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Deported Migrants From Greece Arrive In Turkey; Pressure Mounts To Repeal North Carolina Transgender Law; UNC Versus Villanova For National Title; Does Trump Have A Women Problem? Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired April 04, 2016 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:31:30] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, hundreds of migrants shipped out of Greece as part of a controversial deal brokered by the E.U. and Turkey. This morning, three boats filled with migrants arriving in a Turkish port city.
CNN international correspondent, Phil Black, is live in Turkey with the breaking details for us.
PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, the third of the three vessels is what you can see behind me there that have come into this Turkish port. The 202 migrants in total are being relocated here today, mostly from Pakistan. Some Afghans as well and also two Syrians.
This is all part of this new deal between Europe and Turkey that Europe says is necessary because as individual European countries have closed their borders to migrants. It has created a backlog in Greece.
There are around 50,000 people stuck in squalored camps there and there are more still coming. So Europe hopes that this deal, shipping them back, will begin to reduce that burden, but also dissuade others from making the journey as well.
It is a controversial deal because its critics say that it is Europe abdicating its moral responsibility. There are also legal concerns. Concerns about Greece being able to legally assess the asylum applications of all of the people that are there.
And legal concerns about sending them back to a country like Turkey, which some say is not the best place to offer necessary protections and so forth. The numbers today are not particularly big, just 202.
Within the context of the source of movements of people we have seen here. Remember, a million migrants moved to Europe last year. There are 2.7 million Syrians in Turkey alone so 202 for this first day is not huge.
But as a course of action, as a step, it is a very dramatic piece of action to be taken by Europe as it tries to deal with this problem that has no easy solution. Chris, back to you.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Truer words never spoken. Phil Black, this is a difficult situation and really no solution in sight. Please keep us apprised of what happens there. We'll take a little break.
When we come back, critics are calling North Carolina's new transgender law unconstitutional, contravening federal concepts, but this is really what we call a like it or not law. What will the governor do in that state? Will he repeal it? What's going to happen in Mississippi with the governor there? We're going to take this on for you right after the break.
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[06:37:54] CUOMO: All right. So this is a big situation that's bubbling up as a culture war here in the United States. Mississippi and North Carolina now in the culture crosshairs. Here's the latest, 120 plus CEOs from Apple, Starbucks, demanding the governor of North Carolina repeal a so-called bathroom bill.
This new law forces transgender people to use public bathrooms that correspond to their gender on their birth certificates. Opponents say it is discriminatory, against federal low.
But really this is about what people in the state like and don't like. Let's have this cultural conversations. Let's bring Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council supports the law.
Peter, always a pleasure to see you. Thanks for coming on NEW DAY to make the case.
PETER SPRIGG, SENIOR FELLOW FOR POLICY STUDIES, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Thank you, Chris.
CUOMO: Peter, do you accept my premise? We know what federal law is. We know what Title 9 is. We know what the Supreme Court did with the fourteenth amendment, equal protection right to marriage for gay couples, LBGT couples.
But this is about something else. This is also about what is liked and not liked. Isn't that the case that North Carolina, Mississippi, should be making? We don't care about the law?
This is about what we like as a people and we don't like these transgender people getting what they want so we're going to stop it
SPRIGG: I think it's ridiculous to argue that this North Carolina law is in any way unconstitutional. The concept of gender identity appears nowhere in the constitution as a protected category.
And even the statutory laws, like the law against sex discrimination that was adopted in 1964, to argue that it was part of the legislative intent in Congress in 1964 to protect gender identity or transgender persons under that law.
So I do disagree with the premise that there is anything whatsoever unconstitutional about this.
CUOMO: I think it's more about culture and I think we should have that discussion, but just to be clear Title 9, OK, which is obviously the discrimination on discrete categories.
There hasn't been a specific about transgender yet, but we do know that transgender has been in many cases applied as a Title 9 requirement category.
[06:40:09] So that would be the legal basis of this contravening federal law would then trigger funding mandates about places that receive federal funds.
But again, whether this is legal or not can be tested out, but isn't this something else? This about what folks in North Carolina and Mississippi right now, Georgia recently want and don't want.
SPRIGG: Well, I agree that it's about culture and it has always been a part, not only of our culture, but of every culture that ever existed that we separate biological males and females for the purpose of certain intimate activities like bathing, dressing, and going to the bathroom. That's all that this bill provides is retaining the status quo with respect to that long-standing tradition.
CUOMO: But times change and that's what this is really about. Are you ready to change in North Carolina? Are you ready to respect transgender people for what they say they are?
Because you can't point to any potential danger here. I know that's what you are doing and others are doing saying there is a risk to women.
But we don't see that play out in any statistic that you can cite. I know you have been using the baker analogy that we saw with gay marriage. You should have these bakers be having to bake cakes for people they don't want.
You shouldn't have these girls having to go into bathrooms with people they don't want. We don't see that risk. However, we do see the reciprocal risk. We do see the risk to transgender people when they called out and exposed to this kind of scrutiny.
SPRIGG: Well, even if the fears that many people have, and I think legitimate fears that people have about their safety in --
CUOMO: How are they legitimate?
SPRIGG: When you see someone who is obviously a man, regardless of whether they're wearing a dress or not, I think a woman in a restroom where she expects only to be with women or a girl who expects only to be with girls has a right to feel uncomfortable about that, and to feel like her privacy has been violated. It's a privacy issue. Even if their safety is never violated in practice.
CUOMO: But the point is that the reason it looks like a man is because the person identifies as a man. So they will go into the man's bathroom. You're saying yes, but on the birth certificate, it still says that that person is a woman. So they have to go into the woman's bathroom. You're creating the problem. You're not solving it. SPRIGG: No, the transgender people are creating the problem by pretending to be the opposite of their actual biological sex even when people can see that they are their biological sex.
CUOMO: That's the pretending part, though, Peter, right, because that's the concern. You're saying they're pretending. They are saying they are not pretending and this is part of cultural evolution. You seem unwilling to embrace that.
SPRIGG: I am unwilling to embrace that and most of the American public is unwilling to embrace the idea that people's inner feelings somehow Trump, the objective reality of their biological reality of their bodies.
It's very much a world view issue and it's one where the American public is not on the side of the transgender movement. But I want to point out something about even so meeting the needs of these transgender individuals.
This bill does not -- first of all, this bill applies only to government-owned buildings. So it doesn't say your privately owned restaurants and stores and businesses can adopt whatever policy they want.
This bill is about keeping the government out of private businesses, not getting the government involved in them. So you know, I think that's actually a very generous accommodation, but transgender activist consider that to be a form of discrimination.
CUOMO: And the reason why is because what worse message can be sent than the state action being we are against the freedom of these individuals. Look, this is going to wind up playing out in court. Right now, it's political.
That's why all our eyes are on North Carolina to see if this governor undoes what has been done. In Mississippi as well to see what the governor does there at all.
Peter Sprigg, please stay with us to continue this conversation as it moves through the different states. Appreciate it as always.
SPRIGG: Thank you.
CUOMO: All right, John.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: All right, Chris, the sweet 16 and elite 8 have been largely upset free. Will tonight's national championship game between North Carolina and Villanova, will it be different? We will tell you who will win tonight next.
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[06:48:34] BERMAN: It's North Carolina and Villanova for all the marbles tonight. March Madness wraps up. Andy Scholes live in Houston. You've been having a great time there, Andy. What's going on in the "Bleacher Report." ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John. How is it going? We started with 68 teams a couple of weeks ago down to the final two. We got one seed North Carolina taking on two seed Villanova tonight here in Houston, Texas at NRG Stadium.
For North Carolina, they are looking for their first national championship since 2009. Their legendary head coach, Roy Williams is looking for the third of his career.
Their Villanova on the other hand, they are trying to win their first title since 1985. It doesn't get any bigger than this. Yesterday, I sat down with both of the coaches and asked them what they are going to tell their team tonight before the big game.
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JAY WRIGHT, VILLANOVA HEAD COACH: I'm going to tell you it's like every other game for us. We are not playing for the national championship. We are playing a basketball game to beat Carolina. That's we are doing and we love that.
ROY WILLIAMS, NORTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH: I'll let the moment and hopefully the experience of being there for worth (inaudible) trying to make to say the right thing. You never know it at the end of game, but if we won, I said the right thing. If we didn't, I say I screwed it up.
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SCHOLES: Action tips off tonight 9:19 Eastern on TBS. Las Vegas has the tar heels as a two-point favorite. Guys, they don't call his show "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper for no reason. Jake Tapper has already unfortunately for us won the CNN anchor bracket pool.
[06:50:07] BERMAN: It's just like the CNN quiz show except he lost.
CUOMO: Somewhere Jake Tapper rolled over in his sleep.
PEREIRA: You'll be hearing from him later.
All right, still ahead here, could Donald Trump's feud with Megyn Kelly, flip-flopping on abortion, could all of that catch up to him or is it catching with him? Does he have a problem with women? We're going to take a look at that coming up next on NEW DAY.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm surging with women. One of the things coming out, I'm watching television. They said Trump is surging with women. I said, really? That's amazing. It's incredible.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PEREIRA: That was back in September. It is a very different situation right now. Donald Trump trying to recover from a tough week. He had five different positions on abortion in three days.
[06:55:03] All of this putting a spotlight on his favorability rating among women. We are going to discuss with CNN political commentator, Margaret Hoover. She was a member of George W. Bush White House staff and is a veteran of two GOP presidential campaigns.
Let's talk about that favorability number because in August it was 63 percent, awfully high. But yet, wait, it increased to 74 percent unfavorable. We want to examine why.
We're going to take you through a bit of a timeline, Margaret. Roll with me. We of course know what happened with Megyn Kelly. Let's listen.
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TRUMP: She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her, wherever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: That sort of set off this feud between the two of them. Follow that up with a comment that he made about Hillary Clinton.
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TRUMP: It's disgusting. I don't want to talk about it. It's too disgusting. Don't say it. It's disgusting. We want to be very, very straight up, OK.
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PEREIRA: If I follow that up with Carly Fiorina, this is what he said. Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?
One after another after another. There was time in between them, months go by. However, there was a bit of an out roar with each of them, but the numbers didn't really change.
MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Especially and I think the key here, Michaela, is you remember, you're talking about a GOP primary electorate. We are not talking about the general electorate yet.
So when you're looking at the GOP primary, the comments of Megan Kelly, the comments with Carly Fiorina really did very little to nibble into his support amongst GOP primary voters.
By the way, both of those comments were before voting even started. One was in August, one in September. But really the people who like Donald Trump, like Donald Trump, women and men. We've seen in the exit pollings --
PEREIRA: And nothing he says really seems to chip away at that.
HOOVER: But when you get to the Hillary Clinton insults that the general electorate starts to pay attention, and this is the problem. Mitt Romney won 44 percent of the female votes. Donald Trump, any Republican frankly will have to pass that.
Plus, win all the minority groups, and the coalition that Mitt Romney put together. Mitt Romney lost by 5 million votes so you have to do better with women, Hispanics and you have to put together a better coalition if you're going to win in November.
PEREIRA: You see -- if the in-fighting within the GOP, that's one thing, but when it brings it to a more general populous, when you're talking about the Democratic candidate, it changes the tone and tenor of it.
HOOVER: That's exactly right. But Donald Trump has to roll out support from the Republican women. Up to that point, he hasn't suffered.
PEREIRA: Right.
HOOVER: Then you see what we have seen the last week or so.
PEREIRA: Well, let us get to that in fact, here let's play or show you a recap of this moment that lived out in social media. We saw this tweet that he sent out. He retweeted it. A picture is worth a thousand words.
A picture of his wife, Melania and an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz. That he has since sort of backed away from and said maybe it wasn't the best thing to send that, to retweet that after all.
HOOVER: He acknowledges it was a mistake and here's why it's a mistake. If you're not going to win Republican women -- we're seeing numbers now that as many as 40 percent of Republican women say they will never be able to vote for Donald Trump. He has a lot of makeup work to do if he's even going to be able to pull together the coalition that the last GOP nominee did --
PEREIRA: You think that that would where he was headed except -- then just recently this is what happened this past week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe in punishment for abortion yes or no, as a principle?
TRUMP: The answer is that has to be some form of punishment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the women?
TRUMP: Yes. It has to be some form.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: He has since backed off those comments. He's changed his stance three times in as many days.
HOOVER: The third round of American politics when it comes to general electorate. He managed to offend everybody there as we all know, pro- lifers and pro-choicers. But even amongst Republican women who self- identify as conservative, they still want the decision to be made between their doctor, their family and their god.
Donald Trump when you look at a negative favorability, 74 percent, this is making it very, very difficult for him to put together not just the GOP coalition to get over the top, but forget about it when you come to November.
PEREIRA: Do you see that number changing dramatically?
HOOVER: Who can predict anything with Donald Trump?
PEREIRA: It's a good point. Margaret Hoover, thank you so much. We are following a whole lot of news including the battle for Wisconsin voters. Let's get to it.
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SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Wisconsin is on the national stage.
JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. Trump is unprepared.
TRUMP: He shouldn't be littering up the process.
CRUZ: That sleaze has no place in politics.
TRUMP: They should have disqualified him. Ted Cruz is a cheater.
BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm glad that the secretary has accepted the challenge to debate in New York.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My campaign has been really trying to get a time that Senator Sanders' campaign would agree with.
SANDERS: I don't think that we are distorting reality. That's the simple reality --
