIAVO: Well, to me it says that the passengers on the plane experienced very different events in the course of the breakup of the plane. And that's to be expected in almost every crash that I've ever worked on. There's huge differences in what happens to the people on board. And that's why it's very important to do autopsies. And it's really kind of remarkably soon that they're already releasing the bodies to the families.

But the fact that the persons in the back of the plane have this explosive damage, meaning something, not necessarily a bomb -- can be the plane in an explosive event, but they had medical part -- metal particles in their bodies and other kinds of events like that, means that they withstood some sort of a blast and most likely at that point were separated from the rest of the plane, because the injuries of the others are different. So it's highly significant.

And I've been trying to -- I had to use Google Translate, but reading Russian newspapers with it. And they're reporting more and more, it's coming out, that there is a difference in the injuries to the passengers.

CAMEROTA: That is interesting. All right. Let's hope we get more information today. Jonathan Gilliam and Mary Schiavo, thanks so much for being here. Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn.

So his death, shooting death triggered a massive manhunt, everyone believing that this beloved Illinois police officer was murdered while chasing three suspects. But now there are new details about how this lieutenant really died. We have the story for you, next on NEW DAY.

We also have a reminder: we're going to get deep into politics today. We do have Donald Trump on. We're going to ask him about the polls, his tactics and for him to make the case to you this morning.

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