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New Polls Show that Trump Still Leads; Three Wounded in Jerusalem Stabbing; Muslims Protect Christians in Kenya Bus Attack; Interview with Colonel Steven Warren. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 23, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:02] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump surprisingly standing his ground. CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns has more this morning.

What is the state of play, my friend?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. The new CNN/ORC poll very much about Donald Trump's huge lead as the choice of Republicans for the presidential nomination.

Now, if you look at the numbers, we have Trump at 39 percent, then if you look at the next three candidates, Ted Cruz now firmly in second place at 18 percent, Ben Carson at 10 and Marco Rubio at 10. That's right, Donald Trump's number is bigger than the number two, three and four candidates combined. And there is real consistency here at the top for Trump over the last seven months, his largest margin.

Now, if you look at the favorability ratings, Trump is in third place, but even there he's seen a 20 percent jump suggesting Republican voters are getting far more comfortable with him. Ted Cruz in first, Marco Rubio in second.

So now, let's take a look at some of the issues voters care about. Trump running strong there, well over half of Republican voters say Trump is best at handling the economy and illegal immigration. And 47 percent say he would be best at handling ISIS. And finally, Republican voters more optimistic about their chances in 2016 with Trump in the picture. That number has jumped since August by 8 percentage points.

Meanwhile there is more rhetoric on the campaign trail this morning after Trump's latest blast against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front runner, talking about Trump in an interview with the "Des Moines Register", though, she refused to address his comments directly. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I really deplore the tone of his campaign and the inflammatory rhetoric that he is using to divide people.

(END VIDEOCLIP) JOHNS: Donald Trump for his part tweeting overnight, quote, "When I said that Hillary Clinton got schlonged by Obama it meant got beaten badly. The media knows this. Word often used in politics." And honestly, Chris, I don't know if we're ever going to get any metrics on how often that word is used in politics.

CUOMO: Well, we're sure using it a lot, Joe. I guess we can start there. Appreciate the reporting.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But before yesterday it was not a word often used in politics, particularly not in that derivation.

We are joined now by CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish who comes on to Smerconish us all the time. He's the host of "Smerconish." Hi, Michael.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, HOST, SMERCONISH: Hello. Merry Christmas.

CAMEROTA: And to you. Let's talk about these new poll numbers, just -- we have lots of different ways to slice and dice them. Here's one of the -- okay, so you can see that since November, Donald Trump has gone up once again as has Cruz who has ticked up, Ben Carson has gone down a hair, so has Marco Rubio. Yes, I was going to show you Fiorina, but we don't have that one there.

CUOMO: You struggle with these graphics.

CAMEROTA: Well, I -- because I never know exactly what to zoom in on. I mean, obviously the headline is that...

SMERCONISH: Not a numbers person.

CUOMO: ... Donald Trump -- is that Donald Trump continues to be the far and away -- this is what I was going to show you. Fiorina, look at this, from 52 percent down to 4 percent. That's in terms of who did best at the debate. Listen, Michael, you were out at the debate. 33 percent think that Donald Trump won that debate. And poor Jeb Bush, who had that moment, isn't even registering. Go.

SMERCONISH: You know, Alisyn, it's funny you circle in on that because that is something that I, too, identified as being very telling about this poll. The night of the debate in Vegas I was not the only one among the pundit class on CNN who said this was the best performance turned in by Jeb Bush thus far. 1 percent of Republicans thought that Jeb was the one who won that debate.

Donald Trump, I don't think distinguished himself on that stage. There was nothing memorable, there was no particular one liner. There was no policy statement. And yet a full third of Republicans thought that he emerged victorious that night. So, the overall picture is just one of incredible strength for him in a national survey.

You know that we nominate on a state-by-state basis. But as I look at the totality of this new CNN survey, there is no Achilles' heel evident for him. The internals show his growth, his favorability, the comfort level, evangelicals, he's getting 45 percent of the vote. Those without a college degree holding firm. So it's hard to see where the vulnerability is within the Republican party.

CUOMO: And the suggestion that it's just the talk, it's just the hype, no on the issues, put up P4. On the issues, illegal immigration, ISIS, right? And ISIS winds up being a big umbrella issue, Trump 55 percent favored on immigration, 47 percent on ISIS. Nobody is close.

[07:05:02] Senator Cruz says it's a two-man race. He's getting more than doubled and tripled by this guy. Why even talk about how Trump is anything ephemeral in this race, and what does it mean going through these primaries, how could it change?

SMERCONISH: Well, it could change in Iowa if Ted Cruz should defeat him. And you know that there are a variety of surveys showing Cruz now with an edge. It wouldn't surprise me if Cruz were to win. I would think that Iowa would either be Trump or Cruz.

New Hampshire is where, you know, the more establishment types are laying it all on the line. That's where you're seeing Chris Christie concentrate so much of his effort, that's where Jeb thinks that he can pull an upset, that's where John Kasich hopes, much like Jon Huntsman did four years ago, that he has a shot.

Chris, I'm now circling on my calendar not only New Hampshire, but also South Carolina because I always thought that Lindsey Graham perhaps would not have won South Carolina but would have run well there because he was the hometown hero. That's often been a firewall for the more moderate influences in the party. And I think now without Graham in the race and with some of the political class endorsements up for grabs, South Carolina takes on added significance.

One of the questions that I ask, because I still think that Marco Rubio is very much in this hunt, I know that Ted Cruz wants to say, well, it's a two person race. I don't believe that. Where does Rubio get an early state victory? It might not come until Nevada. And by the time we get there, a lot of things are going to happen.

CAMEROTA: Some people think it's a two person race, but the other person is Hillary Clinton. And as you know, this week some of the rhetoric has been dominated by a term that Donald Trump used that most felt was a vulgar term about how she lost in 2008.

Hillary Clinton responded to that yesterday and she seems just sort of, I don't know, resigned or exhausted by this whole having to squabble with Trump. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CLINTON: I think we are not treating each other with the respect and -- and the care that we should show toward each other. And that's why it's important to stand up to bullies wherever they are and why we shouldn't let anybody bully his way in to the presidency.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA: Michael, at the moment Donald Trump is doing well with women, female independents. But what do you think about his language, do you think that that ever comes back to haunt him with women in particular?

SMERCONISH: I've never heard it used as a verb, I've only heard it used as a noun before so he's breaking new ground on a whole host of bases. I think it catches up with him in a general election. I think it plays well to his base. The only thing that would please his core constituency more than the negative things that he has said about President Obama are those things that he might potentially say about Secretary Clinton.

It plays into -- you just had David Frum on, that excellent piece. It plays to the hostility and the anger that he identifies in his essay in "The Atlantic."

CUOMO: I have to tell you, I think the, you know, now we're starting to work, right? We're starting to work sources, we're getting ready for the ground game. There is this suggestion that is almost uniquely Democrat, it's a problem Democrats also have. There's this condescension, there's this kind of a feel of arrogance that eventually the GOP voters will understand that they can't just be angry and they will start looking at these other candidates.

I'm not seeing it, I'm not seeing it from regular people who are living their lives who say, you know what, the GOP has been right all these years, this system stinks, and none of them can fix it, we need someone on the outside. Cruz, relative outsider. Look at how he treats, you know, the leader and everybody else. Rubio, new, talks like an outsider. Carson, Trump, they dominate everything.

SMERCONISH: You keep wondering when pragmatism is going to kick in. Yesterday in "The Wall Street Journal" there was a tremendous piece written by Bret Stephens under the headline, "Let's Elect Hillary Right Now."

CUOMO: Right.

SMERCONISH: He's a conservative and he was appealing to fellow conservatives and saying this is crazy, we are driving ourselves into a ditch because, what, we can't live with half a loaf? Wouldn't we rather have someone in the White House with whom we could often agree instead of someone that we could just revile.

And yet, Chris, there is a sentiment out there that says -- and I think it gets stirred by individuals who are on AM talk radio and have cable programs, not on CNN, but they make their living by fomenting discontent, by attracting web clicks, by getting people to tune in and watch and listen. And they laugh all the way to the bank. They now control a large part of the nomination process and the party can be damned. It's not about governing, it's just about getting POed.

CAMEROTA: Fascinating perspective. Michael Smerconish, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for being here,

SMERCONISH: Thank you, guys.

CAMEROTA: We have a quick programming note for you.

[07:10:00] Tomorrow we will hear from the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He's going to join us on NEW DAY with the latest in the race. And coming up, Mike Huckabee will be here.

CUOMO: We have also breaking news for you out of Jerusalem. Three people wounded in a stabbing attack at the Jaffa Gate. This is the latest in a series of these stabbing attacks on Israelis stretching back to October.

We have CNN's Oren Liebermann. He's live in Jerusalem. Oren, what happened this time and why?

OREN LIBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, police have closed off the area during this investigation. Police say attackers here in this case they say two Palestinians came up to the Jaffa Gate, one of the main entrances to the old city of Jerusalem that leads, notably, right into the Christian corner, a very busy area this time of year.

Police say three Israelis were injured here, two of them are seriously injured, one moderately injured in this attack. Police say of those two attackers one was shot and killed at the scene, the other was shot and is in critical condition. Important to note here, police are investigating reports that one of the three Israelis injured in this attack was actually injured by Israeli fire as forces at the scene responded to this attack, but it has added to that sense of tension around the holidays here. Obviously, of course, a very critical time, a very important time for the old city of Jerusalem for nearby Bethlehem during this time of year.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay, Oren, thanks so much for that update. Meanwhile, a small contingent of U.S. special forces back in northern Syria to help in the war against ISIS. This as Iraqi forces battle in Iraq to retake the key city of Ramadi from the terror group.

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is live with the very latest on these battles. Give us an update, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. A small number of special operations forces back in northern Syria to work with anti-ISIS forces there, advise them on how to move against ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

STARR (voice-over): It is a very fraught situation there, their security is the number one concern. So, the Pentagon not openly acknowledging it.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

STARR (on camera): Saying nothing about exactly where they are and how many are there. This effort in Syria unfolding as across the border in Iraq, the battle for Ramadi continues. A short time ago a U.S. official told me today it is very slow going, very methodical work for the Iraqi forces in Ramadi. They are moving towards the city center, they are encountering road blocks, barricades, IEDs, bombs, booby traps, all of it. There are whole houses in Ramadi that are wired to blow.

So it's very slow going for the Iraqi forces. The Golden Division, Iraqi special operations forces trained by the U.S., are in the fight. The hope is after months, seven months after Ramadi fell to ISIS when Iraqi forces ran away, the seven months of U.S. training, U.S. effort to get the Iraqis ready, hopefully they -- the Pentagon believes it will work this time. This is a strategic must win, not just for the Iraqis, but for the Obama administration desperate to show its anti- ISIS strategy is going to work.

Chris?

CUOMO: All right, Barbara. A lot at play here. Thank you for the reporting on that.

We want to tell you about a heartracing scene playing out in Kenya. This bush -- this bus was ambushed by armed militants ready to kill Christians as Muslim passengers stand up against the terrorists and do the unthinkable.

CNN correspondent David McKenzie live from Johannesburg with more. This sounds almost like a fabulous story, like it was made up, but it is real. What happened?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, it's very real. Good morning. And it's quite extraordinary. We spoke to a survivor who was on that bus, described it in great detail how these Kenyan Muslims stood up to an Al Qaeda-linked group.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

MCKENZIE (voice-over): On Monday more than 100 passengers were crammed on this bus traveling to Mandera on the chronically insecure border with Somalia. Bullets ripped through the side of the bus in an ambush.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were two groups, one group -- the other group. So, I immediately see people running to the road to stop us and they told us to get those who are Muslims to come out. Go back -- go back to the bus.

MCKENZIE: A man on the bus told CNN there were 12 Christians on board. The gunmen wanted to identify them and execute them. He says Muslim passengers helped hide some of them on the bus. And they gave the Christian women head scarves before the gunmen made them line up on the road. They stood strong, said the witness, telling the gun men, quote, "If you want to kill us, then kill us. There are no Christians here". Al Shabaab then fled.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are Kenyans, we are not separated by religion, everybody can profess their own religion but we are still -- we are one country, we are one people as a nation, and that was a very good message."

MCKENZIE: Civilians have suffered through countless Al Shabaab attacks in the border regions of Kenya.

[07:1500] Earlier this year, Al Shabaab attacked Garissa University, killing 147 innocent students. Again, they singled out Christians.

More than 20 were killed in a shocking bus ambush last year.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

MCKENZIE (on camera): Well, there really is a sense that it could have been so much worse. Tragically two people were killed in the incident, one a Christian man who ran into the bush away from this bus, but it's clear the death toll could have been so much higher if it wasn't for the brave actions of these Kenyan Muslims who risked it all, in fact, to save their fellow citizens.

CAMEROTA: David, such a powerful story this Christmas week. Thank you for bringing that to us.

Well, an incredible fight for survival in China to tell you about.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLI)

CAMEROTA (voice-over): A 19-year-old pulled live after being buried under landslide rubble for 67 hours. Chinese state media reports a second person was also pulled out alive, but later died of his injuries. According to state media, four bodies have been pulled from the mud and rubble following Sunday's landslide.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO: Kentucky's new governor, Matt Bevin, is ordering clerks names to be removed from all marriage licenses.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): This move is an attempt to protect religious beliefs following the controversy involving Clerk Kim Davis. You'll remember that, she was jailed after refusing to issue licenses to gay couples.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (on camera): But officials for the ACLU still aren't pleased. They say Bevin is further complicating things since state law requires that clerks names be on licenses, that's their job.

CAMEROTA (on camera): Okay, some incredible video to show you.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA (voice-over): A champion skier counting his blessings after narrowly avoiding disaster. That was Marcel Hirscher. As you can see, he was almost taken out by a drone on live TV. That drone was carrying broadcast equipment. It hit the snow at full speed, it missed him by just a couple of feet, maybe inches. When all was said and done, champion skier posting on social media, quote, "Heavy air traffic in Italy, #lucky me."

CUOMO (voice-over): Wow, he was lucky there.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (on camera): You're going to see more drones, not less, especially in sports coverage.

CAMEROTA (on camera): I know, we do keep seeing them (inaudible).

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): All right, the U.S. is taking a more limited role in the Iraqi fighting to retake Ramadi from ISIS, but they are there. And the question is, how much is enough, how much is too much, and is any of it really working? We have a top U.S. military official joining us live from Baghdad next.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:20] CUOMO (on camera): Right now Iraqi troops are fighting to retake Ramadi, a city that has been held by ISIS since May. The efforts being conducted with limited U.S. aerial support.

We have Colonel Steven Warren, he's the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve and the anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq. He joins us live from Baghdad. First, Colonel, may I give you early Christmas wishes for you and your family, and thank you very much for your service.

As you're well aware, the politics in this country suggests strongly that we are not getting it done against ISIS, we are losing, we are weak, the president has failed on this. What is your experience on the ground, sir?

COL. STEVEN WARREN, SPOKESMAN, OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE: Well, Chris, thank you for having me. Greetings from Baghdad over Christmas.

We've seen some notable progress really over the last several weeks. As you know, a year ago the coalition began conducting strikes across the breadth and depth of this battlefield to file ISIL. We've begun a training program a year ago to train Iraqi forces to be able to take their country back. And in the last several weeks, we've begun to see that happen, that training has started to take hold.

Two weeks ago, just around Ramadi, we've seen the Iraqi security forces really begin to encircle and constrict their presence around Ramadi like a boa constrictor, squeezing ISIL out of that city. They took the Zangora check point, they cleared the al-Tamim, the largest neighborhood in Ramadi. It's just to the south. They secured the Anbar operations center, and as recently as yesterday, they were finally able to bridge the Euphrates River, a canal off of it, and begin to build up combat power right there at the outskirts of the city center.

CUOMO: One of the things that is commonly misunderstood when I speak to people with your expertise is the concept of time. They say that in America, everybody thinks this is going to get done quickly and if it isn't, then we're losing. That's not the reality. What is the reality?

WARREN: The reality is this is going to be a long and difficult fight. And I'll use Ramadi as simply the example of what's we're really seeing here. Ramadi is a dense urban area, it's very built up. And the Iraqis are having to try to clear this dense urban area.

And urban fighting, Chris, is the toughest fighting there is. It's scary. It's hot. It's built up areas. It's constricted and it is very difficult to move through these urban areas. Now, this enemy has had months to place mines, booby traps, machine gun in placements. They've wired entire houses to be bombs. We call them house born IEDs.

And so this enemy has had time to set up their defense inside of this city and it's going to be very difficult and is going to be a very slow process for the Iraqis to slowly, methodically and carefully clear their way through this city. And that's what we're going to see everywhere. This is a large country. ISIL has gotten a hold of a fairly large swathe of territory here and across the border in Syria.

CUOMO: Looking at your background you have a lot of experience in theaters in and around that region. The idea that if the U.S. came heavy and hard right now, that it would end it very quickly, is that a realistic expectation?

WARREN: Well, that is an interesting concept. The idea that an American military power could break the ISIL army is in fact correct, but what you have to ask is what comes next. The problem here in Iraq and in Syria is not something that we can bomb our way out of.

[07:25:00] This is an idea that has to be defeated. And this is an idea that can really only be defeated through the political process, through the reconciliation process here in Iraq, through getting rid of Bashar al-Assad in Syria who really is the reason ISIL has achieved all that they have achieved. You know, he has treated his population so horribly over the last 10 years that it gave rise to this type of evil.

CUOMO: Now, you are not a politician. I am very slow to ever ask anything to any of our fighting men and women that even smacks of the political, but one of the things I keep hearing from people who are doing the actual fighting is these rebel groups complicate the picture in Syria.

Yes, they say what you just said. Assad is a problem. He's bad for the people. But this new report we just got says that 60 percent of the rebel groups there, and there are many different factions, we know that, all share Islamic extremist tendencies not unlike what ISIS believes in. So, you know, if you are arming some of them, if they take over for Assad, is there any guarantee you get a better situation?

WARREN: It's an extraordinarily complex situation in Syria, more complex than I personally have ever seen anywhere in the world. So, it is a very tricky situation that we need to work our way through. There is good guys and there is bad guys. What we need to do, Chris, is find the moderate Syrian opposition that we can work with, empower them and bring them into a position where they can then begin to run this country.

Look, in Syria it's regular people, it's people like you and me who just want to raise families and live their lives. We have to give that a chance to really take hold and that's what will end some of this radical extremism that we see everywhere.

CUOMO: Resolve is such an interesting word. As we come into Christmas, the heads and hearts of the fighting men and women, how are they doing over there, how is the resolve?

WARREN: Well, Chris, the resolve is great. And, you know, I do want to say that the American service members, the coalition service members here in Iraq and my brothers and sisters in arms all around the world deployed everywhere, we'll stand the watch over Christmas so that everyone can enjoy that season with their friends, their family and their loved ones and know that we're looking out for you.

CUOMO: Well, I know it sometimes seems over there that we don't understand what is going on, we don't understand what the sacrifice takes. But let me speak for many when I say thank you for what you do every day. We know that you're there for us. Colonel Warren, all the best for Christmas. Thank you for coming on NEW DAY, sir.

WARREN: Thank you, sir. Merry Christmas.

CUOMO: To you as well. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay, Chris. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, but this time around, the anti- establishment feeling seems to be keeping his numbers in the low single digits. So, what is keeping him in the race? He tells us live next.

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