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World Leaders Work to Contain North Korea Threat; Trump Calls on Congress to Find Solution for "Dreamers"; Excerpts from Clinton's New Book "What Happened"; Trump to Revisit DACA if Congress Fails; Monster Hurricane Headed for Puerto Rico, Florida. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 06, 2017 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:02] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump and China's President holding a high-stakes phone call in just a few hours to discuss North Korea as Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and South Korea's President meet on the issue as well. CNN's Paula Hancocks is live in Seoul for us with more.

What have you learned, Paula?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, that phone call will take place at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, a very important call, the first time the two leaders have spoken since North Korea's weekend nuclear test and even since more than a week ago when they carried out the missile test.

The two countries are fundamentally opposed in the way they want to deal with North Korea. China wants talks, wants dialogue with North Korea, and the U.S. wants stronger sanctions. So it will be very interesting to hear the read out of that particular phone call.

Also, we had a very sobering assessment a few hours ago in Vladivostok in Russia on the sidelines of an economic summit. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, met the South Korean president, Moon Jae- in, and said that it might be the case it will be impossible to resolve the issue of North Korea. Just one day after saying that there could be global catastrophe if North Korea's tests end in anything but talks.

He also, though, said that he believed that President Moon agreed fundamentally with what he wanted to do, something which could potentially annoy President Trump, as we know that Russia wants talks. Alisyn, Chris, back to you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, appreciate the reporting.

The President has a packed day. He's got a call, as we've been saying, with the Chinese President. He's set to meet with the top four leaders of Congress to discuss the legislative agenda, including, now at the top of the list presumably, is DACA. But then you also have tax reform and the debt ceiling.

Will there be a mix and match? Let's discuss.

We're going to keep Maggie Haberman. We're going to bring in CNN Political Analyst David Gregory.

Let's just be clear, Maggie. You know, you just gave us a great debrief on your reporting about what's going on here, but just the general thread. We saw this with healthcare. We're now seeing it again. Political pressure, a political play, motivating the President's action, even though he doesn't seem to understand what he is doing.

He didn't know what was in that bill with healthcare. He didn't understand why it wasn't going to go the wrong way. Once again now, your reporting and others seems to demonstrate that, in the hours before doing this, he still wasn't sure. What will this mean?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: He wasn't sure what it will mean, but I think he was -- I think he was also unsure of exactly where we wanted to go with it.

And I think it is because, unlike healthcare which is incredibly intricate, this was -- this is complicated, but it's pretty clear-cut. You either deport people or you don't deport people.

And I think, at the end of the day, he was able to metabolize that. I think that they are trying to, within the White House, make clear that he has a heart, which is fine but that's not really much comfort to people.

CUOMO: With no real immediacy in play either, right?

HABERMAN: Correct, correct.

CUOMO: You have the states Attorney General --

HABERMAN: Correct.

CUOMO: -- who are thinking of suing, but so what?

HABERMAN: Well --

CUOMO: What does he care if they sue?

HABERMAN: Also, I mean, look -- I mean, there is a division within the White House even about that. I was talking to some folks about this last night. Couldn't Jeff Sessions have asked the A.G. of Texas, please delay for 30 days? 60 days? Give us a window to do this. He didn't --

CAMEROTA: Well, how would that have felt? If the AGs had delayed their looming lawsuit for 30 days, we'd still -- that would just be kicking the can down the road. Then he would have to have made a --

HABERMAN: This is --

CAMEROTA: -- decision regardless (ph).

HABERMAN: This is all kicking the can down the road, but at least it would have bought you more time to figure out something that seemed a little more thought out as opposed to what they ended up with, number one.

Number two, then there's people within the White House who say, actually, that's -- you know, that's not a bad thing because it's possible that we can push this through.

There is some discussion or belief within the White House that you could see, say, Chuck Schumer attach, you know, a DACA move to the C.R., in terms of keeping the government going. And then what happens? How does the President sign that? Does that go through? Does that get voted through at all?

There is a lot of moving parts here, and those are the pieces that, I think, the President doesn't totally understand. What we all understand is that, you know, Congress has proven intractable on this issue for many, many, many years. There is no reason to believe right now that they're not going to.

And Congress does not want this hand grenade thrown at them, especially when you're going to -- on March 5th, nobody even really knows exactly how this is going to work in terms of people sliding off, you know, their DACA registration and in terms of being covered.

There's going to be tons of media coverage right when Republicans are in the middle of their primaries and then gearing up for fall midterms. This is all a big mess.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, your thoughts?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think there's a couple of things. To Maggie's point about the inactivity of Congress, I don't think that President Trump wants to throw into Congress' court the idea of comprehensive immigration reform.

You know, the short history of this is that that was on the way to happening before the 9/11 attacks. President Bush understood the issue, had the political capital to really pass it, and then, of course, it all fell away after the 9/11 attacks.

[06:35:55] He only tried to revive it in his second term, but he was so hobbled by Iraq that the fissures within the Republican Party that are there today, and that exploded in Trump's candidacy, came to the fore. So I don't think Congress has the appetite to do that.

I'm caught up -- and to that point, President Trump, strikingly, to me, is such a bystander with Congress. If he wants to lead on this issue, then lead on it. But instead, he's, and not unreasonably, kicking it back to Congress for them to actually resolve it but without any leadership attached to it.

And I wonder, like you did, Chris, earlier this morning, when he talks about, I'll revisit the issue, this is not a president who is afraid of expansive executive power. So he may come back and effect some sort of compromise by executive action because I don't think he wants to be responsible for deporting Dreamers.

He has other goals with regard to immigration, but I do think it's -- what's striking about all this is that the political calculation for Trump such as it is, I think, is trying to deal with the genie that he unleashed in terms of the nativist right with regard to immigration and trying to manage that against his own views which are far more moderate than that.

CUOMO: And also, though, he handcuffed himself now, David, because having his Attorney General go out there and strong -- strongly say, well, we have to shut down DACA because it's unconstitutional --

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: -- now, what is he going to do? You talk about beleaguered Jeff Sessions. He'll really be beleaguered if the President then decides to act in an executive way to do what would be considered the right way to many, you know, protecting these Dreamers after it's been found unconstitutional. How do you swing that?

GREGORY: Well, I mean, he's contradicted Sessions before. I mean, I don't think there's any question that he would do it if he had to. But I come back to this point of, if he wants Congress to lead on this -- you heard the White House say this in the briefing yesterday over and over again -- you know, he's outsourced all of this work.

And whether it's healthcare, we're going to see what he does on taxes, but the President has positioned himself as the leader of a movement outside of Washington. He is a Republican president with Republicans in control of the government, including Congress, and yet he doesn't drive.

And that's what I keep looking for. When are you going to drive and be accountable for what Republican government is doing?

CUOMO: That's what Rubio just asked him to do. Marco Rubio tweeting him, and he has, you know, some mastery and life experience with this issue.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: And he has said, be very clear what bill you would sign, Mr. President.

HABERMAN: Yes.

GREGORY: Right.

CUOMO: You know, they need direction.

HABERMAN: On the other hand --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HABERMAN: Yes. But on the other hand, it's not as if Rubio has a clear history on this in terms of his own actions --

CAMEROTA: Right.

HABERMAN: -- in Congress in terms of the Gang of Eight. So I mean --

CAMEROTA: I mean, none of them do.

CUOMO: One of the reasons he's not President.

HABERMAN: Right. One thing I do want to say, though, in terms of what David said, that the President, you know, sort of stirred up a nativist base and that he has far more moderate views. I would disagree with that to some extent.

I think the President has more moderate views when it comes to DACA. I think that on everything else, I think that he generally, you know, has some gut impulse where he means what he is saying.

I think that this is somebody, if you look at what he has been saying, for 30 years, everything is all about sort of pull up the drawbridges. We're getting ripped off in one way or another.

GREGORY: Yes, that's right.

HABERMAN: I don't think this is out of -- this is not hugely out of character. And this is actually the problem, is that this isn't just some part he's playing, which is what Paul Manafort famously told other Republicans.

There is a part of him that believes this. It's just there's a part of him that doesn't believe that kids who didn't do anything wrong and shouldn't have to pay for the sins of their parents, which I think is not, you know, without irony on his part, being said that given this is somebody who is seeing his daughter get beat up on this issue pretty aggressively. Without a --

CUOMO: Having it both ways is unusual for him either.

HABERMAN: No -- correct.

GREGORY: Right.

HABERMAN: Correct.

CUOMO: To say we got to pull the drawbridges but then hire that kind of labor --

HABERMAN: Correct.

GREGORY: Yes.

HABERMAN: Well, and also --

CUOMO: -- outsource it to those types of market, you know.

HABERMAN: And also -- just one second -- and not taking a firm position on anything --

CUOMO: Right.

HABERMAN: -- is also not --

GREGORY: Right.

HABERMAN: -- new to him. He basically -- his whole strategy in the campaign was being as vague as possible so that different people would read into his comments and reporters who basically have to offer him a menu of options to try to pin him down. And even then, it often wasn't successful.

This is, again, one of these issues, but it's not like if this is a messaging issue. People are going to know if they're getting deported or not. The end.

CAMEROTA: Right. Go ahead, David.

GREGORY: Yes -- no, and I think that's a totally fair point by Maggie. I guess what I'm saying, partly because he's been vague, partly because he has not shown a great appetite for mass deportations, per se, even beyond DACA, is why I think there's not necessarily an ideological core.

But he is trying to manage a base that, again, I think started to really -- you know, the conservatives who opposed comprehensive immigration reform back in about 2006 or '07, you know, that was the bubbling up of this -- you know, of this movement. And I think he's been uncomfortable about kind of how to manage it.

CAMEROTA: Guys, stick around because we have other news that we want to talk to you about, Hillary Clinton news.

Her new book is called "What Happened." It hits store shelves next week. In it, she blasts Bernie Sanders, suggesting that he may not even care that he helped Donald Trump become President. She also has plenty to say about her own choices on the campaign trail and in her marriage.

[06:40:06] CNN's Jeff Zeleny has a copy of Clinton's book. He has combed through it last night. He joins us now with the juiciest parts.

What have you found, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. You're right. Hillary Clinton is taking ownership, to a degree, for her stunning loss to Donald Trump in the presidential campaign last year.

Now, as you said, her book is set to be released next week, but we purchased a copy from a Florida bookstore late yesterday and we did read it overnight.

Now, she does accept more blame than she has until now and said, she takes responsibility for a series of mistakes. But she also, no surprise, has strong words for President Trump.

Take a look at this. In one passage, she writes: still, in terms of fighting the previous war, I think it's fair to say that I didn't realize how quickly the ground was shifting under all of our feet. I was running a traditional presidential campaign with carefully thought out policies and painstakingly built coalitions while Trump was running a reality T.V. show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans' anger and resentment .

Now, she goes on to acknowledge bluntly that she was a lightning rod and blames that, in part, because that she is a woman, she says. She also writes about her relationship with President Bill Clinton in ways we have not heard her do so.

She says this: there were times that I was deeply unsure whether our marriage could or should survive. But on those days, I asked myself the questions that mattered to me. Do I still love him? And can I still be in this marriage without becoming unrecognizable to myself, twisted by anger, resentment, or remoteness?

Now, of course, she also goes on to blame FBI Director James Comey for his role in the election. Strong words for the Russian President.

But in the end, Chris and Alisyn, she says this: I go back over my own shortcomings and mistakes that were made, and I take responsibility for all of them.

CAMEROTA: Wow. Jeff, those are really interesting passages. Thank you very much for reading it and sharing it with us.

ZELENY: Sure.

CAMEROTA: Let's bring back David and Maggie now.

So, David, I mean, let's just start with her saying there that she was -- she was still running a traditional presidential campaign. I think that's true. She did not use the tools that Donald Trump was -- I mean, Donald Trump broke the rules and he'd called in to news shows like this.

GREGORY: Right.

CAMEROTA: He called in on the phone. We gave her campaign that opportunity. We said she doesn't have to come in if she doesn't have time, call in. And they were reluctant to do so and never took us up on that opportunity. I mean, that's just one example. She was still old school, traditional, and Donald Trump broke all the rules.

GREGORY: Yes. I think that's a little euphemistic, the idea of old school and traditional. She was that, plus she had a kind of bunker mentality that was scar tissue built up over years of dealing with the media and her own reaction to it. And so that created a kind of arrogance around the response to the server issue, her reluctance to engage with the media.

She was never going to match what Donald Trump was doing. I mean, he was someone who was manipulating all the apparatuses of the media in ways that we haven't seen before. And so she did seem more traditional. I think the misjudgment that a lot of people made, including many in

the media, was that somehow that wouldn't prevail. In other words, her approach combined with the demographics of the democratic coalition, that that would still prevail over what Trump was doing. And that's what proved to be wrong.

CUOMO: Well, look, Jeff just got the book in Florida. He had one night to look at it. It will be interesting, Maggie, to see what granular level Hillary Clinton gets to in terms of what she didn't do in Michigan, what she didn't do in Wisconsin, and when because, look, at the end of the day, she won the popular vote. It was where she put resources in motivating --

HABERMAN: Right, right.

CUOMO: -- her base in key states where they didn't get it done. Thin margins but enough to lose the race.

HABERMAN: Look, I think she has legitimate points about everything -- I have not seen this book, but I think -- but from what I have seen of it, she has legitimate points about everything, as best as I can tell, including like, you know, she's completely within her rights to criticize Bernie Sanders.

The question is whether that is then helpful to the Democratic Party as they are moving forward and in terms of looking at how they could do things differently, to your point, in places like Wisconsin, in places like Michigan, with working class White voters who she really struggled with and who she did not do as well with as President Obama did in 2012, for instance, when you're comparing polls.

It does sound like she took responsibility. It also does sounds like she cast a fair amount of blame. I think David's assessment is right. It's just that she has accumulated scar tissue from decades of dealing with the media over really painful, awful things. That having been said, that doesn't mean that they handled everything correctly.

I also think -- look, I mean, I don't know what she says about the e- mail issue in the book. Although from what I've read, a lot of that is blame. She describes it as dumb, but it's the "Times'" fault or this one's fault for focusing on it. The reality is that it is not as if there was not negative coverage of Donald Trump or rigorous coverage of Donald Trump.

[06:44:55] GREGORY: Right.

HABERMAN: The difference is that she has been around in the national public's mind in a very specific way for a very long time, and the e- mail issue was one issue. Whereas with Donald Trump, there were 50 issues and not exactly everything was sticking. And I think that was a huge source of frustration in her campaign.

I also think -- and, look, again, I have not seen this book -- her campaign wanted to run against Donald Trump until it became clear that that was going to be a lot more challenging than it seemed. But they had thought that he was the ideal person to run against. And I think, to her point, you know, when she's saying that she was

running a campaign of the past, whether or not -- you know, she was running the last war, I don't think that's just saying it was an outdated playbook. She's saying she was running the Obama campaign --

CUOMO: Right.

HABERMAN: -- you know, part three. And that ultimately was the problem. She was running a demographics-laden campaign where they assumed the demography was destiny and that just didn't turn out to be true.

GREGORY: And what's interesting about that, too, is the criticism of Sanders. I mean, I fault myself, others in the media, and the political class for failing to recognize Sanders and all his support for what it was, which was a big deal, not just a nuisance --

HABERMAN: Right, yes.

GREGORY: -- not just something that would make her a better candidate, but a big deal, because it was connected --

HABERMAN: That's right.

GREGORY: -- to the populism on the right, which was the major force in our -- and still is the major force in our politics right now. It said something about how alienated younger people --

HABERMAN: That's right.

GREGORY: -- elements of that Obama coalition had become from the Clinton brand. And that's what made her so difficult. I think she was a target of sexism, without a doubt.

CAMEROTA: Me, too.

GREGORY: And we've had those conversations on this program.

HABERMAN: Yes.

GREGORY: But there's no question that the Clinton brand being tarnished, people wanting to move on, that's, in part, what she's saddled with. And to Maggie's point, you're right. This doesn't help the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party is in upheaval right now.

HABERMAN: Yes.

GREGORY: In a similar way that the Republican Party is. And that's why you talk to grassroots folks. We're going to see a huge slate of candidates, I think, in 2020.

HABERMAN: That's right.

CUOMO: Probably.

CAMEROTA: That's right.

CUOMO: It is interesting, though, that Hillary Clinton's book is all about her and processing, you know, what she did and why. Bernie --

CAMEROTA: Focusing, right.

CUOMO: Yes. Bernie Sanders' book is a manual --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: -- for how to win the message war and what to do to be politically active in the next generation.

HABERMAN: That's right. That's right, exactly.

CUOMO: The difference between the two people.

CAMEROTA: All right. Maggie, David, thank you.

HABERMAN: Thank you.

GREGORY: Thanks.

CUOMO: So the President suggesting he may revisit how to help the Dreamers if Congress fails to take action. What would that mean? He just had his Attorney General say that DACA is unconstitutional.

We have a Republican lawmaker to try to make sense of it. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:51:20] CUOMO: President Trump suggesting the door is not closed on Dreamers. He says Congress should do this. But if they don't?

He tweeted last night, Congress now has six months to legalize DACA, something the Obama administration was unable to do -- true. If they can't, I will revisit this issue.

How? He just had his Attorney General say that DACA is unconstitutional. So what will Congress do?

Congressman Jim Jordan, Republican, Ohio, chairman emeritus of the Freedom Caucus, joins us this morning.

Congressman, always a pleasure.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R), OHIO: Great to be with you, Chris.

CUOMO: A lot on the plate.

JORDAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Should be a very active fall. You have taxes, you have border security, you got healthcare that you can pick up again. But now, the President has put something on your plate that does have the feel of urgency. JORDAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Do you believe that left and right would come together and protect Dreamers? Do you think something like that can get done?

JORDAN: Yes. I mean, I think we're going to have a six-month debate. I think you've got to step back and remember what got us here.

President Obama knew that his executive order was unconstitutional. He said it was unconstitutional several times prior to enacting it, but he enacted it back in the spring and summer of 2012. And he did it for political reasons, I think, in the context of his re-election campaign.

All President Trump has said is let's take six months and do it right. Let's figure this out. Let's have the national debate. And most importantly, what I hope is, this can be a catalyst to do what the American people are demanding we do.

Both Republicans, Democrats, Independents, everyone, is demanding that we actually secure the southern border, build the border security wall like he said in his campaign, like we campaigned on. So I'm hoping this is the catalyst for doing that, which is the most important thing that Americans want us to do on immigration.

CUOMO: Well, I don't see any data that suggests the wall is where the American people are in terms of how you protect their --

JORDAN: That -- 77 --

CUOMO: -- protect their country.

JORDAN: -- percent of Americans want to secure the border. Gallup poll, 77 percent across --

CUOMO: Right. But resulting the border --

JORDAN: -- across parties.

CUOMO: Securing the -- look, we both know the realities here. We know the difference between propaganda and what the practicalities are. Eighty percent of the people who come into this country illegally don't sneak across the border that some would stop them.

JORDAN: And these overstays --

CUOMO: They overstay visas. So let's --

JORDAN: -- is an important issue.

CUOMO: All right. But that's --

JORDAN: And we're going to have a six-month debate. What I do know, Chris --

CUOMO: That's fine, but I'm just saying -- JORDAN: What I do know is --

CUOMO: Go ahead.

JORDAN: Did President Trump campaign on a border security law? I think he did.

CUOMO: Absolutely.

JORDAN: And last time I checked, he won the election.

CUOMO: Absolutely.

JORDAN: Did Republicans -- many Republicans campaign on that issue?

CUOMO: Yes.

JORDAN: Yes, they did and they won the election. We control Congress. So this, hopefully, is the catalyst to get done what the American people are demanding we do.

CUOMO: Right. And that's why they say you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose because getting it done isn't so easy. You got to go back one more step, Congressman.

The reason Obama -- Obama didn't create Dreamers. He didn't even create the law. You guys -- and not you, per se, but Congress have been fighting over this since before 9/11.

You couldn't get it done. You wouldn't get it done. And, in fact, you got worse at it over time.

JORDAN: Well, Chris --

CUOMO: That's how he got here.

JORDAN: -- that doesn't justify --

CUOMO: Now, it seems like we're going to revisit the whole process.

JORDAN: That doesn't justify President Obama doing something he said he couldn't do, doing something that is unconstitutional.

And second, you're right, Congress didn't get any action done on this issue. So you know what President Trump has done? He said, OK, look, I'm going to give you a six-month time to have the debate and get it done. So I think that's a smart move. I think it's the right move.

CUOMO: Well, the six-month time isn't of his doing. It's going to expire.

JORDAN: I think's it's what the American people want. So we got a six-month runway to actually focus on this.

CUOMO: It's going to expire. It's not that he set six months.

JORDAN: Yes, he --

CUOMO: It's going to expire and then these people will, I guess --

JORDAN: His order yesterday --

CUOMO: -- be open for deportment.

JORDAN: No one's --

CUOMO: Deportation.

JORDAN: No one is talking about deportation. In fact, the DHS' policy right now is the only folks that are subject to deportation are those who are engaged in criminal activity, which I think the American people support.

[06:55:01] Let's have the debate. Let's focus on incentivizing the right behavior. Right now, what President Obama did is he incentivized people to come here illegally. That's what has to change.

Let's figure this out in the right way, so we're not -- so we don't have what we had three summers ago. All those unaccompanied minors on the border coming here because they had seen what President Obama had done, and they thought, if they just get here, they're going to get to stay in this, the greatest country ever.

That's the incentive we got to get rid off. That's what President Trump's policy does. It's going to force us to debate. Hopefully, it would be the catalyst we need to actually secure the border. I think, again, that's consistent with what the American people are demanding and what the election last fall was all about.

CUOMO: So we don't lost you -- you said a lot of different things -- this is the last point just for today because this is a piecemeal conversation. You're totally right about that, Congressman.

All right. So you want to protect these people. You're saying nobody is talking about deportation. OK.

JORDAN: Of course.

CUOMO: Bun then what happens when DACA expires? What happens to those people? Where do they go?

JORDAN: Chris --

CUOMO: Right now, they're in legal limbo. They're not really citizens. They don't get a lot of the services --

JORDAN: Chris, you know how life --

CUOMO: -- but they're here.

CUOMO: You know how works and frankly, Congress as well. Deadlines influence behavior. We have a March 5th deadline, a six-month time frame. So that deadline is going to influence behavior.

There will be a big debate in Congress how we're going to deal with the immigration issue, how we're going to deal with visa overstays, how we're going to deal with the border security wall. That will be -- that's how it's supposed to work.

Now, what President Trump has said is, look, a federal judge is going to rule this unconstitutional. I didn't want that hard deadline to happen on September 5th. I didn't want it to happen yesterday, so he's -- we've done a six-month time frame here.

Now, it's out to March. We have time to have this debate and figure it out. That's what we're supposed to do.

What I hope the end result is, is something that's consistent with what we told the American people we were going to do when they elected us. And that is secure the border with a border security wall and deal with the visa overstays and all these issues that are so important.

CUOMO: Well, he campaigned on ending DACA. The question is what will happen next. I appreciate you coming on. Let's see which direction you go. You're always welcome come back --

JORDAN: I appreciate it.

CUOMO: -- to talk about the debate on this, taxes, and the other issues that matter to the American people. Congressman Jim Jordan, thank you.

JORDAN: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right. We're also tracking Hurricane Irma as it barrels through the Caribbean with Florida in its sights. The Governor there has declared a state of emergency, and people are not taking any chances. They're already stocking up on gas. They're emptying out store shelves. They're shuttering their homes.

Just moments ago, President Trump tweeted about this. He said: watching the hurricane closely. My team which has done and is doing such a good job in Texas is already in Florida. No rest for the weary.

Joining us now, Florida Governor Rick Scott.

Governor, thanks so much for being here. We know you have a busy day ahead.

GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: Good morning, Alisyn. This is a massive storm. This is much bigger than Andrew.

We're going to have rain. We're going to have -- and this is already 185 mile-an-hour winds, much bigger than Andrew. We're going to have storm surge that we didn't have in Andrew, so everybody in Florida is going to get prepared. We're being very aggressive at the state level. And I hope every citizen in our state will be aggressive.

There's just as much a chance it's going to hit the West Coast as the East Coast right now if you look at all the projected paths, so everybody has to got to take the time to be prepared.

The Florida Keys are already evacuating. Miami-Dade is starting to evacuate their special needs citizens. We'll see more evacuation orders today. I want everybody to listen to the local officials.

If they say you need to evacuate, evacuate. This storm surge could cover your house. Think about your family. We can rebuild homes, we just cannot rebuild your family.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Governor, we hear your ominous warnings there. You're obviously no stranger to hurricanes, but this one does sound different.

This one is the most powerful -- our storm watchers and our meteorologists tell us, most powerful hurricane ever in the Atlantic.

SCOTT: Yes.

CAMEROTA: This one does seem different. And so from your -- from where you sit right now --

CUOMO: It's big.

CAMEROTA: It is big. So are there mandatory evacuation -- I mean, we don't even know if it's going to hit Florida. It might hit Charleston, South Carolina. But are there mandatory evacuations at this hour?

SCOTT: We have mandatory evacuations in the Florida Keys. We're starting to evacuate citizens in Miami. We'll see today more evacuation orders most likely as we go -- as we look at the path.

The path over -- the latest update from the National Hurricane Center has a path going slightly east, which looks like it will go right up the middle. But it looks like, for sure, it's going to hit the Keys.

It takes a while to get out of the Keys because we only have one road out. I've waived all the tolls all across the state. We're trying to make sure all of our evacuation routes are open.

We're making -- trying to make sure we have all the fuel we need, the water we need, the non-perishable food we need, so every citizen can be prepared. But I want everybody to take this seriously.

CAMEROTA: Governor, while we have you, because you're in Florida and because we know the Dreamer issue is important to you and DACA, I know that you had, I think, urged the President not to end DACA on Friday. Clearly, he took other advice. Are you disappointed with how this has played out today?

SCOTT: I didn't see exactly what came out yesterday because I was focused on Irma, but I was very, very specific last week. [07:00:03] You know, we do have to secure our border. We do have to

make sure the citizens that came here did not -- not on their own volitions, somebody else, their parents, brought them, they have an opportunity to pursue the dream.