After CNN Probe, GOP Group Change Fake Websites
BLITZER: As a result of a CNN investigation which you saw first right here in the SITUATION ROOM, a GOP group has now changed its bogus websites. They look so much like the sites of Democratic candidates, but some people who thought they were donating to Democrats actually gave money to Republicans. Here's Drew Griffin of CNN investigations.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIONS: Wolf, you could still get tricked into landing on these websites and even tricked into reading a lot of the material, but following our report, you will no longer be so easily fooled to giving money to the wrong party. We first reported the story on these fake websites earlier this month. They look a lot like official websites of Democrat candidates running for Congress, but if you look closer, read the fine print. You will figure out they're actually attack sites built by the National Republican Congressional Committee. It's part of a strategy the Republicans came up with, buying up internet domain names for what they consider weak Democrat opponents, then creating the fake websites to fool people who are looking for info on Democrats. The problem is, the sites can also fool you into giving money to the wrong person. Randy Frails, an attorney in Augusta, Georgia, wanted to give $1,000 to his Democrat congressman, John Barrow. He handed up on this fake website for John Barrow then clicked the big donate button --</s>RANDY FRAILS, DEMOCRATIC DONOR: All I see is the blue. John Barrow for Congress Donate. And George Bush's picture pops up and says congratulations, something to that effect, that you donated to help to defeat John Barrow. And I tell my wife, "oh, my God!" You know, I just donated to the wrong website.</s>GRIFFIN: Frails did get his money back, but the story generated a lot of outrage, even calls for the Federal Election Commission led to investigate whether this was even legal. And now, it is changing the way Republicans are doing business on these websites. The websites aren't going away, but when you hit that big donate button, you won't be fooled. The donate button will redirect you to what is a very obvious Republican donor page telling you exactly what you are donating to. The spokesman for the Republican says it's not really a change, just an update. "We recently updated our contribution pages as we frequently do," he told us, "to highlight our efforts to defeat House Democrats in 2014." In any event, Wolf, these fake websites aren't going away and you could still be fooled into reading them. Republicans say after our report, you just won't be fooled into giving to them -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Drew, thanks very much for that report. Let's discuss what's going on with our chief Congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, and our CNN political commentator, Ryan Lizza, the Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" magazine. Ryan, this is why these deceptive websites so many people just hate these politicians in Washington.</s>RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, this one took me by surprise. You see campaigns stealing the URLs from other candidate so that when you search a term, you'll go and get that other --</s>BLITZER: If it says John Smith for Congress, you think that's a Democratic candidate, you're going to give money to John Smith for Congress.</s>LIZZA: Yes. But what's different here is the money. They're foiling people into a donation page and trying, it seems to me, to get them to give money to someone they don't want to give the money to. The way this is traditionally done is the page just shows you a bunch of negative information about the person. That's par for the course. A lot of people think that's, you know, that's what's wrong with politics, too, but this takes it -- took it a step further by tricking people into donating for candidates they didn't want. That is absolutely abusive.</s>BLITZER: But Dana, at least based on the reaction from Drew Griffin's report which we aired here, at least, they're making a change.</s>DANA BASH, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are making a change. Let's face it, they got caught. They're making a change because they got caught. Look, I think it is pretty hard to imagine that people out there would be surprised by anything in Washington because the view of Washington is not very high. But this isn't the kind of thing that you really think happens in real life. I just finished, I have to admit binged watching "House of Cards" and that is something that -- that's Washington at its worse. People think --</s>BLITZER: It's the second season.</s>BASH: The second season. That's how people think Washington really is, which, you know, nobody is out offing other people here, but this is something that really just surprised me as well.</s>LIZZA: Look, let's be honest, if CNN hadn't done this, they would not have changed it because it took that -- a lot of fire (ph). The other day, they were defending it saying, hey, we got beat on the web and on our online strategy by the Democrats in 2012, so we're proud of this because now we think we get it. I think they took the wrong lessons for why the Obama campaign was successful in 2012 through the online strategy. It wasn't about tricking people to donate to them.</s>BLITZER: At least they've come around and made some changes, which is important. Glad we did that report. Dana, look at these job approval numbers for the president of the United States. Right now, his approval number based on our poll as an average of three major polls, he's at 42 percent approval, 53 percent disapproval. A year ago exactly, he was at 52 percent approval, 43 percent disapproval. But what's interesting is if you take a look at some of those key battleground states where vulnerable Democrats in the Senate are up for re-election, you know, whether it's Louisiana or North Carolina, some of these other states, Alaska, the president's approval numbers are even lower than nationwide and that does not bode well for these Democrats if midterm elections are a referendum as they usually are -- incumbent president.</s>BASH: It doesn't. The sort of flip side, maybe the good news for a lot of these Democrats, is they never were planning on running on Barack Obama's coat tails. Most of the states they are talking about, he lost to Mitt Romney even though he went on to win the White House. So, they have been planning for years to run as their own people, as you hear them say over and over again. And to not, you know, in many cases, run against the White House even though they're Democrat. So, they're planning for that and they know that he is going to potentially be a drag, not necessarily because of his poll numbers now but because he was never popular in those states.</s>BLITZER: -- let's say who's running for re-election in Arkansas, a Democrat, I'm sure the president's job approval numbers in the state of Arkansas --</s>LIZZA: Are even lower.</s>BLITZER: -- are even lower than they are nationally.</s>LIZZA: Yes. But look, there's a very tight correlation between national approval for the president and how much -- how many members of their own party in the House and Senate you lose. If you look at the graphics, almost a perfect correlation. So, it's in every Democrat's interest to have Obama's approval higher. And at certain point --</s>BLITZER: How do they do that? They've got until November, obviously, so how do you do that?</s>LIZZA: That's a great question for the White House. How do they do that when a lot of these Democrats in these states, they don't want him there, campaigning for them? They just want him to be quiet, right? They don't want him to be out in public at all.</s>BASH: Right. And one thing I will say is that going back to last month the state of the union address, one of the things that Democrats who I talked to who are in charge of getting their fellow Democrats elected were happy about was that the president didn't have a</s>LIZZA: Yes, how they do that. Part of is out of his control and part of the presidential approval is based on how people are feeling about the economy.</s>BLITZER: And what's going on in the world at that particular moment. All right. Guys, thank very much. Dana and Ryan, good discussion. Up next, George Zimmerman says he hoped his life would go back to normal after the trial that captured the whole nation's attention. But seven months after it ended, he's still getting death threats. I'll speak to CNN's Chris Cuomo about his revealing new interview with one of the most controversial people in the country. Also standing by, a very different story, the former NBA superstar, Charles Berkley, will breakdown his interview one-on-one with President Obama. Sir Charles, he's standing by live to join me in the SITUATION ROOM.