President Trump Is Requesting Some $750 Billion From Congress For Defense Spending ISIS Fighters Try To Keep Control Of One Of Their Last Strongholds
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Finally, something the American and Russian military agree on. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.</s>FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me this Sunday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Right now we are learning more about a devastating plane crash in Ethiopia with no survivors. All 157 people on board, an Ethiopian airlines flight, were killed when the Boeing 737 went down shortly after takeoff this morning. So how does a brand new airplane flown by a senior pilot with an excellent flying record suddenly crash into the ground? We will talk to an aviation expert. Plus, it's another busy day for the 2020 Presidential hopefuls. We have brand new poll numbers looking at the key state of Iowa to give us an idea of where everyone stands. And despite not officially being in the race, former vice President Joe Biden is leading the pack. Right now we are just hours away from three CNN town halls at the south by southwest conference. Tonight we will hear from former congressman John Delaney, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and South bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. First, let's start with CNN's senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. So he is live for us right now from Austin, Texas at the south by southwest where the town halls also will be taking place tonight. So what are you hearing about these new polls, first off?</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, good afternoon. The Democratic field is descending on Austin, Texas this weekend for the south pass via southwest conference. But all eyes are of course on those early voting states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina as well. And we do, as you said, have a poll out. The new CNN/Des Moines register poll taking an early look at where things stand at this point in the race in Iowa. No surprise Joe Biden is on top of the list followed by Bernie Sanders as well. Let's take a look at those numbers there. Joe Biden has 27 percent support, Bernie Sanders 25 percent support. From there is falls off rather dramatically with Elizabeth Warren at 9 percent, Kamala Harris at seven percent, Beto O'Rourke not in yet, not a declared candidate at five percent, Cory Booker at three, Amy Klobuchar, three as well. But Fredricka, this is largely a benchmark if you will. A place where this the race is at the beginning of this contest as these Democrats start to introduce themselves. Joe Biden, if course, not in the race yet. We do believe he is going to get in. All signs are that he will likely announce his candidacy in April. But the question is can he hold this lead? Most certainly not. As other candidates start introducing themselves, they start eating themselves into that share. But one of those candidates, Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, the former HUD secretary in the Obama administration, he was on with Jake Tapper this morning on "STATE OF THE UNION." He has this to say about these polls.</s>JULIAN CASTRO (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can tell that as I spend time in Iowa that I'm going to gain traction. And as you know, if we were to look at any presidential cycle over the last 40 years, oftentimes it's people that have started off at three percent, one percent, two percent, including Donald Trump at one point was at one percent right before he announced, that can win the nomination. And so this is a long road, a long journey, and I'm going to go out there and make my case.</s>ZELENY: Of course, Secretary Castro is right about that. These polls at this point are not a predictor of anything but they are a sign of the work that needs to be done in introducing themselves, these candidates in particular. But Fredricka, we are seeing this field divide between ideology and age. Of course, a party has been moving to the left on a variety of positions, Medicare for all, the green new deal. There are some people taking the middle lane as well. One of those is John Delaney, the former Maryland congressman. He will be speaking at the CNN town hall tonight as well as the Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and then the mayor of south bend, Indiana Peter Buggidieg. Those three will be making their case here this evening, Fredricka. So a big field, more candidates can still get in. But it certainly the buzz here in Austin, what this Democratic field looks like.</s>WHITFIELD: Right. A big night and potentially a lot to be learned. Thank you so much, Jeff Zeleny. Appreciate that. All right. The Trump administration is headed for another budget clash with Congress. President Trump will roll out his budget road map tomorrow. And it includes a request for at least $8.6 billion for the border wall. Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow talked about the request this morning.</s>CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: So there's going to be another budget fight over the wall?</s>LARRY KUDLOW, TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: I suppose there will be. I would just say that the whole issue of the wall and border security is of paramount importance. We have a crisis down there. I think the President has made that case very effectively. It's a crisis of economics. It is a crisis of crime and drugs. It is a crisis of humanity. We have to be much tougher and have more constructive immigration policy, which we will be developing over a period of time. So yes, he is going to stay with his wall and he is going to stay with the border security theme. I think it's essential.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. CNN's White House correspondent Boris Sanchez is joining us live from West Palm Beach, California where President Trump will be leaving I just a few hours to head back to Washington. So, what more can you tell us about this upcoming request?</s>BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Fred. Yes, President Trump is requesting some $750 billion from Congress for defense spending. That is a $35 billion from last year. And the President, specifically, is asking for $8.6 billion, as you said, for his long promised border wall on the southern border with Mexico. This is actually the first time the Trump organization is asking for border wall funding from more than one source. President trump requesting $5 billion from customs and border protection, another $3.6 billion for military construction funds at the Pentagon. And notably, Fred, in this budget, the President is also asking for an additional $3.6 billion to essentially reimbursed money that he spent through his national emergency declaration on the issue of immigration. So even though President Trump tried to get around Congress to get money for spending on his border wall, now he is requesting that they approve funds that he spent on that declaration. Democrats are not embracing this budget. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer put out a statement alongside House speaker Nancy Pelosi. They write in part quote "President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut the government down to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall which he promised would be paid for by Mexico. Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson." So Fred, both sides are digging in for what appears to be an oncoming slug fest, the Republicans begging the President to try to again and potentially face another government shutdown, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Boris Sanchez in West Palm, thank you so much. All right. Let's talk more about this. Joining me right now Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief for the "Chicago Sun-Times" and Karoun Demirjian, congressional reporter for the "Washington Post" and a CNN political analyst. Good to see you both, ladies. So Karoun, you first. Why would the President try yet another one more route for $8 billion this time going directly to Congress after all that everyone has been through?</s>KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they think this last push of that money will help them complete the 722 miles of board fencing that the President and the White House and his advisers have already said is a goal over there, is to try to get that much. And so, basically it's the double barrel approach of say, do what you are going to do with the emergency declaration, and announce early so that everybody including your base hears they are going to ask for a bigger number than you have been talking about before when it comes to actually spending for the next fiscal year, and that you are going to divert that and you have got a plan to actually complete the border wall or at least the part of the border wall that you promised on a timeline. Now it's not clear that he will actually get that money. These are budget requests. Congress gets to go over them with a fine tooth comb and usually there are many, many changes. But this is a presentation that the President is making. The fact that he is making is a one-two punch in the same week where he is probably going to have to veto Congress' efforts to stop his ability to use that emergency declaration and they cannot overcome that veto is his way of saying, I'm really doing this. For anybody who is listening, again, we don't know if that means it will actually happen on the border.</s>WHITFIELD: And Lynn, might just this really just be his reelection campaign strategy so that he can, once again, bring up the wall with a twist.</s>LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Yes, though he doesn't need the budget to do it, but a budget submitted by the executive branch is always seen as much as a policy and political statement as well as an actual financial planning document. There is a saying up on Capitol Hill, even in the best of times that the President proposes and Congress opposes. In this time and place, it would have been a setback for Trump if he did not at least make an opening bid in the next fiscal year budget for wall money.</s>WHITFIELD: So, Karoun, the new poll numbers that we are getting out of Iowa, the first states scheduled to cast, and you know, votes in the 2020 presidential race, and two senior white men are leading among Democrats. 76-year old Joe Biden who again hasn't officially thrown his hat into the ring, but he is on top there with 27 percent, and followed by 77-year-old Bernie Sanders with 25 percent. The rest of the field in the single digits. So what does this tell you about thus far this Democratic field and what is or isn't being promised?</s>DEMIRJIAN: Well, it tells you that at this juncture, which is early, very, very early, that people are comfortable saying that they will support what they know. Joe Biden has been around politics forever. He was a high-profile senator. He was vice president. He has been the subject of memes and other article. I mean, like people have an affinity with Joe Biden that is reflected in his name recognition and people being like, yes, OK, I would be comfortable with him being President. Same with Bernie Sanders. He made a big splash in 2017. It was controversial whether you really likes him or you really didn't like him, but the point is, he is a known quantity on the political presidential campaign circuit. And then others were entering the fray, even though if you heard their names before like Elizabeth Warren, they are not as well known in terms of having gone through that process and being, you know, in the running to be a standard bearer for the party in a major Presidential election year. So this is what we are seeing now. It reflects the fact that these candidates need to make themselves better known. But again, remember this is Iowa, which is not representative of the entire country and it doesn't look like the whole country even though it is first and makes a big impression on where things will go in the primaries. And also it is March of 2019, and there is over 18 months to go, and things can change. And numbers that are this large can shift. I mean, Hillary Clinton had huge numbers, too, when we were talking about, you know, the very early stages of the 2016 contest, and then she was eeked out the win very close to the convention. So it is where we are at this point but we don't even know everybody who is going to be running yet. And I think that we may see shift in the numbers in the month. And let's be honest, it's more than a year to come.</s>WHITFIELD: Yes. And Lynn, you know, that poll also asks voters, you know, how they would feel about a straight white male nominee. I mean, that was the question being asked. Just 38 percent of voters said they would be satisfied with that result while 21 percent said they would be dissatisfied, 40 percent unsure. So what do you make of those numbers?</s>SWEET: What I make is -- I have three quick points I would like to make. Maybe not so quick but I'll try. One, that the Democrats in Iowa just want to pick someone to win, and they kind of just don't care who. Two, the Democrats in Iowa on that ages because they are open to having candidates over 70. And three, the thing we have to look at the new context of what the Iowa vote means, and that it will not be as decisive as it has been because of the large number of candidates. Iowa will serve as a vetting process and actually coming in at the top -- you don't have to win Iowa anymore, you just to end up in the top three. And the poll tells us that there is plenty of room, then, for someone else to come in and show a strength if these numbers hold, which I agree with both, you know, with everything we have been talking about. They will not hold. People are going there to make their case.</s>WHITFIELD: All fascinating. All right. Lynn Sweet, Karoun Dimerjian, always good to see you, ladies. Thanks so much.</s>SWEET: Thanks, Fred.</s>DIMERJIAN: Thank you, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: And now this breaking news from the borders of Syria.</s>WHITFIELD: Dramatic pictures and sound as ISIS fighters try to keep control of one of their last strongholds. And CNN is the only U.S. network to witness what could be the final assault here. CNN's Ben Wedeman is in the thick of it all there in eastern Syria and joining us. Ben, what's happening?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fredricka, this operation began about two hours and 13 minutes ago with a lot of gunfire, a lot of incoming, or rather, outgoing mortar fire. We have heard AC130 inspection gunships flying overhead and into this last sliver of lands still held by the state that called itself Islamic. It's only about a half square mile. We don't know how many civilians. We don't know how many fighters are still inside, but clearly these are the last ones, these are the holdouts, the ones who didn't surrender. We have watched over the last few weeks as thousands of fighters and have surrendered and tens of thousands of civilians, many of them families of these ISIS fighters, many of them from Europe and elsewhere, but it does appear that this is perhaps the final operation. Three times within the last month. This is the third time we have seen operations to try to clear this last pocket out, but officials from the U.S.-backed Syrian democratic forces have halted on several occasions to try to allow all these civilians to go out to avoid civilian casualties. But it does appear that this is perhaps the final operation. We don't know how long it's going to take. It is expected that it's going to be a difficult battle. It could take weeks, as a matter of fact. But it's a very small area. But given the intensity of the resistance, it could last a while. In fact, we were just outside that enclave one hour before the operation began and the gunfire was intense. Gun fire coming from within the camp. There were snipers firing in our direction. It's going to be a tough battle - Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: So Ben, you talk about this half square mileage, you know, area which is very small, but the density of which these, you know, strongholds are maintaining the battle there. Through the elimination, we see mortars, you know, flying behind you, by this potential elimination or elimination of those last standing, would this means the end of the caliphate?</s>WEDEMAN: No, as a matter of fact, if will not mean the end of the caliphate. What we have seen, even in this part of Syria over the last month and a half, is a series of attacks: suicide car bombings, ambushes. They have managed -- many of the fighters managed to take refuge in the desert and mountain areas, some of them mixing in with the local population. And many of the fighters I spoke to who had surrendered made it clear that at the first possible opportunity they will take up arms again. So nobody in this part of the Middle East is under the illusion that this is the end of ISIS. It's merely the end of ISIS as a pseudo state, so to speak, as a state that had a bureaucracy and all that goes with being a country. But as a tariff insurgency, and this is how ISIS began, ISIS will return to being that, unfortunately -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: A battle, not the war. All right, Ben Wedeman, thank you so much. Still ahead, searching for answers after a deadly plane crash in Ethiopia. More than 150 on board all killed. The latest from the ground, next. And later, new questions about the woman who formally owned a spa where Robert Kraft allegedly solicited sex. How Cindy Yang is now facing accusations that she is selling Chinese investors access to the President of the United States. We are back in a moment.