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Interview with Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York; CNN Poll: Trump Running Away From GOP Field. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 23, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: -- is the airport's responsibility -- Chris.

[06:30:03] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'll take it, Rene. Because what is the airline and airport's response to this report?

MARSH: Well, you know, Port Authority is in charge of the airport. We reached out to them to find out what kind of changes have been put in place since this incident happened to make sure it doesn't happen again. We have not received a response as yet.

And, you know, the fact of the matter is, because this person, the intruder got away, investigators still don't know what the motive was here. And the congressman who represents the district where JFK is located, he's extremely concerned about the fact that there are so many questions about this mystery man who made it on to the taxiway at JFK Airport. He tells CNN that he has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security. He's asking for an independent assessment of JFK's perimeter security, to make sure it's up to par.

Here he is. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D), NEW YORK: We don't know whether or not they were there casing the airport, whether they were testing security, what the purpose was. And it would seem to me that that person then had some idea if they got away of weak points in the security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. So, there it is -- the concern really is, is the perimeter security at JFK Airport, which by the way, one of the busiest in the country, is it up to par? Congressman Meeks says this should not happen, again, asking the Department of Homeland Security to step in and do an independent assessment to see where the weaknesses are, what needs to be improved -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, this is troubling on many of levels.

Rene, thank you.

So, with all of this in mind, what are officials going to do to fix this? Is the perimeter security a question at other airports, as well? We are going to be speaking more with Congressman Meeks live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:09] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Another incident raising the alarm about airport security ahead of the holiday season, a man breaching the fence at JFK last week, just walking on to the taxiway. That man still at large and many want to determine his intent.

Let's bring in New York Congressman Gregory Meeks. He represents the area where the airport is located.

Early Christmas wishes to you and the family.

Doesn't it seem, Congressman, like we have these conversations at different intervals where, wow, this was really bad, wow, this really exposes weakness in our security, this guy walked in, the cops didn't even get there in time, he's gone, who knows where he is, who knows why he was there. And then it seems like we don't get any better.

Is that -- is that an unfair characterization?

MEEKS: It's a concern and that's why I'm asking for the Department of Homeland Security to come in and do an independent investigation. And make recommendations to how we make our airport more secure.

You know, I don't want people to panic or anything of that nature. But when you see that you've got a hole in your system, it's got to be fixed. And what is disconcerting to me is not only that he got in and on to the tarmac, but he got out.

You know, to me that means either you knew something about the airport, and how you know how to get out, and also the fact that it took a period of time for law enforcement to get on the scene so that we could have made sure that we caught this guy. And now, I want to make sure there is an investigation that is continuing so we can find who this guy is and what he was doing on the tarmac because we're not sure.

CUOMO: Some of the chatter out of the authorities yesterday was, you know, this is probably a guy who was mentally ill. It doesn't make it any better. That means you have an unsophisticated guy who was able to wander on.

But what it does, what this does, what the information about that visa application for the San Bernardino murdering wife says is government can't get this done. Even something like protecting one of the nation's biggest airports, you can't do it.

Fair criticism?

MEEKS: Well, I think that we've got to fix it. I think that there is also when I called in the Port Authority to my office to find out what was going on, there are a number of cases in which people were caught who attempted to get on the tarmac.

CUOMO: Fair point. MEEKS: So, we just need to fix and continue to review and revise

wherever we find a weak link. And that's what we have to continually do to keep up with whoever is trying to become -- to invade the airport or try to get in through the visa program. So, we've got to keep fixing and moving and catching up. You can never be complacent.

CUOMO: I'm with you. But I mean, there are holes and then there are hole. You know what I mean? If I like walk through your front door into your house, it's not like we need to fix that problem. It's no, no, no, this should have never happened. If a guy hops the fence and walks on to JFK and the cops can't even get there time, you've got more than just a let's fix this, let's move progress towards perfection. You've got a bigger problem than that. Don't you think?

MEEKS: Well, is there something that's got to be fixed. And that's why I'm really upset, because not only that, the time lapse for police to get there, where the communications between the Port Authority police and the New York City Police Department and TSA, whether or not that was there.

Also, what is really concerning to me is the perimeter, because we're talking about protecting the perimeter. We have this perimeter intrusion defense system. This fence -- they cost a lot of money. The first question I have is did the fence work or didn't it work.

CUOMO: Right.

MEEKS: I found that that fence was not what was infiltrated. There's other parts where the fence is not there. So, now, the question is -- and there are areas where the tenants of the port authority are in charge of security. So, is that does that need to be fixed? Do we need to make sure that that perimeter fence is around the entire airport? How can -- are there enough patrols?

Those questions that have to be answered and fixed at JFK Airports and maybe other airports about.

CUOMO: So you get to the metaphor value of this. And it takes us back to San Bernardino, the waiver, the visa application for that murdering wife is now out there. And we all know the speculation that they missed what she was doing online. Yes, it was in another language and she was using a name -- a different name and it was direct messages on Facebook, this is harder to detect.

But it makes people feel like government can't get the job done and it's fueling a lot of fear and animosity towards refugees. How can we let refugees in the country when you let this lady go even though she was obviously into all bad motives to come into this country.

MEEKS: Well, listen, as we have zero room for error because we don't want any type of malfunction of the system.

CUOMO: But you can't guarantee me 100 percent.

[06:40:00] MEEKS: But -- nothing is ever guaranteed 100 percent. And we've got to continue to work hard to try to make sure that we review and review and review, and if you find a deficit someplace, that you fix it and you move forward.

But when you look at the number of cases that are not reported, where individuals were stopped, it shows that the system is functioning and people in government is working, but it is not perfect. I don't know anything that is, but I know that we've got to continue to work and understand the climate in which we live in and that was important to me even when I talked to the Port Authority and when you talk to the Department of Homeland Security, that they're not complacent, that they understand that even with the successes that they have had, they can't afford to have one failure.

And they've got to keep moving and try to stay on top of it, and it's a continuing process. So, people shouldn't be panicked like we don't have a system out there that is working. There is. But there is no 100 percent guarantees. That's why we also need folks to -- if you hear something or see something, say something.

CUOMO: I understood.

MEEKS: I think that that employee that was on the airport that saw and challenged that person and then reported him immediately, that's a good thing.

CUOMO: Wind up being the first line of defense, important thing is not to allow the exception become the rule. Congressman Meeks, thank you. We will stay on this to see what the changes are.

MEEKS: Thank you. Good to be with you, Chris.

CUOMO: Always.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Chris, break out the barbecue. It looks like it's going to be a warm Christmas. Still, there are some areas of the country that could see more severe weather this weekend. We have the latest on your holiday forecast, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:15] CAMEROTA: We have some breaking news out of Jerusalem. Three people wounded in a stabbing attack at the Jaffa gate. A spokesman for the Israeli police says two of the victims are seriously wounded. The attacker was shot at the scene, his condition unknown at this hour.

This is just the latest in a string of near daily attacks on Israelis since last month. We'll have a live report from Jerusalem on the latest coming up.

CUOMO: Donald Trump decisively the man to beat as Republicans turn the corner into 2016. Look at this new CNN/ORC poll out just this morning. His lead, you can't find a better superlative, he is more than the next three people combined.

Look at this rivals, the numbers are in front of you -- 39 percent, yes, he doesn't have a majority yet, but he doesn't need one at this point. Eighteen for Cruz, taking it from Carson, Carson at 10, Rubio together, they were 38.

Republicans say they also trust Trump most on major issues -- the economy, ISIS, immigration. Right now Republicans are pointing at this man as their hope for the future.

CAMEROTA: Well, a mysterious streak of light appeared over California and Nevada last night. Look at this -- the bright light igniting social media.

CUOMO: UFO.

CAMEROTA: Exactly. People asking what it was. It turns out it was not a UFO, Chris.

CUOMO: Who says that?

CAMEROTA: I do. It was not a meteor either.

CUOMO: Who says that?

CAMEROTA: Officials say.

CUOMO: Officials?

CAMEROTA: Yes. Officials say it was Russian space debris entering the atmosphere.

CUOMO: Blaming it on the Russians.

CAMEROTA: Or was it?

CUOMO: And now the control room saying we have no time to chat. So convenient.

Dreaming of a white Christmas, Chad Everett, you're always dreaming. What do you see on that map, my friend?

CAMEROTA: Dreamer.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Christopher Charles, you will be fishing on Christmas Day.

CUOMO: Really?

MYERS: I mean, it will be that nice. Seventy something across all of the Northeast. I mean, this is just unheard of. Even when I was a kid growing up in Buffalo, we had snow every single Christmas. It's not even close this year.

In fact, severe weather take, it feels like spring outside. We have spring type weather across the East Coast. Temperatures are in the 60s and 70s. There may be tornadoes not that far around Memphis today, there will be record highs. Every red tot today is a forecast record high. It will be well above normal. Look at tomorrow, New York City gets to 72. L.A. -- or 71. L.A. gets to 62. I mean, we're not even close. We're ten degrees warmer than Los Angeles here in New York and we're forecasting a record high on Christmas Day, again, 64 degrees.

Record warmth across the East, cold across the West. If you're going skiing in the Rockies, it couldn't be a better place to go. But if you're traveling through the middle part of the country, watch out for significant hail, tornadoes and gusty winds -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I'm going to have to change my sweater dress plan for tomorrow, Chad. Thank you for that --

MYERS: I know.

CAMEROTA: -- fashion update. Thank you.

All right. Trump is on top in the latest poll. And the GOP insiders are sinking. Is this the end of the GOP as we know it? A provocative new piece in the Atlantic explains how the GOP can save itself. David Frum, the author, is here next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:51:42] CAMEROTA: Donald Trump, the undisputed leader, atop the Republican field this morning. New CNN polling out just an hour ago shows Trump at 39 percent nationwide, that is more than the next three candidates combined. Many of Trump supporters say they feel abandoned by politics as usual and they like Trump's message of taking back the country.

Let's bring in David Frum. He's a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He's now senior editor at "The Atlantic" and he's written a new article called "The Great Republican Revolt" in which he offers solutions to fix the party.

David, nice to see you this morning.

DAVID FRUM, THE ATLANTIC: Hey, Alisyn. Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So this is a provocative piece --

FRUM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: -- here you're speaking about the Republican revolt. Let me just read a passage for our viewers.

You say, "The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we use to call middle Americans, middle class, and middle aged. Not rich and not poor. People who are irked when asked to press one for English and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description."

So tell me what your evidence is for seeing this new demographic.

FRUM: Well, there is a lot of survey evidence backing up those words. For example, if you ask white people who didn't graduate from college, do you think you'll be better off in ten years, will your children have a better future than you, they offer the most pessimistic answers of any group in America, more pessimistic than groups who are doing in some ways objectively worse in economic terms, more pessimistic than blacks, more pessimistic than Latinos.

And interestingly, the second most pessimistic group, the only group almost as pessimistic as whites who didn't go to college are whites who did go to college. They're also very pessimistic.

And Donald Trump's message which isn't hope and the best of America is yet to come, but, hey, we're dying here, the country is crippled -- that resonates, it sounds true.

CAMEROTA: I mean, he does say, let's make America great again. You know, he does sprinkle in that we're going to be winning, there's going to be so much winning when I'm president, you want know what to do with yourself.

But, David, answer this, how did a billionaire New Yorker come to be the voice for these people?

FRUM: He offers -- partly by default. You know, the Republican Party's idea after the Romney defeat in 2012 was they were going to put a nice dish of Jeb Bush in front of the Republican Party and it was going to eat it whether it liked it or not. And if they didn't like it, there was going to be $100 million of super PAC money to make them eat it.

And the party changed nothing. It had this message this 2012. I mean, when you think about it, it's kind of incredible. We're going to take away Medicare from people under 55, we'll use that money to finance a giant tax cut, this at a time when Americans have never had, again, this is data, less confidence in business and the traditional leaders of the economy.

And the only change we're going to make between 2012 and 2016 is we're going to have much more immigration. And we're going to have Jeb Bush, the brother of the president who you didn't like last time, to execute all of it.

I mean, that seems looking back on it, not a very plausible plan, but that was the plan, and Donald Trump knocked that plan to the floor.

CAMEROTA: So, David, this morning, the polls suggest, as they have for months now, that Donald Trump is the far and away leader. Does Trump win the GOP nomination?

FRUM: Look, it's still true that 70 percent of Republicans don't approve of him and say they will never -- a majority of the party says they will never vote for him.

[06:55:07] And he retains the hostility of anybody in the Republican Party who can write a big check. So, those things matter.

But if Republicans are to stop him, they need do more than simply say, we're going to offer you back what we did in the Bush years, plus more immigration.

CAMEROTA: OK. So you have some suggestions in the article of what you believe could fix the GOP. Let's go through them. The first thing you say is double down. What does that mean?

FRUM: Yes, I offer four options to the Republican Party. I like one. I don't think they're going to choose the one I like. Double down means Republicans can say, hey, the problem wasn't the message, the problem was the messenger. The problem is Jeb Bush.

Let's get a more fresh face, more attractive version of Jeb Bush, here is Marco Rubio, same message, new guy. That's option one.

Option two is to say, you know what, let's make tactical on immigration. Just as we did on abortion back on 1980s. Let's get Ted Cruz, same message on everything else, but we can moderate our immigration message in a way that appeals to the Trump voters.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

FRUM: Option three, the one I like, is, you come up with a plan to address the economic concerns of middle income Republicans. I have some details on that in the article.

CAMEROTA: Yes, what are those? I mean, what is the headline, what would reform look like?

FRUM: True reform would like, hey, you remain a party of enterprise and business, but you can concentrate more of your tax cutting energy in the middle, less at the top, and you would think about investing in the country in ways that create jobs for Republican supporters.

You know, hard infrastructure, not the soft infrastructure that President Obama did, but roads and bridges and water treatment plants on which he spent very little money in the stimulus and you would restrict immigration, but in a way that boosted wages at the middle rather than as we do now depressing wages at the middle.

CAMEROTA: OK, and last --

FRUM: I don't think they're going to follow that advice.

CAMEROTA: OK, last, you say change the rules of the game. Isn't that exactly what Donald Trump has been doing?

FRUM: Well, that's what the party elite is going to try to do to him. And changing -- that's what they tried to do in 2016 to write the rules so that they would smooth Jeb Bush's path to the nomination.

But there is something else they can do. And that is, hey, the Republican Party is it in many ways is very successful, it controls the Senate, it controls the House, it controls most of the states. Winning the presidency may require changes that Republicans don't like, and many would say, you know what, good enough, we control Congress, we control the states. If it takes change to win the presidency, maybe the presidency,

although it's good to have, isn't a must have. That was the kind of choice the Democrats made back in the 1980s, when they control everything except the White House. You can see the Republicans making that deal in the future.

CAMEROTA: You say that you're certain that Donald Trump will be the nominee. He's not leading at the moment in Iowa, Ted Cruz is. But who do you think is going -- I mean, explain the path. Who's going to win if not him?

FRUM: I think there is going to be an enormous effort, an enormous amount of money to sell the party on Marco Rubio. He is the least dislike figure in the Republican Party. He is -- certainly if he did it in the old days of smoke filled rooms and say, you know, after you take all the vetoes, who is the guy who nobody vetoes, that looks like Rubio and there's going to be a lot of money behind him.

And I think Cruz will discover that his message, although very powerful in Iowa, is a little too sectarian, a little too overtly religious for the northern states which have a lot of delegates. People forget that.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

FRUMP: But this is -- although the Republican votes may be in the South, Republican delegates are in the Midwest and North, too.

CAMEROTA: There you go.

David Frum, thanks so much for sharing your article. Great to talk to you.

FRUM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: We're following a lot of news this morning. So let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Trump leads in the national poll with 39 percent.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is turning more and more into a two-man race between Donald Trump and me.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I really deplore the tone of his campaign.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's great at being the victim. This will enhance her victimology.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search for the so-called affluenza teenager.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one knows where he is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hate to say I told you so what I told you so. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When is the last time you recall disciplining Ethan for anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't remember.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Special Operations Forces, they are now on the ground in northern Syria.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There to help anti-ISIS forces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want the president to develop a strategy and I want to be able to convey that to the U.S. military.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: And good morning. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. Michaela is off today.

So all the controversy does not seem to slow Donald Trump. New CNN polling out this morning shows Trump the overwhelming favorite in the GOP as 2016 approaches. He even beats the next three in the field combined.

CUOMO: We have Democrat polling, as well. Hillary Clinton is leading there very highly. But she's also making it more and more about Trump. She is talking about his language. Trump surprisingly standing his ground.

CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns has more this morning.

What is the state of play, my friend?