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Biden On Top by Double-Digits As Warren Loses Ground; Team Trump Uses Massive Digital Data Push for 2020; Trump Campaign Blitzes Facebook with Ads Attacking Impeachment; Trump Distancing Himself From Giuliani?. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 27, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: -- takes can he holds up. The numbers keep saying that voters around the country, they're fine.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: That's right. I think so far, that has been the prevalent theme which is that a lot of Democrats within the party feel as if they're holding their breath waiting for him to collapse and it hasn't materialized in any of the polling. That being said when you're on the ground, there are a lot of people, local people whether it's from Georgia to Nevada to Iowa who say that they think his support is soft. So, if there's a 2008 situation where someone else wins Iowa or New Hampshire, does that put a big enough dent in his support that then you see the following states that come after that flip.

KING: Right. It's a very important point to make. That's just like when we get to the general election, the Electoral College. National polls are helpful but not always instructive. We go state by state. So, yes, an upset in Iowa could change a lot of things, followed by New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. Then you get the more crowded contest that Bloomberg is waiting for.

Plus, let's look overtime. First, we tracked out Joe Biden where he has been, if you go all the way back to April and you see his numbers come across there. So there's Joe Biden, then you bring into that, you bring Elizabeth Warren into that. Joe Biden has had a few ups and downs. Warren came up. Now she's sort of plateaued at the moment.

And then you bring Senator Sanders into that, he's been essentially a straight line. He has a solid core group of supporters who aren't going anywhere. He has not been able to grow. Again, this is nationally, some of the early states' numbers are up a little bit higher.

And then you bring who I would say is the surprise candidate, at least the most surprising of these four in the race, Mayor Buttigieg. And you see him he's way down at the bottom below 10 percent and boom. This is our first poll that gets him up into double digits.

So, if you look at the candidates, the Biden line, you know, is like OK, yes I'm in, I'm down, I'm up and down but resilient. And the others just -- he has -- his argument constantly is I'm winning.

PAUL KANE, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: He's winning nationally. What he needs is for Iowa and New Hampshire to be a split decision. The worst outcome for Biden is somebody else wins both Iowa and New Hampshire. And that's when real momentum kicks in. John Kerry did that in 2004 and the race was pretty much over.

If there's a split decision, if it's Buttigieg in Iowa and Warren or Sanders in New Hampshire, then the sort of fight between South Carolina and Nevada and Super Tuesday becomes a much more legit thing for Biden and a much stronger position possibly for Bloomberg. But if somebody else wins both Iowa and New Hampshire and Biden is in deep third, fourth place, he's in a much worse position.

KING: And so this is -- we're 9 1/2 weeks until the first votes. And so the candidates have to make very important decisions. That's closer than you think especially with the holidays coming. Candidates must make very important decisions. Where they schedule themselves? Where they spend their money especially if resources (INAUDIBLE)?

And you see stories like this, this one's in Politico. "Elizabeth Warren loses her mojo in Iowa. You have to wonder whether she peaked too soon." This is Patty Judge, the co-chair of a group called "Focus on Rural America".

In the New York Times, "When to Peak? Amy Klobuchar has given it some thought. Our momentum says we're doing pretty darn well in Iowa." Pretty damn well she says. I'm sorry. I want to quote her accurately. "She'll at least be in the top five." This is from her Iowa campaign chair.

It is interesting to have these candidates now. Look, it's hard to run for president. We have fund sometimes, sometimes at the candidate's expense. It is hard. It drains your life. It stresses your family. It stresses you personally. And they're at a phase now where this is about to matter.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is about to matter, and I think one thing that everybody should pay attention to particularly in Iowa is operationally where people stand, right? Maybe Elizabeth Warren is plateauing but I think everybody agrees that her team on the ground is as good as it gets. And that matters in a caucus state without any question.

But there's also another thing and that's Pete Buttigieg's rise came because of his on the ground operation in Iowa and also he carpet bombed the state with ads. He had the money, he had the finances to do that. Other people may be in position to do that over the course of the next nine weeks as well. And it'll be interesting to see if that actually tangibly moves their numbers or if this is the final four and we'll see how this four fight it out over the course of the next 10-15 weeks.

KING: And to that point, we just want to show you national numbers versus Iowa numbers in our latest polls. So if you look at this, so far, this has been a national race with very few exceptions if you look down the numbers there. The candidates who are struggling, they're struggling nationally, they're also struggling in Iowa. Amy Klobuchar would be the exception there at two percent. Nationally, she's up to six percent in Iowa and she thinks it's the beginning of something.

But that is the question. Will Iowa sort of shatter this race or will it continue to be a national dynamic?

VIVIAN SALAMA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, Iowa has always been sort of the indicator and that's why there's so much attention on it. Whether or not it's the game changer, obviously that goes -- that remains to be seen. And so, whether or not Pete Buttigieg for example will carry on and do as well as he will in Iowa, you know, it's unlikely given how the polls are looking. But, definitely some momentum come comes out of the Iowa race.

KING: And whether there actually is an opening for a Bloomberg who says there will be, who says he'll be waiting. We shall find out.

Former President Jimmy Carter will be spending Thanksgiving Day at home in Plains, Georgia. That good news, the former president released from a hospital in Atlanta today. He's been recovering from a procedure two weeks ago to relief pressure on his brain, that pressure related to some recent falls. The Carter Center says the 95- year-old former president grateful for all the well wishes he's received and he wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

We return that, happy Thanksgiving, Mr. President.

[12:35:01]

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The president's Twitter feed gets most of the attention when it comes to his impeachment defense.

[12:40:03]

But there's dramatic new evidence of how his re-election campaign is juggling its spending priorities to help in the impeachment fight. A New York University researcher says the Trump campaign ran more than 6,000 Facebook ads about impeachment during that first week of public hearings. The estimated price tag for that surge, between $300,000 and a million dollars. It's the latest example of how Team Trump smartly uses its digital strategy for both messaging and election organizing.

Let's take a look. First, just some overall numbers. In the last 11 months, you see the president's spending. This is his re-election campaign in a joint Republican National Committee have spent more than $26 million on Facebook ads. The Democratic Candidate Tom Steyer nearly $14 million. You see the other Democratic candidates nowhere close to what the president is doing in digital space. You come and look at this, just some peaks and valleys in the president's spending. This goes back to last December, you see a spike early in the year. You see relatively modest spending then it goes up again. What's this, the week of October 5th?

Well, $2.8 million just that week. The impeachment inquiry was announced right here in late September. And then boom, a big spike in spending. Another way to look at it, prior to learning of the whistleblower report, so before the middle of November, of all the Trump Facebook ads only just shy of $21,000 mentioned impeachment. Ads -- that's how much they spent on ads that mentioned impeachment pre-whistleblower.

Watch this. Post-whistleblower, nearly $2 million. So the campaign realizing we have a problem, we have an issue. Let's use our resources in the digital space to try to reshape the debate with big ads like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My conversation with the president, the new president of Ukraine was perfect. There was no quid pro quo. There was nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to impeach the (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Whatever you think at home about the president, whether you're for him or against him or not sure about him as reporters as you study campaigns, they know what they're doing. They have a very smart digital strategy. And the way they spike it to deal with issues, they did this in the past when immigration comes up. When you see that $20,000 pre-whistleblower, $2 million post-whistleblower, they see a fire and they go after it.

MATTINGLY: Yes. We've seen this -- obviously we saw it in 2016. I think most people weren't totally aware of what was actually happening in 2016 until after the fact when you got a full sense on not just how good they were at operating on Facebook but also how kind of new and from a technology standpoint at least from a Facebook standpoint, they were doing things that nobody had really thought of doing in terms of creative, in terms of how many thing they were throwing out all at once. And it was very, very effective, and it was at a scale that nobody had ever seen.

And I think the idea of just repeating that over and over again makes a lot of sense. I think everybody is always going to wondering what the next big thing, next new thing is going to be. But if something works and something, one, raises a ton of money which they have done ad nauseam over the course of the last three and a half years. But two, it gets you message out to the people that you need to activate. Continue to use it, and I think you're going to see this continue over the course of the next couple of months.

KING: In some ways they had no choice. I mean, this is the new frontier in global life. But traditionally, campaigns spent on TV ads. They didn't have the money. So a lot of this was just because they don't have the resources but they made it work. And so they sort of pioneered how to do this.

I want to just read you this. This is -- they're smart, they make this personal. The president wants to keep Republicans in his camp on impeachment, Republican lawmakers but also Republican voters. A Facebook ad from the Trump campaign offers donors who contribute $35 personalized impeachment defense membership cards.

It's to make your feel involved. If you have a membership card, it may sound like a gimmick but you are less likely to flip because you've made an investment on siding with the president.

Listen to his campaign manager at the rally last night just publicly just saying how important it is that the campaign gets your digits and your e-mail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD PARSCALE, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: They don't think you matter, but you do matter. And the way to do that is you have to help us fight against big tech and sign up on our (INAUDIBLE), sign up to 88022. The more of you that sign up and the more millions we get directly connected, the less influence and control they have.

And the way we fight back is get online ourselves. We get connected, sign up for e-mails. We have -- and ask your friends and neighbors and sign up to volunteer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I just want to show a map as we continue the conversation there. Where they run their Facebook ads, where they're doing it. You see some states in the map and you say why are they in California, why are they in New York. They're not going to win New York and California. They're doing it for fundraising.

Number one, part of it is you go to places where there are lot of Republicans who might not -- you might not swing that state if you do it for fundraising. And the other, in the swing states, you're getting people to sign up and then they get back to you and they test what do you react to. Do you react to an impeachment ad? Do you react to an immigration ad? What do you react to? They're -- it's -- what they're doing is very smart.

BARRON-LOPEZ: And much of their ads are based on fear which is what we saw in 2016, what we saw in 2018. But I think another important thing to point out is that Republicans haven't said or haven't sworn off the use of disinformation tactics.

[12:45:00] So they won't answer questions about whether or not they'll use troll farms or whether or not they'll use deep fakes. Mm Trump himself has even re-tweeted deep fake videos. So that's a whole other element of this new frontier with phones that political parties are engaging in.

SALAMA: Also, it's important to note, Brad Parscale who you just showed was the digital media manager of the campaign in 2016. And so the fact that now he's the manager -- or that, you know, he's running the campaign, that also shows how prominent they want digital -- their digital strategy to be this year.

KING: Right. And they -- but look, they understand they're most likely going to lose the popular vote, probably by a bigger margin than last time. They want to be in touch with every voter they need in the key states to turn them out. Keep in touch then turn them out. We will see if it works. It's actually fascinating to watch.

Up next, breaking down the president's grievances and boasts at last night's rally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They said you went into the hospital. And it's true, I didn't wear a tie. Why would I wear a tie if the first thing they do is say, take off your shirt, sir and show us that gorgeous chest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:46]

KING: Topping today's political radar, a presidential airing of grievances beyond impeachment. President Trump at his Florida rally last night pre-Thanksgiving but you might think it's pre-Festivus claiming the media blew his recent hospital visit way out of proportion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm getting out of the car. Somebody said, sir, are you OK? I said yes, what's that all about? And I walk another few feet. Sir, I hope you're OK. I said what the hell is going on? And then they said I had a massive heart attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The president was pointing to CNN there. For the record, here's how CNN reported it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president made an unannounced movement to Walter Reed Medical Center and we're now being told by the White House press secretary after the president arrived there that the president is there to begin part of his annual physical exam. DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Nobody is suggesting that he had any kind of symptoms. But if someone goes on to the hospital a few months early, you know, I think that would be a reasonable question to ask.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grisham has, however, sought to dispel any notions that this was related to anything other than a routine medical visit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Along with a long list of complaints, this compliment I suppose you might say for the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who joined the president on stage last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I always thought Ron was a little heavy. But I see him without his shirt one day, and this guy is strong. And he's not -- that's all power, that's all muscle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: In case you're wondering, the New York Times did get some clarification from the Florida governor's office. He said the president had not actually seen DeSantis shirtless, only jacketless.

When we come back, the president and his friend Rudy Giuliani, might there be the beginning of a break?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:57:07]

KING: Rudy Giuliani at least on paper still the president's lawyer, as far as we know. But some evidence may be of a bit of a crack. Remember the transcript of that July 25th call with the Ukrainian president, quote, I will tell Rudy to call you. Those are the words of Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States. Yesterday, the president says he didn't direct Giuliani to do anything.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, you have to ask that to Rudy, but Rudy, I don't, I don't even know. I know he was going to go to Ukraine and I think he canceled a trip. But, you know, Rudy has other clients other than me."

No, I didn't direct him but he is a warrior. Rudy is a warrior. Rudy went, he possibly saw something. But you have to understand, Rudy has other people that he represents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Sounds like he hardly knows the guy.

KING: Yes. Is that just an answer which the president sometimes gives, a time filler, or I didn't direct him, he has other clients. Or is that the beginning of what some Republicans have been privately pushing the White House to do, blame Rudy? Say that Rudy was over there doing things and he clearly went beyond his directions.

SALAMA: It's definitely been increasingly uncomfortable as federal investigators start looking at some of the consultancies and the clients that are, you know, affiliates of Rudy Giuliani. And so it's obviously been something that is increasingly becoming a bit of a liability to be associated with him. And a lot of people at the White House obviously advising the president just take a step back.

The president generally defends Rudy. I mean, we asked him just this week and he says he's a great guy, he's the best mayor of New York City. But you ask him if he's still your mayor and he kind of takes a step back and doesn't answer the question. He doesn't want to go there.

KING: It's funny when you say that because these are two New Yorkers. They talk in unique ways. Rudy Giuliani says he's being sarcastic. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP PERSONAL LAWYER: I think things written like he's going to throw me under the bus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

GIULIANI: When they say that, I say he isn't but I have insurance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you make of Rudy Giuliani saying he has insurance?

TRUMP: I don't know. Rudy is a great guy. Rudy is the best mayor in the history of New York. Rudy is a great crime fighter, corruption fighter. Rudy is a great person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Sounds like he's a great guy.

KING: Great guy that he hardly knows.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Either they're very loyal to each other or as Rudy seems to be suggesting, they have a mutually assured destruction pact. But Republicans have been repeatedly trying to differentiate even though it's almost impossible to do because they are very much were into each other. And Rudy says he was taking direct orders from Trump but Republicans have been trying to, in their attacks on Democrats separate the two and say -- and not defend Rudy but only defend Trump.

MATTINGLY: It was one of the interesting subplots of the hearings that you didn't see a lot publicly was some of his strongest defenders behind the scenes really wanted to dump Rudy and dump on Rudy. And the president never came with them on that. And there's a little bit of a perplexed feeling because of that. KING: We will save that sound of the, I didn't direct Rudy. And we will see how the story develops.

Thanks for joining us today in the INSIDE POLITICS. Ana Cabrera is in for Brianna Keilar. She starts right now.

[13:00:03]

Have a wonderful afternoon and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.