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Trump Immigration Plan Draws Mixed Reviews; Two Women Complete Grueling Army Ranger School. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 18, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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


[13:30:00]: NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No claim of responsibility, and this doesn't fit the mold of any of the suspects. They've gone to Iraq and Syria, most of the people, but experts tend not to believe they would be acting in Thailand. There's also the possibility for some sort of effort of political instability to if you will threaten the leadership of the military government that's there right now. Increasingly, experts are looking towards the Muslim insurgency on the border with Malaysia in the south of Thailand. It's about 500 miles from the capital Bangkok and about the area the size of Connecticut.

Typically the violence has been centered along that southern border. This group has had its first out-of-area attack wounding seven people with a car bomb on a Thai island a few months ago. They killed several soldiers in an ambush in June so there is a concern that this group perhaps not satisfied after 12 years of fighting that they're getting their voice heard, particularly with this military government, maybe upping the ante. There may be a core group inside them that has decided to take the fight to the capital --Wolf?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And the suspect is still at large right now. Don't know if there are accomplices or anything along that nature but the investigation continues.

Nic, thanks very much.

Coming up, we'll look at why Republicans trust Donald Trump more than any of the Republican candidates, to handle the economy, the issue of immigration, the issue of ISIS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:32] BLITZER: When it comes to key issues like the economy in the United States, immigration, ISIS, Republican voters trust Donald Trump more than they trust the other Republican candidates. That, according to a brand new CNN/ORC poll. But Trump's immigration plan is drawing mixed reviews from some of the other Republican candidates. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says Trump's plan is similar to his. Others, however, say they support the idea of ending birth right citizenship included in the 14th Amendment but not the rest of Trump's immigration plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump's eight-page plan is absolute gibberish. It's unworkable. Mitt Romney said his biggest mistake as a candidate for president was embracing self-deportation. That hurt our party. Donald Trump's plan is forced deportation.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm open to doing things for people that deliberately come to the U.S. for taking advantage of the 14th Amendment but I'm not in favor of repealing it. There are some ideas that have merit but the majority is not a workable plan that could pass Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's bring in our political commentators, S.E. Cupp and Tara Setmeyer.

Let's talk about this plan, S.E. He says more will be released in the coming days and weeks. How did he do on this one?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's more substantive and specific than I expected and that we'd heard from Trump. So he went into detail. I agree Rubio that there's a lot of what Trump wants to do that would be unworkable let me point out, unworkability and high cost, two things common to almost every hypothetical piece of legislation you've ever heard about, including something called Obamacare. So the idea that Trump's ideas would cost money and might not be completely 100 percent workable is nothing really new in politics.

BLITZER: Tara, our new poll shows Trump has a huge lead over his nearest rivals, 11 points ahead of Jeb Bush, for example. How worried should the Bush camp be at this point?

TARA SETMEYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think they should be concerned even though donors are saying, no, we're not concerned. It's a slow and steady race and Bush is where he wants to be to tamp that down. But we know Jeb Bush has suffered as far as favorability, particularly among independents and Republicans he's steadily gone down, down, down. And this latest CNN poll shows a couple things that should be alarming for the Bush camp. One, it shows Donald Trump is 20 points, 30 points ahead of him on the economy which is going to be the number one issue concerning Americans. 44 percent I believe to 9 percent for Jeb Bush. Also on immigration is another issue, 45 percent to 13 percent. Then even on is, foreign policy, Donald Trump is way ahead in so none of those things are good indicators for Jeb Bush on top of a tepid debate performance that most people agree he didn't do his best there. He needs to step it up.

BLITZER: A lot of people agree with you on that.

S.E., Trump's plan on dealing with ISIS in Iraq involves bombing some of those oil fields controlled by ISIS forces to cut off the flow of money to ISIS. But several of our CNN military analysts say that would do more harm than good and that Trump they say oversimplifies the situation. The poll shows that Americans at least trust him on dealing with ISIS but can the general public -- are they ready for Donald Trump as commander-in-chief? [13:40:16] CUPP: Look, when you listen to Donald Trump tell Chuck

Todd that he gets his foreign policy advice by watching the shows I think most people don't find that to be all that reassuring. He might be doing well in the polls among Republicans on foreign policy but no one has been able to articulate a cogent long term foreign policy plan that would compete with whatever Trump has said. You have to remember that the surprising support that Trump is getting among Republicans is only surprising in the context of current recent Republican history.

If you think the Republicans are these hardened ideological purity testing squish hating Ted Cruz types, sure, that's surprising. But they're not. The 2010 and 2012 Tea Party success waves left a lot of Republicans behind. Republicans who might have concerns about privacy but support the patriot act. Republicans who want stronger borders but don't think it's realistic to send millions of illegal immigrants home. So for those Republicans I think supporting Donald Trump makes perfectly good sense to them.

BLITZER: Are you surprised, Tara?

SETMEYER: Well, yes and no. I'll admit I was one of the folks that was surprised his popularity has sustained the durability of it thus far the more that we see what's going on and the more you talk to folks this is more about American people being sick and tired of Washington, D.C., politics as usual. People are frustrated and fearful about the direction this country is going in. And what happens when the government doesn't fear the people? Tyranny.

So Donald Trump is like a plow that's come in and tilled the oil other and people are now feeling he has a voice for them because they've been frustrated for so long. Something else interesting. When people are asked, who do you think is the best candidate for GOP to win 2016, it wasn't Trump. By 20 points 58 percent of the people polled, Republicans said they think someone else would be better suited to win the White House 234 November of 2016. So that is a 20-point margin for another one of these candidates to step in and capitalize on the frustration and disillusionment of politics as usual. And they better do in a way that doesn't sound like the teacher from "Peanuts." "Mwah, mwah," that's what people hear. Donald Trump doesn't do that at all and he garners people's attention and they feel like they have a voice. So the other candidates have an in. They need to figure out how to capitalize on it because it seems that this is temporary but when it comes down to brass tacks, who will they vote for in November, doesn't look like Donald Trump.

BLITZER: It looks like he's doing well nationally in our new poll. He's doing well in the polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. And the question I'm beginning to ask is, if he wins all three of those first states, those contests, does that push him to the Republican presidential nomination, or can someone else still take it from him down the road. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Guys, thanks very, very much.

For the latest in politics, head over to CNNpolitics.com. Still to come, two female soldiers in the United States are set to

make history when they graduate from the U.S. Army's extremely grueling Ranger school. We'll take you through their historic journey.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:48:22] BLITZER: Two American women will make history at Ft. Benning, Georgia. They're the first female students to graduate one of the U.S. military's most elite schools, the U.S. Army Ranger School. It's an intensive training program. The combat course so grueling only one-third of those who start it actually finish. Here's just a few examples of what's expected, 49 pushups, 59 sit-ups, a five-mile money from 40 minutes, swim and land navigation tests, 12- mile foot marches in three hours, obstacle courses, military mountaineering, parachute jumps, 27 days of mock combat patrols. It's all designed to teach those young soldiers how to overcome fatigue, hunger, and stress.

I'm joined now by CNN's Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr; and Dan Lamothe, the national security reporter for the "Washington Post."

Barbara, first of all, give us a little significance, the historic significance of this accomplishment.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It is a moment of history for women in the military, Wolf. You know, women for the last many years have really many of them been pressing to try to get combat jobs opened up to them in this volunteer force. They want to serve in those jobs. This is a big step down the road to being able to do that. Not fully, but this is a step in the eyes of many military women to be able to prove that they can cut it, that they can do it. Now, in this Ranger class that started in April, a number of women did drop out but a lot of times, a as you pointed out, the men drop out as one of the most grueling courses that the military has. But still, a lot of decisions by the Pentagon about whether the actual jobs in the field in combat will, in fact, be open to women.

[13:50:09] BLITZER: Dan, you watched this class since April and you've done excellent reporting on it. The first women soldiers were allowed into the Ranger school. You were there and got a rare look inside the program. Give us your analysis. Tell us what you saw.

DAN LAMOTHE, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Sure. I've been in a couple of different locations with them at this point. Ft. Benning earlier this year, they did pre Ranger training. They had an assessment course that they were required to pass before they jumped into the actual training. And then from there they move on to mountaineering in northern Georgia and more recently, in the last week or so, they've graduated from the Florida phase down at Eglin Air Force Base.

BLITZER: What happens to these women now, Dan?

LAMOTHE: At this point -- the next couple of days, really, this is time for celebration behind the scenes and get decent meals. Men and women alike, you don't sleep much and you don't each much during Ranger school and it's very well known for that. I remember in both phases, there are times when they are receiving instruction and that sort and you actually watch people fall asleep while standing up. They are that exhausted.

BLITZER: I'm sure they are.

Barbara, I asked this question because the two women soldiers will be allowed to wear the prestigious tab on their uniforms but I'm told they won't be allowed to, for example, to try out for the elite regiment. Why is that?

STARR: Exactly right. This is the first step to be able to qualify. By the end of the year, this is what is critical. Defense secretary ash Carter has to make combat jobs and in other words they will have qualifications and can they go out into the field in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, wherever the Rangers may be set on the very elite missions which often are in very hot war zones, essentially kicking down the door, conducting very hot combat operations. A lot of these decisions and the services making recommendations to the Pentagon about what combat jobs they think can and should be open to women and, of course, let me take the opportunity to say that many military women will tell you they are already in combat. Since 9/11, some 88 women have been killed in action. Nearly 1,000 wounded -- Wolf?

BLITZER: That's a good point.

Dan, what was the reaction of the men to having these women participate?

LAMOTHE: I think it's a really mixed bag. And you see that every time the story is published on it as well. There are those who question whether or not the standards were changed as a result of the women going through and the decision to have media on and not only talk to senior officials but one-on-one conversations with instructors and other soldiers involved in the process, they wanted to underscore the point that nothing has changed and these women had to go through the exact same curriculum and difficulties.

BLITZER: All right. Dan Lamothe and Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

We're going to take a break. Much more news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:57:50] BLITZER: After battling harsh mountainous conditions, search teams have reached the crash site of the Trigana Air. None of the 54 on board survived. No distressed call was ever made. Bad weather caused the search to be called off early. In China today, thousands of firefighters, police officers, members of

the public paused for a moment at the site of a huge explosion. The blast killed at least 114 people. 57 people are still missing. State media reporting authorities have detained 10 executives at the company that own the warehouse that exploded. Earlier, we talked about the video of Hillary Clinton meeting with

representatives from Black Lives Matter. We got their take here on CNN on the face-to-face conversation they had with the presidential Democratic candidate. Now we have this response just in from the Clinton campaign to the release of the video. Let me read to you what the Clinton campaign said. "This discussion was one of many that the campaign will continue to have with a wide array of stakeholders in order to build on Hillary Clinton's policy proposals to help reform our criminal justice system and achieve racial justice. As Hillary has said," the statement goes on to say, "In order to implement real change, we must confront the deep-seated biases and racial injustice that still remains in our country today. We must not only change hearts but we must do more to face hard truths in America." The statement concludes with this, "We must also work together to change laws, raise awareness, and build a coalition to ensure every American knows what it means to be secure, safe and free."

That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international viewers, "AMANPOUR" is next.

For our viewers here in North America, "NEWSROOM" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.