Transcripts For CNNW At This Hour With Kate Bolduan 20181101

Immigrants as violent criminals. Ill kill more. The intent, hes clearly trying to divide. The intent, hes clearly trying to scare. Is it going to work . Thats what remains to be seen. Lets go to abby phillip at the white house with much more on this. Abby, the president puts out that video, but also just has announced hes going to be speaking about immigration this afternoon. What are you hearing from there . Whats going to happen . Thats right. Day by day, the white house is pushing this message on immigration, and today, the president is going to deliver remarks at the white house around 4 00 on immigration. This was not originally on his schedule, and its now going to happen just minutes before he departs for missouri where hes having a campaign rally. The central issue that were hearing from our sources is asylum. This is something that the president has taken issue with because it is what those Central American migrants are seeking as they make their way, hundreds of miles, through mexico to the u. S. Southern border. But as you pointed out, this ad has become part of a broader strategy here. It is all about the midterm elections just days away. And according to one other source who spoke to cnn in the last day, this ad is an attempt to move the conversation away from family unification to this issue of invasion that President Trump has talked so much about. But as he departs for missouri tonight, it is also worth noting that President Trump is working his base. Hes working these red states, but there are some places that he simply cannot go. Nevada and arizona are two of them, according to our sources. You know, the strategist in those states are saying these are states where there are large populations of hispanic voters who might be turned off by the very same messages that the president is pushing in that ad that you played earlier today. The republican candidates in those races have asked the president basically to stay away. Kate. All right, abby, thanks so much. Joining me now to discuss this, and really the state of things, cnn senior political commentator, former republican senator from pennsylvania, rick santorum. And former democratic senator from indiana, evan bayh. Thank you both for being here. Senator santorum, as abby was just saying, sources are telling cnn that the point of this video, and probably maybe the point of this announcement, whatever his remarks that hes going to make this froonl, is to change the conversation. To change the argument on immigration from family unification to invasion. Is that what republicans need right now, to change the conversation five days out from the election . Well, look. Both sides have their take on what this caravan is all about. I mean, you hear people on the left saying oh, these are women and children, and were trying to bring families together. And part of that is true. And and then you have folks on the other side saying these are people, you know, in that group will be some dangerous people, and most of the people in this group are males and there are a whole host of issues that come with that, and look, some people have come into this country illegally like the man depicted on the ad, and who have done horrible things. And there may be people who do that too. So each side putting the spin on it, and thats frankly nothing new when it comes to doing an election. You each have their own perspective. Nothing new, maybe, that both sides are putting spin on something, senator santorum, but this is new. That Campaign Video that the president put out is something we havent seen in decades, in the tone, the tenor, just the racist overtones of it all. Are you supportive of that . Look, i just quit doing this, kate. This happens on this network just way too much. That anybody that disagrees on a Public Policy issue is a racist. You can be against illegal border crossings and protecting our border and not be a racist. That is 100 true. And come on. You and i have known each other for a long time. Dont paint me with broad brush strokes like that. But the reality is that man every time theres a policy discussion, im not calling republicans im not calling republicans racist. Can i step in here . Senator bayh, go ahead. Kate is originally from ft. Wayne, indiana. That means by definition shes a good person. Lets stipulate that for the record. Goshen, indiana, but i played volleyball in ft. Wayne. Senator bayh, you will be okay to continue going. Well look. I think a couple thoughts, kate. First, when President Trump first descending the escalator at trump tower, one of the first things he talked about were allegedly rapists and murders coming across from mexico, across the border. So trafficking in this sort of fear and these kind of issues really is nothing new. Its at the foundation of his political career. Thats number one. Number two, i think we need to separate the politics from the substance. Some of us think that we should enforce the laws and enforce the border and we shouldnt have thousands of people in this caravan coming across into the United States, that we should have an orderly process. I happen to believe that, but i dont think we should exploit it cynically and divisively for political gain. I think its wrong when the right uses s it, its wrong wh the left uses classditions. We should expex more from our leaders, particularly our president , that a lot of people who traffic in spin and cynical politics. We dont expect our president s to do that. Senator bayh, on the issue of we can see from how the president has been talking that he seems very focused right now on the senate. Not as much on the house. If you are a democrat up for reelection in a red state in a tough reelection, something that you have experienced something you have experienced yourself, is the president with this, where he wants to take the conversation, is he making these democrats, their lives easier or harder right now . Well, hes making their lives harder, kate. Theyre doing this for a reason. It tends to work. Were in a there arent a lot of undecided voters at this particular moment in time, so both sides are trying to motivate their base. The this is a proven base motivator particularly for noneducated white folks in red states. I think thats why theyre doing it. It probably will help the republicans gain a seat or two in the United States senate. I dont think it will play nearly as well in the house because the districts that are swing districts in the house, this issue is not that much of a motivator. Probably help in the senate. Probably not much impact in the house. The reason theyre doing it is its been proven to work. Senator santorum, sources are also telling cnn the point of putting out the video is also here is the quote, i tink it was told to one of my colleagues. Were talking about it, this, and not health care. The country is still talking about health care, of course, but ask voters who tell pollsters over and over again that it is the top issue that they care most about in the election. Does this actually say more, this focus, on how vulnerable republicans are on the very issue of health care, though . Yeah, well, look. I think the republicans are vulnerable. They dont need to be. Heres the reality. The democrats are running ads on preexisting conditions. Which is one paragraph in a 2,000page bill. The rest of the bill has been a disaster for america, and thats being ignored by democrats. And frankly, not talked about by republicans. Why . Because republicans couldnt get their act together and pass a bill that actually would create a better system. You know, i have been working on something, and im hopeful that if republicans maintain control, they can pass something, but look, they have a huge vulnerability because they did not were not prepared to take control and have a president to be able to pass a bill, and they didnt. Now theyre paying the price for it. Senator bayh, you have republicans now running on protecting preexisting conditions. Some who voted for taking away those preexisting conditions previously. If thats what theyre running on and pledging now in these campaign ads, are they in some ways successfully taking away a key issue for democrats . Thats their hope, kate. And again, in red states, it may work. What happens today, its kind of ironic. Rick is correct, obamacare was not perfect, but one of the good things in it for sure is the prohibition against taking Peoples Health insurance away from them simply because they had cancer or Heart Disease or some other preexisting condition. That didnt make them bad people. That meant they had been sick. So thats a good thing, and by voting to repeal obamacare without a replacement to protect those people, they were voting to do away with preexisting conditions. But now, protections for preexisting conditions, but now, what theyre hoping to do is muddy the waters and throw all these ads up there, and the good folks at home dont know who to believe, and in red states, they say, well, i dont know who to believe. I dont like any of them. None of them are telling the truth so ill vote my own underlying base preference, which in red states tends to be republicans. Again, theyre trying to muddy the waters enough that that issue wont work, and thats been proven to be effective. One point i would like to make is that when republicans did have a chance finally to put forth a bill, it did cover preexisting conditions. The house passed it, and you know, it went over to the senate. The Senate Passed tried to pass versions of their health care bill. They didnt do it, but kate, in all of those cases, they did indeed cover preexisting conditions. But you do know yes, but you know from the evolution of where this has gone from 2008 to now, it is noteworthy when you have folks like Dana Rohrabacher running ads on protecting preexisting conditions. On the face of it, like, come on. There was never a big controversy around preexisting conditions. Most republicans even way back when supported providing protections for that. The reality is they did vote to straight out repeal. It was a political vote. They knew it wasnt going to pass. The president was never going to sign it. So it was a political vote. I think in retrospect, they might have thought more carefully about it instead of doing a straight repeal, but the reality is, democrats know this is not a controversial issue. I dont know of any republican for the last several cycles who is out there saying we shouldnt cover people with preexisting conditions. They have the opportunity because republicans didnt get their act together and pass a bill to show what they were for. Yeah. Senator santorum, senator bayh, thank you both. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Coming up for us, we have 14,000 troops in afghanistan. The president of the United States says he might send even more troops, though, to the u. S. mexico border. Details on that ahead. Plus, President Trump says the blue wave is dead. Why nancy pelosi while nancy pelosi is predicting victory come next week. Where do things stand right now . We have brandnew numbers coming in. Stay with us. Always a catch. Like somehow you wind up getting less. 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Regardless, President Trump continues to say that its an immediate crisis and national emergency. And he wants to send up to 15,000 troops to the u. S. mexico border because of it. As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out. We have about 5,000. Well go up to 10,000 to 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, i. C. E. , and everybody else at the border. Cnns ryan brown is joining me now from the pentagon. Ryan, what are you hearing about this plan . Well, kate, were told as of now the u. S. Military has identified over 7,000 troops that are going to take part in this mission. Thats in addition to the 2,000 National Guard troops that were sent earlier in the administration that are already on the border. So that brings you to 9,000, getting close to 10,000 troops working on border security. Now, most of these troops are support forces. Theres engineers, planners, helicopter crews that can fly Border Patrol agents to various spots along the very large border. But again, youre starting to see a very significant increase in the number of troops that will not be dealing with migrants themselves but will be in support, building fencing, vehicle barriers, roads, that kind of thing. But a large contingent, none the less. Very similar to the size of u. S. Forces, combat forces in places like afghanistan, iraq, and syria. Now, we dont know how much this operation is going to be costing. Military Officials Say they dont have a dollar figure yet and they havent even identified where the funding is going to come from. This is still something that needs to be worked out. Now, they can send these troops before they have worked that out, but theyre going to need to identify whos going to pay for this and how is it going to be paid for. But the military pushing back very strongly on the ideas that this deployment is some kind of political maneuver, political stunt ahead of the midterms, with secretary of defense jim mattis strongly pushing against this yesterday at the pentagon. The support that we provide to the secretary for Homeland Security is practical support based on the requests from the commissioner of customs and border police. So we dont do stunts in this department. Thank you. Now, despite those comments, it remains to be seen whether or not the perception of this deployment coming so close to the midterms will be seen as a political maneuver. Kate. Yeah, ryan, thanks so much. Joining me right now is retired Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hertling who led the first surge in iraq. He served as a commander general of the u. S. Army in europe. Thanks so much for coming in. A pleasure, kate. The defense secretary, you heard mattis. He says its not a political stunt. We dont do stunts. I know you would agree with that and how the pentagon operates. Do you agree with when it comes to what the president is proposing and wants now . I agree with secretary mattis in that the pentagon and military forces do not do stunts. Thats certainly true. But i think secretary mattis missed an opportunity yesterday to be a little more transparent, to say what the military forces were going to do. You know, this is a request from the department of Homeland Security. They do that. I was involved in one of these kinds of missions early in my career. So this is all legal. To sustain the conversation thats going on will not be violated. These forces, as ryan brown just talked about, are almost exclusively enablers. What i mean by that is engineers to build things, construction engineers. Military policemen to guard things. Lodge titians to supply things, and aviators to move people around. There are no trigger pullers in this contingent or at least not the one thats been deployed so far. And what i mean by that is infantry, armor artillery, the killers, if you will. This is not going to be a guard force on the borderer itself. The is where we get into the conversation, the difference between what fox news and the president are saying, which is hyperbole and scare tactics versus the facts on the ground. These are enablers for the department of Homeland Security to continue with their mission. Thats the important thing to remember. The legal and process driven part by the pentagon is up and up. Its above board. Now, is it smart . Thats up for debate. Will it be expensive . You bet, it will be plent ay expensive and it fact theyre still trying to figure out how much tells me its going to be more than they think. Or the estimate could come out pretty quick, one would assume. I want to ask you, in the support role, in supporting the job at the border and in a support role, theres nothing wrong with that. Not at all. Right, but my question is, so sending 15,000 people down there, you dont think is a bad thing. I didnt say that. I did not say that. I say its not an illegal thing. Is it a good thing . I dont know. There may be intelligence, and this is the important part, kate. There mail may be intelligence saying theyre needed here. I have yet to see that. The early deployment orders where you have seen their course of Action Development that newsweek printed, it says theres a mos