First GOP Primary Debate Thursday Night
HARLOW: The first Republican debate is just four days away, Thursday night. You can bet a lot of folks are going to be watching. Let's talk a little bit more about the Donald Trump phenomenon because he is all but surely going to be part of this debate. They make the final determination on the top ten on Tuesday. With me now, CNN commentator and legal analyst Mel Robbins who just wrote a column on Trump and CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson. Guys, thank you for being here. Mel, begin with you. You have some connections with Donald Trump. You've delivered his speeches for his organization before, you've interviewed him on camera. You know this guy. How's he going to debate?</s>MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think he's going to debate exactly how we've seen him. Trump has one style and it is what we call offense. No matter what people say, he is on the offense even when you attack him. If you note, what does he do? He never concedes. He actually just pushes back harder. And I personally think this is going to be an absolute amazing thing to watch because Donald also has the advantage that he gets to be himself and everybody else is having to be a politician. So it should be fascinating on Thursday night.</s>HARLOW: And that's what he's been saying is I am not like them. I am not like them at all. And clearly that's resonating with voters and that's what this polling is showing. Ben, is he going to have to answer and be held to the fire on a number of these flip-flops, key issues like --</s>BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well,</s>HARLOW: Mel, something that has largely been overshadowed in the recent polls is how he's doing among women voters. Out John King wrote about it on CNN.com this week talking about Trump's Achilles feel. And look at these numbers. The recent CNN/ORC poll shows 61 percent of female voters have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. That's reflected in Iowa, it is reflected in New Hampshire, some of those key early states. Why is he struggling to attract the women's vote?</s>ROBBINS: Well, you know, I don't think the fact that he's anti-choice and recently, Poppy, this is one of the positions Ben was talking about that he's flip-flopped on, it is going to help him with a lot of female voters. But I also believe that in some cases, the fact that he is not so presidential. Because look, what is it coming down to for Republicans? Do you want a person, a candidate that's presidential or do you want somebody that's a personality that represents winning, that represents fighting, that represents going for it no matter what. And that's what the decision's going to come down to. And I think for some women, his brashness, the history of womanizing, the way that he communicates, the fact that he's so aggressive, that may be a turnoff for some women. But I don't think that he, over the course of time, is going to have that big of a problem because there are plenty of women that are frustrated with Congress, that are frustrated with the government --</s>FERGUSON: The difference is this, though. I mean, so many women that I've talked to on my show have said they don't like Donald Trump for the same reason they haven't liked other politicians in the past. He's pompous and he is arrogant.</s>HARLOW: Ben, let me jump in there. I do want our viewers to hear this sound. Just to push back a bit on what Mel was saying. This is from Kate Bonner. She was on my show yesterday. She worked with Trump. She co-authored a book with him back in the late '90s as a young woman. I want you to hear what she had to say about how supportive she believed he's been especially women in business dealings. Let's roll it.</s>KATE BONNER, CO-AUTHOR, TRUMP, THE ART OF THE COMEBACK: That said, back -- my experience with him and the way I saw him in the '90s with his family, with then banker, with his children. And I never -- I'm sure I'm going to get lambasted for this, but I never saw him or heard him to be a sexist. When I worked at Trump in 1999, more than 50 percent of the senior executives at the Trump organization were women. He was surrounded by powerful women. So it wouldn't be foreign to him if that was the case.</s>HARLOW: Ben?</s>FERGUSON: Yes, I think -- I think she worked for Donald Trump and she made a lot of money working for Donald Trump.</s>HARLOW: She co-authored --</s>FERGUSON: So I expect her to have great things to say about Donald Trump. But the average woman out there that's going to be asked to vote for him is not making money from working with Donald Trump. It's completely different, you know, paradigm of viewpoints here. One is making money, the other is judging from the outside. And I don't think women are going to connect with that.</s>HARLOW: All right, Mel, Ben, thank you. Mel, we have you to talk more on Trump a little later. We will get in to this a little more. Appreciate it to both of you. Coming up next, changing gears here, focusing on the city of Baltimore. The Baltimore police department facing a huge new wave of violence. Ten people shot overnight. Now the feds are stepping in. What's it going to look like and will it help next.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just two months left until the fit nation six pack takes on the nautical Malibu triathlon. They've been training hard, swimming, biking, and running. But six-pack member Robert Lara says time has been his biggest hurdle.</s>ROBERT LARA, FIT NATION PARTICIPANT: Consistency in training. It's rough, you know. You work a full-time gig, plus all the other stuff that comes along and somewhere in there you have to cram in an hour of workout every other day. It's rough.</s>GUPTA: Despite that, he's managed to get the workouts in. Learned to cook healthier foods.</s>LARA: So the weeks I do put the work in to cook, my life is a lot better, it has a lot more structure.</s>GUPTA: And inspire people along the way.</s>LARA: I've never been someone I thought that would inspire people to go work out. I think that's a by-product of what I've been trying to do.</s>GUPTA: The change he's most proud of, his type 2 diabetes seems to be improving.</s>LARA: The numbers are totally different now than they were when I started like the blood sugar is low, everything's different. And so that's a good thing.</s>GUPTA: And Lara says for him, it's been more about the journey than the end result.</s>LARA: Most people who are athletes and try to be competitive, they know that they can't climb Mr. Mountain without climbing a bunch of hills first. I think that's where we're at.</s>GUPTA: And at least until September --</s>LARA: Do what April tells you to do and really do it and that's it.</s>GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.