New Polls Shows Donald Trump and Ben Carson in Lead in GOP Presidential Field; Interview with Fred Thompson; California Wildfire Blamed for One Death
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. We do have breaking news. Controversial Kentucky clerk Kim Davis just came out and told everybody what she's going to do. She said, yes, I was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses because she says they defy her religious beliefs. So she made a bid announcement that said she will not have her name on the marriages.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get to CNN's Martin Savidge live in Morehead, Kentucky with us outside of Davis' offices with all of the details. Tell us the scene, Martin.</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, you know, this was a lengthy statement that same from Kim Davis, and you could also tell that this was a statement that had been carefully crafted with the help of her attorneys. I'm not saying there were not emotional parts, which definitely came straight from the heart. But she said essentially that her faith is in conflict with what she's been ordered to do, and that is that she has been ordered to issue same-same marriage licenses which she does not belief in because of her Christian faith. So what she says will happen forthwith is that her name and her authority will not be behind any marriage licenses that are issued from now on. However, this is where she walked that fine line. She said it will be up to the deputy clerks to make their own determination if they will go forward and issue the licenses. So that is within keeping of the framework of what the judge had ordered last week, and that's what has been happening in her absence. So those deputy clerks could move forward. But the one thing that's interesting is she says these licenses will have new language on it, and it will be saying that this issue is pursuant to a federal court ruling. She doesn't seem to have the authority to put new language on a marriage license, so that truly could come up here as making all of this a problem for the judge and whether or not she was in compliance with what he's ordered. It's going to be a very interesting day, Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: All of this already has been a problem for the judge. It looks like it will continue, Martin. Thanks so much for that background. We will talk about this breaking news with Rick Santorum, a presidential candidate, of course. He's coming up shortly. Also, Fred Thompson, former presidential candidate. Now, two Republican outsiders are gaining the inside track to the party's nomination. With two days before the CNN Republican debate, Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson are pulling away from the rest of the pack. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton appears to be losing some ground. CNN's team coverage begins with Athena Jones. She's live from the Reagan library Simi Valley, California. Good morning, Athena.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. The countdown has begun to the big night two days away here in Simi Valley. As you mentioned, that new national poll out from the "Washington Post" and ABC News is showing that Trump is still in the lead and he's posting his biggest numbers yet. Take a look at the poll. We can put it on the screen. You can see that Trump is leading with 33 percent support. Second place is Ben Carson, 13 points behind Trump. The rest of the field, though, is in the single digits. Jeb Bush is in third place, but he's 25 points behind the leader. One more thing I should note about this poll from ABC and "Washington Post" is that Scott Walker has lost the most ground since July. He's not even up on the screen. He was in second place at 13 percent. Now, he's all the way down to two percent. Meanwhile, a new poll from CNN/ORC shows that several issues have risen in importance since the last presidential election. Those issues are abortion, gun control, and illegal immigration. And that shift could certainly play a role in voters' eventual choice for their party's nominee in both parties. And one more interesting set of set of interesting numbers I want to bring up from that ABC poll, you can see there that the number of voters who are more interested in an outsider candidate is quite high among Republicans. You see the number at 60 percent. That, of course, helps explain why folks like Donald Trump and Ben Carson are doing so well. But guys, the stage is set. The podiums are up, and we're all getting excited for the big night. Chris?</s>MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I'll take it here, Athena. Only a couple nights to go. Thank you so much for that. Meanwhile let's take a look at Hillary Clinton's campaign that keeps taking hits. If we look at numbers here, support no below 50 percent. According to the new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, she still leads the Democratic field at 42 percent, but Bernie Sanders and Vice President Biden, look at their numbers surging. CNN Maeve Reston is watching all of it for us live from L.A., bright and early. And we know the controversy over her e-mail keeps taking its toll. Let's look at a poll -- 34 percent only believe that she honestly disclosed those facts. The numbers certainly aren't in her favor. They're going in the wrong direction. How does she reverse the trend?</s>MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, we're seeing her on the campaign trail a lot more. We know she's going to be out in New Hampshire later on this week for three days. She's also doing a lot of smaller, sort of women-centered event in places like Iowa. But this has been a really bad cycle for her. She just can't seem to get the better of the story. And I think that it's obviously causing a surge for folks like Biden, who certainly is very undecided about whether he's going to jump into the race. And you're seeing what we've heard anecdotally out there on the campaign trail for months, which is that there is a real hunger for someone other than Hillary Clinton. She still remains the strongest candidate by leaps and bounds certainly from a fundraising perspective, but you have a lot of people out there looking at Biden, looking at Bernie Sanders, saying would someone potentially other than Hillary Clinton be a better person to take on Donald Trump potentially? So we'll see where that goes.</s>CUOMO: All right, Maeve, thank you very much. Appreciate it. We'll talk more about that in a second. I want to bring in former Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, Senator Fred Thompson. Senator, it's good to have you with us. Looking well.</s>FRED THOMPSON, FORMER SENATOR AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Good to be with you. Thank you, sir.</s>CUOMO: Let's talk about the news, senator. You have Kim Davis walk out on to the steps and say, I cannot have my name on these licenses, even though that is the job she was elected to do. What's your take?</s>THOMPSON: Well, I just heard it walking in here. It sounds to me like she's doing what the court required her to do. She really ought to decide whether or not she wants the job if that's what the job entails. But it looks to me like if the deputies do it, they could probably solve that problem.</s>CUOMO: How big an issue do you think religious freedom will be in this election, and if so, how should it be argued? What is the right way to have that conversation?</s>THOMPSON: Well, I think religious freedom is a very big issue because people don't know kind of where we stand now as a nation, where we stand as far as what the law requires and does not require. There are a lot of people of faith who are very concerned about the direction that we're going in and what the people are going to be required to do, whether it be officials like this one, which is an easy call, I think, or whether it be somebody who owns a small bakery shop, as we've seen in other cases. So, yes, I think it's going to be an issue with a large amount of people.</s>CUOMO: How do you feel about Dr. Carson and Donald Trump being at the top of the polls, taking over 50 percent of the vote? And are you ready to announce you're getting into the race?</s>THOMPSON: Well, I don't feel badly enough about it to get into the race. I'll assure you of that. But I'm fascinated by it, like a lot of other people. I think, actually, that they are a reaction to what's going on in this country. People see that, large numbers, that we're not going in the right direction, that we're slipping as a nation, whether you're talking about or national debt, our whether you're talking about our standing in the world or otherwise. We seem to have been going in this direction for some time now. And some folks want to get the attention of the powers that be. And it seems like, whether it's Republican or Democrat, they haven't had any effect on the politicians. So I think that there are some people out there flirting with the notion that we might ought to change our criteria for what we want in a president. Maybe a detailed policy, positions on every issue imaginable is not what's required anymore. Maybe it's more to do with guts and leadership, however a person defines that, charisma. And I'm not sure that we've gone as far as these two gentlemen would have us go in that regard. They're going to have to put more meat on the bones in order really to be serious, in my opinion, to be contenders by the end of the year. But if they do that, then it'll be a very interesting situation as to what the American people want. The question is whether or not it's a flirtation or a real marriage proposal here that we're seeing among a good segment of Republican voters.</s>CUOMO: Where do you think your party really is in terms of -- with Trump, we have new poll numbers that among Latinos, he said his campaign last week, hey, I'm leading with Latinos. And 70 percent of them in the new NBC-Marist poll says 70 percent negative. Is he helping or hurting the party? And 65 percent, hurting. Dr. Carson had similar controversy attached to him, not as much wattage, but similar controversy with his feelings about gays. Is that the future of the GOP to just depend on the white vote, or do you have to create a bigger tent?</s>THOMPSON: Well, I think that they would dispute that they're focusing just on the white vote. I don't think that they are. I think their statements get skewed a little bit in the filter machine that we have here. But, still, your point is well-taken. It's -- there's going to be an issue there. But what I'm wondering is whether or not, you know, they take the traditional positions, one side or the other, of some of these hot button issues, whether or not people are saying let's just put all that aside for a minute. I want somebody who is not afraid, and someone who is brash and will take on the establishment, whether it be the Republican establishment in Washington or the news media. And that's more important to me than any of these other details. If their heart is in the right place and they want to go in the right general direction, and they're going to have smart people around them if they get elected. This is the question, I'm not saying that this is all manifestation of wisdom, but I think that's what's going on right now.</s>CUOMO: Do you think, having been a senator and knowing how it works there, you can come in with a fresh attitude of, I'm not going to have any of the credentials, I'm not going to do it the way you do it, I'm strong, I'm a hammer, and I'm getting it done, what happens to that man or woman when they get down to D.C. and take the job?</s>THOMPSON: There's the rub. Our system is not designed to do anything dramatic by one branch of government. That's what I've said to some of these people I've been referring to. Barack Obama has been unilaterally doing things that no president ever thought they had the right to do. In fact, the president himself said he didn't have the right to do it in prior occasions. But there's only so much in terms of substantive legislation and things of that nature that a president can do by himself. Obviously, checks and balances, separation of power, we're all familiar with that. But that's what our founding fathers set up, is a very conservative, with a small "c," system we have here. Nothing radical or great change is supposed to be made without going through this grist mill that we have in Washington. People get frustrated with that, but if they want to change it, they ought to elect better politicians.</s>CUOMO: Senator Fred Thompson, appreciate the perspective. Someone said to me, "I don't like President Obama, and that's why I'm not voting for Donald Trump." I said, "What are you talking about?" And he said, "Because Obama does too much stuff himself. Trump is going to be the same way. I want the whole system to work for me, not just one part." Same point you just made. Appreciate the perspective, as always, Senator.</s>THOMPSON: Thanks.</s>CUOMO: And you're looking well. It's great to have you.</s>THOMPSON: Also, wise person you were talking to.</s>CUOMO: Not as good looking as you, but wise. Wise is just the same. Take care, Senator. All right. So, we're teeing up all the new poll numbers because you have a day on reckoning coming on just Wednesday. That's when the big CNN Republican debate is. The first round is at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. And you have the prime time event at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Final preparations are under way right now at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley for this high stakes debate. The questions will be put to the people who want to be your leaders. Alisyn?</s>CAMEROTA: Thanks, Chris. Major wildfires are causing a state of emergency in two northern California counties. The Valley Fire, as it's called, has killed one person and has burned 50,000 acres. It has destroyed 400 homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate. So, let's get the latest from CNN's Dan Simon. He's live in Middletown, California. What's the scene, Dan?</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, just a heartbreaking situation. You can see this one neighborhood. We are this Middletown, and I'll tell you what, everything is just incinerated. This is one of the worst wildfires in northern California in recent memory. This gives you just a sense of the heat and how it just took out everything. You got 400 homes in this community that have burned to the ground. And officials are calling this a fuel-driven fire. This is what a four-year drought looks like in the state of California. They have warned us about this. They said it could happen, and here it was. This fire just exploded so quickly, going from just a few hundred acres to more than 50,000 in a single day. Fire crews say, at this point, there's still zero percent containment. The fire is slowing down, so hopefully they'll make progress. But still, so much work still to be done -- Michaela.</s>PEREIRA: All right. Thanks for giving us an update on that situation. Very dire indeed. Dan, thank you. New this morning, Joyce Mitchell, the former prison seamstress who acted as an accomplice to killers Richard Matt and David Sweat during their escape from an upstate New York prison in June, sat down for her first ever TV interview this morning. Here's some of what she said on NBC's "Today" show.</s>JOYCE MITCHELL, HELPED INMATES ESCAPE PRISON: I did wrong. I deserve to be punished. But, you know, people need to know that I was only trying to save my family.</s>MATT LAUER, NBC "TODAY": Did anybody ever stop you and say, you know, Joyce, back off a little bit. Get back behind the desk. Treat them like inmates. Stop being such a nice person. Stop being friends with them?</s>MITCHELL: They never actually told me to stop, but they did say, you know, you're too friendly, you know? You're too nice. At the time that everything happened, I was going through a time where I didn't feel like my husband loved me anymore. And I guess it was just me. I was going through depression. And I guess they saw my weakness, and that's how it all started.</s>LAUER: Richard Matt comes to you and says, Joyce, I need a star- shaped drill bit. That's a lot different than cookies and brownies.</s>MITCHELL: Yes.</s>LAUER: What did you think?</s>MITCHELL: At first, I'm like, I can't get you that, but then he's like I need it.</s>LAUER: For what?</s>MITCHELL: At first, they didn't tell me, and then after they did, it was because they were going to try to escape.</s>LAUER: Had you already given it to them at that stage?</s>MITCHELL: Yes. But I give them the stuff because they had threatened. It was Mr. Matt. He looked at me one day and said, you know, Joyce, I do love you. I said, I love my husband. And a little while after that, he wanted to get rid of Lyle.</s>PEREIRA: She said she was doing what she thought she had to do to save her family. She feels threatened. She got in over her head.</s>CAMEROTA: That's an interesting interview because she also said she felt she was depressed at the time and she felt her husband no longer loved her. That helps a little bit to understand why she would get involved with a convict.</s>PEREIRA: We'll have more later on what Joyce Mitchell has to say. Stay tuned for that.</s>CUOMO: All right. So, he'll be part of the GOP undercard Wednesday night. Rick Santorum, you know him. He needs an opportunity to land some body blows on the leading Republicans, find a way to capture the energy of the race. What is the strategy, and what does he think about the breaking news we have coming out of Kentucky? Rick Santorum, there he is, on NEW DAY next.