Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

Ten Candidates Selected for First GOP Debate; Jeb Bush: 'I Misspoke on Women's Health Funding'; FBI Investigating Security of Clinton Emails; President Begins Campaign for Iran Nuclear Deal; Sen. Lankford: 'Planned Parenthood Fight Not Over.' Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 5, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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


SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: ... flanked by nine of his rivals. Last night, it was announced who made the cut and clinched a coveted spot in the primetime debate. Along with Trump, we'll see Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and rounding out the bunch, Chris Christie and John Kasich.

[07:00:20] Just as remarkable, the seven who won't be onstage for the main event, like Rick Perry, the longest serving governor of Texas; Rick Santorum, the 2012 winner of the Iowa caucuses; and Carly Fiorina, a former CEO and the only woman in the GOP field. Those candidates will face off in an earlier debate at 5 p.m.

Now one big question remains. Will Trump go on the attack? Last night, he offered a preview.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not looking to hurt anybody. I'm not looking to embarrass anybody. If I have to bring up deficiencies, I'll bring up deficiencies.

MURRAY: The latest polls show Trump with wide support from roughly one in four Republican voters. But if preparing to go toe-to- toe against the former reality TV star feels a little surreal, his competitors aren't letting on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you were a young man growing up in Texas, you probably never imagined that one day you would be on television with Donald Trump. But you will be this week.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I was growing up, we didn't have reality TV, either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, clearly, this is going to be a blow to anyone who's not going to be in the primetime debate. The candidates are handling it differently. Rick Perry tweeted last night that he looks forward to a serious exchange of ideas in that 5 p.m. debate. But the Santorum folks were not having it. A spokesman for Rick Santorum called this process incredibly flawed in deciding who would make the stage for the prime-time debate. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Sara, of course, Lindsey Graham

says that 5 p.m. will be the happy hour debate, and he predicts everyone will be drunk by the later one.

MURRAY: You can always count on Lindsey Graham for a couple quippy comments there.

CAMEROTA: I guess you can. All right, Sara, thanks so much for that.

Well, the Planned Parenthood funding debate now front and center on the campaign trail. A Twitter war breaking out between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Clinton bashing her Republican rival after he said that he's not sure we need a half a billion dollars for, quote, "women's health issues." That's a comment that he quickly clarified.

CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns, joins us with more -- Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, it really is front and center on the presidential campaign trail. A tricky issue to maneuver for candidates like Jeb Bush, who would seize the moment to try to turn the abortion debate to their advantage but also need to do a balancing act so they don't alienate voters with concerns about women's health.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush walking back a seemingly offhanded jab over women's health funding.

BUSH: I'm not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women's health issues.

JOHNS: Jeb said in a statement soon after he "misspoke" at the Southern Baptist Convention in Tennessee Tuesday. He says he meant to say the $500 million in federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood should be directed to "other women's health organizations." No matter; rival Hillary Clinton pounced.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I guess women's health just isn't a priority for him.

JOHNS: Hillary first firing off this tweet at Jeb Bush: "You are absolutely, unequivocally wrong."

Bush tweeting right back an hour later: "What's absolutely, unequivocally wrong is giving taxpayer money to an organization whose practices show no regard for lives of unborn."

At a campaign event in Denver Tuesday, Hillary did not hold back.

CLINTON: I'm really tired of the double speak. I'm tired of women being shamed and blamed and dismissed.

JOHNS: Coming to his aid, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, tweeting that Clinton ought to be ashamed for standing with Planned Parenthood.

The fight over women's health intensifying just a day after the Republican effort to defund the organization failed to get enough votes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The motion is not agreed to.

JOHNS: Some Republicans now threaten a government shutdown if Planned Parenthood is not defunded.

CLINTON: When you attack Planned Parenthood, you attack women's health. And when you attack women's health, you attack America's health.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The dust-up between candidates coming on the same day that the Center for Medical Progress, an antiabortion group, released its fifth hidden-camera video purporting to expose methods and money motives of Planned Parenthood abortion providers, engaged in the exchange of fetal tissues to be used for research -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Interesting to see how that plays out on the debate tomorrow night. We'll be watching. I know you will, as well, Joe. Thank you.

Hillary Clinton's lawyer, meanwhile, confirming in a report this morning that the FBI is investigating the security of the private e- mail system that Clinton used while she was secretary of state.

CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny live in Washington with more on that.

Hi, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- hey, good morning, Michaela.

You're right. That private e-mail system that Hillary Clinton set up at her home in Chappaqua, New York, back in 2009 after becoming secretary of state is once again at the center of her presidential campaign.

[07:05:06] As we're learning this morning, the FBI has started investigating the security of the communications system she set up that was outside of the channels of government. Her lawyer, David Kendall, confirmed to CNN they are actively cooperating in this ongoing investigation to determine whether hundreds of e-mails, some containing material that was later classified, were handled properly.

Now Clinton is not accused of any personal wrongdoing in this probe. But U.S. intelligence officials have raised concerns about sensitive information that could have been compromised.

Overnight, her campaign spokesman, Nick Merrill, told CNN, "She did not send nor receive any e-mails that were marked classified at the time. We want to ensure appropriate procedures are followed as these e-mails are reviewed."

But the probe is focusing on whether the e-mail server had appropriate security measures in place for classified State Department correspondence. The secretary's decision to use this private e-mail system first came to light during the investigation of the Benghazi attacks in 2012. It's caused months of controversy in her presidential campaign, and it's given her critics an opening to question her honesty and trustworthiness. These questions will just continue -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And you've got this state of play, Jeff, that you've reported on very well. Is it a criminal reference? No. Is it her target specifically? No. But when the FBI is looking into anything that's going on with you when you're running for public office, it ain't good. Everybody's going to agree on that. But more to come. Thank you for that, Jeff.

All right. Now let's talk to Donald Trump's main man when it comes to making his case on TV, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, Michael Cohen, council. Good to have you hear as often.

I was in Argentina last week. You got in hot water about stuff that came out in "The Daily Beast" article. This is your first appearance on TV since that. The context of it was they were doing a story about Donald Trump's earlier marriage, and something, an ugly accusation that had been made. And you made the statement, one that you didn't like what they were doing, and you were hostile about it. But that marital rape isn't possible.

You've since apologized. Why would you say something like that? You're smarter than that. What happened?

MICHAEL COHEN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: So I was mad. I said several things out of anger, none of which I believed. And I immediately issued an apology.

In all fairness, who hasn't said something or done something that they regret, simply trying to protect someone that they care about? And I care about Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization, the children. I said things out of anger. And I apologized and moved on.

CUOMO: And do you think it is a fair reflection of what is a criticism of the Trump Organization? These are tough...

COHEN: Absolutely not.

CUOMO: ... guys. Bully guys. They'll come at you.

COHEN: Absolutely not. It was a terrible comment request by this reporter. Again, you know, it was me. I take responsibility. I was really angry at the -- at the request and issued my apology and moved on.

CUOMO: Last time I checked, you're also not running for president.

COHEN: I'm not.

CUOMO: So let's talk about the guy who is.

COHEN: Yes.

CUOMO: What do you say? Make sense of it, as a lawyer. He is on top of every poll you want to look at. I know not everyone -- I'm being a little hyperbolic. Donald Trump has a lead and not a small lead in too many polls to be dismissed; yet, he is being dismissed. You know, I talk all the time about is the meat on the bones? What's he going to have as his answers to these problems that he puts out there? But what do you say as to why people keep dismissing him, despite these numbers?

COHEN: Because they're in somebody else's camp. It's just Lindsey that simple. I speak to many of these reporters on the opposite side while I'm being interviewed. And they're part of the Bush camp. They're part of the Walker camp. They're part of the Cruz camp. They'll say whatever they can in order to try to demean him. It's not working. He's leading by double digits: 26, 26, 24, 21. With the next guy closest at 11 percent. They can dismiss him all he wants. They did that from the beginning, and it's proven wrong.

CUOMO: Genius move that they put out the cell phone number of Donald Trump. He winds up making it into an advertisement for himself. So every time you call the number, it's a campaign message.

COHEN: Sends you directly to both his Twitter as well as his campaign.

Think about what Lindsey Graham did. Lindsey Graham goes ahead. He lights his cell phone on fire, beats it with an ax and a rock and so on. As I said yesterday on a different show, actually, it's not good for the environment. Right? And throws away the cell number that he had.

Donald Trump, it's a different mentality. It's what makes him different than the rest of that field.

CUOMO: When it comes to how to deal with your image, and how to deflect criticism, it's going to be hard to beat your guy, Donald Trump. There's no question about it.

COHEN: Impossible, maybe.

CUOMO: So we have him up in the polls. There's also another aspect. It's not just that certain people come after him, and you think it's unfair. I would argue the other way, which is legitimate criticisms from the other candidates do not stick to Donald Trump. What do you think it is that makes him kind of Teflon?

He can say something. Factually, it doesn't line up. It's not that big a deal. He criticizes something. Well, what's your answer? "I'll have Carl Icahn deal with China."

Jeb Bush says that, we'd be on him for days. You know, "That's your answer?" Donald Trump, it doesn't stick to him the same way. Why?

[07:10:09] COHEN: Don't forget, he's not a politician. All right? He's an uber-successful billionaire businessman. And what he is, he's a problem solver. And that's why he's leading the polls.

He's an amazing negotiator, maybe the best ever in the history of this world. What he'll do is he'll deal with trade; he'll deal with issues. We don't really know what all the facts are. Clearly, nobody in this country believes that the information that we're receiving is probably accurate anyway. So what do they do? They go ahead and they look to a guy who's proven to be successful. He's proven to be a doer and gets things done. What's why Trump is leading.

CUOMO: Would he really put Carl Icahn in charge of China, or is he just throwing out a concept?

COHEN: Isn't it an amazing thought, though? If you could put somebody like Carl Icahn -- I'm sure you know Carl, his personality. He would be a tough negotiator. Maybe it won't be Carl; it will be somebody else. But he would put an individual who's capable of going to another country and getting a fair trade deal; not a free trade, a fair trade. Something that America can benefit from. Something American citizens can benefit from. He wouldn't allow Mexico to take advantage of opening up another factory and taking more jobs away from Americans.

CUOMO: Is he oversimplifying how these dynamics work, though? I mean, you have so much diplomatic pressure and implications that are military and otherwise going on. It's probably not as easy as just putting a good negotiator at the table.

COHEN: We don't have a good negotiator. So we don't know what's going to happen.

CUOMO: How do you know we don't have a good negotiator?

COHEN: Because look at where we're at. We're in really bad shape as a country. We're not respected around the world. We're not even respected in our own country. You need to bring in the Donald Trump-type negotiator in order to make these deals.

CUOMO: The idea of what's going on with Planned Parenthood, OK, what is Donald Trump's position in terms of...?

COHEN: I do know, Chris, that you're going to be speaking to him next week. I think it's probably better that he talks about the position. It's a very interesting question. And unfortunately, like in the debate, which is 60 seconds, you're not really going to be able to give the proper answer. There's so many different aspects to this.

He is not for Planned Parenthood. He would close the government down in order to defund it.

CUOMO: He would?

COHEN: I believe so. I believe he made that statement yesterday.

CUOMO: Right. I know he said it, but I mean, does he mean it? You know, that's one of the things with Donald.

COHEN: Donald Trump really doesn't say things that he doesn't mean.

CUOMO: But sometimes he's pushing a point. Right? I'm not saying that he's -- it's not integrity. I'm saying that sometimes he's pushing a point for effect. You know what I mean? He gets caught on it a little bit in politics, because it's a different standard. You're really saying he would say a government shutdown is OK to deal with defunding for Planned Parenthood?

COHEN: Well, I think he would figure out a way how to defund Planned Parenthood. And if that's the only solution, then that's the solution.

CUOMO: Why defund it?

COHEN: The government can't shut down. We need our government to operate.

CUOMO: That's why I'm asking.

COHEN: He's putting a very strong deal onto the table. Again, it's the art of the deal. He is the negotiator.

CUOMO: The debate, big deal, big deal. We've been hearing he's not really preparing. That's not how he is. He doesn't have to do it. Where is his head, going into tomorrow night?

COHEN: Very clear. He knows exactly what he's going to say.

CUOMO: Does he think they're going to come at him tomorrow night?

COHEN: They would be foolish to do it.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: I believe that he is very sure that they will not come after him in the way that the media would like him to be attacked. It would be a big mistake on their part. If you attack Trump, look what happened to Lindsey Graham. Hot even in the debate. Look at Rick Perry. Not even in the debate. You attack Donald Trump, he's going to come back at you twice as hard.

CUOMO: Is he OK with those guys being excluded, the only woman in the field?

COHEN: To be honest, I don't think he thinks about them.

CUOMO: He doesn't -- you mean, he doesn't think they're relevant or he doesn't care how many people are on the stage?

COHEN: I don't think he thinks they're relevant.

CUOMO: Hmm. When you say the media wants him to be attacked, why? Why? Because what we're always pushing for is we want the most productive conversation we can have. We want to have people who lay out the problems and have solutions.

COHEN: That's because you're a great interviewer and a great reporter. But a lot of the media outlets -- and they call themselves media outlets, but they're really not -- they're some hybrid between a tabloid and a reporter. They want to create controversy. It's good for them; it's good for their business. They want to see -- they want to see fighting on stage. You're not going to get that from Donald Trump, unless he gets attacked.

CUOMO: Well, I'd like to attack you for what you said about me as an interviewer, because I disagree with you. I can't.

COHEN: You're a very good interviewer.

CUOMO: Michael Cohen, thank you for being with us. Good luck to your man tomorrow night. Obviously, we'll be covering it extensively.

COHEN: I'm sure.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK. President Obama launching a campaign to defend the Iran nuclear deal in a speech at American University later this morning. This comes a day after a somewhat contentious meeting at the White House with American Jewish leaders. CNN's White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski, joins us now with the latest.

Tell us about this meeting, Michelle.

[07:15:13] MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alisyn, right. And part of what's so interesting about this is that Congress doesn't even technically have an up or down vote on the Iran deal. But if they were to vote their disapproval, the likely effect would be as if they did.

So in the face of intense lobbying, the White House hasn't wanted to leave any stone unturned on this. They've been doing this outreach, the briefings. The one-on-one meetings between President Obama and undecided Democrats. Still, we have heard several prominent Democrats already saying no to the deal.

And then you have influences like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, listen to this webcast he did directed at Jewish groups here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The deal does make it harder for Iran to produce one or two nuclear weapons in the short term, but it does so at a terrible price, because the deal makes it far easier for Iran to build dozens, even hundreds of nuclear weapons in a little over a decade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: So today, we'll hear from President Obama at American University giving this speech. And we expect him to say some of the same things he said in those meetings yesterday with Jewish leaders here. He's going to frame this as the most consequential foreign policy debate since that over whether or not to go to war with Iraq. And he's going to compare those who oppose the Iran deal to those who voted for war.

Back to you guys.

PEREIRA: All right, Michelle, I'll take it here. Thank you so much for that.

Experts in France today are set to examine part of a wing to see if it, indeed, came from missing Flight 370. That part washed ashore last week on Reunion Island in the south Indian Ocean. Officials say the debris is from a Boeing 777, the same make as the missing Malaysian airliner. The flight vanished without a trace, as you'll recall, more than a year ago with 239 people aboard.

CAMEROTA: The African guide who helped a Minnesota dentist hunt down and kill Cecil the lion claims he and his client did nothing wrong. Theo Bronkhorst appearing briefly in court in Zimbabwe this morning, answering to poaching charges. The guide accepted $50,000 from Dr. Walter Palmer for the lion hunt, and he insists everything they did was legal. Proceedings postponed now until next month.

CUOMO: Question: What do you get when you mix a drone dropping drugs and prison yard? A near riot. That's what you get. That's what happened at an Ohio prison after a drone flew over the yard and dropped tobacco, weed and even heroin. Inmates did what you think they would do: started fighting over the drugs, and guards had to break it up with pepper spray. There's no word yet on who was operating the drone. But get this. It's not the first time this has happened. It happened at a prison in South Carolina. Someone tried to use a drone and smuggle drugs and phones, but that drone crashed.

PEREIRA: It's always the way. You find some sort of innovation that brings all this wonderful, you know, great stuff. There's always somebody who can figure out how to use it in a nefarious fashion.

CUOMO: And there's always someone who can figure out who's flying the drone.

PEREIRA: It's true.

CAMEROTA: And sometimes prisoners, I find, don't think out all of the steps.

PEREIRA: Really?

CAMEROTA: Yes, criminals sometimes don't think about the outcome. So they didn't think that one through. PEREIRA: No.

CUOMO: I'm waiting for all the tweets from people who are saying I am maligning prisoners saying that they would necessarily want to go for the drugs that were dropped.

CAMEROTA: Come to my office sometime, and I'll show you the letters that I've gotten recently...

CUOMO: From prison?

CAMEROTA: ... from the inmate population.

CUOMO: Oh, those must be juicy.

CAMEROTA: They are.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood becoming a key issue in this election season. We'll talk to one Republican senator leading the charge to defund Planned Parenthood. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[07:22:21] SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R), OKLAHOMA: You hear doctors talking about how they changed the method, how they used the ultrasound to turn the child around. How they used a different technique than they would have normally done, because they wanted to be able to gather these organs for sale. Those are serious accusations. These are children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was Republican Senator James Lankford, moments before the Senate failed to advance his bill to defund Planned Parenthood. So where does the fight go from here? Let's bring in Oklahoma Senator James Lankford.

Senator, thanks for being on NEW DAY.

LANKFORD: You bet. Good to be with you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: So your effort failed this week to defund Planned Parenthood. And it sounds like, from the numbers crunchers and the pundits, that it would be very hard for you to reach that magical 67 number in the Senate that would be veto-proof in order to defund Planned Parenthood. So where do you go next?

LANKFORD: Ongoing investigations have already started in the House. They will also happen in the Senate. This is something that needs to be very seriously considered. When you talk about the potential of hundreds of thousands of children that have died and that these children are being taken -- their organs are being taken and sold off. I think Americans are horrified by that, and I think rightfully so. And so this very, very serious issue is in front of the American

people, which quite frankly, most people don't want to look at. But in reality, if you're selling human organs, that had to come from humans. And so we're trying to figure out where do we connect the dots here with the American people and have this conversation that is long overdue.

CAMEROTA: Senator, you say that they're selling human organs. Planned Parenthood says that these are donated to science. The middleman, the biotech companies, say that these are donated to science. They have to get the consent of the woman in order to do this.

And by the way, if they don't -- if they're not donated for scientific research, these are fetal tissue that's discarded. Do you believe it is better to have science and research work on fetal tissue in order to come up with vaccines, as they have in order to find treatments and cures for Parkinson's or, say, Alzheimer's? Is donation to science better than discarding?

LANKFORD: Sure. OK, well, there's several issues in that, Alisyn. Let me get a chance to talk to a couple of those.

One is, I understand the woman is giving consent. And that's terrific, because that follows that protocol. Obviously, the child that's being killed is not being -- is not being asked to give consent, as well. So that's a big issue.

We really see two people that are there. They have uniquely different DNA. You've got someone with a heart, with a liver, with fingers and toes. These are children that are -- many of them are at 16 to 20 weeks. That's five months old. And for a 5-month-old child, this is obviously killing that child and then taking it and using their organs for research. That's No 1.

Then there are two other issues. The compensation issue, which several of the videos have come out where there's a haggling over the price. So it doesn't seem to be just a reimbursement. It seems to be how high can we go to be able to get it?

[07:25:14] And then the second issue is a legal issue. The law is very clear, you cannot change the timing, procedure or method of an abortion so that you can harvest those organs.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LANKFORD: And it's very clear over and over again, they're shifting the angle. They said, "I crushed a different part. I'm using a different technique so that I can gather this child to be able to sell the organs."

CAMEROTA: We spoke to Planned Parenthood's vice president this week, who says that they comply with all laws.

But let me show you, Senator, some public opinion polls on all of these issues. Because they are telling. No. 1, should scientists use fetal tissue for research? Fifty-

eight percent of Americans polled say yes; 33 percent say no. Let me show you the next poll that I think you'll also find interesting. Should the government defund Planned Parenthood? Thirty-nine percent say yes; 49 percent say no.

And then finally, should abortion be legal? The first question is yes, under any circumstances, 29 percent. Yes, under certain circumstances, 51 percent of respondents say yes. Under no circumstances, only 19 percent of Americans say that.

So if you add up the first two categories, which are the yes categories, that's 80 percent of respondents who believe that abortions should be kept legal. So it doesn't sound as though Americans' support is on your side.

LANKFORD: You now what? I'd be interested to be able to see the background on that, because I've never seen a survey or any kind of opinion poll that is that high. Most every opinion poll that I've seen has been 50/50 with the American people. So I'd be interested to see how that was -- obviously, I don't know that one to know how it was done.

But I would tell you that I've had overwhelming response from my own state, from people that say if it has fingers and toes, if it has a beating heart, if it has a mind, and if it has kidneys that are all being gathered, that sounds like a child to me. And you've got a child that's in the exact same spot, two different children, in fact. One is at an OB-GYN. There's a sonogram, and they're celebrating counting fingers and toes. And the other one is over at a Planned Parenthood facility, and they're going to kill that child. So there's a stark reality.

CAMEROTA: Here's what's telling. And here is what's telling about these polls. One was Gallup. Obviously, a very credible source. Two are Monmouth University, also a credible source. And what's telling is that these are recent. These are from the past month. Actually, the Gallup one is from May 10. So in the past couple of months.

In other words, what you're talking about, it used to be more evenly divided. But what we're seeing now is that it is the biggest discrepancy between yes, abortion should stay legal; yes, people are more pro-choice than they are pro-life that we've seen in eight years. So the tide seems to be turning away from your position.

LANKFORD: Well, again, I'm going to have to see some of the trends on that. May 10, obviously, was well before any of these videos came out.

But I would also tell you younger Americans are more pro-life than the previous younger Americans. When you look at a sonogram now, with the 3-D sonograms and you get greater detail, people are able to look inside the womb even more than ever and to be able to see that that really is a child. And over and over again, we see individuals, if they go in during

their pregnancy and they're considering an abortion, if they have the sonogram and they look at the child first, they understand it really is a child. And overwhelmingly, moms that see a sonogram choose to keep their baby rather than abort that baby.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Senator, very quickly, yes or no. Are you willing to shut down the government over defunding Planned Parenthood?

LANKFORD: You know, that's not a yes or no question. That's actually a question that gets thrown around a lot, that a lot of folks have thrown up on Capitol Hill, because they like the drama of all this.

The focus that I have is, No. 1, keeping the government open. No. 2, that I'm actually very focused on children. And I think children really do matter. And that we're taking children like this and we're actually destroying them and selling off their body parts, I think that's a significant national issue and requires this kind of conversation.

CAMEROTA: Senator James Lankford, we appreciate your time. Thanks for being on NEW DAY.

LANKFORD: You bet.

CAMEROTA: What's your take on all of this? Please tweet us, using the hashtag #newdayCNN. You can also post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay.

Let's get to Michaela.

PEREIRA: Bad news for Hillary Clinton. The FBI is investigating the security of her private e-mail server. And she is in a statistical dead heat with Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. John King is going to take a look at how all this impacts the race for the Democratic nomination. "Inside Politics," ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)