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New Day
State of the Presidential Race; Beyond the Call of Duty; This is Life with Lisa Ling. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired September 23, 2016 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:31:49] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, it has been a very busy week. It's hard to believe that the terror bombings and the --
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Less than a week ago.
CAMEROTA: Less than a week ago, all in one week, the deadly police shootings, they all happened during the course of this week. So, naturally, that dominated the talk on the campaign trail. Here's a quick look at how Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think it's always wiser to wait until you have information before making conclusions.
TRUMP: I'm not using the term Muslim. I'm saying, you're going to have to profile. We're going to have to start profiling.
CLINTON: We have two more names to add to a list of African-Americans killed by police officers, and it needs to become intolerable.
TRUMP: I would do stop and frisk. I think you have to.
CLINTON: We are safer when communities respect the police and police respect communities.
TRUMP: It just seems that there's a lack of spirit between the white and the black.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: OK, so who won this week in politics? With us is CNN political director David Chalian.
David, great to have you here.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good to be here.
CAMEROTA: OK, what's the answer? Who won? CHALIAN: I've been thinking about these two big news events, the
bombings and the police and criminal justice issues that were front and center. And I think, in this election, which is all about, I think, much more about getting your base out than it is about persuasion of the middle, I think they both made gains this week on these issues. I think that both -- that Donald Trump was able to play to sort of the strong, hit Obama and Clinton as weak after the bombings and play to law and order, like Mike Pence was saying, why -- there's this bias against police, they were able to really play and motivate their base.
And I think Hillary Clinton was able to do the same for her. If you are looking for the steady leadership, the temperament difference between the two, and you like a calmer temperament, as Hillary Clinton's portraying herself against Donald Trump, that worked for you after the bombings. And then the African-American base and the way she's talking about what happened in Charlotte and Tulsa, I think, is a motivator for that key part of the Obama coalition.
So I think this week in terms of those news events that we just looked at, worked for both candidates to fortify their supporters.
CUOMO: Two other perspectives. One is, what hurt each this week? And, two, not the base, but this -- this slice of people, you may have 10 million to 20 million of them watching on Monday night who don't know yet who they want. How did it affect those?
CHALIAN: I don't think the answer is clear. I will tell you what I think hurt Donald Trump this week was more stories about his foundation. And I think that -- here's why. I don't think those voters, Chris, in the middle, are going to be talking about the intricacies of the Trump Foundation and whether or not he paid himself back for things, but I do think it goes to a broader character frame that the Clintons are trying to build on Trump. And so a story like that can take hold if it is about Trump's character, that he's sort of lining his own pockets in some way, portraits of himself. I think that --
CUOMO: It's a felony, by the way, self-dealing.
CHALIAN: So -- and self-dealing if, yes, if indeed that is what --
CUOMO: If it's proved.
CHALIAN: If it's proved. But I think that, as a character, a negative character frame on him, could have legs, and I think that was a problem.
CAMEROTA: OK, but in the win column is something very big, if we can pull that full screen up again, closing the swing state gap --
[08:35:01] CHALIAN: For Donald Trump, yes.
CAMEROTA: In polls for Donald Trump.
CHALIAN: Listen, we saw a lot of polling, and what we're seeing this election is that these battleground states sort of are following the national polls, right? We see the national poll sort of first come out and we saw that he consolidated Republican support, we saw the closing of some of those national polls a couple weeks ago when Hillary Clinton was having a rough couple of weeks, and now we're seeing that play out in the battleground states. So you see, in Quinnipiac polls that came out yesterday, he jumped nine points between their last poll in August and now and has brought that race within two. He jumped six points in Iowa. He jumped five points in Virginia.
Hillary Clinton's not going necessarily down except in Iowa. She held steady in Virginia in those polls. She actually ticked up in Colorado. But he had a big jump from those polls in mid-August to now because he's consolidating that Republican support.
But, I will say, look at the national polls this week. There have been a couple out now that show Hillary Clinton with a six-point national lead or so.
CAMEROTA: Right.
CHALIAN: And so I wonder if -- if she indeed is -- is gaining some more strength, if in the next round of battleground state polls we'll start seeing --
CAMEROTA: Let's look at her wins and losses in each column and what you think was her big wins and her losses. There you go. Let's just look at that tie in Florida despite spending.
CHALIAN: Yes, I mean, listen, Florida is critical. And I think of all the remaining battleground states, true toss-up states, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, I think Florida is mission one for the Clinton campaign. They, although Donald Trump, right now looking at our map could win all those battleground states and she's still in good position, that is a battleground state that they do not, you know, because it's such a big electoral prize, they don't want to play fire with that. And I think you will see, the fact that it's closer there, you're going to see more activity from Clinton.
CUOMO: This fundamental question of who can be president. Who can own that job? Do you think it's answered on Monday night?
CHALIAN: I think it is going to begin to be answered. For some people it's answered already, obviously. But to your point about those 10 million to 20 million people, I think that's the biggest thing they walk away from Monday night is making that assessment. If, indeed, Donald Trump passes the test of appearing presidential, that you can envision him in the Oval Office for those that have not yet made that decision, that would be a big leap for him. If, indeed, Hillary Clinton can continue to try to disqualify him, as she's doing successfully, for those 10 million to 20 million in the middle that are watching, that goes a long way for her.
CUOMO: There's debate stage (INAUDIBLE). Even if he has a marginal moment, like let's say what happened just now with stop and frisk. He's talk about police shootings. He kind of segues to Chicago and says, I would do stop and frisk. A moment like that on a debate stage where Chicago has stop and frisk, and African-American communities don't like stop and frisk. It's been found to be unconstitutional. On a debate stage, something like that, the combination of being tone deaf and wrong, that could loom a lot larger than it has during the coverage of this week.
CHALIAN: Well, because it provides a huge opening in real time to your opponent. And Hillary Clinton -- but the test there is, how does Hillary Clinton seize on that moment, right? I mean I think that is there -- if he provides that kind of opportunity with bad information, counterfactual information, and bad tone, how she seizes on that moment is going to be critical to how it gets scored.
CAMEROTA: OK, so you're giving them a draw on who won the week. Let's have a little levity now. The Zack Galifianakis "Between Two Ferns," interview of Hillary Clinton. Let's watch a moment of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZACK GALIFIANAKIS, "BETWEEN TWO FERNS": First you supported Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership deal. And then you were against it. I think that people deserve to know, are you down with TPP?
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm not down with TPP.
GALIFIANAKIS: No, you're supposed to say, yes, you know me, like the hip hop group.
CLINTON: Don't tell me what to say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: How do you think -- I mean, these are very entertaining, but what is the point of doing these if you're a candidate? Who's she appealing to there?
CHALIAN: Well, there she's appealing to millennials and young people who go to Funny or Die, you know, all the time and that goes viral and they catch that on every device that they're on. So there's no doubt that that was a young voter play. But it's -- it's hilarious. Hillary Clinton, any candidate quite frankly, how uncomfortable is it to have to play total dead -- you know, just deadpan and you're next to the guy who's doing outrageous things when your whole life is about trying to like present yourself and not associate with people who are doing crazy things.
CAMEROTA: I know.
CUOMO: You have to learn not to take yourself seriously. My line -- the favorite line of it, you should watch for yourself, is he says, who made your pantsuit, I want to know. And she gives some answer. And he says, because for Halloween I want to come -- for Halloween I want to go dressed as a librarian from outer space.
CHALIAN: She let it slide right by.
CAMEROTA: There was a lot of good moments in that. David Chalian, thank you very much.
CHALIAN: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Nice to have a little bit of fun at the end of the week.
[08:39:46] Of course, we have had a week of covering a lot of intense news, including this police officer in a life-or-death struggle. Look at this one. This is different. It's a speeding train that is about to bear down on him. You're going to see bravery here "Beyond the Call of Duty." Watch what happens next. Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: You, me, we probably would have given up. But when a New Jersey transit officer found himself in a tug-of-war with a man on train tracks, he did not give up. He mustered all his strength and he saved a life. CNN's Miguel Marquez caught up with this hero who really went "Beyond the Call of Duty."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A speeding train, a suicidal man holding tightly to the tracks. A police officer faced with a life-or-death decision, seconds to spare.
[08:45:09] OFFICER VICTOR ORTIZ, NEW JERSEY TRANSIT: I took an oath to protect and serve and that was an instance where I needed to protect.
MARQUEZ: Officer Victor Ortiz had worked overnight, about to clock out when the unthinkable happened.
ORTIZ: I've got a train coming down the tracks. I need the train stopped.
He crossed over to this track, track two, and started running. So then I began to run and then I pretty much cut him off right here.
MARQUEZ: He cut off a suicidal man, clinging to the tracks, repeating the words, "I want to die." Watch how close the call is. Ortiz has cuffed one risk, desperately pulling the nearly 300-pound man, as a train on the express track doing about 60 miles per hour hits the brakes, but it will never stop in time.
ORTIZ: I looked up to see where the train was. It was pretty much half way in. And I said, I got to let this guy go. There's no way I'm going to be able to --
MARQUEZ (on camera): So -- so one more tug.
ORTIZ: One more tug.
MARQUEZ (voice over): That final effort saved the day and the life of 56-year-old Alan Jefferson, who had ignored Ortiz's orders to calm down before the incident spiraled into this. Jefferson later apologized to the officer and now faces several charges. MARQUEZ (on camera): So, this is the camera that captured all of this.
ORTIZ: Correct.
MARQUEZ: It's terrifying to watch that little snippet of video. And this is the exact spot where it happened, yes?
ORTIZ: Correct. Every life for me matters. Bad or good and indifferent. He put himself in harm's way and my job is to protect and serve, you know, the riding public, as well.
MARQUEZ (voice over): Protecting, serving, doing his job, such an heroic job on this day, even his 13-year-old daughter was impressed.
ORTIZ: She went to school and everybody was like, we saw your dad on TV. Oh, my God. You know, the principal, the teachers, they're asking her, you know, how you feel about it? She goes, well, you know, I'm happy -- you know, I'm happy for my dad. I'm very proud of him.
MARUEZ: Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. We need to follow up and find out if being saved helped this suicidal guy have new faith in life.
CUOMO: I don't know, but that cop, strong body, way stronger spirit.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my God, absolutely. What a beautiful story.
We have another one for you. Speaking of heroes, this CNN hero. Dr. Edwin Smith has worked for decades to stop an epidemic in this country. It is tooth decay and it is in Appalachia. It is five times more common than asthma and 20 times more common that diabetes. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. EDWIN SMITH, CNN HERO: I've had people get up out of the chair and look in the mirror and cry. People who before wouldn't even let you see their teeth. Now they've got these big wide smiles. That's one of the most rewarding things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Well, to see how Dr. Smith has transformed pain and shame into proud smiles, you can go to cnnheros.com to watch his full story.
CUOMO: Up next, guess who's back? Lisa Ling, and she's going where I hope you don't want to go, behind bars. Lisa's here with a look at life inside the big house, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:51:52] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LISA LING, CNN HOST, "THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING": Have you ever felt threatened by this population?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On a daily basis. I was spit on last Monday. It's part of the job, unfortunately. And that's why they're inside of the pods, chained to the tables, because they will hurt other people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: That's because she's working in a prison. That is a preview from the season premiere of the CNN original series "This is Life." Lisa Ling goes to the L.A. County Jail, the largest in the nation. Many of the more than 17,000 convicts there are dealing with mental illness, making it just a place to hold inmates. Not just that, but it's also one of the country's largest mental health institutions.
CNN host Lisa Ling joins us now.
It's great to have you back, my friend.
LISA LING, CNN HOST, "THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING": Thanks for having me.
CUOMO: And, obviously, there's a distinction between prison and jail.
LING: Yes.
CUOMO: It usually has to do with term of stay, but not when you get to L.A. County.
LING: That's right.
CUOMO: Now you're dealing with a world in and of itself.
LING: Well, and, you're right, L.A. County Jail is the -- maybe the world's largest jail and the largest mental health institution in the country. And there is a huge percentage of that population that is serving out sentences because the prisons in California are so grossly overcrowded. And we got unprecedented access inside to just see how this massive system operates. And as you know, it's one that has been mired in controversy over the last few years as a result of allegations of inmate abuse and a cover-up that led all the way to the previous sheriff. So this was a -- is an opportunity for the new sheriff to open his doors to us, to show what they're trying to do to combat those allegations and to create change.
CAMEROTA: So what did you see? What surprised you in there?
LING: Well, 20 percent of the inmate population consists of mentally ill inmates. And what I saw in the twin towers, which is -- which was actually constructed to be a maximum security jail, but is now entirely a mental health institution. I mean it's also the biggest distributor of psychotropic drugs in this country. And the pressure that these deputies are under is unbelievable. I mean the threats that they receive are -- I've just never really seen anything like it. And they've just implemented new forms of training for these deputies. I mean when people went into the department, they didn't learn how to deal with the mentally ill, but now they have to. And they seem to be rising to the occasion.
CUOMO: What do you see in terms of -- you have the crossover of mental illness. A lot of it's diction, right? You have adduction based.
LING: A lot of it is, yes.
CUOMO: Do -- what's your sense of whether or not people are in there getting better or just being kind of stabilized?
LING: It's hard to say, Chris, because the big problem is that jails weren't built to be mental health institutions and so they have no choice but to chain inmates to the table -- to tables. You know, it requires -- it costs about $70,000 to house an inmate in the L.A. County Jail. It would certainly be much less if they had access to a proper mental health facility. So are they getting better? It's hard to tell. I mean they're not equipped to really deal with this population. They're just doing the best they can because there's no other place for these people.
CAMEROTA: So that sheriff's deputy that you interviewed there, who said that she was just spit on earlier in the week --
LING: Yes.
CAMEROTA: How does she come back day after day? I mean what help -- drives her? What does she tell herself?
[08:55:00] LING: Well, they picked the right people for the job in the twin towers the facility. The people that I met deal with incredibly difficult situations. And she's actually been a deputy for a very long time. Again, she didn't go into the department thinking she would deal with this population, but she's very passionate about her job. And just communicating with these inmates and treating them like human beings is something that she, again, never thought that she -- that notion of communicating was something that she never thought she would be doing on her job. But now it's become very commonplace for deputies to be doing that.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Lisa, it's fascinating. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.
LING: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: I look really forward to watching it, as will everyone. Be sure to watch "This is Life with Lisa Ling." It is Sunday night at 10:00 p.m., only on CNN.
CUOMO: "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello is going to begin right that this break. Have a good weekend.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the calls for transparency are growing louder, even as protests quiet down overnight, the violence of 24 hours earlier largely replaced by peaceful chants to release the tapes. Protesters demanding that city officials release the video recordings of Keith Lamont Scott, as he was shot to death by Charlotte Police. His family shown those videos yesterday, saying it's not clear what Scott was holding, the gun that police claim, or a book, as they continue to insist.
[09:00:10] Joining me now, Charlotte's mayor, Jennifer Roberts. Welcome, mayor.
