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Ted Cruz Responds to Trump Attacks; Joe Biden Speaks Out; President Obama Set to Deliver State of the Union Address. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired January 12, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:01]

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, the government knows this is a huge problem. The CDC has been ringing the alarm bells. That agency says that 37,000 people will die in the next five years because of superbugs -- Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hour two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin live here on Capitol Hill, big day, because, this evening, President Obama will be delivering his final State of the Union address.

And I have next to me here our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash. I think, the last time I was here, I was chasing her around during the government shutdown.

So, good to be back under different circumstances.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's good to have you here.

BALDWIN: First of all, tonight is huge, obviously, because it's his last, but also this is the first for Speaker Paul Ryan. Get me in the mind of Dana Bash. What will you be looking and listening for?

BASH: Well, fortunately or unfortunately, we are where we are. It's the beginning of a presidential year. So, even though it is the end of an era, it will be the end of the Obama era, don't look for any nostalgia from Republicans, just the opposite.

Paul Ryan this morning had a breakfast with some of us who are TV reporters and anchors and made very clear it's game on, and that he is going to be as combative as ever for the next year during the rest of President Obama's time in office. And he insists it's because that he thinks Obama is going to be highly political, starting with his speech tonight.

But it basically makes it clear that the next year is not going to be much different than the past, what, seven.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Speaking of the next year and really the next couple of weeks, I will see you in Iowa, I'm sure. Let's talk about some of these poll numbers, the latest numbers we're seeing today.

First up, you have these two Democratic polls out today shaking up the race for the president in a huge, huge way, showing front-runner Hillary Clinton, the fact that she could maybe lose the first two races for the nomination next month both in Iowa and New Hampshire.

First up, the Quinnipiac poll found Senator Bernie Sanders has a five- point lead over Hillary Clinton in Iowa. That's just beyond the margin of error. And in New Hampshire, this is the story here today. This Monmouth University poll shows the senator from Vermont not only is leading. It's a monster lead, 14 points over Hillary Clinton.

So, given those numbers -- and I was saying the Jeff Zeleny earlier it was initially sort of a little bit of a political kumbaya between these two. That is long gone. What was she saying this morning?

BASH: Oh. She -- if you want any indication that the Clinton campaign knows full well that those numbers are real, just look at what they are doing on the campaign trail.

When I say they, I mean, not just Hillary Clinton, but Chelsea Clinton was even out today talking about Bernie Sanders by name on the issue with health care. So was Hillary Clinton. Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He wants to roll Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Affordable Care Act program and private health insurance into a national system and then turn it over to the states to administer.

Now, if that's the kind of revolution he's talking about, I'm worried, folks. We have a big difference over guns. You know that. And I think it's a telling difference, because if you're going to go around saying you stand up to special interests, well, stand up to the most powerful special interest. Stand up to that gun lobby. Bring people together and let's have commonsense gun safety measures.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: It wasn't that long ago, Brooke, on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton talked about Hillary Clinton and what she would do, her own policies.

BALDWIN: And Bernie Sanders is nice.

BASH: Exactly, and contrasts herself with the Republicans. Not anymore.

BALDWIN: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Right. I don't think so.

But it's very clear where they see his strengths with the liberal base, health care, for example. They are trying to...

BALDWIN: Youth.

BASH: And youth. Trying to get at him on those issues, saying, guess what, guys? This is pie in the sky. This isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Of course, I should say the Sanders campaign say that what she's arguing is just not true. They say you're going to get rid of Affordable Care Act and you're going to turn it over to the states? Sanders' campaign insists that that's not what his plan is.

But the issue of guns, I think, is the most fascinating because the Clinton campaign has been relentless on this issue, relentless, because -- for obvious reasons. He's a senator from Vermont. He says it all the time. That's why in the past he's taken votes that many who are for gun control were opposed to, for example, giving some protections to the gun industry, gun manufacturers from liability.

So this is not going to stop as long as Bernie Sanders is doing well. I don't think -- I think you're right, not necessarily in panic mode yet, but, look, remember eight years ago, going into Iowa, they don't -- she didn't win. She didn't even come in second. They don't want a repeat of that, obviously.

BALDWIN: Dana Bash, we will see you on TV all night long. Thank you very much.

BASH: Thanks. You too. Bye.

[15:05:04]

BALDWIN: It's not just, by the way, Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire who may be showing a preference for Bernie Sanders. I want you to listen to this.

This was the vice president, Joe Biden, sitting down with my colleague Gloria Borger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not surprised that it's viewed as neck and neck. But I also will be surprised if the pundits turn out to be right. They hardly ever are on Iowa and New Hampshire. So, I'm not...

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: But why is she struggling? You say -- we considered -- she was an overwhelming favorite.

BIDEN: I think that's part of the reason.

BORGER: He's a Democratic socialist.

BIDEN: Yes, but if Bernie Sanders never said he was a Democratic socialist, based on what he's saying, people wouldn't be calling him a Democratic socialist. That's how he characterizes himself in sort of European terms, the Democratic socialist parties in Europe. But...

BORGER: But why is she having trouble?

BIDEN: Well, I think that Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real. And he has credibility on it.

And that is the absolute, enormous concentration of wealth in a small group of people, with the middle class now being able to be shown being left out. There used to be a basic bargain. If you contributed to the profitability of the enterprise, you got to share in the profit.

That's been broken. Productivity is up. Wages are stagnant.

BORGER: But Hillary is talking about that as well.

BIDEN: Well, but it relatively new for Hillary to talk about that. Hillary's focus has been other things up to now. And that's been Bernie's -- no one questions Bernie's authenticity on those issues.

BORGER: And they question hers, do you think?

BIDEN: Well, I think they question everybody's who hasn't been talking about it all along. But I think she's come forward with some really thoughtful approaches to deal the issue.

But I just think, look, everybody -- it's the old thing. No one -- everybody wants to be the favorite. No one wants to be the prohibitive favorite. And so it's an awful high bar for her to meet that she was the absolute prohibitive favorite. I never thought she was the prohibitive favorite. I don't think she ever thought she was the prohibitive favorite. So I think it's -- everything is sort of coming down to earth.

BORGER: Donald Trump right now is the Republican front-runner. No doubt about it. Let me ask you. Is he qualified to be president of the United States and a leader on the world stage?

BIDEN: Anyone in the American public says they want to be president is qualified to be president.

I know that sounds like I'm avoiding the question, and that's not my style.

BORGER: You are. You are.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: No, no, I want to make that clear at the front end.

I think, though, he's an incredibly divisive figure. The country has never done well when the leader of the country appeals to people's fears, as opposed to their hopes. That's what worries me about Donald Trump. If Donald Trump gets the nomination and wins the election, if he's as smart as I think he is, he's going to regret having said the things he's said and done. The whole idea, as we were talking before about how to pull the

country together, for God's sakes, pull the politics together down here, how does Donald Trump do that? How does Donald Trump, on the tangent he's on now, trying to separate people based on their ethnicity, based on their origin, based on -- it's just -- it's just -- divisive. It's not healthy.

BORGER: Well, he -- Putin has called Trump an outstanding and talented personality. And Trump has said about Putin at least he's a leader.

You deal an awful lot with foreign leaders. How would you see Trump on the world stage?

BIDEN: I would hope we'd have an extremely qualified staff with him. I would hope he would have people from the last administration and other Republican administrations who were substantively grounded in...

BORGER: You're saying he's not substantive?

BIDEN: No, he's not so far. Now, that doesn't mean he can't be, but he has no background in foreign policy.

It's one thing to have an assessment of Putin's personality and Putin of him. That's OK. But tell me what he knows about strategic doctrine. Tell me what he knows about the nuclear equation with the United States. And tell me what he knows about China-Soviet relations -- or China-Russia relations.

I don't know. Maybe he's keeping it all a secret, but he hasn't spoken to any of the substance so far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Chief political analyst Gloria Borger, Gloria, what an incredible, wide-ranging interview, just first and foremost.

And taking it back a couple minutes to the point about Bernie Sanders, listen, I remember when the vice president announced he would not be running for president and the day before he was contradicting Hillary Clinton on several issues, and now this, talking about Bernie Sanders deep and real. What is his strategy doing that?

[15:10:11]

BORGER: Well, I'm not so sure there is a strategy, Brooke.

He said to me during the interview -- I said, is the door still open if Hillary Clinton were to falter in Iowa and New Hampshire? He said there's no door. So, I'm not so sure there's a strategy here, that he wants to raise Bernie Sanders' poll numbers and deflate Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.

I think Joe Biden is a populist at heart and he likes what he hears in Bernie Sanders. Look, he thought about running against Hillary Clinton. And one of the reasons he thought about running against Hillary Clinton was maybe he thought he could beat her, right, at some point.

I think what he said today when other reporters asked him follow-up questions to our interview, he said, oh, I meant she's been involved in foreign policy, which he may well have meant. But what he was saying was, Bernie Sanders has been doing this his entire life.

And so when people listen to Bernie Sanders talk about Wall Street, they believe what he says because he's not new to that game. So it wasn't as if he dissed Hillary. I just don't think he went out of his way to compliment Hillary.

BALDWIN: Yes. That's one way to put it.

BORGER: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: What about -- the interview also made news just because of what the vice president talked about in terms of obviously a private conversation he had with the president as he was coping with Beau, his son's illness, and how about their home in Wilmington. Here's a clip from that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I was having lunch with the president. He was the only guy other than my family I confided all along in everything going on with Beau because I felt responsibility to do that so that he knew where I was, my thinking.

And I said, you know, my concern is, I said if Beau resigns, he has no -- there's no -- nothing to fall back on, his salary. And I worked it out. But Jill and I will sell the house. We'll be in good shape. He said, don't sell that house. Promise me you won't sell the house. He's going to be mad at me saying this. He said, I will give you the money, whatever you need. Don't, Joe. Promise me. Promise me. I said, I don't think we're going to have to anyway. And then I will never forget the eulogy he delivered for Beau.

And when -- Beau had his stroke, when they had a stroke, and it turned out it was the beginning of the blastoma, and he came running down the hallway in his shirtsleeves and said, Joe, Joe, is he OK? His love of family and my family and my love of his family, you know, his two grand -- his two children and my granddaughters are best friends.

His number-two daughter, my number-three granddaughter, they vacation together, they play on teams together. They sleep at each other's homes all the time. It's really personal. It's family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Gloria, that is beyond powerful.

BORGER: I think, when you listen to Joe Biden, he's lived down the hall from President Obama for the last seven years. And they have had some tough times in their relationship.

I don't have to remind you, when Joe Biden got out in front of the president on gay marriage, they disagreed on a bunch of foreign policy issues. The president has often found Joe Biden maddening, but when you look at the way their relationship has evolved now, particularly in the wake of the difficulties the vice president had going through the illness with his son and the passing of his son, I think that you have to understand that they believe Joe Biden when he says that they are family.

This whole vision of the president saying to Joe Biden, who has been in public life for over 40 years, hasn't made a fortune on Wall Street or anything else, and saying, look, I will help you out there, is quite an amazing personal story between the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States when you think about it.

BALDWIN: I am sure pages and pages will be written about their relationship once they are out of the White House.

BORGER: Yes.

BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, again, thank you so much for sharing.

BORGER: Thank you. Sure.

BALDWIN: Just ahead here on CNN, new video of the fugitive in the Paris attacks after that mass coordinated terrorist attack there. See where he went, what he did.

Plus, a lot of eyes on Sean Penn. Well, guess what? He's now responding to all this backlash over a secret meeting with El Chapo, and it turns out Sean Penn was being watched during that trip. We have pictures.

And heartbreak in war, aid workers reduced to tears after finally reaching starving children in war-torn Syria.

[15:15:05]

We will take you there. Please do not miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me.

A secret passageway hidden behind a mirror leading the world's most wanted drug-pin it to a maze of underground sewers. You're looking at Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's escape route that Mexican marines wouldn't actually find it for 90 minutes as they were frantically raiding his house.

[15:20:05]

But it's not those pictures. It's these pictures of Sean Penn that may have led police to the two-story home in Los Mochis, Mexico, and eventually led them to his capture. It turns out, as Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo travelled to meet up with El Chapo in person for that controversial "Rolling Stone" interview, intelligence officials were watching, saying this surveillance was key in El Chapo's arrest.

His undoing seemingly a direct result of his Hollywood dreams to make a movie of his life.

Ann Hornaday, let me bring you in, film critic for "The Washington Post."

I told you in commercial break I absolutely loved your piece in the paper this morning...

ANN HORNADAY, FILM CRITIC, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Thank you.

BALDWIN: ... about this symbiotic co-dependence you talk about between Hollywood and organized crime. And I had no idea. You wrote about how some Chicago mob associate and legendary fixer actually pulled strings so that MGM would allow Al Pacino to play Michael Corleone in "The Godfather"?

Tell me morning about this.

HORNADAY: Absolutely.

Well, this all has its roots back in the 1920s, when the studio chiefs needed help to kind of bring the labor unions to heel, the crew members. And that's where the Chicago mob comes in, because they controlled the unions. So, then the Chicago guys sort of come out to Hollywood to be the muscle and the representatives out there.

One of these legendary fixers is this very colorful character named Sidney Korshak, who did have connections with -- it's a little bit labyrinthian, but basically when Al Pacino couldn't get out of his MGM contract, he made a phone call that involved the MGM Grand hotel that was going up in Las Vegas, and he had deep connections in Las Vegas, of course, and did a little bit of ledger domain and deal-making, and, voila, Michael Corleone.

BALDWIN: Bada bing, bada boom, there you go.

HORNADAY: Bada bing, bada boom. Exactly. Yes.

BALDWIN: We get the movie that we know and we love so well.

Another nugget in your piece, you talked about Al Capone's underling met with the screenwriter for "Scarface." And to your point, this is all about stories. This is believability in film.

HORNADAY: Absolutely.

And they both get stories. Hollywood gets this -- the outlaw has been a perennial trope of American film. There is a love affair, a longstanding love affair with people who go outside the rules of law to go their own way.

So, these criminal stories were always very alluring to Hollywood, and they wanted the verisimilitude. And that's where -- I think originally Capone's men were concerned that -- this was for the movie "The Public Enemy." They didn't want it to be too obviously about Capone.

And they met with Ben Hecht, the screenwriter, and he assured them it was totally fiction and then, of course, brought them on. What better way to get what you want than to co-opt them into the Hollywood dream machine. And they ended up being advisers. But then the Hollywood folks get some nice stories too.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I was about to say, on the flip side, why then would the criminals want Hollywood? I get the reverse.

HORNADAY: Right.

So why would the Hollywood folks want to associate with the demimonde? Is that question?

BALDWIN: Sure. Sure.

HORNADAY: Well, I guess it's -- they have their own allure. I guess that kind of flatters the vanity of the people who maybe feel like they are playing acting a lot, but maybe not getting the real down- and-dirty experience.

So, they might feel like they get a little added credibility, maybe a little added real-life swashbuckling and adventure and daring do. I can't pretend to speculate on everybody's specific motivations, including Sean Penn's. I don't want to dismiss him out of hand or ascribe anything to him that's not fair, but there's just this fascinating kind of mutual dependence and fascination between these two worlds.

BALDWIN: That has gone back years and years and years, as you point out.

HORNADAY: Indeed.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much, Ann Hornaday with "The Washington Post." Appreciate it.

HORNADAY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, a glimmer of hope for hundreds of Syrians starving to death there as war rages on. Aid trucks have finally arrived to help, details about what is happening there on the ground.

Plus, moments ago, Senator Ted Cruz responding to Donald Trump, who has continued to raise questions about his citizenship -- why Cruz says he's increasingly under attack from his Republican rivals. We have got that for you. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:18]

BALDWIN: We are three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, where Donald Trump is trying to hold on to a slim lead there, hot on the heels of Ted Cruz. Trump has been targeting Ted Cruz on whether the Texas senator is eligible to be president, all because of his birth to an American mother in Canada.

Well, moments ago, Ted Cruz responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I like Donald. The legal question is quite straightforward, which is that the children of U.S. citizens born abroad are natural-born citizens, are citizens by birth.

That's true if you serve in the military. That's why John McCain is a natural-born citizen, even though he was porn in Panama. It's true if your parents are missionaries abroad. That's why George Romney was a natural-born citizen when he ran in 1968, even though he was born in Mexico to Mormon missionary parents.

The legal question is straightforward. But I understand why my opponents are throwing more and more attacks. Four weeks ago, just about every Republican in the race was attacking Donald Trump. Today, just about every Republican is attacking me. And they are very dismayed.

That suggests maybe something has changed in the race. And I think they are dismayed. They do not like seeing conservatives uniting behind our campaign, because they recognize, if conservatives unite, we win.

I will say it's more than a little strange to see Donald relying on, as authoritative, a liberal, left-wing, judicial, activist Harvard law professor who is a huge Hillary supporter. It starts to make you think, gosh, why are Hillary's strongest supporters backing Donald Trump?

The past couple of elections, we saw the Democrats thrilled that they got the nominee they wanted to run against in the general election. And it seems the Hillary folks are very eager to support Donald Trump and the attacks that are being tossed my direction.

Regardless, he's entitled to toss whatever attacks he wants. I haven't --