Must Trump Become a Washington Insider to Change Washington; CNN Takes Pulse of Voters in Red States; CNN Takes Pulse of Voters in Red States
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Ana Cabrera, in Washington. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. It's great to have you with us on this 100th day in office for President Trump. And while he is busy touting his achievements, thousands who oppose his agenda literally surrounded the White House this afternoon. Let's show you the live pictures from Washington where people who are marching in the climate march are taking place right now. Thousands of protesters bused in from cities across the country, making their voices heard on climate science. Similar protests also happening right now in downtown Chicago where protesters are braving the rain there. Demonstrators protesting on the sidewalk outside Trump Tower in New York as well. Now all these protests come on Trump's 100th day and follow several nationwide science marches we saw just last weekend. We have live team coverage for you this afternoon. Correspondents Athena Jones, Rene Marsh and Brian Todd are joining us. From Washington, Brian, you have been with these protesters all day. What is the mood right now on the president's 100th day in office?</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, the mood is really kind of jubilant. They're very happy with what they've been able to accomplish here today. They got a lot of energy. Check out the scene behind me, this is a massive puppet that these people constructed in North Carolina around the Chapel Hill area and brought it all the way up here. They just had to squeeze it through kind of a chain link fence on Constitution Avenue to get it through here. This is supposed to symbolize Mother Earth. This was the gentleman who was instrumental in making it, Jan Berger. Jan, can you talk us to for a second, Jan? What made you want to bring this all way from North Carolina up here?</s>JAN BERGER, PROTESTER: Well, we thought it was different, important that one of the biggest issues that everybody faces is trying to save the world that we live in for ourselves and for everything else. We wanted to make a beautiful big impact to try and highlight the fact that this is something that we all have to do together so we built this massive monstrosity of a Mother Earth that's beautiful but falling apart.</s>TODD: It's falling apart. You had a real challenge to bring it from the White House in here. What is it supposed to symbolize?</s>BERGER: This is Mother Earth and all things on it including ourselves. We have people power and we have the wind and the sun. We need to shift to those resources instead of the once destroying the planet.</s>TODD: Thanks very much for talking to us, Jan. Good luck with the float. Thank you. Ana, you see the logistical challenges. They've been able to make it through here. We're right now at the foot of the Washington Monument where there's a rally. You have a lot of people wanting to call attention to what they believe is an assault on the environmental movement from President Trump -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: Thanks to Brian Todd. Rene, let's head out to you now. Last hour, you talked about how protesters are concerned about the removal of most of the references to climate change from the Environmental Protection Agency website. That's the newest thing we've seen. You've also done some reporting on the president's hiring freeze that's left 350 vacant positions within the EPA. Are protesters you're talking with concerned about these issues?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I can tell you, Ana, and they are concerned. They're concerned that the EPA, which is the main agency in charge of regulating all issues relating to the environment, in their view, is essentially being gutted and just made a shell of itself. We do know that the hiring freeze remains in place at the EPA. And you mentioned climate change references taken down from the EPA website. Well, that happened on the eve of this very big march. Here is where all of those marchers are coming from. Where Brian is at the White House. They're all filling into this open area here at the Washington Monument. They are still coming. And I just spoke with head of the Sierra Club, which is essentially one of the main groups organizing this march here, and they tell me, according to their estimates, Ana, some 150,000 people showed up. Again, that is the Sierra Club's crowd count at this hour. And we're starting to see those protesters fill in here for a rally that will happen here in just a matter of moments -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: Rene, thank you. Now to Athena. We know President Trump tweeted about his 100th day in office. What did he say?</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ana. That's right. He's not happy with the coverage he's getting. This is the tweet in the last couple hours. He said, "Mainstream fake media refuses to state our long list of achievements, including 28 legislative signings, strong borders and great optimism!" So it seems like the president may be watching the news and not so happy with the grade he's getting. The White House has put out a highlight reel of what they view as the president's greatest achievements. A lot of positive commentary from the news media, very heavy on FOX News clips, but there are also clips across the media. They've also put on their website, whitehouse.gov, a long list of what they view as the president's biggest achievements in the last 100 days. And in the president's weekly address, the first line of that address touts what he feels he's accomplished. He says, "I truly believe the first 100 days of my administration has been just about the most successful in our country's history." That's very similar to what we've heard from him in the past. He went on to tick through accomplishments, like removing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and confirming Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: All right. Athena Jones, thanks to you. Let's bring in our panel of political experts now. I'll start with you, Salena Zito. You interviewed President Trump - as we're finishing getting everybody mic'ed up here.</s>SALENA ZITO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, we didn't talk about that but he looks at -- as I did -- he looked at the people who voted for him. So if you look at the polling numbers, look at the urban areas, the urban suburbs, he's doing poorly, 29 percent, you know, average around there for approval. But then if you add in the suburbs and then, you know, the third ring out and the fourth ring out, the rural areas, his approval rating is at about 58 percent to 60 percent. So that's how you get to the 40 percent. So the people who didn't like him still don't like him. The people who did like him -- I mean, I went, you know, back to all these voters that I talked to when I drove across the country. If you voted for him, they're very optimistic, very happy. It's as if the country is still at midnight November 8th. And the people who voted for him are incredibly optimistic. They're happy. The people who didn't vote for him, they're like, wait, he won? It's still that kind of thing.</s>CABRERA: Doug, shouldn't he be working to expand his base?</s>DOUG HYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, absolutely. But he needs to focus on anything he can do to get legislative victories. And that comes not through working with Democrats, but working in a better fashion with Republican offices, appealing to Republican voters who can influence the Republican members. We had a vote on Friday to keep the government open, we didn't have enough Republican votes. It would have failed if it had just been Republican. The administration needs to double down and work with these members to expand not just on health care, not just on keeping the government open, but all the legislative priorities Trump emphasized so far.</s>CABRERA: Let's talk about one of his legislative priorities, dealing with climate change. He's talked a lot about the regulations he wants to roll back, and he has, in effect, been successful in rolling back a lot of regular laces and that's, in part, why we're seeing all these big protests that are taking place around the country the last two weekends. He tweeted this last week on Earth Day, saying, "Today, on Earth Day, we celebrate our beautiful forests, lakes and land. We stand committed to preserving the natural beauty of our nation. I'm committed to keeping our air and water clean, but always remember that economic growth enhances environmental protection. Jobs matter." He said he's the jobs president. He appointed one of the biggest EPA opponents to lead the agency. He repealed a string of protection rules so far. He signed an executive order that aims to roll back the clean water rule. We just learned the EPA removed climate change references from its website. So, Mike, how can he say the environment is important to him when he's taking these types of actions?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, first of all, he is focused on jobs and I would think he would tell you straight-up that is his number-one priority. He's been pretty successful in the first 100 days of focusing his administration on jobs. Look, one way to look at the protests in Washington right now, to a lot of voters, this is an anti-jobs protest. The voters who delivered him the White House in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, we're being harmed by these types of regulations. Republicans are for all of the above energy policy. The protesters out there on the left, they're not for that. They're for draconian regulations that hurt industries and really have an ideological view of how climate should be approached. And the president doesn't agree with that. I think he's sticking to his word. And the voters that Salena talked about, that he cares about, the manufacturing-base voters that's he's been focused on like a laser in the first 100 days, they're the people he's thinking about with -- he's getting rid of these regulations because they need jobs. He prioritizes that more than what these protests are talking.</s>CABRERA: Symone, can you have one and not the other?</s>SYYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Climate change is real, everybody. Our planet is warming. Climate change affects everyone, rural, white working class people, and urban folks in Chicago, Illinois. It is a crisis and a crisis we should all be focused on. These folks out here marching today on climate on Capitol Hill, they are marching for environmental justice protections. They're marching for clean water. They're also marching for all the kids in classrooms across the country that asthma because that's a result of all the things that happened in our climate. I think we can definitely focus on jobs. There's nothing about addressing climate change, making sure our planet is around for our children's children's children, but takes away from focusing on jobs and we created a false narrative here and the think the president has succeed in that narrative in saying that he's, you know, this jobs president and that climate change is harmful to manufacturing jobs and that's just not true.</s>CABRERA: When you look at clean energy, for example, 200,000-plus people work in solar energy right now. Compare that to 53,000 people who work in the coal industry. So, to Symone's point, there are opportunities, you could say, in clean energy. But, Kirsten, let me bring up another tweet we heard from the president today: "Mainstream media refuses to state our long list of accomplishments, including 28 legislative signings, strong borders and great optimism." Has the president accomplished more than we've been giving him credit for?</s>KIRSTEN POWER, CNN POLTIICAL ANALYST: Look, I think from any objective standard, it hasn't been the best 100 days, and a lot of that is because he kind of came out of the gate and wasted a lot of political capital on this travel ban, which wasn't handled very well. So I think -- then we moved on to repealing Obamacare, which didn't happen. I mean, those are two pretty major things. The legislation he's referring to is minor legislation. It's not major legislation. Major legislation would have been getting Obamacare repealed and replaced. I think he would have gotten a lot of credit for that, even from people who don't agree with it. They would recognize that that's a big accomplishment. He signed a lot of executive orders that un-do a lot of things but they don't really do anything new. All that said, it doesn't mean he can't have a successful presidency. I mean, we do focus on the first 100 days a lot. Maybe more than we should. And to be fair, he has also focused on it. But I think that he can go on from here and probably recover. He came into the White House with not a lot of experience with Washington, didn't really even expect to win, it's not that surprising that things didn't go smoothly. So I think it's better just for him to acknowledge that and move on.</s>CABRERA: When you look at his 10 big legislative items that he has on this contract to the American people that he put together, he hasn't been able to accomplish the ten items or even introduce nine of the 10. He has introduced health care. We know where that fell short. But, Mark, he has a Republican-controlled Congress and so who's to blame for not getting this stuff at least going in Congress?</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: A couple things. He has a Republican-controlled Congress that isn't necessarily united because you have fiscal conservatives at odds right now with centrist Republicans about how to move forward and how to pay for things. But if you look, you know, we talk a lot about President Trump's approval rating at 44 percent in the new CNN/ORC poll. If you look at the Congressional approval rating, which we have right in front of me, it's at 24 percent. So, when there is blame to be cast, I would think that, in some ways, if you are a Trump supporter, you are casting all the blame on Congress, whether that be Republicans or Democrats. Although I don't think Democrats really have played any role at all in the first 100 days --</s>CABRERA: And in fact, polls say that more than 60 percent of Democrats are out of touch, according to those voters polled in the "Washington Post."</s>PRESTON: If I can say one thing about the protests out here. Symone is right, the fact of the matter is climate change is real. And to have these people come down here and to march shows that there's enthusiasm for it. I don't think what helps their cause, though, is to be marching down with big puppets and, kind of, you know, flashing them around, because to Mike's point, we're talking about people who have lost jobs, can't pay for their families, and they're watching TV right now, see people flash around big puppets and talk about climate change. It doesn't seem to jive very well.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of the signs have language you can't show on CNN right now, too.</s>CABRERA: To that point, we have to leave it there. But, Maeve, as well as Kevin, we haven't forgotten about you. We do have breaking news we need to get to right now. This just into CNN. We've learned the anti-ISIS coalition has confirmed a U.S. servicemember have died in Iraq from an explosive device that just went off outside Mosul. This is early information, so we do not yet know the servicemember's name or more details about what happened. But we can tell you there are about 1,000 members of the U.S. military right now on the ground in Iraq. This operation is called Inherent Resolve. Again, one American servicemember now dead after an explosion near Mosul. We'll update you as soon as we learn more information. Back to our coverage of the president's 100 days in office. He is the ultimate outsider. What would President Trump have learned in the past 100 days to give him the advantage to pass things other presidents couldn't? Things like tax or entitlement reform? Does President Trump need to become a Washington insider to change Washington? You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.