Obama 'crushes' Trump in polling as both make midterm pitch

[0:00] two presidents one election yes we had dueling presidents out on the campaign trail in one case [0:06] in the same state roughly at the same time president trump and president obama both out [0:11] there so when they are both out there how do voters see things with us now cnn chief data [0:19] analyst harry and so we have a picture here of president obama the two presidents out there how [0:24] do they compare when it comes to favorability yeah i would just say that president obama [0:29] absolutely crushes president trump when it comes to who is more liked by the american public you [0:35] could see it right here okay net favorability rate they're basically inverse pictures of each other [0:39] right look at this president obama his net favorability plus 20 points look at president [0:44] trump way down there 18 points underwater under lake michigan my goodness gracious how about among [0:50] independents independence of course being the name of the game in politics you win independence [0:55] you tend to win elections look at this you'd much rather have obama on the campaign trail out for [1:00] you to appeal to independence than president trump plus 19 points for barack obama look at donald john [1:06] trump look at that 38 points underwater this has been a massive problem throughout the latter part of [1:14] donald trump's second term that is real difficulty with independent voters and it is the main reason why [1:21] a lot of these red states johnny b are in play because even though they may have more republicans [1:26] than democrats the independents have totally shifted against the president united states and the republican [1:32] party so who do people say they think was a better president who do they say they think was a better [1:37] president i think you know what is going on here right why are these numbers the way that they are [1:42] well just take a look at this i don't think that president trump is going to like that who has been the [1:46] better president look at this barack obama comes in at 55 percent donald john trump comes in at just 37 [1:53] percent this is from a poll earlier this year i wouldn't be surprised if this margin has actually [1:57] grown a little bit as president trump has become even less popular than he was at the start of this [2:02] year when of course the iran war and the gas prices went skyrocketing up and his approval ratings [2:07] went all the way into the gutter so the bottom line is this president barack obama former president [2:12] barack obama far more popular than president donald trump is and americans overwhelmingly agree that [2:17] barack obama has been the or was the better president than donald john trump maybe that's why he's [2:22] smiling and president trump yeah yeah that that might be it maybe he knew it was coming all right [2:26] how about in terms of which president or who the most admired presidents are and there's some history [2:31] here harry because at one point you put up a chart of who republicans or mega republicans think is the [2:36] most admired president and it was president trump but among all voters yeah okay so you know it's one [2:42] thing to be among republicans donald trump's still popular among republicans still very popular among [2:48] mega republicans but among the electorate at large you can see it right here the president americans [2:53] most admire it's barack obama who is at number one and donald trump is more than double digits back [3:00] or he's double digits back at 19 percent then you got lincoln at nine reagan at nine but when you look at [3:05] it overall if you look at the overall electorate the president that the most americans admire the plurality [3:11] go for this gentleman right here barack obama donald trump is in second place and i don't think that's [3:16] a place donald trump wants to be i gotta see to see lincoln there back at nine uh you know what maybe [3:21] some americans you know what they said you know that was 160 years ago out of sight out of mind all [3:25] right harriet and thank you very much thank you my friend let's get ready to cns or let signs in [3:29] detroit for the latest what was the former president's message well john former president barack obama reprised [3:37] his role as the closer for democrats as he remains a key motivator for the democratic base [3:43] and he is hoping appearances in places like michigan ohio and georgia will help get his democratic [3:49] candidates across the finish line it really was a rare and remarkable moment this weekend as you had [3:55] these split screens of trump and obama on the campaign trail obama and trump were here in michigan [4:01] within the same 24-hour span and one of the things that obama did in his rally here in detroit [4:07] on saturday night was really lay into president trump offering a very scathing rebuke of his time [4:14] as president not just these last two years but also his first term take a listen 10 years of chaos and [4:25] cruelty and corruption and incompetence tomfoolery nonsense the likes of which this country has [4:38] not seen in modern times at least you get to say enough is enough we're voting for change right [4:46] here in michigan now obama also addressed some of those attacks on michigan's democratic senate [4:56] nominee abdul al-sayed over his muslim faith and his name he said that this is very similar to a [5:02] republican playbook of the past even alluding to donald trump's efforts to promote birther conspiracy [5:10] theories about the former president obama said that those attacks did not work back then and [5:14] they will not work in this race against el-sayed now obama's appearance here was in part also an [5:20] effort to try to motivate black voters to turn out in this election el-sayed is still trying to win [5:25] over black voters in the state who had sided with his democratic primary opponent haley stevens and obama [5:32] is a figure who could help in that community now obama's campaigning did an end here in this [5:38] state this weekend he is also set to campaign on wednesday down in georgia for democratic senator [5:44] john ossoff and keisha lance bottoms the democratic nominee for governor in the state so democrats [5:50] really hoping that he can motivate their base voters to turn out in some of the closely watched [5:56] senate races and governors races this cycle so you had president trump and former president barack [6:02] obama hit the campaign trail obama would stops in ohio and then michigan trump in georgia and then [6:09] also to michigan on sunday so whose message is going to resonate more with the voters we're making a [6:17] freaking fortune our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time and those pump prices are [6:24] going to come down sometimes factors beyond your control end up foiling your best laid plans that's not [6:32] the case here the current president chose to make a series of bad decisions today in the group chat [6:41] sarah fisher cnn senior media analyst and senior media reporter for axios tiana lo desher political [6:47] commentator with the washington examiner and lulu garcia navarro cnn contributor and host of the new [6:52] york times podcast the interview thank you guys for being here this morning i want to start with you [6:57] dueling q scores like who's the more popular politician because i did not expect to see the [7:04] former president as front and center as he has been what's the value there well it does say for the [7:10] democrats that they have a little bit of a problem the fact that barack obama continues to be your [7:14] closer your big face to come in and save some of these battleground races more than what has it been [7:20] a decade since he's left office tells you something about what the future of this party he is still a [7:25] very strong character for them to be pulling out in these battleground states of course you can't [7:29] bring kamala harris out she's not the person who even though you know some people expect her to be [7:35] out is not the right person here obviously joe biden going to michigan and she has been out in many [7:39] places but she's not the right person for this role for this role and obviously joe biden is not going [7:44] to be that person either um the dual messages is for president uh trump he has to defend the policies [7:51] now whereas uh former president barack obama gets to paint a better picture of the future which i [7:56] think you know brings one of a little bit more hope because it's not something he has to defend today [8:02] be very curious to see how it works though obviously president trump and former president barack obama [8:08] very different type of messages they are they are at the same time i think that uh president obama is [8:13] doing a little pick on someone your own size um here he is uh i think in michigan um talking about uh [8:20] a decade of uh chaos and cruelty ten years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence [8:36] tomfoolery nonsense the likes of which this country has not seen in modern times at least [8:47] you get to say enough is enough we're voting for change right here in michigan so the other interesting [8:54] thing is he talked about the name thing because obviously trump always used to go after barack obama [8:59] for both his name and um making false allegations about where he was born so then abdul el sayed [9:06] who also is dealing with this he gets a little gumption and he sounds like this on sunday i'm here to [9:13] keep a jihadist muslim brotherhood member from becoming a united states senator i don't even care that [9:22] he remembers my whole name because he can just go on and call me senator after november that'll be [9:27] senator mohammed to you bro it's close and he needs the help so is obama the right person to help [9:33] given their shared experiences uh with trump's attacks and again it's a little different because [9:39] unlike the birtherism thing which had no evidence behind it obviously abdul sayed his mom was allegedly [9:50] in the muslim brotherhood right like his sister tweeted about this we have discussed this so it's guilt by [9:55] association and you think that's right now working because it is having an impact right with the [9:59] voters especially i think it's reasonable to ask someone if you disavow that if it's your literal mom [10:05] which he has been and said no a voter asked him directly it's a little milk toast when he has so much [10:12] energy behind attacking israel and won't say you know you know it's pretty obvious that iran is a greater [10:19] threat to america than israel people notice what where there is salience behind an issue and i think [10:26] that's why obama can try and defend it and be the human meat shield because he is so personally popular [10:32] right he is probably the most popular politician still alive in the u.s not probably actually but i [10:37] don't think that distracts from abdul sayed's unique weaknesses and we're seeing that because sayed did [10:44] spend all his time in the primary accusing hayley stevens of taking money from aipac that being a problem [10:49] playing to what was an issue for primary voters there it's an issue actually i think across this [10:56] election for left and right what else has actually done which i think is quite clever is that he has [11:03] tied it into the wider issue of money in our politics and influence in our politics and that [11:08] is something that democrats are hammering not only in michigan but across the country because we've seen [11:13] just enormous amounts of money bernie sanders with his fighting the oligarchy tour they really have been [11:19] the thing that i've seen in the closing message of the democrats which has been fascinating is that [11:22] they have really had a lot of message discipline you know i just spoke to gina hinojosa in texas [11:27] um you know this past weekend uh el saeed in michigan uh you know troy jackson in maine they are all [11:35] beating the same drum and it is a popular drum which is to say we the people do not own these elections [11:42] these elections are being sold to down the river and so you can look at this you know you can look [11:50] at el saeed and there are legitimate you know obviously worries about letter supporting the [11:54] muslim brotherhood that's not that is a complete misunderstanding of what he did that was not a [12:00] letter supporting the muslim brotherhood do you know um the united states position uh with the muslim [12:05] brotherhood in 2011 and 2012 do you know what it was yes i yeah i think that that position was wrong [12:10] you can think it was wrong or it wasn't but it was the united states government's position [12:14] actually to engage after uh this entire thing that happened at the arab spring in the middle east [12:21] with the legitimately elected leaders of a country with which they had a relationship [12:25] force a press crackdown that us as journalists should have some grief i'm not i'm not taking a [12:31] position on what the united states government should or should not been i'm just saying that he was in [12:35] in lockstep with what the elected government of the united states was doing at the time regardless [12:42] this is the point republicans constantly want to bring us back to 2011 and litigate something that [12:48] most people don't really have any idea about don't remember very well most regular americans i don't [12:53] think um have any sense of what obama's foreign policy was towards egypt because it's about el saeed who [12:59] wants to be on the senate foreign relations committee he says this yes but he also talks about the things [13:05] that people care about which which are affordability etc etc so what i'm trying to say here is that um [13:12] the closing message of the democrats uh is this message that it's us against them well let me pause [13:20] for a second it's it's he's trying to reclaim that mantle we're going to talk about hispanic voters we're [13:24] going to talk about a lot of different voters this time but in michigan to end this i'm going to show [13:29] you the polling no clear leader abdul sayed is still doing very well against mike rogers mike rogers is [13:37] very much closing the gap and we're going to see the effect of these former presidents uh on voters there