tv New Day CNN June 20, 2017 5:00am-6:01am PDT
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administration's i think wise policy of moving the temple of operations against isis up. but this was inevitable and now we're seeing these two wars intermix and, let me be candid, i don't think we have a strategy for how we want to handle this. what we did on sunday was force protection. they were attacking forces loyal to us. what is our policy about what is clearly an iranian and syrian land grab, drafting on our military success against isis, moving eastward to control the border crossings between iraq and syria. >> strong point that fieeeds in something we're finally seeing in the senate. they're meeting about the authorization for use of military force is in a time that the president of the united states address congress and the american people and say what the plan is. general, thank you very much. >> thank you. all right, there's a lot of news. let's get after it. >> i feel really good, very
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optimistic. >> the polls are now open in georgia. >> almost like a referendum on trump. >> it is the homestretch. >> this is go time on the battle to save american health care. >> we cannot allow america's health care to continue its current downward trajectory. >> the republicans are writing their health care bill under the cover of darkness because they're ashamed of it. >> there are a lot of broken hearts for the warmbier family. >> we are not going to stand by while they do this to our citizens. >> brutal regime and we'll be able to handle it. >> this is "new day." >> good morning, everyone, welcome to your new day. it is tuesday, june 20th. 8:00 in the east. the polls are open in georgia's sixth congressional district for a special election. that's considered a magic chest for democrats and it could be a referendum on the trump
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presidency as well. by the way, it's also the most expensive house race in u.s. history. we will speak live with the democratic candidate jon ossoff. >> the implications of that race could have consequences for the republican agenda. pushing for a vote on their secretive health care bill as democrats tie up the floor in protest of that secrecy. let's begin with cnn's jason carroll live in marietta, georgia. what do you know? >> well, consider this, chris, 140,000 votes were cast during early voting. those are the types of numbers that you normally see during a presidential campaign. that gives you a sense of just how much interest has been generated in this race. as you said, the most expensive of its kind in history, $50 million spent between these two candidates. let's get the lay of the land. basically a situation in the sixth congressional district which has been reliably republican for decades. during the campaign, president
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trump barely carried this district. democrats saw an opportunity here. enter a man by the name of jon ossoff, a political novice, just 30. his opponent says lacks the political experience necessary for the job. but he's managed to really make some inroads here. you've got karen handel, she is the name here in town, well known, former georgia secretary of state. so here's what's at stake here. if ossoff wins, it's really a symbolic victory for democrats going forward. giving them momentum going into the midterm election. if you've got handel who pulls out a win here,ing th inin inth lawmakers hey, maybe the president knows what he'sing d, that gives them the momentum to get his policies through in washington, d.c. it's a race that's just too close to call. >> thank you for the update. obviously we'll check back with you. another top story we're
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covering. a showdown with north korea over the death of u.s. college student otto warmbier. joe johns is at the white house with more. >> i think first of all you have to say this is a real human tragedy. the death off theo warmbier. it only adds to the pressure of this administration and the crisis that is north korea. the administration issuing a cautious statement. the president himself wading in, suggesting there will be a response, but not indicating what that response will be. >> that's a brutal regime. and we'll be able to handle it. >> able to handle it but how. perhaps we'll get some type of an indication from the white house on how they're going to handle it later this week on wednesday, the secretaries of state and defense expected to meet their chinese counterparts
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right here in washington, d.c. no doubt north korea will be on the agenda. >> keep your eyes on your twitter feed because you're not going to get an answer in the press briefing because it will be day nine of you not getting one. let's bring in our panel. cnn political analyst david druggar and abby phillip and cnn political and national security analyst david sanger. it's good to have all of you here. brother sanger, let me start with you today. when we look at this election in georgia and what's going on with health care and the administration in general, we're seeing a tie-in. do you? is this referendum talk legitimate? >> it's legitimate but it can be a little bit overwrenched. what's fascinating about this district is it's been reliably republican for decades. so if the republicans lost it, i think it would probably spook a number of those who are working on this health care plan and
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would make them wonder whether or not they can tie themselves to president trump over the long term. but i wouldn't overread any individual congressional race. and of course the few times we thought there had been tests recently, president trump has pulled it out at the end. >> so david, maybe this is a referendum on democrats and whether or not they're as galvanized as some of them claim to be. >> regardless of how the vote goes today, i think one thing we learned from the campaign is they're energized, theyare galvanized. i think even if they lose, that opposition to trump will keep them galvanized. chris has done a good be job o e highlighting that ossoff raised money mostly from out side the district. democrats are so jonesed up to stick it to trump they've been sending him money hand over fist. it's just been pouring in. one thing, you raise a good
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point about who the referendum is on, republicans will tell you, and they have been using this message and trying to nationalize this race where ossoff has been trying to localize it, that it's a referendum on nancy pelosi. what republican strategists tell me in polling pelosi, more so than barack obama ever was, continues to be the best asset they have. they've said ossoff, pelosi. we're going to see this play over and over between now and 2018 election day. it will be interesting to see how well that worked. >> the obvious indicator here is the dems wouldn't have dumped so much money into this if they didn't think they could win. i guess their read on that is the slim margin for trump over hillary clinton. it was a point and a half. i think romney won by something like 20-plus, price was a prohibitive favorite, tom price, who is now the health and human services secretary. he was holder of that seat and he was a prohibitive favorite,
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60-plus-percent in every vote. what's their gamble here and what's the chance it pays off? >> the big gamble in this district is the education gap, the education divide. there are a lot of college-educated voters in this district, far more than in any of the other special elections we've seen so far this year. and that's the biggest source of hope. because these are the people, these are the romney voters that 19% or so that didn't go for trump that maybe sat out in the last election or some of them converted over to hillary clinton. these are the people who are the most likely to secure a district like this for democrats. on the other hand, trump has been surprisingly -- he's been surprisingly resilient among republicans. many of them still give him marks in the high 80s. and so it's really unclear why they are not -- they can get republicans to go from annoyance or distaste to i'm actually going to vote for the democrat in this election. actually in a midterm where the pool of voters that you're
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polling from is a little bit unusual. it's not exactly what you might expect. it's a special election and it's an off year. that makes it very unpredictable. >> david, let's talk about what was going on on the senate floor last night. democrats were holding this, you know, sort of strongly worded speeches that they were giving about the fact that they think in health care, proven, all the health care negotiations have been going on behind closed doors with the gop. we had senator murphy on who said they know they can't really stall the gop's plans or from them bringing it to a vote, but they were trying to shame the gop and try to kind of broadcast to all the constituents that nobody knows what's in this and it might be bad for them. >> well, that's right, but what's fascinating is you're beginning to see leaks out of this process, and what are we discovering in the course of that, that the bill that they are considering would give the
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states a lot more leeway to go deny some of the benefits that people right now are getting under obamacare. and i think the more that becomes clear, i think that the senate's going to have to sort of deal with what president trump called the other day the mean factor in all of this. which is whether or not this seems to be moving in that direction and, you know, you hear the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell say he wants to have this thing done by the july 4th holiday. but there's danger for the republicans here if there is a sense that they have railroaded something that in the end ends up denying a large percentage of people benefits. >> david, there's a slight of hand going on here. all states want more control over what they do. governors like that, right? i've got a big governor in my family and what they don't like is getting more control over less money. right? i also have a governor in my house who will fight over
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everything except the check. he's cheap. he wants more money. when they're being told you're going to get less money, that's the gamble for the republicans right now, is they're saying you're going to have more control, that's what you guys want, get the federal government out of it. yeah, that's good, but we're cutting your money, especially for the most vulnerable, and that's going to be a problem, isn't it? >> and that's why you've seen republican resistance. you have republicans, rob portman is among them from states that expanded medicaid. even though not all of these republicans are moderate, many of them are conservative, they're still concerned with how this bill will impact the people they represent. this all gets back, chris, to the dance that republicans are trying to do here with this health care reform bill. which is we want to maintain everything that everybody likes about obamacare, pre-existing conditions, protections and things like that, but we don't want to keep up any of the things that people don't like. there are a lot of mon dates. there are a lot of taxes.
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republicans have long been against -- >> this is how you're paying for things they do like. >> yes, if you don't get rid of the mandates and a lot of the rules, you can't actually bring down insurance premiums, which is a huge complaint on the right and is a huge problem because so many people are paying deductibles that they can't afford and things like that. and that's why this has become such a policy mess. because it's not a clean policy decision. it's something the democrats faced eight years ago but they were more willing to just go all in and simply say don't worry, it will all work out. republicans are trying to split the baby and say don't worry, it will work out, and from a policy perspective, that's a very difficult thing to do. >> abby, let's talk about something else that is a very difficult things to do and that's the right response to this tragic otto warmbier story, where senator john mccain says he was murdered. i mean, john mccain has just said in, you know, the clearest terms yet that he was murdered by the north korean regime. so this is a tough one obviously for president trump. is there a sense of what he'll
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do? >> i don't think there's a clear sense from this administration that they have a silver bullet. i think you had a guest earlier on who said exactly that. this is a hard problem. i think he recognized that it's a hard problem. and to his credit, it the one tg that people say the president say. he is kept up at night by north korea as he should be for things like this that happen. i think he views the better relationship he has with china as a key to all of this. and it may very well be, but i think if it were that easy, that would have been done already too. so they're in a tough spot looking for good pressure points. >> he's a little boxed in by his own campaign rhetoric, right, that i'm going to muscular with north korea, then he came out with a pretty measured response. what are the options here?
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>> his actions are not good, chris. if this were a problem as abby indicated that the chinese were going to solve for the united states, they would have solved it 20 years ago. i've been reporting on north korea since the late '80s and the cycle is very much the same. they escalate, they look for a moment in which they're going to get concessions from us. we sometimes offer them and sometimes don't. president obama didn't. then you go all through the cycle once again. unfortunately, in this tragic case, while the north koreans have killed americans before, rarely have they killed a tourist and a college student. we don't know the circumstances yet of what caused his death but i think there's good reason to believe that his treatment at the hands of the north koreans had something to do with the death of an otherwise seemingly perfectly healthy 20-year-old. so the question here is does the president respond to this death or does he stay on track with
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his main policy? and then the second question is, does he have a set of options if the chinese disappoint here? and they will. they already are. and he seems to be back to sort of a warmed up version of what president obama did, which was increase sanctions. if they want to really increase the sanctions, they know how to do it. they can cut off energy with chinese help and they can inspect every ship. >> okay, panel, thank you very much. coming up, we are going to talk with the democratic candidate in that georgia special election, jon ossoff is his name. we invited his republican challenger karen handel. she's been on the show before but she declined on this day. fired national security adviser michael flynn now said to be cooperating with the fbi, at least that's the theory of one senator. how big of a problem is that for president trump? we ask the top democrat on the senate intel committee about all of this next.
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we have new developments this morning in the russia probe concerning fired national security adviser michael flynn, a democratic senator suggests flynn may be cooperating with the fbi amid a report that flynn may have failed to disclose something else. this time to the middle east to secure an energy deal between russia and saudi arabia. let's discuss the implications
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with the vice chairman of the senate intel committee, democratic senator mark warner. his committee is holding a hearing tomorrow looking into russia's influence on the 2016 election. in my hand, senator, thank you for being on the show, i have a letter that you just dispatched to the honorable john f. kelly, also known as the secretary of homeland security, and in it, you are asking an important question. you're saying let's not get distracted from the big questions here about russian interference and how they did it and the extent. and you're asking for him to work with states to share information about how far the interference went. what is your concern? >> here's my concern, chris. there have been published reports which i won't comment on the truthfulness that literally dozens and dozens of states were interfered with. so far, only two states, illinois and arizona, have, in effect, come forward and acknowledged that the russians tried to hack into them.
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what i want to make clear is i don't want to try to embarrass any state, but i think there are a number of more states who were attempted to be hacked into. we ought to declassify that so that americans can understand and state election officials ultimately where the responsibility lies can do more to be ready. because we have elections in 2018 in my home state of virginia. we have state elections this year. i think when the american public realized how extensive the russian attempts to interfere in our electoral process, the more we'll be on guard. let me be clear i don't think the russians actually changed the vote totals of any voting in 2016 but clearly they went after a whole lot of states and we need to be on guard. >> answer this common pushback, which is, the russians do this all the time, so does the united states, they interfere in elections all the time. this is nothing new. >> well, chris, that is just frankly flat out wrong and all
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the intelligence community has all come to the conclusion that the russians massively interfered in a way that we've never seen before. not only did they hack into information and release selectively information that would help mr. trump and hurt mrs. clinton, but they also used fake news and a series of internet bots to try to overwhelm certain search engines so if you were reading news in certain areas of the state near the end of the election, you only got one set of facts. this was weaponization of information. virtually everybody i know, democrat and republican, accepts that as factual, unprecedented. the one elected official in washington that still seems not to accept that is mr. trump and frankly i can't understand why. >> well, this one guess would be because any time russia is mentioned, he thinks it's bad for him. one of the reasons is michael flynn. >> that is a little peculiar that this president trump who is willing to say pretty much bad things about anyone, the only world leader he's not ever said
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anything bad about is vladimir putin. that raises a whole set of questions with me. >> well, one of those questions surrounds michael flynn now. do you have any reason to believe that he is cooperating with authorities? >> well, clearly he's been looking for immunity for some time. he said he would come in and talk to us at the intel committee but only with immunity. we subpoenaed a number of -- but i would have a lot of questions for general flynn, not only his unreported trips and unreported finances he received from turkey, from russia. i'd like to know what kind of conversations he had with russian officials while he was directly involved in the campaign. >> is it true he did not report a trip to the middle east? >> again, i've seen those published reports in the last 24 hours. i can't speak to the veracity of them. this was an individual who got fired within the first few weeks of the administration because he didn't tell the truth. there seems to be each couple of weeks more information coming out about general flynn.
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i do hope the fbi gets a chance to get a full confession from him at some point. >> why did your committee drop investigations of any potential obstruction? and do you believe that the special counsel is looking at the circumstances surrounding the firing of the fbi director? >> well, first of all, chris, we didn't drop anything. what we were asked was if there was a charge of obstruction of justice, that would be turned over to special counsel mueller who -- because that's a criminal charge and his investigation is criminal. what we want to know is has there been efforts by this president to, in effect, politicize the intelligence committee. there are a number of reports that he tried to interfere with senior levels of the intelligence community, about trying to ask them to back off the russia investigation. clearly we had direct testimony from former director comey that he felt so uncomfortable about some of thisser pra ma epressur
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president that he went out and wrote individual memos about certain records because he was afraid the president might lie about certain conversations. that is very troubling. we're seeing what appears to be a pat tetern here. >> do you believe the special counsel is looking at the circumstances surrounding the director of the fbi and his dismissal? >> i believe the special counsel has a broad purview. i think he's looking into all of these issues. and he has one goal, which is to see if there are criminal violations. we have a counterintelligence role to show did the russians interfere in the elections. we have an absolute yes on that. then we have the quote we still need to sort through. was this collaboration or some level of cooperation between officials connected with the trump campaign and the russians. we're still sorting through that. >> senator, thank you. it is decision day for voters in georgia. will democrats finally break nearly 40 years of gop dominance
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in that district? will they send shockwaves to the white house? or will it go the other way? democratic candidate john ossoff joins us live with his thoughts next. tech: when you schedule with safelite autoglass, you get a text when we're on our way. you can see exactly when we'll arrive. i'm micah with safelite. customer: thanks for coming, it's right over here. tech: giving you a few more minutes for what matters most. take care. kids singing: safelite® repair, safelite® replace. [vo] what made secretariat the grwho ever lived?e
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voters are heading to the polls at this hour in georgia's sixth congressional district. this is the most expensive house race in u.s. history. many see it as a referendum on president trump and the gop agenda. joining us now is the democratic candidate jon ossoff. good morning, mr. ossoff. >> good morning, great to see you again. >> do you see whatever happens today as a bell weather for something bigger than this district? >> well, the contrast in this district is between a career politician, my opponent, karen handel, who's notorious for cutting off funding for life saving breast cancer screenings at planned parenthood or a fresh voice who wants to work across the aisle and get things done and grow our local economy, work to make health care more affordable for women and folks with pre-existing conditions. >> yes, but don't you think this race also has national implications? >> el with, clearly there's a
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lot of national interest. i'll leave it to the pundits and folks on cnn to assess the national implications. what i think is clear is there's unprecedented intensity and interest by volunteers and the voters alike here in the sixth district. today is the day for folks to make their voices heard. the polls are open. it's important that everyone participates. >> yes, there's not only the intense interest, there's also a lot of money, as we just said, so there has to be a reason, mr. ossoff, that all of this out of state money has poured in to your campaign. how do you explain it? >> well, out of state money has poured in on both sides. it's become a little bit of an arms race. i'm proud of the fact my campaign is powered by small dollar grassroots fund-raising. my opponent's campaign has been bailed out by the special interest super pacs, deception, fearmongering and hate here in georgia for months. >> i hear what you're saying. you want to see this race as
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about you against karen handel. understood, you've worked hard. do you not see the national implications of this race? do you not think it's at all a referendum on donald trump? >> i'm sure there are national implications. it's not my place to assess them. i leave that to pundits and commentators. my job is to make the case that i'll do the best job possible representing the people of georgia's sixth district and what they want is representation that's focused on them and not this national partisan political circus. they want representation that's focused on growing metro atlanta into an economic powerhouse that's focused on improving quality of life at home, that's focused on defending their access to health care, and that's why i remain folk us ked on the issues and the priorities that are going to be improve the quality of life for the folks i hope to serve. >> as i'm sure you know, there was this negative campaign ad about you, put out by this right wing pac. linked you to the horrible event
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that unfolded at that gop baseball game. let me just play one little portion of this ad. >> now the unhinged left is endorsing and applauding shooting republicans. when will it stop? it won't if jon ossoff wins on tuesday. >> what did you think when you saw that ad? >> what can you even say. the man is fighting for his life. it's got no place in the political attack ad. this is exactly what americans are sick and tired of. and it's exactly why the folks in d.c. have clearly lost the plot. clearly don't understand what people care about. don't understand that most people out there, most people down here in the real world, want unity, what a commitment to getting things done that improves life for them. and don't want this kind of fearmongering that's disgraceful and has no place in american
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politics. >> mr. ossoff, if you do win, you do go to congress, what do you do about the atmosphere that you walk into that many describe as the most toxic ever? i mean, really, other than words. because we've heard a lot of words after this shooting by people. but what would you do, you know, actually to try to change this horrible partisan rancor? >> well, look, everyone's asking what the national implications of the race are and maybe the lesson would be this, that voters in georgia, a coalition of folks across the political spectrum, democrats, independents and republicans want people in washington to work together to improve life for them. to focus on economic growth, economic development, opportunity, prosperity, health and security. the things that really matter to the folks who are watching at home. rather than what's become a national political circus completely lost touch with the daily concerns of georgians and folks across the country. >> what about health care. a lot of people think this also -- that your race also is a
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bellweather of how people are feeling about health care. as you know, republicans in the senate are engaged in crafting some sort of plan. they're doing it behind closed doors. much to the dismay of democrats who health a late-night session about this, railing against it. do you think that your race is connected to this? >> well, it's on everyone's minds. and the health care bill that the house passed is deeply unpopular in this district. it guts protections for georgians with pre-existing conditions. it's bad for women. it's bad for older americans. it's deeply unpopular. my opponent karen handel persists in supporting it. what with e nee need is a bipar commitment to improving the laws on the books to lower premiums, improve access and improve quality of care. but what congress has seen fit to do, as congress so often sees fit to do, is to pursue partisan objectives. to notch a win for this or that political party. rather than coming together to improve life for people.
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>> jon ossoff, we have to leave it there. congratulations on your engagement. >> thank you very much. i'll pass that along to alicia. >> please do and i like to think that i somehow played some role in badgering you into it. >> i don't think that that's the case but if it makes you feel good to think that way then fine. >> thank you, it does. thank you very much for being on with us this morning. we're obviously watching with great interest. we should note, we invited his republican challenger. she declined to come on the show today. we'll see what happens next. >> i like the way he shut you down on that. >> i know. if you like to believe. >> that was good. that workings fs for you too. president trump's son-in-law and top adviser jared kushner breaking his silence and then breaking twitter. hear what he sounds like for yourself ahead. time's up, insufficient we're on prenatal care.es. and administrative paperwork... your days of drowning people are numbered.
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voters in georgia's sixth district heading to polls in a high-states republic s election. >> senate majority leader mitch mcconnell pushing for a vote on a health care bill before the july 4th recess. democrats protested the secrecy of the gop plan on the floor last night. >> furious with north korea over the death of american college student otto warmbier. senator mccain accuses kim jong-un's regime of murder. french officials say the man who deliberately rammed a car into a police van in paris was on a radicalization watch list. and that weapons and explosives were found in the car. four of his family members are in custody. nasa says the kepler space telescope has identified 219 possible new planets beyond our solar system. they include ten with similarities to earth. boosting the chances that they
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could sustain life. something might be out there. >> is there life elsewhere? >> yes. >> good to know. for more on the five things to know, go to cnn.com/newday for the latest. >> okay, time for cnn money now. the first official day of summer is tomorrow. but u.p.s. is already thinking about christmas. and its plans could cost you more. chief business correspondent christine romans joins us now from our money center. very unseasonable. >> merry christmas, you guys. for the first time, u.p.s. will charge an extra fee for holiday deliveries. more americans are doing their holiday shopping digitally and amazon has sold a billion items last season. traditional retailers ramp up their online deals to compete. they rely on u.p.s., fedex and the postal service to hand all the shipments. u.p.s.' delivery volume doubles over the holidays. this year, u.p.s. will charge retailers to offset the costs. fees range from 27 cents to
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ground shipments to an extra 97 cents for faster delivery and they'll start the week of thanksgiving. the extra charge forces retailers to decide if they'll eat the cost or pass them on to you or me. that may prove difficult. as competition increases, shoppers are reluctant to pay more shipping fees. certainly every holiday season, chris, i tell people, don't settle for less than free shipping, chris. >> i'll tell you, you are right. the shift to online shopping is amazing. i see it even with the kids. thank you, christine. so the special congressional race in georgia is today. and whichever party wins, you're going to hear about it. will it be a referendum on president trump. that's the bottom line. next. isn't this fun, living like the pioneers of olden times? i hate the outside. well, i hate it wherever you are. burn. "burn." is that what the kids are saying now? i'm so bored, i'm dead.
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...intelligent. ...explosive. but the true secret to his perfection... was a heart, twice the size of an average horse. all right. georgia's going to get the attention today. they have the big special congressional election voters choose in between republican karen handel and democrat jon ossoff, who just discussed the high-stakes race with us. will today's race be more than just about that district? let's get the bottom line with cnn's political analyst ron brownstein. how do you see it, professor? >> look, i think inevitably,
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donald trump is the reason we are talking about this district and this race. tom price, who gave up the seat to become health and human services secretary, has never won less than 62% of the vote in this district. mitt romney and john mccain both won it by about 20 points in the 2008 and 2012 presidential election. the reason it is competitive at all is because donald trump's most significant underperformance relative to other republicans is his weakness among the kind of college-educated white voters, suburban white collar, white voters, who are in this district and districts like it. this district has more college-educated white voters than any other republican house seat in the country. while ossoff was strikingly on message during your interview and obviously is trying to appeal to republicans to kind of minimize the direct attacks on the president, he is the reason we are having this conversation and why this race is even close at all i think. >> right, but if jon ossoff gets close to karen handel but doesn't win and gets, you know,
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within a couple of points, that may be really interesting for numbers crunchers like you. once again, in these special elections, it means democrats don't get a win and then what? >> absolutely. look, there are two that kind of -- planes on which this exists. on the plane of thinking about 2018, first of all, special elections, as you know, have an imperfect relationship in predicting what happens. either way, whether this come also out by a couple thousand votes, either way, you know, it's hard to kind of generalize from that to guarantee what's going to be. i would say that from a predictive point of view, it doesn't in the end matter that much, whether he wins or falls a few thousand votes short, both of them tell you the same thing, that there are more suburban white collar republican leaning voters willing to vote democrat in the trump era but not so many more that democrats are guaranteed to take back the house. in practical terms, it will, have an effect in terms of fund-raising and recruiting and momentum. all of that is very real. in terms of looking at the underlying preferences of
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voters, a couple thousand votes either way probably doesn't tell you much. if it's a bigger margin, that may be more important. >> the psychology's going to be there. >> absolutely. >> if you get a win and the democrats need a win, they don't need to be close. if they get a win, that's big for them. if the republicans get a win, it's big for them. what's the big read there? >> yeah, look, i think, you know, the general trend, chris, in modern elections is that attitudes towards the president are increasingly influencing both house and senate races. consistently now, over 80% of the people who support the president's job performance support his party's candidates in house elections according to exit polls and over 80% who disapprove oppose his party candidate. if you look at the governor races, which starting tomorrow will be our next obsession, enormous correlation with 80% or roughly more of the people who disapprove of trump saying they're going to vote democrat, which is why the democrats have big leads in new jersey and virginia. this is important because this is the kind of district
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democrats are most likely to win if they're going to win back the house. 23 house republicans in districts that hillary clinton carried, about two-thirds of them are districts like this with a lot of suburban white collar voters. so this is the kind of place that democrats have to win. most of those places lean a little more democratic. this is, after all, the suburbs of a southern city, not the suburbans of philadelphia or denver or new jersey where those other democratic opportunities are. but this is -- this is indicative of the kind of places they need to win. so psychologically, i agree with you, it's very important for them to get over the top. even if the predictive value doesn't change that much. or a couple thousand votes either way. >> what do you think is most motivating people? is it their feelings about donald trump that's going to turn them out to the polls today or health care? >> the two are interrelated. i think the health care -- it is fascinating to me, it is indicative of the challenge republicans face, that karen handel is consistently misrepresented the health care bill and just flat-out misrepresented it as arguing it
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provides better protections for people with pre-existing conditions when in fact it allows states to undermine the protections at ca created. that is indicative of the challenge republicans will face. defending this bill. if, in fact, they do pass it. less relevant here is the medicaid issue which could be more of a problem for republican senators in those blue collar interior states. >> ron, thank you. so wait until you see this next story. he is the highest profile, least heard person. jared kushner has finally revealed his voice. care to guess what it sounds like? we're going to reveal it to you next. "is your daughter ok?" that's where i felt relief. we're the rivera family, and we will be with usaa for life. i'm ryan and i quit smoking with chantix. i tried to quit cold turkey. i tried to quit with the patch; that didn't work.
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when heartburn hits fight back fast with new tums chewy bites. fast relief in every bite. crunchy outside. chewy inside. tum tum tum tum new tums chewy bites. good stuff, all right. one woman who beat throat cancer is paying it forward. in remission for a year, what does she do? she wanted to show her appreciation for life by helping to feed children in need. >> they motivate me. if i'm not down here to do this for my community and my babies, i just don't want to go on. >> i mean, she's literally
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feeding kids. she does it at her home at dinnertime. she said her battle with cancer took a lot away but it did not touch her ability to give. >> tina is one of them kind that comes along every now and then, once in a lifetime. >> god got me here for a reason. if he want me, he would have went on and took me. >> we all get knocked down. the question is how do you get back up. thank you for showing us the right way. >> that is a beautiful message. okay. a little levity now. five months into the trump presidency. a huge white house mystery has finally been solved. no, it's not the russia probe. >> that's for sure. >> it's what donald trump's son-in-law and top adviser jared kushner sounds like. cnn's jeanne moos has the big reveal. >> reporter: shh, he has been seen but not heard. silently watching president trump sign orders. jared kushner's usually in the middle of the action but publicly mum. >> well, thank you very much. >> reporter: sitting at the
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president's side but never a peep out of him. >> have you ever heard him speak? seriously? what does his voice sound like? >> my big thing is real estate. and online media businesses. >> reporter: we now know the president's son-in-law doesn't really sound like gilbert god freed because at a session with leaders monday, jared kushner finally used his vocal cords. so without further ado, drum roll, please, we present the actual voice of jared kushner. >> the department of defense, for example, still uses eight-inch floppy discs. >> reporter: no wonder nobody focused on what he was saying. >> the trump administration got it done. >> reporter: i don't believe it, this is like finding out her maids have legs, tweeted someone stunneded to find kushner has a voice. others drew parallels. jared kushner's voice sounds like a young michael cera. >> u would, i'm mr. manager. >> reporter: kushner's silence
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was being mocked on "snl." >> now my little jared kushner. i know you don't like talking but why don't you take it away. god, you're such a cute little twig. live from new york, it's saturday night. >> reporter: kushner's a guy with a twitter account but no tweets. a cover story in "time" with no interview. he once tiptoed past his wife as she was being interviewed. >> oh, come on, jared, come on. oh, jared, you can't just walk in and not say anything. >> reporter: the silence side kick has finally found his voice. >> it's working and it's very exciting. >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> it's working. it's very exciting. >> well, look, you know what, sometimes it is the better option, is to say less and do more. >> we cannot compute those
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words. that is not what our business is. >> it is also a different feel for this administration. but that's still -- he's been doing it and it's getting him a lot of attention. >> all right, let us know what you think. use your fingertips for your words. meanwhile, it's time for cnn "ne "newsroom" with john berman. >> did chris cuomo just say sometimes it's better to say less? >> the irony. >> your position right now, it may be better to say less. >> i'd better stop right now, in that sense, i'm going to get to it and say so long to you guys. all right, at this moment, voters are heading to the polls in what could be the most important special election in decades. the most expensive house race ever. the most pivotal political moment yet to face this white house. it could be all of those things. then again, it could just be tuesday. it's sometimes hard to
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