Be departed. If he has to leave, he might not survive. Im victor blackwell. Lets start the show. What caused the civil war its not a trick question. Any response that does not mention slavery is a wrong answer. And asking you rather what you want me to say about slavery, thats the wrong followup. This week republican president ial candidate nikki haley fumbled on all three points. It created a striking moment the at a Campaign Town Hall new hampshire. Watch this. I think the Cause Of The Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldnt do. I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. I will always standby the fact that i think government was intended to secure the Rights And Freedoms of of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. In the year 2023, its astonishing to me that you answered that question without mentioning the word slavery. What do you want me to say about slavery . You have answered my question. Thank you. The former governor of South Carolina, The First State to secede citing slavery, haley has had to answer this question before. A day later she did try to clarify her answer. Of course, the civil war was about slavery. We know that. Thats unquestioned, always the case, we know the civil war was about slavery. But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government. I want to talk about this with michael heir yacht, author of can black af history, the unwhi unwhitewashed story of america. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. When you saw this, i want to cite the reason i wanted to talk with you not only because of the book, but also you a few months ago wrote this history of nikki haley. What do we need to know . Nikki haley is from South Carolina, which was The First State to secede, but was also a confederate embracing state. The Confederate Flag wasnt removed from the State Capitol until she was governor. She initially fought against it until nine black people were slaughtered in a charleston church. We need to know that to understand that nikki haley, first of all, she tended a segregation academy. A school that was named after an insurrectionist. That informed her view of slavery. Initially here in the answer, as someone who is live on television and sometimes misses a word, screws up an answer, the first answer, she didnt say slavery. Its when the person said you didnt mention slavery. And she said, what do you want me to say . Why would i include that . What do you want to hear about that. Exactly. I want to be clear about this. That is Identity Politics. They like to talk about Identity Politics when it relates to black people. That is i play ing the race car also because nikki haley avoided the subject of slavery to identify and to sympathize with a very specific kind of republican conservative voter, who is probably not even in new hampshire. Shes talking about South Carolina conservatives. That was the political conservative reality she grew up in. Thats the landscape shes used to playing politics in that was Donald Trumps administration. That was the South Carolina legislature she served in that denied taking down the Confederate Flag. That was the South Carolina that existed when she was governor. That was the South Carolina that existed that led to a white supremacist killing nine people. So Chris Christie is trying to capitalize off this. They are the closest to one another. Still far behind donald trump in new hampshire. He says that shes just trying to accommodate everybody with this. Lets watch. Shes been having this problem for decades in terms of her answer about this. If you go back to her running for governor in 2010, she said that the civil war was about change vs. Tradition. She called slavery a tradition. And its not change vs. Tradition. Its right vs. Wrong. S. Asked a very simple question and responded with just really incomprehensible word salad. This is not a candidate thats ready for prime time. Not that difficult to identify and acknowledge the role slavery played in the civil war. What do we need to know about the answers on this . Is this something she does often . Shes been doing this since shes been in the South Carolina legislature. She has a history of doing this. And you have to ask yourself, does this kind of person will this kind of person represent black people and people of color when shes president. What will she say . Will she just appeal to a certain constituency who embrace white us isupremacy and that kif tradition . Or will she stand up for the values that americans believe in. Will she represent americans and not just white americans . I wonderer, though, people who care about this, for people who are republican or right of ssht and they have a problem with this, where do they go . Do they go to ron desantis who says yeah, slavery, but they are now black smithss so they have skills out of it. Or donald trump who says imfwrants are poisoning the blood of the country. Whats the alternative . 12k3w4r you have to ask yourself, do you care about everybody in the country or these political issues. If youre going to dismiss nikki haley buzz of her views on race, you have to dismiss all of the other republican candidates too, because they have segments of this. This is why these questions were asked. They have denied the history of this country. They have denied slavery. They have denied diversity and equity and inclusion. They have specifically engineered a platform that e erases people of color. And you have to ask yourself if youre a republican voter, and you care about black people, are those two things incompatible. I appreciate you coming in. Thank you. Were less than 48 hours away from a president ial Election Year. Theres already a tough mix of issues. In january immigration will be out front in washington when congress and the white house pick up their funding fight. Next year the Supreme Court will have a role to play on the issue of abortion. Specifically, access to abortion pills. Theres a also plenty of anxiety about the economy. The Biden Campaign appears to think that bidenomics is the best way to connect with black voters. It was the focus of a speech ahead of the holidays in milwaukee. Black Business Ownership in over 30 years, as cross the country, wages for workers are up. Black wealth is at record 60 since the pandemic. So many of you look, i mean this from the bottom of my heart. Were just getting started. Black Small Businesses grow, everything benefits. The community benefits. Everyone benefits. Its not a joke. It gives hope and prospects for people. When you increase the middle class, the poor have a shot and the wealthy still do well. The middle class does well and we all do well. Thats what we call bidenomics. By the way, so far, we have created 14 million new jobs. More jobs in three years than any president has created in four years. If that issue resinating with most black voters . A group of strategists say they took notes on what worked in races in michigan, georgia and what kind of outreach is actually effective. Joining me now is one of those strategists who served as the statewide political director for Stacey Ament Brams campaign for georgia governor and now he works with the renegade collective. Also with us is an Associate Professor of Political Science at emery university. Let me start with you. What works . If you say what biden is doing right now is not connecting, and we have seen a softening of the numbers that he needs to win, whats wrong with that . And what is right with what you suggest . So i want to be clear. Were talking about what democrat need to do in general. This is bigger than whats going on next year in the 2024 election. Were looking at whats going to happen between now and 2045 when america is then going to be a majority minority country. So with that being said, we need early engagement with black voters. We need an intentional strategy from the beginning of your campaign all the way throughout. And so we cant just accept the stops at the churches and the fish fries and all those things. You have to have an intentional strategy. Tough go where the voters are. Its more so about listening and paying attention. So when we think about investment, that is usually tied to finances. Were talking about investing time in your communities because were not monoliths. So investing that time in the community so you can understand what the needs are, you cant prescribe something unless you understand the painen points. So were saying take that time, spend more time in our communities so you can understand what the needs are and direct your policies and your statements and everything based upon that. So were two and half weeks out from the republican primary. Were about 11 months out from general election. Is this fivealarm fire or something that needs more attention . Its somewhere in between. President biden is going to have to put that Multiracial Coalition together in order to win in 2024. And given the fact that people are not particularly enthused about a rematch between him and former president trump, you dont want to lose any votes. So you have to doing everything to touch voters. You increase Voter Turnout when you personally reach out to them and touch them. I interpret this report as s saying you need to do the effort of making sure youre reaching voters not in passive ways, but in direct and personal ways. And in some instances, reaching out to voters multiple times, particularly those new to the process so they understand and they are ready to show up on election day. Are you seeing any increased urgency from i know youre not focused on the 2024 president ial campaign, this conversation is, from the Bidenharris Campaign . You can tell that there is a strategy thats in place. We can look at what was going on in october and september and the intentional about spending time at hbcus and things of that nature. Those are great opportunities, but there has to be more. Its not just about the president ial candidates and everything like that. Its about the down ballot races too because theres a lot more at stake and a lot more thats going to be on the ballot. Theres an economic message. Theres a good economic narrative that the white house has. We know their first ad that focused on young black men was about entrepreneurship. But is that the best approach into black ert voters . What does your report say . We believe you have to have a multipronged approach to it. Having conversations about economics is extremely important. In the past with youre trying to connect with black voters, statements have been around legalization of marijuana and criminal justice reform. That does not speak to the total thety of the black experience. Adding that economic piece and focusing on entrepreneurship is important buzz we know thats the pathway to economic freedom. Once you have economic freedom, you can have freedom across the board. When some democrats point out that these numbers are weak or soft, not just with black voters, young voters, the coaligs that the president needs, there are others who say here they go again. Either Chicken Little or senator fetterman said james should shut the f up about the president s numbers. How long does it take to turn these around . I can imagine that its not going to be Third Quarter of 2024. Were going to see tightening with polling. Polls are a snapshot in time. They reflect where people feel now these numbers are going to different in september and october. The lesson here is that you shouldnt take black voters for granted. I remember years and years ago working far democratic pollster and talking to a campaign aid for a Congressional Campaign who saw soft numbers. They are going to turn out and vote 90 democratic. This is not always guaranteed. Even if they do vote 90 , its a question of do they turn out at rates that are going to allow democrats to be able to win. So if i were in the Biden Campaign, what i would take from messages like this is you dont neglect black communities and dont think you can just do some one off event in a community that doesnt touch people personally. Just make sure that you have a sustained presence in communities where people are knocking on toors, personally talking to people. Thats going to be the best way to increase Voter Turnout and guarantee you maximize turnout within this loyal constituency. Look at the polls and preparing for conversation, theres something thats always bug ged me. As we shift in the call tar for democrats, South Carolina coming up first, as close as these jirns are in the swing states, We Sigh Seethe white voters are breeken broken down. Then its people of color. Or black voters, maybe they will separate latino voters. We need to know more about these specific groups than we do. Why are all people of color lumped together, but we can tell you what a suburban white mother who makes more than 50,000 believes a about a certain issue. Its a statistical power question thats based on the sample size. If youre doing a statewide poll that has 1,000 respondents in it, if its going to be proportional across the United States, what were going to be looking at is 130 of those are going to be africanamerican. Thats really not going to give you a lot of statistical power to be able to do that breakdown. Its going to be similar when youre breaking this down state by state depending on how large the black population is. You might not actually have enough people to really say anything unless you aggregate. So what this is a call for is to make sure that when were doing Public Opinion polling, were actually sampling large enough groups of people that you can do that. And this also speaks to the necessity of having surveys that are just of africanamericans and just of la knows. In my own field, we have certainly suffered from this. So my friends have created an Election Year survey for president ial Election Years that has thousands of Recorrespondenten Dents of color to allow us to make those type of granular things. We dont have the money to do it all the time in the same way that we would like to. And its cost prohibitive according to news organizations. Certainly as we get deeper into the democratic primary, look at 2028, 60 of the democratic primary voter base there is black. So separating these different parts of the electorate is necessary. Thank you so much for being with me this morning. A mother in indiana says her adopted son with Special Needs is facing deportation. She worries he will die if the u. S. Government sends him back to haiti. She joins us to explain. Plus a new year, new s specl frfrom dchapappell. Most people regardless of political affiliation agree the u. S. Immigration system is broken. When i say immigration, you might envision migrants crossing the boarder, 10,000 backlogged asylum claims. This morning i want you to hear a very different story. Its a about a teenager who has been in the u. S. For 15 years. Hes been adopted by a loving family, but he could be forced to leave. He may not survive. His name is jonas. He was born in haiti. Hes nonverbal, blind, has autism, and cerebral palsy. He came to the u. S. In 2008 on a medical veto and was adopted by a family in indiana. But his mother says the do documents necessary to allow him to stay were destroyed in the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. Rebecca says shes tried for years to get this all sorted out, but a couple weeks ago, days before his 18th birthday, rebecca says she received a letter is a saying if jonas doesnt voluntarily leave the country before january 2nd, he maybe deported. They are worried now this would be a Death Sentence Given what takes to care for jonas. She shared a Video Showing husband morning routine. Heres some of what its like. This is his bed. It looks more like a fortress. This keeps him super safe. T hes so strong. Hes almost 18. I still change him like i would an infant. Cnn reached out to the United States citizenship and immigration services, but we were told they will not comment on individual immigration cases. Rebecca and jonas are with us now. Good morning to you. When read through this story, i couldnt belief at some point somebody wouldnt come in and use discretion and say this boy, soon to be a man, has to stay in this country. You knew you wanted to adopt. You have three children. Your eldest is blind. When you saw jonas on an adoption page, you knew this was your son. Brought him here, everything was fine. When did things start to go wrong . So after going through all of the immigration process, sorry, one second. Hes going to hop out here. Going through all the immigration process, they ask you for all sorts of documents. In june, they asked us for some rfe. Its request for evidence. It was a request for something to prove that he had physically lived with us for more than two years and legally we had to have an original Birth Certificate for haiti, which that was destroyed. Those types of thing i i had copies of all that stuff, b