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Texas Indictments; Plane Crash Investigation; Republican Debate. Aired 15-15:30p ET

Aired November 11, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:05]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It's incredible. Climbing that mountain, it is such a metaphor.

Pole pole, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Happy Veterans Day.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Top of Africa, ma! Top of Africa, ma!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BALDWIN: And we continue on, top of the hour. Thank you so much for being with me on this Wednesday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

We begin with the Republican debate, an event dominated by personalities last night, but really by policy. You have these eight Republican candidates sparring over Syria, the tax code, trade, talking about the minimum wage, military, immigration, so much more than that.

More than 13 million people tuned in to see the seven men and one woman who would like to be the next president of the United States there on that main stage. Here are, in case you missed it, some highlights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can't continue to be the policemen of the world. We owe $19 trillion dollars. We have a country that's going to hell. We have an infrastructure that's falling apart, our roads, our bridges, our schools, our airports, and we have to start investing money in our country.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're not going to be the world's policeman, but we sure as heck better be the world's leader. That's -- there's a huge difference where, without us leading...

(CHEERING)

BUSH: ...voids are filled.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it, but it isn't. In the 21st century, it's a disaster.

If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine. And that means all this automation that's replacing jobs and people right now is only going to be accelerated.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.

It's particularly a problem in the black community. Only 19.8 percent of black teenagers have a job who are looking for one. You know, that -- and that's because of those high wages.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The secret sauce of America is innovation, and entrepreneurship. It is why we must cut our government down to size, and hold it accountable. It's why we have to take our government back, because innovation and entrepreneurship is crushed by the crushing load of a 73,000-page tax code.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Washington is fundamentally corrupt. There are more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible -- and -- and not a one of them is as good.

RUBIO: For the life of me, I don't know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so the candidates spoke well. Did they speak the truth? Not 100 percent that entire time.

with me now, my colleague Tom Foreman, who fact-checked the candidates, what they were saying there last night said in Milwaukee.

Tom, let's begin with Dr. Ben Carson. I know he was talking specifically about the minimum wage and how that would affect unemployment, especially if it was raised. Was that what -- what did he say exactly?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, his basic claim was that every time you raise the minimum wage, it raises unemployment in this country. This is a favorite talking point of some of the conservatives in this country.

Here's the problem with that statement, though. Even when you say something like that, the facts just don't bear it out. Look at these years. Every year here the minimum wage raised -- you can back see in 1950 it was very small, but the minimum wage went up, but look at what happened to the number of unemployed people over the next year. In every case, it went down. Now, that doesn't mean every time

you raise the minimum wage, it goes down. But his claim that it always goes the opposite way is also not true. The bottom line is, raising the minimum wage raises unemployment, that is just false, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. That's interesting, because he was just echoing what he was just saying last night there in Lynchburg, Virginia, with reporters.

On to Senator Marco Rubio, got a huge applause for his comments about welders making more than philosophers. Is that true?

FOREMAN: Well, this is an interesting claim here. Welders make more money than philosophers. Big applause. A lot of people get that. And that's sort of attacking the idea that you have to have people do physical jobs in our country. They really matter and this whole idea that everybody else should be in this erudite world of higher education is not necessarily the way it's going to work.

The problem with this statement is that the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the average income for someone with a philosophy degree is $63,640. Average income for a welder is $37,420.

This is a fact. It's a little confusing, though, because there are a lot of people with philosophy degrees. It doesn't mean they're just sitting around being philosophers. They have a philosophy degree and they go do something else, like teach at a college or maybe they have a completely different job.

And welders, there are a lot of different types of welders, some of whom make a whole lot of money. You might argue that if you took all the welders who had college degrees, they might go higher, too. But as a simple statement, philosophers vs. welders, well, you have to say that what he said is also false.

[15:05:10]

BALDWIN: OK. What about Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz talking last night about the tax code? Set it up. What were they saying?

FOREMAN: Yes. Well, we're all heading toward that time in the spring where we have to deal with taxes.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

FOREMAN: She says the tax code is 73,000 pages' long. Boy, that's an awful lot of pages to try to grind through.

The problem is that the tax code itself is only some 2,000 pages long. There are thousands, tens of thousands of pages, up to 73,000, explaining how to use the tax code. They're not technically part of the tax code. You have to give her credit for that. But if she calls it the tax code, then what she is false. And as

for Ted Cruz, he says the tax code has more words in it than the Bible.

BALDWIN: Yes. Is that true?

FOREMAN: Well, you can argue that I'm not sure why that matters, except it does make the point that the tax code is complicated.

Many people, Democrats and Republicans, agree it's not only complicated, but too complicated. And, yes, if you do a word count on the tax code itself and the Bible, yes, the tax code comes out way higher than the Bible and there are different kinds, although you might invoke either document at any moment when you're trying to get it through it all.

BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness. Tom Foreman with what is right and wrong, false, true, thank you.

Make sure you go to CNN.com/realitycheck to see all the facts and all the different candidates' claims. Believe me, there were many more than just those three we highlighted.

Let's continue the conversation.

I have Katrina Campins with me, a former contestant on season one of Trump's former reality show "The Apprentice," and Kellyanne Conway here with me, Republican pollster who is the head of The Polling Company.

Ladies, thank you so much for being with me.

And I actually -- we just turned around some sound. Jeb Bush was just speaking in Iowa, talking about how he thought he did in the substance of the debate last night. Let's just pause for a moment and all hear that for the first time together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I don't know what his views are. My views are that we need to fix our immigration system by securing the border, narrowing the number of people that come by family, expanding the people that come based on economic need for our country, dealing with the extended stay visa challenge.

All of these things need to be done in a comprehensive way. And I think I have the skills to do it. I mean, this is not -- there are more complicated things than this. This president has let us down by not being serious about border enforcement and not engaging with Republicans to forge consensus.

He uses this as a wedge issue and we don't win politically with this, but we can win policy-wise.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

BUSH: I didn't see that. I know -- I have heard his views, that he believes you can round up 500,000 people a month.

Just assume for a moment that there would be due process. I haven't heard Mr. Trump's views on that, but I assume in our country that actually people would consider that to be worthy of consideration; 500,000 people basically I think would double the number of people processed through our judicial system.

It's not possible. It's just not possible. I think there's a better approach, a practical approach, conservative approach that solves this and does it in a way that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and respects American values.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so that's a piece of what Jeb Bush was saying there in, of course, the first caucus state in Iowa.

So, Kellyanne, let me just turn to you. Here he is, he has got this new push, new campaign slogan. He's hanging in there. Met with donors apparently this morning. Can supporters just -- will they be able to support someone who just is a bad debater?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESIDENT & CEO, THE POLLING COMPANY: He's not a particularly great candidate either and he's probably not for these times.

You know, the conservative movement, Brooke, is always looking for the next Reagan. And so they have decided, while we're looking for the next Reagan, let's stop picking Bushes. And what he -- just right there, the clip you showed from I guess today, he's out of step with what people in Iowa and all across the country in the Republican primary caucuses believe about illegal immigration.

And so that's a deal breaker for many of them, whether it's Marco Rubio and the gang of eight amnesty, the path to citizenship, the act of love comments that Jeb Bush has made. They're actually out of step. Now, the base may say, but you know what? You're going to be a good steward of the domestic economy. I would trust you as my commander in chief. You will go and defeat ISIS. You will put Putin in his place.

Maybe they will look past it. But so far, these deal breakers are haunting people like this who if they don't perform well in debates it just exacerbates the underlying problems. I thought Jeb Bush had the best debate so far last night because he embraced his inner self.

He's nerdy. He's wonky. And he's talked about policy. Nobody asked him, hey, Jeb, what's your favorite color? They asked him policy questions.

(CROSSTALK)

[15:10:03]

BALDWIN: Right. (CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Katrina, do you agree? Thus far, listen, this is someone to someone who has had a lot of money, super PAC. I think the base has really tried to rally around him. But at the end of the day, he's really been languishing in the polls. You know, I don't know if you agree that he had a great night last night, but is he cutting it?

KATRINA CAMPINS, CEO, THE CAMPINS COMPANY: Well, I think the debate last night was actually so classy. I think the moderators did such a great job and the fact that the candidates were allowed to speak longer I think did everybody justice.

BALDWIN: But on Jeb Bush specifically.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMPINS: Well, I think Jeb Bush is somebody that doesn't have as much passion, as much respect as I have for him.

I think our country really needs somebody that is extremely passionate and has guts. I think that's what people are failing to see with Bush. But did he do better? Absolutely. but I just don't think it's enough.

BALDWIN: OK. Let me play this other. We talked about the immigration exchange last hour. This is the other exchange that really stood out to me, more or less this conversation about who's the better conservative. Here's that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: I know that Rand is a committed isolationist. I'm not. I believe the world is a stronger and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yeah, but, Marco, Marco, how is it conservative, how is it conservative to add a trillion-dollar expenditure for the federal government that you're not paying for?

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You can not be a conservative if you're going to keep promoting new programs that you're not going to pay for.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIO: We can't even have an economy if we're not safe. There are radical jihadists in the Middle East beheading people and crucifying Christians. A radical Shia cleric in Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon, the Chinese taking over the South China Sea.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

RUBIO: Yes, I believe the world is a safer -- no, no, I don't believe, I know that the world is a safer place when America is the strongest military power in the world.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Katrina, you can hear the crowd. That was one of the big moments of the night. What do you think that was about?

CAMPINS: Well, I think Rubio did phenomenal last night.

I think one of the -- my favorite point that's he made was actually about family, which he got attacked for. He said that when people have children, they should actually get some of the tax money that they have paid for back because child education is so important now and the children really are our future.

And he got attacked for saying that. I think he is an ultra- conservative and he believes family is so incredibly important and that our safety as a nation is also extremely vital, which are definitely conservative values.

BALDWIN: But, Kellyanne, on the notion of who's more conservative, even on the undercard debate, you had Jindal essentially pushing Christie on the same exact thing.

CONWAY: Right. Right.

BALDWIN: Who are they speaking to?

(CROSSTALK)

CONWAY: Oh, they're speaking directly to the voters.

That's why I think these debates are important, Brooke, because they're a form of direct democracy, a pure form of direct democracy. Most Americans can't afford to pay the freight to go see these candidates in person at a fund-raiser, an event. They can click on their computer or the TV and they can hear what these people stand for and what they stand on.

You know, the next voter complains, I just don't know what they stand for, why don't they tell us, then you're not paying attention. You're watching something else, because say what you want in the Democratic debate and Republican debates so far, there's been a lot of talk of policy.

To answer your question, though, at the -- most of the Republicans, you can't put a piece of tissue paper between them on abortion or on the military or on education, local control vs. federal control.

But where the fault line lies in the Republican Party now is, are you a committed small government conservative, or are you a big government Republican who is going to spend and spend? Rick Santorum in 2012 won, what, nine primaries and caucuses? That was amazing, but what tripped him up was not his family values positions. That was resonant to lots of voters.

It was when people started saying, you were a serial earmarker. You sure spent a lot of money when you were in the House and Senate long before earmarks became verboten to Republican. Rand pushed that argument and that was Rand Paul's best debate by far last night. I think he got back to the libertarian mooring. And libertarians doesn't always just measles, are you for a legalization of marijuana or same-sex marriage.

Libertarian means are you for small, less active government? He was pushing Rubio on that.

BALDWIN: That was the line in the sand that was drawn last night. One other bit I want to play, this was Donald Trump. Listen, by the way, Carly Fiorina not only the one to be interjecting and interrupting. Let's play fair, but specifically this is Donald Trump calling Carly Fiorina and then after the fact Dana Bash caught up with Carly Fiorina after the debate to follow up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Ronald Reagan was strong, but Ronald Reagan didn't...

FIORINA: ... Ronald Reagan walked away at Reykjavik.

PAUL: ... send troops into the Middle East...

FIORINA: ... he walked away, he quit talks...

PAUL: Can I finish...

FIORINA: ... when it was time to quit talking ...

PAUL: Can I finish my time?

[15:15:00]

TRUMP: Why does she keep interrupting everybody?

(LAUGHTER)

(BOOING)

TRUMP: Terrible.

(BOOING)

PAUL: Yes, I would like to finish my response, basically.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think gender had anything to do with it? FIORINA: Well, you ask yourself. People were interrupting each

other all night long and suddenly when I make a point, Mr. Trump has to say, I wonder why she keeps interrupting. But it's typical of him. That's the point. It's typical. He finds a reason to insult virtually everyone he stands on the stage with eventually. Tonight, it was my turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I will say Donald Trump today with Jeff Zeleny sort of walked back, said he's learning and didn't really take the bait from reporters the day after.

But do you think that there is some truth, Kellyanne, to what Carly Fiorina is saying? I know she's had a bigger conversation about conservative women vs. more liberal, left-leaning women and how they're not treated as fair.

CONWAY: I have been in Republican politics for a long time. I walk into a meeting and I feel like I'm in the Elks Club or the golf course or a locker room. But that's just the price that we pay.

I think the better conversation for Carly was when she took on Donald Trump at the first main stage debate -- or I believe it was the CNN debate, right, where she took him on about her face, because it was very difficult.

BALDWIN: She had to.

CONWAY: She had to. But it was a very difficult box for him to come out of. And he said, I think she's a beautiful woman and anybody would love that face. He tried to walk it back.

That's probably more effective. But, look, is there a double standard? I came out of the 2008 elections with Hillary Clinton as the Democrat running for president, Sarah Palin as the Republican running for vice president. I felt really icky for my three daughters.

I thought, I will tell them they can do anything they ever want in the world, but don't dare ever run for president, because it is hard. Nobody runs stories about the beer bellies and the bad comb- overs in Congress. It's just, does the color of your hair match your shoes and your bag? We deserve to get those column inches back.

BALDWIN: Amen. Don't get me started.

Kellyanne Conway and Katrina Campins, thank you both very, very much. I appreciate it. Great discussion.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton also a big presence at the debates last night, her name mentioned dozens of times. Does that signal a shift in the Republican race?

Plus, new information on that fiery crash, that plane crash in Ohio that killed nine people. One witness saying that the plane just up and dropped out of the sky. What we have now just learned from the NTSB, the latest on their investigation.

Also ahead, the FBI says it stopped three white supremacists from plotting the beginnings of a race war. Who they were allegedly targeting -- coming up here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:55]

BALDWIN: All right, staying on politics, listen, she wasn't even on the stage, but it was clear she was front and center. I'm talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was mentioned, her name, dozens and dozens of times during the fourth Republican debate just last night in Milwaukee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIORINA: Imagine a Clinton presidency.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When the fall comes and we run against Hillary.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton doesn't want one minute on that stage with me next September.

CARSON: When I look at somebody like Hillary Clinton.

RUBIO: Hillary Clinton.

CHRISTIE: Hillary Clinton.

CRUZ: Hillary Clinton embodies the cronyism of Washington.

CHRISTIE: Hillary Clinton is coming for your wallet, everybody.

FIORINA: We must beat Hillary Clinton.

CHRISTIE: What do you think is going to happen when Hillary Clinton is elected president of the United States?

FIORINA: Carly Fiorina can beat Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: We cannot let Hillary Clinton, who is the worst secretary of state in the history of our country, win this election.

KASICH: Hillary and the Democrats promise everything on the spending side.

PAUL: This is also something Hillary Clinton agrees.

CARSON: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton won't tell you that that's the thing that's really hurting the middle class and poor.

CHRISTIE: Wait until you see what Hillary Clinton will do to this country.

BUSH: Hillary Clinton's approach to this is more top-down, more regulation, more taxes.

Hillary Clinton says -- Hillary Clinton -- Hillary Clinton -- Hillary Clinton wants to suppress that. This president and Hillary Clinton.

It may be the best that Hillary Clinton can do, but it's not the best America can do.

They're doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this.

NEIL CAVUTO, MODERATOR: All right, I think it's fair to say you're not fans of Hillary Clinton's resume.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, all smiles.

Listen, if one were to have played a drinking game, that would be the one to do that with. The Clinton camp must love that, right?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

And, look, it's good politics for the Republicans. In the undercard debate, it was really Chris Christie who took on Hillary Clinton most directly. And I think in the second debate, it was Jeb Bush who kept mentioning her over and over and over again.

And what that's about is telling a Republican audience that I'm the person who can take on Hillary Clinton. I'm the candidate who's the most electable and I can take her on, on the issues. And it's also a way for Jeb Bush in particular to avoid, say, taking on Marco Rubio who he didn't have such a great luck taking on in the last debate, right?

And so it's a lot easier to take on somebody who's not on the stage than somebody who is, although I would argue, Brooke, that what we heard last night in this debate was a lot of internal, substantive disagreement within the Republican Party about how they move in the future on key issues.

BALDWIN: We heard about a lot of those key issues. This really was issues, substantive.

Just quickly here, beyond I can take on Hillary, was it about who's the biggest conservative's conservative?

(CROSSTALK)

[15:25:00]

BALDWIN: What line are the candidates drawing? BORGER: Well, it was major disagreements on immigration reform,

for example. Do you build the wall and deport people? Kasich called Trump silly on that.

How do you take on Russia and Vladimir Putin? Bush taking on Trump on that, saying this isn't a board game. We can't allow Putin to do our work for us. We have got to lead in this world. It was about spending priorities. Do you do child care tax credits? How much do you spend for defense?

And it really was an argument about the future of the Republican Party, which Republican primary voters, I would argue, deserve at this point in Iowa and New Hampshire, as you're heading into this race, because these candidates actually, once you set aside all the personal differences -- and they don't like each other, as you could tell last night -- once you set that aside, there are real differences in how they would approach important issues going forward, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Got to highlight those differences.

BORGER: Yes, absolutely.

BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, thank you so much.

BORGER: Sure.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Thank you.

Still ahead, indictments come down against more than 100 people involved in that deadly biker shoot-out in Waco, Texas, details on what kinds of charges they will likely face.

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