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Trump Unveils Plan to Combat Illegal Immigration; Indonesia Debris Appears to be from Crashed Plane; Concerns Grow about Toxic Chemicals in Chinese City; Wildfires Rage in Several Western States. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 17, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will fight as hard as I can.

[05:57:56] DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What we need right now is accomplishment.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The voters like me. They understand me. They know I'm going to do the job.

BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Enough is enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wildfires still scorching the west.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just ripping up this hillside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to keep hosing ourselves down, because it was so hot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was literally outrunning flames at 60 miles an hour.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Search-and-recovery efforts for a missing passenger plane.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's far too soon to say what the cause was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're flying fairly old aircraft.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being described as appalling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: North Korea threatening to retaliate against the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a country that has nuclear weapons. North Korea often makes these sorts of statements.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira. CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

It is Monday, August 17, 6 a.m. in the East.

And up first, Donald Trump ups the ante, coming out with an immigration plan and a proof of performance on women, on hiring, that he is going to use to challenge the rest of the field. The Republican frontrunner is taking a hard line on immigration. The Mexican wall is in his new six-point plan, and deporting all undocumented immigrants.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, a new national poll brings good news for Trump and his fellow outsiders. Who's up and who's down this week? We'll tell you. And which candidates made their mark in Iowa this weekend.

CNN's Sara Murray is live in Washington with all of the latest. Good morning, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Like you said, that first debate really shaking up the field. Plus, he had a ton of retail politics this weekend in Iowa. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): Donald Trump keeps soaring, landing at the top of a new FOX News poll while winning support from one in four Republican primary voters.

Trump isn't the only one climbing. Rounding out the top tier of the anti-establishment crowd, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, drawing 12 percent support. And Texas Senator Ted Cruz with 10 percent.

Losing ground, Jeb Bush, coming in fourth with 9 percent support, a six-point drop from early August. Now, Trump is offering more red meat for conservatives, a hardline immigration plan, saying on NBC's "Meet the Press" he even supports deporting children brought to the U.S. illegally. A step further than some of his GOP rivals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to split up families? You're going to deport children?

TRUMP: No, no, we're going keep the families together. We have to keep the families together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you're going to keep them together out.

TRUMP: They have to go.

MURRAY: Trump's six-page proposal ends for an end to birthright citizenship, a provision enshrined in the Constitution that grants citizenship to those born in the U.S. It puts stricter limits on legal immigration and pushes penalties on Mexico if they refuse to fund a wall along the border.

But f or most of the weekend, a spotlight wasn't on policy, but retail politics at the Iowa State Fair. Jeb Bush, looking to boost his sagging poll numbers, spent four hours there, sampling pork chops and practicing his fast pitch.

Meanwhile, his super PAC is pitching in, spending $10 million on ads in the early states.

As for Trump, it was a claustrophobic chaotic spin through the fairgrounds.

TRUMP: Let's get a picture with everybody real quick.

MURRAY: Complete with a free ride for the kids on his $7 million chopper.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, that FOX News poll also gave us a snapshot of where the Democratic field stands. And Hillary Clinton still had a wide lead. She has 49 percent support in the latest poll. It's actually down a couple points from early August.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders comes in at 30 percent, an eight-point jump from early August. And you see Joe Biden right there hasn't even announced, but he's at 10 percent in the polls. Sources are telling CNN that they want Joe Biden to make a decision by October 1 about whether he's going to get in the race. We should be hearing something from him by the end of the summer.

As for Hillary Clinton's spin through the Iowa State Fair, she ended up making light of her e-mail controversy, saying she likes Snapchat because those messages erase themselves. That didn't sit very well with her Republican rivals.

Back to you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Sara, you have given us so much to talk about this morning, so stick around. And we want to bring in now CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson. Good morning to you.

Nia, let's start with you. So Trump has now laid out specifics about his immigration proposals. How do you think these will play?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it will play in two ways. First, it sort of burnishes his standing with the right of his party. Those conservatives who have boosted him to where he is to begin with. This is how he made his name initially, with some of those initial comments he made about Mexican illegal immigrants. So I think it will do him some good with that crowd.

But I also think it's been the press and pundits and political reporters like myself, "Listen, when is Trump going to actually put some meat on the bones? When is he going to release some plans?" And here he has plans. Right? He has immigration plans. Apparently, he's also going to release tax plans, as well. So I think he's done himself some good. He has been, I think,

very strategic. Almost at the beginning of every week, there's something new with Trump. Last week, it was Megyn Kelly. The week before that, the sort of anticipation of the debate. And this week, he has jury duty, I think, today.

But also, we're talking about his plan around immigration reform. So he's moving forward and sort of solidifying his lead as the Republican front-runner, at least for now.

CUOMO: I think that this is a big change, though, Sara. Because let's be honest. We've been creating a lot of the momentum for Donald Trump up until now, talking about what he says.

Now he's trying to do a dynamic, a paradigm shift here, where he's going to say, "I'm going to put out the ideas, and I'm going to have the rest of the field have to step up. Not match my talk, match my walk." And he says that his guy's going to come on this morning, Michael Cohen, and say that he can prove that he's better when it comes to hiring women than anyone else in the field. What will this mean?

MURRAY: Yes, that's really interesting, because we have heard Donald Trump -- we heard him again this weekend -- saying, "I cherish women. I'll be great for women." But he hasn't answered the question of what that means. How is he going to be going to be great for women? And show us how he's been great in the past.

I think that, if you can show, look, when he was, like, running Trump organization, he hired women; he paid them the same; he moved them up the ranks, that's a big deal. Because we talked about before: Donald Trump doesn't have a voting record. He doesn't have a record of supporting legislation. So we really need to examine his record running a company. If he says he wants to run the White House like you run a business, OK, show us how you ran your company, and that will give us an idea of how you want to run government.

CAMEROTA: Nia, let's talk about one of the things that's raised some eyebrows when he -- when Donald Trump was on "Meet the Press" this weekend. He was asked where he goes to get his military advice. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK TODD, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Who do you talk to for military advice right now?

TRUMP: Well, I watch the shows. I mean, I really see a lot of great -- you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows and you have the generals and you have certain people...

TODD: But is there somebody, is there a go-to for you? You know?

TRUMP: Probably there are two or three.

TODD: Every presidential candidate has a go-to.

TRUMP: Probably there are two or three.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:05:09] CAMEROTA: I mean, we do have great military generals on CNN. They do give us a lot of great insight, but is that good enough an answer?

HENDERSON: You know, it's like everyone else. In some ways, I mean, that's who people -- you know, people watch our air. People watch and see who's on, and they sort of get their idea of what is the right course in terms of war and military strategy from what's on TV. So he sounds like somebody in the barbershop kind of riffing.

I do think -- he eventually said he also -- he listens to specific people like Josh Bolten. But we are kind of lifting the veil on how these folks get their advice about -- about a military strategy or healthcare strategy or whatever it is.

And at some point, I'm sure he'll have a panel of advisers. He certainly had one with an immigration plan.

CUOMO: Right.

HENDERSON: But it's partly why people like him, because he sounds like an average person talking about how he gets his information.

CUOMO: His play is use the media but don't play to the media, right, Sara? I mean, he's not here to impress us. I mean, take a look at what he's doing now, this one piece of sound.

Let's play the sound about what he wants to do with removing entire families, even if they have the kid in the United States; has some questionable constitutionality to it. But it will play. Listen to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have to make a whole new set of standards. And when people come in, they have to come in...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to split up families? You're going to deport children?

TRUMP: No, Chuck. No, no, we are going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you're going to keep them together out.

TRUMP: But they have to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What if they have no place to go?

TRUMP: We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, either we have a country or we don't have a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So what do you think, Sara? Related out in the piece that, yes, you have the birthright inclusion within the Constitution, but just putting it out as an idea, what's the plus/minus on it?

HENDERSON: Well, Chris, I think if you look at this plan, what's really interesting is Donald Trump really only offers red meat that will appeal to the far right conservative wing of the party. We've heard him say some other things in the past that are more moderate, that he wants to streamline the legal immigration system. And even though he wants to deport the 11 million undocumented here, he wants to create a path to legal status to allow the, quote, "good ones" to come back in.

None of that is mentioned in the immigration plan he put out. So it's pretty clear this is a document that is designed to sort of inspire more support among conservatives. And I think that's what you saw in that interview, as well. When you're talking about deporting the DREAMers, there are not a lot of other Republicans in the field who feel the same way about that. When you talk to Marco Rubio and you talk to Jeb Bush, even they say we shouldn't punish these children because their parents brought them here illegally. And Donald Trump clearly taking a very different tactic on that.

The -- whether this is feasible, I venture to say no. There is no way that they're going to overturn something that is enshrined in our Constitution, because Donald Trump, even if he's president, wants to do it. That is a very heavy lift. So that just gives you an idea -- you know, let's just call it what it is. It's pandering to the conservative base.

CAMEROTA: Nia, one bit of sound that we want to play is about how, you know, Donald Trump talks a lot about making America great again. And that really does resonate with, certainly, the people that we've spoken to who are big Trump supporters. So he was asked, when was America great? Here is his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: Your slogan -- we're going to hear it a lot at the fair -- "We're going to make America great again. When is the -- when was the last time America was great?

TRUMP: I would say during the administration of Ronald Reagan, you felt proud to be an American. You felt really proud. I don't think, since then, to any great extent, people were proud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, is that OK to say, Nia, that he's saying that we haven't been proud for a couple of decades?

HENDERSON: Well, this is his -- you know, this has been his line all along. And no surprise that he picks Reagan, who's beloved in Republican circles, as the president who was able to inspire that feeling of pride.

In that interview, they did point out that, back I think in 1987, Donald Trump wrote an editorial, basically saying that he wasn't so -- feeling so proud about being an American because of some of the relationship with China and Japan. So that was an interesting moment. And he kind of had to -- kind of had to back away from some of the things he was saying.

CUOMO: It's going to get interesting, though. Because he's going to get into this balance where he's frank, he's candid, he says all these things, but you're going to have to start playing this game a little bit and start answering questions that may come into conflict with what he said before. And then he's going to have to maintain that frankness and candor. It's not so easy.

CAMEROTA: That is going to be interesting. A good thing we have 400 plus days.

HENDERSON: That's right. Only 400 more.

CAMEROTA: That's right. Ladies, thanks so much. Great to see you guys this morning.

HENDERSON: Thanks, guys.

CAMEROTA: As we said, it's not just about the immigration plan. You're going to hear about that, but we have a campaign exclusive. Donald Trump's adviser, Michael Cohen, he's going to be on the show. He says he can prove that Donald Trump is better on women's pay already than the rest of the field.

Also in the 7 a.m. hour, we have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He's going to join us about the state of his own race for 2016 and what does he think will get him through this field -- Mick?

[06:10:04] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Some other news here. Indonesian officials are now suspending the search for the wreckage of a passenger plane that crashed into a mountain Sunday with 54 people aboard. Bad weather is preventing crews from getting to potential debris, which was spotted Sunday by two search planes.

CNN correspondent Kathy Novak is live in Seoul with the very latest on the efforts there -- Kathy.

KATHY NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this was a short domestic flight. About 30 minutes in, it lost contact. And villagers say they saw the plane crash into the mountains. And as you mentioned, planes have spotted debris. They are 95 percent sure it belongs to this missing plane, but they simply cannot get to it. It's in mountainous, rugged terrain, and the weather is bad.

Ground crews had been hiking for an hour when the fog rolled in, and they just have to stop for now. Two days in a row. Bad weather and darkness means they are going to have to wait until tomorrow. And they can only resume the search if the weather is good enough. Absolutely devastating for the families of those people on board.

They're being told that this is still a rescue mission, a slight hope that there may be some survivors. But being warned, it is very unlikely.

Among the 54 people on board, 44 adults, five crew and five children. And unfortunately, this is all too familiar for Indonesia. If you just look over the past eight or nine months, back in December, 162 people died when a plane on its way to Singapore went into the sea. Even more recently, in June, a military plane crashed, killing 130 people, many of them civilians, some of them on the ground. And this airline had only been operating since 1991. In that time, it had 19 accidents, not including this one, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Its safety record just seems to be horrendous. Kathy, thanks so much for all that background.

Meanwhile, residents of the northern Chinese city of Tianjin are protesting this morning, demanding compensation from their government. This as the death toll from last week's explosion rises to 114. Seventy people still missing this morning.

CNN's Will Ripley is live in China with all the latest developments -- Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, people living in the middle of all of this destruction say they're not sure they want to go back to their homes. They don't believe that it's safe after seeing that huge fire ball and seeing chemicals raining down all around them.

There were protests outside of a government press conference today. Families shouting, "Buy back our homes." They want the government to pay for their apartments so they can find a safer place to live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHI WENJING, HOMEOWNER: The chemical stuff is all over. I saw -- it was like a fire -- fire ward (ph), you know, exploding, flying to everywhere. Some parts might fall to our -- to our home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: Earlier today, I visited the blast zone. And as bad as this looks, some 700 meters or so away from the disaster area, it's even worse there. It's overwhelming to see thousands of cars, buildings obliterated, and shipping crates that would go behind a tractor trailer tossed around like toys.

The latest numbers now, the death toll 114. Seventy people still missing, and 698 people remain in the hospital as China promises a criminal investigation into this to try to figure out what went wrong that allowed so many toxic chemicals to be stored at a facility very close to people's homes -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Will. Another China-related story. The White House is reportedly demanding that China pull it's covert agents who are secretly operating in the U.S. According to "The New York Times," Beijing has placed agents in America to hunt down fugitives and return them to China. But the U.S. says they don't have permission to carry out such an operation that is known as fox hunt.

PEREIRA: North Korea is threatening to attack the U.S. with tremendous muscle if the U.S. does not scrap military exercises that are planned this week with South Korea and other allies. North Korea's threats are nothing new, but the language is more intense this time. A State Department official says the exercise -- exercises are transparent and geared toward defense, not offense.

CAMEROTA: Back here at home, wildfires burning out-of-control across the U.S. Twelve states impacted, eight western states under siege by dozens of wildfires. Soaring temperatures are not helping. One woman's death now being blamed on the evacuation rush in Idaho as an arrest is made over a southern California fire.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is following all of the latest for us. He's live from our CNN Center in Atlanta.

What are you seeing, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Alisyn, I don't think you can put this in perspective unless I give you a number. Ten thousand square miles have burned this year. That's bigger than the entire state of New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS (voice-over): Out-of-control flames spreading, already burning over 1 million acres across eight states. A growing wildfire crisis fueled by erratic winds, lightning and soaring temperatures.

[06:15:04] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not out of the woods yet.

MYERS: Over 100 large wildfires are burning uncontained.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just awful. This is the worst in all my life.

MYERS: Officials invoking the nation's highest fire alert level.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really upsetting. You don't want to see anybody lose their homes.

MYERS: Resources are stretched thin as thousands of firefighters are working overtime, some battling conditions exacerbated by California's historic drought.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every resource that you can think of is on short demand in this country right now.

MYERS: Over 1,000 residents warned to flee the infernos.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's pretty unimaginable. There's no preparing for this.

MYERS: Some barely escaping the flames.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This ridge was on fire, that whole hillside there. This whole hillside was on fire last night. I was literally outrunning flames at 60 miles an hour.

MYERS: Hundreds of homes and structures from California to Washington left smoldering, reduced to ashes.

REGGIE COLLINS, CHELAN, WASHINGTON, RESIDENT: It was pretty scary. I've never seen a storm -- a firestorm travel like this travel this fast.

MYERS: In Washington, about 9,000 homes were without power as wildfires outside Chelan burned down utility poles.

JAMES CARUSO, WASHINGTON EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Everything that can be done now is being done out there, and our first priority is protecting people and homes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS: Now clearly, the drought out west has a lot to do with this. So many areas are dry. Trees are dying. Beetles are eating pine trees, and they're dead now. So this has a lot to do with it. But so does this.

Think about this, guys: It was 117 degrees in Phoenix on Friday. That's not a heat index. That's a hot index. Sure, sometimes a dry heat. But even today, needles will get to 118. Think about fighting a fire in this kind of heat. Kind of gives you some perspective.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Great perspective, Chad, thank you.

CUOMO: All right. Stay on it, because we've got to monitor the movement there, because it's affecting people, not just square acreage.

Right. Donald Trump says undocumented immigrants have to go. The DREAMer kids, too. He says families won't be split up. They're going to be taken together and tossed out. A path to return, not in there. So here's the question. Trump is now walking the walk. Will this move solidify his position of the front-runner or give the rest of the field a chance to compete? We answer it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:21:42] TRUMP: The executive order gets rescinded. One good thing about...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll rescind -- you'll rescind that one, too?

TRUMP: One good thing that...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll rescind the DREAM Act executive order, DACA?

TRUMP: We have to make a whole new set of standards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Hmm. Donald Trump vowing to rescind executive offers [SIC] on -- orders on immigration issued by President Obama. But that's not really that unusual. What may be seen as unusual is that he is also saying so-called DREAMers, they've got to go.

He's release a multi-point plan on immigration. And if the details, revealed Sunday, are any sign, they're not going to come without a fight.

So here to break it all down for us is Latin American political analyst and host of -- Ana Maria Salazar. It's great to have you. Let's go through them point by point.

Mexico must pay for the wall. And in the six-point plan, it says basically that their government is taking advantage of the U.S., sending all the people that they don't want to deal with. It's very expensive. They'll have to pay. And if they don't, he's going to raise what it costs a CEO to be here. He's going to basically try to punish Mexico.

Can it happen? How does it play?

ANA MARIA SALAZAR, LATIN AMERICAN POLITICAL ANALYST & RADIO HOST: It's not going to happen. And it's fascinating to see why this is such an important issue in this campaign. I don't know. Maybe it has to do with bullying another country, showing how powerful the United States is. But It's not going to happen.

And even if the United States decided to cut all aid to Mexico, which is only $280 million, to build one of these -- this border that they're talking about, this fence could cost -- you know, this is, you know, lowballing it -- about $4 billion. So if that's the way the United States is going to spend its money and try and stop immigration, it's going to be costly.

CUOMO: But, his point is Mexico is doing the wrong thing by us. We're going to make them pay for it. That will play well with American voters. Whether or not it's feasible, as you're suggesting, will be the next issue.

He says triple the number of ICE officers. That's not going to be controversial here, but it will be costly. But at least that's -- is that -- do you take that kind of point differently?

SALAZAR: No, you know, at this stage, probably, it's better for the U.S. to have more ICE agents than soldiers at the border. So it's probably a good thing. CUOMO: All right. Nationwide e-verify. I mean, that's just

making the -- making the measure work better. That's an efficiency point. That' s not going to be too controversial. But here we go, mandatory return of...

SALAZAR: It's huge. Oh, stop...

CUOMO: Why is it controversial?

SALAZAR: Let me stop you there. That's huge. Not here in Mexico, but in the United States. And this is probably the most interesting proposal.

Because you're placing on those who are hiring people the responsibility of making sure that they're hiring people that are legally in the United States. And this kind of moves the responsibility towards businessmen like Donald Trump to make sure that the people they hire are legal. And the consequences of not verifying or making sure people are legal should have either legal, some kind of legal consequences, if not criminal consequences.

CUOMO: Well, look...

SALAZAR: So I think this is probably the most interesting proposal.

CUOMO: Right.

SALAZAR: The business community in the United States is not going to like this.

CUOMO: Right. Well, but there's no -- there's no teeth to it in the proposal. This already exists, as you know.

The -- the point would be that -- and we've had this discussion before -- there's no question that you could have an immigration policy that's all about attacking employers and say, "You guys are perpetuating the problem. Why are we putting it on the other people? Cut the supply and, you know, you cut the demand. Let's reverse it and cut the demand; you'll cut the supply."

[06:25:12] But I'm saying in terms of his points, that's not something that's going to raise a lot of eyebrows here. But you may be right; we'll see.

Now here is where it's going to start to get a little dicey in terms of with his opponents. Return all of the illegals, no catch and release. If they get caught, they get dealt with right away.

Defund the sanctuary cities. And if they bring in kids when they come, the kids go back, too. That goes towards the DREAMers. How do those play?

SALAZAR: Well, it is -- you know, when I listen to these proposals, I've got some good news for you, Chris. Donald Trump is not going to be president of the United States. I don't know if he's going to be candidate for the Republican Party, but between this proposal and the next one, probably, which is going to be deporting all undocumented persons living in the United States, which is also crazy, and we can talk about that. This basically is going to ensure that he's going to have no one, no -- no Hispanic vote in his favor.

So I mean, they can try to do that. They can try to massively deport, which they're already doing, by the way. There's more deportations taking place under the Obama administration than any of the Republican administrations.

So I think going after people who bring in children who've lived in the United States most of their life. This is going to be one of those proposals that is going to have on impact in terms how the Hispanics view Donald Trump. And I can tell you right now, without the Hispanic vote, Donald Trump is not going to be president of the United States.

CUOMO: You know, the other side says, one, you Democrats cooked the books. That there aren't more deportations now than ever; it's how you account them that makes them different. So it's -- it's not a quantity; it's a qualitative process also.

And are you overstating the desire to help immigrants in America today? I mean, politically, you have almost nobody coming forward, even Hillary Clinton coming forward, and saying boldly, you know, "I'm all about having people in this country, any way we can get them in here, even if they came in the wrong way. We'll find a path." That's not the rhetoric right now on either side. Why do you think it would be so bad for him to close the fist on this?

SALAZAR: You know -- you know what? He talks a lot about Ronald Reagan. And at the time, Ronald Reagan did what was unthinkable. He legalized the presence and, of course, at the time, there was only 3 million or 4 million people. And there was a lot of questions as to whether it was the right thing.

But ultimately, when you have 11 million people who do not have documents, living in the United States, you really don't have very many options. And we could also debate as to what's best for the U.S. economy. And there's a lot of people who believe it's better for the U.S. economy to legalize those who are already in the United States, than spending -- I don't know -- $280 billion trying to deport them back, not only to Mexico, but Central America, China and, you know, many other parts of the world.

Right now, the -- the undocumented workers entering into the United States are only 50 percent Mexican. So this is not only a Mexican problem; this is a problem where you have a relatively large population also coming from other parts of the world.

And yes, it may be unpopular. But ultimately, it's probably more realistic to put on the table what -- you know, the proposal that Bush has and other candidates have, which is basically let's strengthen the border, but at the same time, find a way to legalize those who are already in the United States. CUOMO: I'll tell you what: You told me what you think is good

news in this. I'll tell you what I think is good news in this. Whether you like the points or not, he has now shifted from talking the talk to walking the walk. And he's going to challenge the reset of the field to do it.

So now, we'll get to know what the ideas are and not just the one-liners. At least this is a start of a conversation that we're supposed to be having in terms of what we do, not just what we say.

Ana Maria Salazar, thank you very much. Appreciate it, the perspective, as always. As always.

What do you think? Tweet us. Use any kind of social media; doesn't really matter these days. The hashtag is #NewDayCNN. You can go to Facebook and do Facebook.com/NewDay.

PEREIRA: You may want to list them all; you've got all of them.

CUOMO: Yes, I don't know. I don't even know half of them.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris. Thanks so much.

More news for you here. Sabre rattling by North Korea, pledging to strike the U.S. over military exercises on the Korean Peninsula. Should these threats be taken seriously? We'll take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will fight as hard as I can. >