A Tentative Deal Reached To End The General Motors Strike
BERMAN: All right. New this morning, the week's long strike between 50,000 workers -- of 50,000 workers at General Motors appears to be over. The two sides reached a tentative 4-year deal. Specifics of the agreement not exactly clear yet but we do know union members are meeting today and are expected to approve it. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich, who has been following this from the very beginning, live this morning in Detroit. What do you know, Vanessa?</s>VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, John. Well, today is critical for the nearly 50,000 workers who have been on strike for nearly five weeks now. The union's council will be voting on this tentative agreement a little bit later this morning at GM headquarters just behind me. If they vote yes, it will then be taken to members across the country and they will get their chance to vote. So what is in this deal? We know that temporary workers will now be able to become full-time employees after three years of service. GM has also committed to investing $9 billion in the United States and that's including bringing an electric truck to the Hamtramck plant here in Detroit, which was slated to close. Another plant that was slated to close, however, Lordstown, will not receive a new product line. We spoke to a couple of workers just after this tentative agreement was announced yesterday to get their reaction.</s>SCOTT FERGUSON, GM EMPLOYEE: Yippee! I was very happy. Kind of elated, you might say. It gets a little emotional for me --</s>YURKEVICH: Oh.</s>FERGUSON: -- because -- I mean, I -- you know, before, it seemed like we'll be on strike -- like I say, we are fighting, like, for us. This seems more like a we. Like we're fighting for Middle America.</s>KATHY FAITH, GM WORKER: Some of us are still living paycheck to paycheck. Like, you know, I'm single. It's just my income. And so I was actually going out and looking for a part-time job. But hopefully, now I won't have to. I mean, I may have to because Christmas is coming up and I've got go back a little bit and help -- you know, catch up on the bills.</s>YURKEVICH: You hear from that woman there. This has been a struggle for many of the workers who have been out here for nearly five weeks making $275 dollars a week. We know about $800 million in lost wages to workers. But the workers I've been speaking to, John and Alisyn, over the past five weeks have been committed to this cause. But as we know, they are very eager to get back to work, hoping this vote today is a yes -- John and Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh. I mean, Vanessa, we talked to some of the workers on the picket line weeks ago. They were hoping that day it would be resolved. I mean, they have had, obviously --</s>YURKEVICH: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: -- monetary issues, childcare issues that they prayed it wasn't going to extend this long. So let's hope that they get some good news today. Thank you very much. OK, so the energy in the Democratic Party feels like it is lurching to the left. Is that true? John Avlon has our reality check. Hi, John.</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, guys. So look, President Trump has a lot of problems when it comes to his reelection. He's the only president in the history of Gallup never to have hit 50 percent approval. Six out of 10 Americans say he doesn't deserve a second term. Fifty- three percent say they'll definitely vote against him. And all of those stats were before a majority of Americans said he should be impeached. But, Democrats are still more than capable of screwing up the 2020 election by lurching too far to the left and playing right into Republican hands. Look, it's no secret Trump has been calling Democrats socialists, radical, extreme, and anti-American, but there's definitely a method to his madness. Check out this poll from mid-summer. It shows Joe Biden Trump by 10 points with the rest of the top tier candidates either beating him by a few points or tied. But when Trump is pitted against a, quote, "Democratic candidate who you regard as socialist" he wins by six. And here's the thing. Beyond the fearmongering of the phrase and even the fact that six percent of Democrats think it means being social, there are policies being advanced by major candidates that can credibly be called socialist. I'm talking in particular about single-payer health care now rebranded as Medicare for All. Now, it would eliminate all private insurance and put everyone on a free government plan at an astronomical cost of more than $30 trillion over 10 years. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are its most outspoken advocates. And look, 64 percent of Democrats say Medicare for All is a good idea. But, 90 percent of Democrats like the public option now called Medicare for All that want it and backed by folks like Biden and Buttigieg. Check this out. Among Independent voters, support for Medicare for All falls to 39 percent while support for the public option rockets up to 70 percent. Even 46 percent of Republicans think it's a good idea. It's not hard to see what's the better policy when it comes to winning a general election -- public option, hands down. Even the populist Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown told CNN that, quote, "I think it's a terrible mistake if the Democratic nominee would publicly support Medicare for All." That danger of alienating swing state voters is also why things like Beto O'Rourke's call to seize AR-15s or Julian Castro's calls to decriminalize illegal border crossings may draw cheers in Democratic debates, but they can also be used to validate conservative fears about Democrats doing things like seizing guns or being in favor of open borders. There's no question Democrats are becoming more liberal as a party. But as our Harry Enten points out, Democratic voters are older, more moderate, and more blue-collar than you might. And it might surprise you to know that Democrats who call themselves very liberal only make up 19 percent of the party's voters. That's a small but loud sliver of the electorate. Look, these are polarized times. A new Pew survey found that both parties are perceived as being too extreme in their positions, but nearly six in 10 Democrats say they want a candidate who can work to find common ground. And maybe that's why we've seen Joe Biden beating Donald Trump in states like Ohio, by eight points, while Trump edges Sanders or Warren by single digit. We see the same dynamic in Wisconsin where Biden leads Trump by nine points. A logical purity test may play well in town halls and on Twitter but it could make Democrats lose to a deeply popular incumbent. And that's your reality check.</s>CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, John. You've rendered us speechless. Thank you. All right, now to this story. You'll remember the case of Harry Dunn, a British teenager who was killed by the wife of a U.S. diplomat in a hit-and-run accident. His parents have been asking President Trump for help getting justice. But on Tuesday, something very different happened at the White House and his parents are here to tell us about that, next.