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Hitting The Trail After GOP Debate; Trump And Cruz Trade Punches Over Birther Issue; Sparring Over Immigration; Trump Takes Cruz To Task Over New York Values; NYC Mayor Weighs In; Trump Is Right About New York; Impossible For Trump To Get New York; Iowa Caucuses 17 Days Away; Trump and Cruz Trade Punches; U.S. Sailors Detained; Iran Awaits Report. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired January 15, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: -- in a live interview with my colleague, Wolf Blitzer, right here on CNN as he gets underway with his program right now. Have a great weekend.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 8:00 a.m. in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 9:30 p.m. in Teheran. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with presidential politics here in the United States the day after the latest Republican showdown. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, they're back out there on the campaign trail today in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

On the Democratic side, former President Bill Clinton is out campaigning for his wife in Iowa. Last night's Republican presidential debate saw Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz go from shadowboxing to throwing the punches over the so-called birther issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And back in September, my friend, Donald, said that he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue. Now, since September, the Constitution hasn't changed but the poll numbers have.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDFATE: Here's the problem. We're running, we're running, he does great. I win. I choose him as my vice presidential candidate and the Democrats sue because we can't take him along for the ride.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Trump wasn't the only one taking on Cruz. Senator Marco Rubio fired back against Cruz's attacks over immigration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You don't get to say we need to secure the borders and, at the same time, try to give Barack Obama more authority to allow Middle Eastern refugees coming in when the head of the FBI tells us they cannot vet them to determine if they are ISIS terrorists.

MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDFENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ted Cruz, you used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards, now you say that you're against it. You used to support a 500 percent increase in the number of guest workers, now you say that you're against it. You used support -- you used to just support legalizing people that were here illegally, now you say that you're against it. That is not consistent conservatism. That is political calculation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN Political Reporter Sara Murray is joining us now from Charleston, South Carolina. Sara, the debate seemed to leave little doubt that the Trump-Cruz so-called bromance is clearly over.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right, Wolf. I think it is absolutely over. We are just too close to Iowa for candidates to be taking jabs and not returning them. And I think that's what we saw on the debate stage.

Now, the chat here today at the RNC meeting is that Ted Cruz got the best of Donald Trump when it came to that sort of birther spat. But then, Donald Trump got the best of Ted Cruz when it came to the fight over New York value. Of course, Donald Trump invoking 911 to say that New Yorkers are very strong.

Today, though, Democratic Mayor Bill De Blasio and Hillary Clinton both said that they agreed with Donald Trump on the New York values issue. And you can see the Cruz campaign already trying to work that in their favor, taking to Twitter and sort of pointing out that Donald Trump is drawing some interesting Democratic bedfellows on the New York values issue -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Is the Republican Party beginning to embrace or at least accept the idea that Donald Trump could, in fact, wind up as the Republican presidential nominee?

MURRAY: I think a number of the Republicans I talked to here today were very impressed with Donald Trump's debate performance last night. They felt like he delved in a little bit deeper on the issues. They also felt like they saw a different side of him. A side from just the normal bombast that they see on the campaign trail.

And the reality is, while many establishment Republicans still think there will be a candidate that emerges from the Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Jeb Bush lane, they are getting more comfortable with the idea that Donald Trump could end up being the nominee. And we're seeing that in polling, too. The latest NBC-WSJ numbers show 65 percent of Republican primary voters are now open to the idea of supporting Donald Trump. If you look back to March of 2015, that number was just 23 percent. So, it's a really big shift there in the polling as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Sara Murray, thanks very much. Ted Cruz's comments about so-called New York values were also a hot topic during the debate. Donald Trump took Cruz to task for saying that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Everybody understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media.

TRUMP: New York is a great place. It's got great people. It's got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Even Hillary Clinton agreed with Donald Trump's defense of New Yorkers. She just tweeted, let me read it to you. Just this once, Trump's right. New Yorkers value hard work, diversity, tolerance, resilience and building better lives for our families.

[13:05:08] Joining us now for more on this controversy is the mayor of New York, Bill De Blasio. Mayor, thanks very much for joining us. I assume you agree with Donald Trump that Ted Cruz's comments insulted New York City?

BILL DE BLASIO (D), MAYOR, NEW YORK: There's no question about it, Wolf. Donald Trump's right in this case and I don't say that very often. But he is. Ted Cruz insulted the people of New York. And, by the way, blatantly hypocritical on his part. He has come here plenty of times to gain money for his campaign from people in New York. He's very quick to put out his hand and get New York money.

And then, he insults the people of New York and the values of New York, the very same values. Trump's right that we're part of overcoming the greatest attack this nation has ever received on our soil.

So, when you think about it, there's immense hypocrisy. By the way, he went to Goldman Sachs, a New York institution, for a big lump. Again, he leaves it out of the discussion.

So, I think Ted Cruz actually has created a lot of anger, not only here, but a lot of the people around the country are going to see this as divisive, negative. And I think he owes the people of New York an apology.

BLITZER: And that apology clearly has not yet come. He had an opportunity in the debate last night. He didn't do that. Take a look at the cover of the -- front page of the New York "Daily News" today. Drop dead Ted. And then, it basically goes on to say in smaller type, go back to Canada. Are you with the "Daily News" on this?

DE BLASIO: Well, the "Daily News" is absolutely right. That's the message he's sending to the people of New York city. And it's a horrible message for anyone who pretends to be a leader to talk that way about the largest city, the greatest city in the country.

And there's also tremendous hypocrisy running through the whole discussion of birth place. Our president, President Obama, for years had people sniping at him. He was obviously born in the United States of America.

Now, along comes Ted Cruz and the whole discussion has only begun in the last few weeks, because it happens to be a different ideological reality and he happens to be a conservative Republican.

So, I think there is a real double standard both on that issue and certainly a double standard in the way he talks about New York but cannot wait to load up the coffers with New York money.

BLITZER: Do you believe Senator Cruz is a natural born U.S. citizen?

DEBLASIO: Look, I think it's an issue that legitimately needs to be resolved by the courts once and for all, because I think there's a lot of debate in this country about what the definition is.

And I think it would be good for all of us to have one final definition that we all could work by. I'm going to the point though, I'm sure Cruz was one of those people who gleefully stoked to the birther arguments against Obama or enjoyed the fact that others were doing it.

So, we can't have a double standard. But if we have a concern about what that standard is, it should apply equally to Democrats or Republicans, liberals and conservatives. It shouldn't be a double standard.

BLITZER: This morning, Donald Trump was on MSNBC. He seemed pretty confident that if he is the Republican presidential nominee, he could carry his home state of New York. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And one of the best locations I have in the whole country is New York City which is almost 50 percent of New York. I mean, can you imagine if we ever won New York? Nobody even thinks about that, what they'd do in the polls.

Plus, we're going to win West Virginia big. We're going to win Virginia. We're going to win places that we're not normally -- that nobody else is going to win. We're going to win New Jersey. We're going to win Pennsylvania. We're going to win Florida. We're going to win Ohio.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: If he wins all those states, if he's the nominee, he's going to be the president of the United States.

So, let's go back to your home state of New York. Do you think it's reasonable to think that Donald Trump, as a Republican presidential nominee, could win New York state? DE BLASIO: Absolutely impossible. He's delusional on that point.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to be the democratic nominee. She's going to win her home state handily. I think that is close to a known fact in this state. She has extraordinary support here.

And remember, as much as I appreciate what Trump said in defense of his home city, and I do, he has made, unfortunately, an entire campaign of insulting different people, women, Mexican Americans, all sorts of people, disabled Americans. That is not tolerated here in New York.

BLITZER: What happens if your predecessor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, decides to run as a third party candidate? We're hearing all sorts of murmurings out there that his people took a poll to see how he might do. That if it were Trump versus Hillary Clinton, he might throw his hat in the ring. What do you -- first of all, what are hearing about that? Do you believe that's realistic?

DE BALSIO: I'm hearing the same things you are. I can't judge the realism. I can say this much. I respect Mayor Bloomberg, obviously. Some of the things that he's done really benefited the city, and I have continued them. Other areas, I disagreed. Obviously, we're from different parties.

But I think the bottom line is this. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. I have no doubt about that. She's going to win the general election. I think that's scenario is going to be the same whether other candidates jump in or not.

BLITZER: One final question before I let you go, Mayor. The Vice President, Joe Biden, seems to suggest the other day in an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger that Hillary Clinton may have come late to the whole issue of income inequality that Senator Bernie Sanders has been doing, talking about that for a long time. Your reaction to that?

[13:10:17] DE BLASIO: I was very surprised. I have a lot of respect for the vice president. I found that to be absolutely inaccurate. Hillary Clinton first came to our attention, because she played a leading role in the children's defense fund fighting for the child care and support for low income families and low income children.

One of the most famous moments in her early career, the whole nation watched for two years as she fought for national health care reform at a time when the insurance companies attacked her with everything that they had. She was in the crossfires of a huge industry with lots of money. She held firm. She kept fighting for fundamental change. If she had not done that, we wouldn't have gotten to health reform two decades later.

So, I think it's quite clear. She has fought to address income and equality since the very beginning of her adult life in dramatic and courageous ways. I give -- I respect Bernie Sanders, too. But, you know, there was an interview earlier today where a picture is shown. Hillary sent a photo to Bernie Sanders thanking him for his support in 1993 for her fight for national health reform. Let's be clear. She has been at the forefront many times and often very courageously to boot.

BLITZER: Mayor Bill De Blasio of New York, thanks very much for joining us.

DE BLASIO: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: For all the latest news in politics, all the presidential contenders, please head over to CNNpolitics.com.

Coming up, our conversation continues. Only 17 days out of the Iowa caucuses. Who were the winners? Who were the losers of last night's Republican presidential debate? Our political panel standing by and we'll break it all down.

[13:11:53]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:56] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get some more perspective on the debate last night, the road ahead for the Republican presidential candidates. Amanda Carpenter is a CNN political commentator, former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz, Angela Rye is a political strategist, former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Amanda, I want to get your reaction of what we just heard from Bill de Blasio. Very consistent to what we heard from Donald Trump, from the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, from Hillary Clinton. Your reaction as someone who supports, I assume, Ted Cruz?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen, not speaking for the campaign, not speaking for Ted Cruz, because I used to work for him. A lot of people said that Ted Cruz won the debate last night. I think it would have been unanimous not for this back and forth over New York values. That said, I don't think this is anything that's going to hurt him among Iowa voters. Having, you know, Bill de Blasio, who I didn't know was a birther until that interview, come out against Ted Cruz, other Democrats like Hillary Clinton come out against Ted Cruz, that doesn't really mean anything for the Iowa primary. The New Hampshire primary, maybe. So I think this is something that is going to blow over. The more important discussion about birtherism where I think Ted Cruz exposed Donald Trump as a coo- coo even in the interview with Dana Bash post-debate suggested that Ted Cruz shouldn't even be a United States senator, I think that was very helpful.

BLITZER: Do you believe Ted Cruz should apologize to the people of New York?

CARPENTER: You know, that's for him to decide. I think he gave a good explanation for how he thinks and why he levelled that attack. But I - it's no secret that the people going really hard at him were never going to vote for him anyway, want to grind the political ax against him. So that's a decision that he'll have to make, but I buy into his explanation.

BLITZER: His explanation, Angela, basically is, that if you take a look at Manhattan or New York City, maybe not all of New York state, I'm from upstate New York, and Buffalo, New York, but if you take a look at New York City, where people overwhelmingly support gay marriage, he said, overwhelmingly support abortion rights for women, that's not necessarily consistent, he says, Senator Cruz, with the rest of the country. That's what he describes as New York values. Your reaction?

ANGELA RYE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: I think that regardless of what his intention was, it was bad. And if he had looked at what has happened to other candidates who have come back at Donald Trump using this same type of attack, it always backfires. We can go to, you know, any number of examples where Jeb Bush comes back at Donald Trump and tries to hit him the same way and it just doesn't work. And so I think what's unfortunate is, from someone who has a - is a Cuban American and who got hit hard from Donald Trump saying, how many Cubans do you know who are evangelical Christians, why would you come back at someone with that same type of attack? It's not healthy, it's not positive and it's not a good way to certainly continue the bromance, which is clearly now over.

CARPENTER: Yes. I mean we'll see if Cruz continues this line of attack. I think that will tell us how he thinks it's going. But as for who can take on Donald Trump on a debate stage, I think last night Ted Cruz was really the only one who showed that he could do it. Many others have tried. Ted Cruz did it. Now we have Republicans gathering at their various conventions wondering who they can coalesce behind to stop Donald Trump. Ted Cruz is the only one that has shown he has the capacity to do that at this point.

RYE: And I think he did in the first half of the debate, and I would have agreed with you that if he would have continued the first half type of momentum that he had, he absolutely would have won the debate. But he lost sourly in that question, in that response to that question from Donald Trump and her certainly lost, I think, to Marco Rubio, who was able to get him on (INAUDIBLE).

CARPENTER: Yes, but -

BLITZER: I think you'll agree with a lot of people - a lot of analysts out there, that Donald Trump's clearly improving in his debate skills.

RYE: Yes.

CARPENTER: Oh, certainly, and that's why I think it also speaks well to Cruz is that he's beating him on these questions when Donald Trump is also improving.

BLITZER: Yes. All right, guys, we can continue our conversations a lot more coming up.

That's it for - for these two ladies. But coming up here, new details about how ten U.S. sailors found themselves in Iranian waters and then under detention. We're going live to the Pentagon. [13:19:52] Plus, Sunday night it's the Democrat's turn as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, they face off in the last Democratic debate before the key races start in Iowa and New Hampshire. Who's got the most to lose? Gloria Borger standing by to join me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Exactly how ten U.S. sailors drifted into Iranian waters now under investigation, but we are learning more details about what lead up to the incident. Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, is joining us now.

Barbara, what are defense officials telling you?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are now beginning to see some of the initial information from the debriefings of the sailors. And what is looks like, Wolf, according to several defense officials, is the sailors changed course as they were moving north up the Persian Gulf. They changed and altered their course. What they did not realize at that point is that it would take them so close to Iran, apparently.

[13:24:56] Why did they change course? They were trying to make up time to get to a refueling point that it appears they felt they were late for that refueling. Not clear if they were running low on fuel, but they wanted to make up some time. So they changed course and somehow they don't realize this has taken them within three miles of Iran's Farsi Island. They had engine trouble. They got busy trying to fix the engine. They drift a bit. They look up and they are surrounded by Iranian troops.

Wolf.

BLITZER: Iran released the 10 American sailors, nine men, one woman, only - quickly - relatively quickly after a day. Do we know how the 10 sailors were treated, because the images that Iranian put on state television with their hands over their heads, on their knees, those images clearly were very disturbing?

STARR: Very disturbing, Wolf. And I have to tell you, we just have not heard a lot from the administration expressing much concern about those images. Defense Secretary Ash Carter referenced it yesterday when he was asked a question by a reporter, but he hasn't volunteered his thoughts on this very much.

Now what we do know, you look at the video of them in that room where Lieutenant David Narker (ph), we now know, he is the commander who spoke and issued those words of apology and spoke on camera to an Iranian camera in the room. We now know from these debriefings that these sailors were told to act happy by their Iranian captor. So this is the first very specific information we have that they are under some form of mental duress. They are not speaking of their own free will. They are told to look happy, act happy for the cameras. And by all accounts, Lieutenant David Narker felt he had no choice but to express the words he did. He talked about how well treated they were by the Iranians. Not clear whether he was ordered to make that apology or felt he had no choice but to do so.

So all of this still under investigation. The Pentagon not saying very much about how they were treated. But we now know from the debriefs, that certainly were not acting of their own free will after they were taken into custody after those disturbing pictures.

Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Barbara, thanks for that new information. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

The declaration of what's being called implementation day is expected to be announced any time. That's when the United Nation's atomic watchdog agency decides that Iran has, in fact, met its obligations under the nuclear deal signed with world powers last year. Compliance will trigger an easing of crippling economic sanctions related to Tehran's nuclear program. But the U.S. says it wants the full compliance report first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are aware that Iran has made important progress in fulfilling the obligations and commitments that they made in the context of that international agreement, to dismantle significant portions of their nuclear infrastructure. There are important steps that they have committed to take and they will not be receiving any sort of sanctions relief until the IAEA has been able to independently verify that those steps have been completed. And the IAEA also moving forward will preserve significant capability to monitor Iran's nuclear program, to verify their ongoing compliance with the agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is joining us from Berlin right now.

Fred, you've spent a lot of time in Iran. You understand, you know Iran very well. Once the sanctions are in fact eased, and that could be within the next day or two, we expect at least $50 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released, the initial release. Do we know how quickly this money will begin to flow into Iran?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Iranians believe that it's going to happen, Wolf, almost immediately. They've been speaking about these $50 billion in assets that have been frozen ever since the nuclear sanctions against Iran went into place. They think that they are going to receive that money very quickly. And it's not just that. They also say that almost immediately they're going to be able to pump about 500,000 barrels of additional oil in - on to the world's markets as well. That's in addition to the oil that they're already able to sell to some countries. That, of course, is something that will make a big difference to them, but could also make a big difference to the already tumbling oil price in the world.

And then one of the other really significant things that they expect very, very quickly is they expect that their banks are going to be able to do business internationally, and that's a very important thing, because at this point in time, if you say you wanted to do business in Iran, you would literally have to go there with a bag of money or a coffer full of money. Now they can do all of this electronically, and they believe that is going to get their economy a big boost very fast, Wolf.

[13:29:55] BLITZER: You're in Europe, Fred. We've heard a lot of reports that German companies, French companies, Italians, Spanish companies, they're waiting in line right now. They're anxiously to begin trade. They're anxious to invest in Iran. They're ready to move in. That's going to be another huge source of Income for the Iranians. What do we expect to see on that front?