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Hillary Clinton Announces Candidacy for President in 2016. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired April 12, 2015 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[15:00:18] FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone. Thanks for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield in the NEWSROOM.

Breaking news now, it's what everybody has been anticipating today, an official announcement coming from Hillary Clinton that she is officially in the race for the White House. We understand the video will be rolled out momentarily. We have our political reporters all over this story.

Jeff Zeleny is outside the campaign or actually is in Washington right there and our own John King.

So Jeff, we begin with you. We see a note coming from John Pedesta that it is official, wanting to make it clear that you heard from me. It is official, Hillary is running for president. We all know that was about to happen. But now, we have been waiting for this roll out, this very special rollout, this video, when will people see that?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, we are told that this video is going to be released just any moment now. And it is going to be an outline of why she is running for president. This is not going to be a reprise of her video from 2008, you know, where she says I'm in to win. This is going to say why she is fighting for voters. And she's promising to be out there and hearing the concerns of voters. She will be traveling to Iowa, I'm told, on Tuesday and then on to New Hampshire later in the week. And she's going to try and convince Democrats that she is the person to lead the party forward.

Now, a lot of things are standing in her way on this or challenges in her way on this. First and foremost is succeeding President Obama. Only once in recent memory has a candidate of the same party succeeded someone who has been a two term president. That is a big challenge for her going forward. But she is going to announce this in a video. She is going to say why she is fighting, why she is winning. This John Pedesta email is going out to donors and telling them to look at their email, saying that this is on now. So she will go to Iowa, Fredricka, on Tuesday.

WHITFIELD: And so, John, we're talking about, you know, really a third term for Democrats and that's what, you know, Jeff is underscoring, how unusual, how rare, how that potentially the real challenge for Hillary. So how does she distance herself from this current White House without really insulting her former boss, someone who gave her an opportunity to be secretary of state, but at the same time incorporate the Obama administration perhaps or her experience under the Obama administration to her advantage?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, Fred, think of all the nice things President Obama has said about Hillary Clinton, including just in the last 24 hours, during his trip in Panama. So, she wants to get distance from the president on some issues because she wants to prove she is her own person. She wants to prove she would be different, especially on economic issues. I think she'll sound more populous and talk about using the leverage of government in a more aggressive way than she will say President Obama has done.

Now, look, she will say that President Obama was unable do that because the Republicans blocked everything he tried to do. So you get some distance on some issues. But let's also be exactly candid here. Look at the demographics of America. Look at the two big Obama victories. President Obama wins two huge electoral college victories.

In the other elections during the Obama presidency, the Republicans made huge gains. In a presidential year, she needs African-American voters. That's the Obama coalition. She needs young voters. They were part of the Obama coalition where she thinks she can do better than President Obama, blue collar white voters. That's why she will come out today as just as noted with an appeal to say I want to fight, help the middle class.

So she wants to embrace some of her husband's economics, some of Barack Obama's record. Take distance from both of them where she sees fit because, look, she has to establish herself, Fred. That's where the last campaign went off the tracks, number one because President Obama had an ideological difference in the primary, the Iraq war. Democrats don't see that right now. So the great advantage Hillary thinks she has, as she announce today, is she thinks even though she will pay respect to the Democrats who are running, she thinks she can spend most of her money. And Fred, they think they might raise as much as $2 billion. That's just the campaign, $2 billion with the B- dollars. She can spend most of that shoring up her strengths, addressing Republican weaknesses and running, unless a Democrat emerges in the next couple of months running essentially as general election campaign.

WHITFIELD: And $2 billion. That just seems unheard of. But at the same time I want to bring in political correspondent and commentator Gloria Borger as well.

It seems unheard of, but at the same time, we know that the Obama administration, at least the last run, we're talking about nearly a billion dollars.

And so, Gloria, why would it be necessary for someone with this kind of name recognition, this kind of unconventional rollout, but then she's getting huge, you know, attention by way of news organizations, not necessarily because of the video that she's about to roll out, but the notion that she's about to jump in to the race. Why would she even need $2 billion to maintain a campaign. GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Substantially she

will because at this point, she's running against herself and she is also running against an awful lot of Republicans. So she's going to need the money for that.

But right now, she's not going to be out giving $100 a player fund raisers. She's going to be out with small groups of voters so that she can reintroduce herself to the American people as somebody who cares about them, who cares about their problems and not somebody who's been around for three decades, which of course she has.

WHITFIELD: OK. Brian Stelter, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," also with us now.

Brian, understand you have actually seen the video that none of us have seen thus far, do I have you?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I'm here.

You know, I think it is so different from her 2007-2008 video, and of course, we'll be able to watch it here in a moment. But it's exactly what we're hearing and what we have heard in the commentary in the days leading up to this, which is I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, this is about families not about her.

All the themes that were expected but it looks so different from 2007. We talked about this yesterday. It's made for cell phone viewing. It's made for that kind of personal, social media sort of viewer ship.

WHITFIELD: And it was seem, John King, it really is made for the younger electorate, in large part, who is relying on information via cell phone, twitter, You Tube, et cetera.

KING: It's made for the new media. It's made for the new electorate. It is made, Fredricka - look, Hillary Clinton, I have covered her for more than 25 years. She has been reintroduced so many different times, reintroduced herself so many times from first lady of Arkansas, the first lady of the United States to running for United States Senate, then a presidential candidate, a failed presidential candidate, secretary of state. She's trying to reintroduce herself again. And part of it is she's trying to say I get it. I'm not saying it's my turn. I'm not saying I'm in it to win it. I'm saying this about you. That's to the point Brian was just making it, just made earlier, talking about middle class families who need somebody in Washington to fight for them.

She's saying I'll be your vehicle. I'm saying that, you know, I'm entitled. And that's a key point. Because she did run, my words, but she run an arrogant almost a smug campaign in 2007 at the beginning, until suddenly they realized this Obama guy who didn't think was a threat was a real threat. And by the time they figured it out, it was too late. So she need (INAUDIBLE) this time. But she also is who she is. Let's be can. She can't reinvent herself. She is 66 years old. She is who she is. She has certain ways, but she is also a very smart woman. The question is what lesson has she learned and we are about to find that out. WHITFIELD: All right, and we are indeed because we actually just

received the video. So let's play it and then let's talk again on the other side of it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm getting ready for a lot of things.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of things.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's spring. So we're starting to get the gardens ready and my tomatoes are legendary here in my own neighborhood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My daughter is about to start kindergarten next year, so we're moving, just so she can belong to a better school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After five years of raising my children, I am now going back to work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every day we're trying to get more and more ready and more prepared.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A big boy coming your way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now I'm applying for jobs. It's about what the real world will look like after college.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm getting married this summer to someone I really care about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to be in the plan. I'm going to be in a class room.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm getting ready to retire soon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Retirement means reinventing yourself in many ways.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have been doing a lot of home renovations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But more importantly we just wanted to teach our dog to stop getting in the trash.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so we have high hopes for 2015 that that is going to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've started a career recently. If this is a fifth generation company, which means a lot to me, this country was founded on hard work and it really feels good to be a part of that.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm getting ready to do something too. I'm running for president. Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Every day Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion. So you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stays ahead. Because when families are strong, America is strong. So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote because it's your-time. And I hope you'll join me on this journey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, there it is, highly anticipated, that is the rollout of the Hillary Clinton I am officially running for the White House 2016. It's 2:18 seconds long. We don't even see Hillary Clinton until that 1:35 in.

And so, John King, talk about she has reintroduced herself many times. And in this case, she reintroduces herself or maybe her concept more than half way through this video by showing a great diversity and wide variety of people who say they're thinking about, they're building toward the future. How effective in your view is this to reintroduce her, Hillary Clinton, somebody that everyone feels like they know, but now they're seeing a different side of her perhaps? Is that what this video delivered on?

[15:10:30] KING: This is the one moment a candidate and campaign almost completely controls, Fred, your announcement, right? You get to say, you get to write the script, you get to say, you get to do it the way you want. For someone who again, who was viewed as distant, detached not a very good politician last time. I'm in it to win it. She said in 2007. What did she say there? I'm going to come on your vote. This is about you. This is not about me.

So it's very cleverly constructed. It's a very smart political argument, about what this is about. I want families to be able to get ahead. I want to help you fight. You've come back a little bit, but there is more to go. The government is not on your side. The deck is stacked against you.

So its Hillary saying essentially I will fight for you. It is populous. A lot of progressives have said, why not Elizabeth Warren in this case? She says she's going to get out and fight for working families.

And again, look at those images. You saw the entire Obama coalition. And there you saw a gay couple holding hands. There, you saw young working mothers. You also saw a white retiree woman saying she's getting ready for requirement and a white man on a factory floor. Those are two places where she thinks she can run stronger than President Obama. Two places that are critical, especially if you look at Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, across the Midwest. So as a political construct, well done.

WHITFIELD: And you saw families with babies on the way.

So Gloria, you know, she made it very clear there, I want to earn your vote, I want to be with you on the road ahead?

BORGER: And you know, the last time she announced her, the presidency, she was sitting in a sun filled room, talking straight to the camera. It was all about her, kind of on a couch saying, you know, I'm in it to win it.

And you know, as John was just saying, this isn't about her this time. That's what the campaign wants you to hear. This is about the voters, this is about listening to the voters, you know. This worked for Hillary Clinton when she ran for the Senate very well. She went on that famous listening tour.

And I think that's what she's saying in this video. She's saying I'm going to listen to you, I'm going to try and understand your concerns, and by the way, I am not the inevitable anything. The inevitability didn't work as a campaign strategy last time around. There are certainly not going to tested out this time because she doesn't have serious opposition at this point. She made a point of saying that doesn't matter. I'm still got to win you're vote. Because funny thing about the voters, Fred, they actually like for you to reach out to them and stay, what are you thinking about? What did you care about? They don't like anyone to be anointed and the Clinton campaign knows that really well.

WHITFIELD: And so, Brian Stelter, I know you saw this before we got a chance to see it. But, you know, is this a precursor to other kinds of messages, by way of ads, video messages that we might see from this camp?

STELTER: If you look at the message in the last few minutes, they have put online on their official web site, their official facebook page. We saw Chelsea Clinton tweet a couple of minutes, I'm very proud of you, mom. There's a lot of youthful energy you see in the commercial and on the Web site. The message on the Web site is new adventure, next chapter. Now, you see on facebook, the message is what we hear in the ad there, the main quote is everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion.

The main take away I have from that video is the youthful nature part of it. And as we know, some Republicans have already made her age in issue in this pre-campaign. So now the campaign begins for to the first time, they are going on the offensive, I think, and expressing an affirmative message.

WHITFIELD: All right.

BORGER: And you know, Bill Clinton is not in this video either, I might add. She is married to a former president of the United States who's got 56 percent popularity in this country, but he's not running for president, she is.

WHITFIELD: Right. And he is hugely popular even around the world too. But there are two presidents really in Hillary Clinton's life.

And Jeff Zeleny, let me bring you back into the equation here. You've got her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president. Of course, you've got President Obama, the sitting president who also helped to make her the secretary of state. So she has to in some way use those two men to her advantage, right?

ZELENY: No doubt about it. And one of her top strategist, really her closest adviser, (INAUDIBLE), of course, is her husband, Bill Clinton. She is going to use him in every way possible, but not out front, I'm told. She is not going to be out campaigning with her. As Gloria just mentioned, he was not in this video. But he's going to be out fundraising her for, and he's giving her advice. He wants to help her along the way. But don't expect him to appear side by side at any of her rallies.

Her biggest challenge here is President Obama, not because he's not the necessarily popular with half of the country because he's not, but it's to the line she has to walk, as John was talking earlier, between sort of saying that she's going to continue the things he's been fighting for but also pointed out a few difference. And foreign policy, a few areas of foreign policy on Iran perhaps and other things, she will have to answer the same question that he is being asked and answered. So that is her challenge here to continue in the direction that the Democrats wants her to go but not arguing that she would be a third term for this president because history will show that that does not happen very often here.

But look, this video is exactly what her advisors said she wanted to announce like this, she knew that she could not announce the exact same way she did in 2008 by giving sort of a speech on a sofa as she did in 2008. She's going to listen to voters. She's going to start that on Tuesday in Iowa in a very small setting, I'm told. And her biggest rally will not come until next month as next month in May.

[15:15:52] WHITFIELD: All right. OK, so halfway into this two-minute video. She says, you know, I'm getting ready too. I'm running for president.

So Mark Preston is outside the campaign headquarters there in Brooklyn.

And Mark, you got this big roll out here. But then, the setting is rather stoic outside that building. But give us an idea of what Hillary Clinton's day is like today? When will people see her alive in the flesh after video rollout like this?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, Fred, no question, we're in the 21st century of campaigning where you do not have to announce on a big rally. You can do it through social media and the netizen (ph). In fact, what you saw today with Hillary Clinton.

Now surprises. We knew she was going to run for president, but there has been a lot of secrecy around this video. None of the details had leaked out. I spoke to some campaign officials and they were able to give me a little bit of background on how this video was done. This video was shot about a week ago. It was shot all around this country including New Hampshire and Iowa.

The folks that we saw in the video, they are not actors. They are quote, unquote "real people with real stories." And we saw that in the first minute and 35 seconds of that video which is very tantamount to how she's running her campaign and plans to run for campaign.

Now today, Hillary Clinton is here in New York. She's not here at campaign headquarters, her staff is manning the phones and doing what they have to do to get the campaign up and running. But we do expect Hillary Clinton to be calling top Democrats around the country this afternoon in this evening. I would expect that most of her phone calls will be going in some of early states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. But the campaign is off and running right now. And as just said later this week, we'll see her in a very important state of Iowa, a state that she needs to do very well in, Fred.

WHITFIELD: OK. Hey, Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen is also with us and republican commentator S.E. Cupp also joining the equation. We're running out of boxes, you guys. It's getting very crowded. But it's kind of like the race to the White House, it's a crowded field right now.

So S.E. Cupp, let me get your take, S.E. Cupp, on this rollout very unique and Hillary Clinton has received a whole lot of attention without having to physically and live in person answer questions right off the bat.

S..E. CUPP, REPUBLICAN COMMENTATOR: Yes, which is not anything anyone in the media would particularly celebrate, right? I mean you would be hard pressed to find someone in the media who think this is remote campaigning, which is happening on both sides of the aisle is a good thing. When a candidate gets out there and makes an announcement, lays out some policy, lays out any part of the vision, you want to be able to ask questions about it.

I agree with John. It was a smart video. I think it was very well done. Of course, the glaring acknowledgement possibly packed into that message is however, that the economy has not improved for everyone over the past six years. That income inequality has widened, that poverty has increased. So she'll have to explain why, if that's the problem she's identifying, why another Democrat in the White House is going to solve that problem, when the Democrat currently in the White House did not.

WHITFIELD: Hillary Rosen, let me hear take on this.

HILLARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, I think that the video shows something that we. Everyone is talking about like do we really know Hillary Clinton. Is, you know, what are we going to learn about her? That video reminded me of something that's really important which is that Hillary Clinton really knows this country. She really has from, you know, her time back in Arkansas as first lady to all of the work she's done on education with children and families across this country. Yes, for the last couple of years, she has focused externally outside the country, but she really knows people. And I think that this video is kind of emblematic of a refocusing of Hillary's priorities and I think is a great start.

WHITFIELD: And we understand Chelsea Clinton just tweeted, very proud of you, mom.

And Jeff Zeleny, you know, we keep hearing these words, reintroduce, you know, Hillary Clinton and you know, that she would try to portray herself at this softer, remind people that she is a grandmother, et cetera, but isn't there appealing that America feels like they really do know Hillary Clinton. They have watched her. She's been in public life for decades. They feel as they have gotten to know everything about her from the highest point to the low point. What is enigmatic about her?

[15:20:12] ZELENY: She certainly is the most well-known person. Obviously, everyone calls her by her one name, Hillary. But the reality is there are millions and millions of younger voters, other voters who have not thought much about her for quite awhile and who were not around during those early years in the 1990s. So that is one segment.

But she's also was going to try and run, her advisers explained us, this time on her own terms. In 2007 and 2008, she ran on a message of strength, that she was strong enough to be the commander in-chief. That she was the best person for the job. This time she's going to run more on her biography. She's not going to introduce herself more and she is not going to sort of be afraid of the history that she would be the first woman president. She's not going to explain it all the time. But she's going to lean into that more, I'm told. Of course she's a grandmother now, so she's going to try to humanize herself as opposed to saying that she's the strongest candidate.

Now, she has a lot more experience than she had in 2008, but she thinks she needs to reintroduce herself. But of course, so many people already know about her. And she is a very polarizing figure. So as this is going on, Republicans think they can make so much hay of all that experience.

WHITFIELD: And John King - go ahead, Gloria.

BORGER: She's married to the best transactional politician of our generation. And I think we always compare Bill Clinton to Hillary Clinton. They know she's not great at these big speeches, they know she's better at one-on-one, she has been despite being in the public eye for 30 years. People aren't quite sure who she is. There's a little bit of a -- she's a little bit elusive. And I think that what they're trying to do is take away the veil of secretary of state, first lady, all of that history and getting down to the picture that you are seeing right there and getting down to Hillary Clinton the woman, Hillary Clinton the person. And reintroduce her if you will from the ground up, OK? So they'll build up to the resume, introduce her as a human being, as a woman, and then somebody with a huge amount of experience on a resume.

ROSEN: But there is something, Fred, if I could just say that this video shows which is really a transformation in politics today. And I think you and Brian talked about it a little bit in terms 09 the tactics, social media and engagement and all of those things that happen. But I think really what has changed is just the lack of faith that a majority of Americans have in government really being able to work for them and that I think is just overall the conversation that Hillary Clinton needs to bring to the table, I think will bring to the table. The Republicans are spending all of their time sort of attacking, doing exactly what will hurt them the most in my view, attacking Hillary Clinton, talking about the big picture, attacking the president. But what voters really want to know is what are you going to do for me? What matters to me? I think this video, out of the box is saying, you know what? We are going to recognize that politics has changed and that's what people need to hear.

WHITFIELD: And John King, you know, Hillary talked about, you know, the transformation of politics, what about the transformation of Hillary Clinton? You covered the White House for a very long time. You covered the Clinton years as well. What kind of transformation are you anticipating Hillary Clinton will help remind the public about in terms of her life in the public eye?

KING: I think that is very much up to her, Fred. This is not a political endorsement. Some Republicans out there will light up the tweeter verse when I say this. But if you go back to Hillary Clinton when I first met her in 1990, 1991, when she was less worried, less skeptical, less even paranoid about the media, about Ken Star, about white water about, you know, the Monica Lewinsky investigation, as a conversationalist, and this is what they are trying to do. Put her in more relaxed, casual setting. She's great to have a conversation with. She's fun to have a drink with. She's actually very funny in a Bob Dole, David Letterman, the cutting dry, Midwestern sense of humor. That Hillary Clinton would serve her well as a politician, of any political party. Humor serves humor, approachability serves any politician well.

She pulled that back. The question now is whether she's willing to be more of her old self, if you will, while also learning the lessons of what happened in 2008. Look, this video is very well constructed. If you look at the demographics of the country right now, the advantage the Democratic party has heading into presidential elections because of what I call Republican dysfunction, on issues like immigration, at some culture issues like, the Republican candidates are going to be fighting about immigration, fighting about same-sex marriage to the next year. Plus, and if no Democrat emerges, Hillary Clinton is going to be running thinking about November 2016.

Now, we'll see if some Democrat emerges. There is still plenty of time. And she well knows surprises can happen in primaries. But you don't see on the table right now the ideological issue or a rising star candidate to take her out. And because of that, she has such a huge advantage.

While the Republicans fight it out over several months, let's see what lessons she has learned. She has built a very different team, including a number of Obama campaign veterans, including in her chairman, John Pedesta, someone who is not afraid to turn to her or to turn to Bill Clinton and say no. I think you've got this wrong and have a conversation like that. That was missing a bit last time.

So she is who she is, and she's always been the same person. But when they talk about the children's defense fund, the legal services corporation, some of the things she did in the '80s and '90s, I bet a lot of Americans have no clue. That searched out.

Now, at the same time, Congress wants to talk to her about her emails. Republicans will remind us about other things. So, we are going to see in the give and take the politics, what she has learned from 2008 and she is having -- as Jeb Bush says, he says he wants to do it joyously. She looked in that video like she was joyous at the moment, let's see if it lasts.

[15:25:48] WHITFIELD: You know, and John, you talk about the team and there have been lots of observations that the team in 2008 was a little dysfunctional. There was too much in-fighting and her new campaign manager has, you know laid down the law, put out the memo and says look, we're going to be respectful for one another and with one another. And there's a feeling that that might make a difference, and that might I guess be conveyed to the voting public.

KING: It's very talented group of people, from top to bottom. Some old gray beards with a lot of experience, some people in the middle, a lot of new young talent, who have cut their ad campaign for the last several years, but frankly, except for presidential elections, the midterm years have not been good for the Democrats. So some of the people on her stuff have gotten their, you know what, handed to them in some of these midterm elections.

And that's a valuable lesson in politics. It's not to be underestimated what you learn sometimes from losing. So it is a great group, top to bottom, in terms of their strength, their experience, their mix. But I will say this and I don't think anybody here who has a lot of experience in this group will disagree with me, candidates reflect the campaign. You can have the best staff in the world or the worst staff in the world. If you've got a great candidate, you'll do fine. If you've got a lousy candidate, you won't.

BORGER: You know, and there is one other thing that strikes me because there are two things Hillary Clinton has to worry about. One are, her trust numbers and, you know, these are two ---this is an important number when you vote for president. You have to trust someone. The other one is a question we always ask, which is does this candidate care about people like me?

And one of the benefits President Obama always had when he was running was that people trusted him and they thought that he cared about people like them. And what this video is about, is about people everywhere, and showing that Hillary Clinton cares about people like them. They can't assume she's coming down from Mt. Olympus to their level, right? She's got to start out at the ground floor with everybody else.

And so, those are two numbers that the campaign is very well aware of and they're keeping in mind and I think we see it in this video.

WHITFIELD: And so, S.E., how do her opponents combat this message? We already know that there has been, the machine is huge, the anti- Hillary campaign, you know, machine. And we already saw Jeb Bush releasing preemptively a video of his own. And he was quick to be anything but complementary to Hillary Clinton.

So, you know, as John was making the point, Republicans can't just be on the anti-Hillary, you know, bandwagon. They have to present another message, will this increase the pressure on presenting a different message, a message other than anti-Hillary?

CUPP: Well, I mean, she is the presumptive nominee, right? So I think it's completely fair that they address their criticism toward Hillary Clinton. And I think Democrats in her circle makes a mistake in trying to portray her as a victim of the media or of Republicans who are right in criticizing very long record in politics.

But you are right. Republican candidates, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, the others, you know, that are likely, absolutely need to present their visions of the future. And I think that you've heard forward looking campaigns come out of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz so far. And I believe that tomorrow when Marco Rubio is set to announced, he will also present a vision of the future.

But look, I mean, we have had two terms under Democrats and Republicans are going to need to point out the failures of the Democratic policies as they see them. So they're going to have to look back a little bit. But I think you're going to hear very forward looking messages from all of the candidates because they know that people, the people in that video that Hillary produced, they want to know what's next. They don't want to look back. They want to know what policies are going to help the middle class because the last policies weren't that great.

WHITFIELD: And Hillary, Marco Rubio set to make his announcement tomorrow, certainly it might be a little challenging for him to really come out in front in getting his message ahead of this big Hillary machine now since she's going to be making her way to Iowa for those face to face meetings out of today's roll out on video. What are the obstacles for Marco Rubio?

[15:30:09] ROSEN: Well, I think Marco Rubio would have some trouble anyway regardless of what Hillary Clinton is doing just because the field is getting crowded now. And so, an announcement by Republican is not as well anticipated as maybe the first one was. So I think his challenge is going to be how are they going to resolve who is going to be for the conservative base, where are they going to fight?

My view was that, you know, the GOP kind of searching for who's going to be, you know, the best candidate for their biggest block of voters which are the, you know, really hard core conservative voters is probably going to end up helping Democrats, helping Hillary Clinton in the end, because she's going to be doing just the opposite. She's going to not focus on, you know, a narrow slice of the pie. She's going to be focusing on what's really best for America and be much more focused on the kind of the general election message that the Republicans can't afford to be. And they'll show up in the primary.

ZELENY: But Fred, I think one thing we should point out. There should be a bit of split screen with a conversation of Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton. And the Rubio people are OK with this. I mean, he's definitely not going to get as much attention as her, but he is an image of the future for the Republican Party.

So I think they are OK with sort of how this dynamic - look, in fact I talked to a Rand Paul advisor, they were hoping that she would have announce on the day that he announced last week so he can have this sort of split screen thing. So, that is one of the arguments we are going to hear that she is not a candidate of the future. And of course, it is her burden to show that she is like what we saw all those faces, everyone else in that video, not just her. She's trying to project that for the future. But Senator Rubio is announcing tomorrow evening. I think he'll get plenty of attention at that moment.

ROSEN: You know, just right of that they say might like the attention that they're getting and in fact because of Hillary Clinton, they may get some more attention. But I think that Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are going to have some trouble on this fact which is the Republicans for the last eight years have been decrying the lack of experience of President Obama. You know, he's only been in the Senate a couple of years. He shouldn't have run, et cetera. What are we doing?

You know, Marco Rubio is going to have that same problem, the sort of hypocrisy of those messages I think are going to be tough. Particularly at the time when we know from the latest polls, voters are putting more emphasis on experience. They actually want some experience because of what we have seen in the stand still in Washington over the last couple of years.

WHITFIELD: All right. The all important state of Iowa, we know people there have already said they don't want to see a coronation. They want to see a candidate earn their vote. Out Joe Johns is actually in Des Moines, Iowa getting an idea, firsthand, what people are thinking and feeling. And now especially after the rollout of this video of Hillary Clinton, she is in the race for 2016 for the White House.

Joe, what kind of reaction are you getting there?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: There's a very much wait and see reaction here, quite frankly, Fred. People hold their powder. They keep their powder dry until they such time that they sit down and really talk with these candidates. And that people are saying is going to be the real test of Hillary Clinton. How do you run a retail campaign in states like Iowa and New Hampshire when you are an international celebrity, and you come with an entourage, you come with secret service, a throng of media, and all your aide. How do you get down and touch people where they live and talk to them.

We do expect Hillary Clinton to come here in the early part of the week. We expect small meetings, not unlike her days when she was running for the New York Senate. The listening sessions she had that she felt were so effective. We don't expect another larger event for several weeks.

She's also expected to go out to New Hampshire, another early voting state. These are places where we know her aides have been for a long time. They say they want to point up things like her wit, her humor and her ability to connect. So a big question is how do you do that when you're surrounded by so much excitement? That is sort of the world of Hillary Clinton right now. WHITFIELD: Right. And Joe, when you talk about these intimate small

meetings, how many people are we talking, like three other people, ten other people?

JOHNS: Well, usually, I mean, what people expect is small, restaurants where you can have 20, you can have 50, you can have even smaller than that in a room. I mean, it's anybody's guess and the question is what is this campaign going to do? How much are they going to control it?

I'm told by Democratic strategists that we should expect a very tightly controlled campaign, a lot of message discipline and attempt to try to avoid some of the infighting, the back biting, and all of the things that caused Hillary Clinton problems in her campaign of 2008, Fred.

[15:35:05] WHITFIELD: All right. Joe Johns, thanks so much.

And John, let me bring you back into that, because you talked about humor, her wit, those are things that need to be conveyed. That her folks will try to use to their advantage, and in these small settings, do you see that they'll be beneficial to her or will it continue on with a message of being too much of a control freak, too much of controlling the message, too much of controlling the image.

KING: Look. With that, you just hit the nail on the head there in the end, Fred. Look, every campaign has the right, especially in the early bay days of the rollout to control their message. Now, we grumble in the media, no doubt, the Republicans will criticize her when she does small tightly controlled events where only supporters or at least only Democrats are invited. And so, if she's going to get a tough question, it's going to come from somebody who's relatively sympathetic.