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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Caucus Day in Iowa; Trump Slams Cruz; Interview with Katrina Pierson; Democratic Race Tight Heading Into Tonight; Interview with Tad Devine. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 01, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:12] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

After months of talking about it, it is finally here, caucus day in Iowa. At 8:00 p.m. Eastern, Iowans are going to be the first in the nation to cast their vote in this presidential race. The race for 2016's choice.

For the Republicans, Donald Trump seems to be the man to beat. He is speaking right now at a rally in Waterloo. You're getting live pictures right there on the right-hand side of your screen. But he's going to be busy. Later this afternoon, he'll be at a rally in Cedar Rapids. And joining him, none other than one of those big endorsements, Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska.

All of this as a brand new Quinnipiac poll just released today shows that Donald Trump is leading over Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and not by a little, by a lot, 31-24. Also, among the top four, Florida Senator Marco Rubio. He is trailing with 17 percent. And then there's Ben Carson, hanging in there in the fourth spot at 8 percent.

Over to the Democrat's side. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, neck and neck. In the very latest and last Quinnipiac poll for Iowa, Sanders is 3 percentage points ahead of Hillary Clinton, 49 percent to 46 percent. But in the final "Des Moines Register"/Bloomberg Politics poll over the weekend, it was the opposite. It was Clinton leading Sanders 45-42. Both sides battling it out to the bitter end.

And here's a look at where the Republican candidates are making the rounds today. It's a confusing map to be sure, but this is caucus day, folks. A final frenzy day all throughout the state of Iowa. Some of them are already setting their sights on New Hampshire, in fact, like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. And for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both planning events tonight at their headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa.

Donald Trump, again, as we mentioned a little earlier, speaking live right now. The first rally of the day after a lot of TV interviews this morning. Let's get you live to Waterloo and listen in.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Than what you think about not knowing. Many times they do things that you say, oh, they're not very smart. They can't be doing this. They have to be totally incompetent. The truth is, they do things for people that give them the money. They're doing things for their special interests and for their fundraisers and for all of these people, many of whom I know. I mean I look at some of the lists and I laugh. I look at some of the money put up to all of them. I mean, I don't want to use names, but I will, OK? No, I mean I'm looking at the money putting -- put up by Ted Cruz, for Ted Cruz. It's incredible. The people there. It's control. And he will destroy your ethanol business 100 percent. One hundred percent.

And, look, I'm not really blaming him because he's financed by oil people. The oil people don't want ethanol. It's very simple. Especially now because with the prices going down, the last thing they need is more competition. So the oil people are funding him and they don't want ethanol. Your ethanol business, if Ted Cruz gets in, will be wiped out within six months to a year. It's going to be gone. It's going to be gone. And as you know, the ethanol folks, like Trump, I've been consistent, I've been solid, and I'm a supporter and I always will be a supporter. And I view it differently. I view it, the more energy we can have -- we never want to be in a position like we've been in over the last many years. And we're just now starting to come out of it. But all of a sudden production's going to go down, prices are going to go up. You're going to end up with a monopoly again. It's just not going to happen.

So just remember that. I've been for you, and the ethanol folks, the people that are representing you have given me the absolute highest accolades all over the place. So -- and the governor. Your governor. I mean the -- your governor said, you can't put Ted Cruz in because he's going destroy the ethanol business. That's a -- I had no idea how many jobs it means for Iowa. That's a major industry in Iowa. So you have to remember that.

Now, I had a --

BANFIELD: So Donald Trump talking ethanol, which has been a big attack on Ted Cruz, and he's also just coming off a weekend of going there and using the l-word, calling Ted Cruz a liar, saying that Ted Cruz claims I and for Obamacare. I am not. But, boy, strong and strident in those few last hours leading up to the caucuses tonight.

By the way, the place to be is Iowa, if you haven't already guessed, and that's where my colleague Erin Burnett is standing by live right now. She's going to be live throughout this entire hour.

So everybody's doing the same thing that Donald Trump is doing right now, they are hitting it as hard as they can, wherever they can, all the way out to when the caucuses open up.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": It's true, Ashleigh. It's incredible. You know, last night -- you know, we were staying at the same hotel has Hillary Clinton and her team. They were getting ready to go out late. They had a rally last night. Everyone's doing this last minute rallying. But there's this weird feeling, very weird feeling that there's nothing you can do. We're just in these final hours and you're waiting and you're waiting, and you can't do anything until people actually show up at 7:00. [12:05:15] All right, we're going to hear from Donald Trump's campaign

in just a moment. In an interview, though, with ABC's "This Week," you heard Ashleigh reference it, but Trump laid into Cruz's claims that Trump would save Obamacare if he made it to the White House. And it took a particularly nasty tenor. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (voice-over): Ted Cruz is a total liar. I am so against Obamacare. I've been saying it for two years in my speeches. I'm going to repeal and replace Obamacare. I don't know -- even know where he gets this, but he's a liar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Katrina Pierson joins me now. She's a national spokesperson for the Trump campaign. And you are here with me in Iowa.

Words like that, liar, coming out at the end, I mean this is just how -- how it's going to end, huh, with a particularly nasty tone?

KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESWOMAN, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Well, he's just telling the truth. When someone is saying something about you that -- that's incorrect, it's a lie. And I think Mr. Trump is known for saying what he thinks and what he feels. And these particular types of attacks, you're seeing the Cruz campaign get really nasty with a lot of the other campaigns. If you vote for Rubio, it's amnesty. You vote for Donald Trump, it's Obamacare. But it was Senator Cruz who supported TPA for the Obama trade bill to pass, which includes not only amnesty, but also includes hits on health care, raising costs and drug prices.

BURNETT: In fact that whole bill is to why -- why he was supporting it.

PIERSON: it's just -- exactly.

BURNETT: He did it to kill the bill and -- and that whole -- whole complex --

PIERSON: That was amnesty. This is completely different.

BURNETT: So -- so what is Donald Trump's strategy today? All right. We see him at a rally. What are you doing in these final hours to get people to show up tonight? Or is this just a game of, you've done everything you can and now you're waiting?

PIERSON: Well, we definitely have the call center full. Everyone's making phone calls, making sure -- making sure they know when to go to caucus. If they need training tips, we have it online at donaldjtrump.com. Those last minute knocks on the doors. We're just out there being a resource for the voters. There are a lot of first time caucus goers who are very excited about caucusing for Trump. And I've got to tell you, we are so proud of our candidate, who hasn't been a politician, that's been out there holding his own. BURNETT: So -- all right, so let me ask you, last night Sara Murray

had a piece on our show and it was fascinating. She was talking about Donald Trump's ground game and trying to figure out, right, he's done this whole thing of using Twitter and not doing the traditional way that people do Iowa, right, visiting every county. He's done it differently. It might be the change of the game forever. But she actually went to a call center, right? She said -- and they wouldn't let her in. They wouldn't answer any questions. They were very secretive. They said you can't have any -- any sense of what's going on in here at all. Why? Why not just let people in?

PIERSON: Well, I don't know what call center she went to or if she went to headquarters. You know, there has been a lot of controversy with regard to the Trump campaign and the media, regardless of the truth of the matter. The Trump campaign has always been attacked, has always been lied on, to use Mr. Trump's words, and so the media has been sort of an enemy up until now and we've seen what happened with Mr. Trump and Fox News. And so the campaign is very guarded because we don't know what -- what they're going to say. And when you're going into the final hours, we always know there's surprises in politics the day before an election and the day of election, so they're probably just a little guarded.

BURNETT: So they're probably -- yes, it was just -- I mean, it was very unusual when she went up and she just wanted to see, what are you doing? What's your ground game? But it sounds like you're saying, in the final hours, you're actually being a bit more traditional. People are making calls.

PIERSON: Yes.

BURNETT: People are going and knocking on doors.

PIERSON: Right.

BURNETT: You are -- you are at these final hours doing what people have always done in Iowa.

PIERSON: Always. Yes.

BURNETT: All right, so -- so what about the evangelical vote? You know, we have -- we have video of this. Donald Trump went to church with his wife Melania this -- this weekend here in Iowa. He's linked up with Jerry Falwell Jr., of course, who's a -- he's a major evangelical leader, but interestingly who endorsed him because of his business acumen, not because of his religiosity.

PIERSON: Right.

BURNETT: Which I think is significant. What's he going to do at the end of the day to get evangelicals to vote for him? Going to church in Iowa with his super model wife isn't going to -- isn't going to do it on its own.

PIERSON: No, it's not, but he is going to stick to his policies, like Jerry Falwell Jr. mentioned, like Phyllis Schlafly mentioned, like Sarah Palin is mentioning. Evangelicals care about the future of their country. They care about the economy. They care about their children. They care about national security. Ideology aside, if we don't bring back the economy, if we don't create jobs, we're in a lot of trouble in this country, Erin. And evangelicals aren't going to vote for a Sunday school teacher. That's Jimmy Carter. They want somebody strong that's going to stand up for them and fight on the national stage.

BURNETT: All right, Katrina Pierson, thank you very much. She is here on the ground in Iowa along with the Trump team.

And we are going to be talking to so many of the campaigns throughout the day, hour after hour, talking to them. I'm trying to read, what's the look in their eyes. When we talk to the Clinton and Sanders folks, are they optimistic. In just a few moments, the Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee will join us. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta will also join us later this hour. And Bernie Sanders' campaign communications chair Tad Devine will also be with us this hour. Everything counts in these final moment.

We're be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:14:08] BANFIELD: Iowa caucuses, they've arrived, folks. You know what, if you're in Iowa, you don't get to do anything until 7:00 local time tonight. You just have to think on it all day long. And you might change your mind, too, because history tells us they do that.

So all of the folks who are running are all over the state. They are meeting as many Iowans as they can. And Bernie Sanders is doing his level best within the next few minutes, in fact, to get to his headquarters in Des Moines to thank a lot of his supporters there. We're watching the live cameras and we're going to bring it to you live just the minute he walks in.

You can imagine how dedicated they have been. We have some pretty amazing stats on Bernie Sanders and what he's been able to do in terms of raising money all of last year and just last month as well. So we're going to bring that to you live right away.

The Democratic race could not be any tighter, in fact, heading into the caucusing tonight. His rival, Hillary Clinton says that nobody expected a slam dunk election. And she's keeping an upbeat tone, you might say, despite losing her early lead. This was Secretary Clinton this morning on "New Day."

[12:15:07] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I always thought we'd have a close contest, and I think that's good. It's good for the Democratic Party. But I'm thrilled at my campaign. And we learned a lot of lessons. We've applied those lessons. We've got a great team working literally around the clock. And I think I'm a better candidate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Bernie Sanders told CNN's Jake Tapper that he's the key for a Democratic victory in November because it's his campaign that's bringing out the new voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So I'm feeling good, Jake. Our issues are out there. People are really enthusiastic. And if people come out to vote, I think you're going to look at one of the biggest political upsets in the modern history of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Mark Preston is with me now from Iowa, in fact. He's our executive editor of CNN Politics, braving the cold to bring us this firsthand from Iowa.

Mark, here's the thing that maybe a lot of people don't realize about how Iowans caucus. They can make their minds up real late. In fact, huge swaths of them have made their minds up in the last three days and two days before the caucus. And there's this statistic, in 2012, nearly half -- nearly half of Iowa caucus goers made up their minds in the last three days. That's really significant. And it tells me that we just can't count on what the polls have been telling us.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Right, Ashleigh, and that is on the Republican side as well. Forty-six percent made up their mind in the last few days. And, quite frankly, a big chunk of them made up their minds on the last day.

Now, on the Democratic side we have to go back to 2008 when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, if you remember John Edwards, we're all neck and neck here in Iowa. Twenty percent in the final days. But that was a different race because, Ashleigh, Barack Obama was on such a roll, and Hillary Clinton had pretty much -- was out of it at that point. She came in third place.

Now, Bernie Sanders is right to say that if he can drive out new voters, specifically young voters, he has a very good chance to win here in Iowa. What does that mean? It means he needs to get 160,000, 170,000 Democrats to show up tonight to caucus and, you know, he could walk away with a victory.

BANFIELD: So here's a weird thing that doesn't sound at all possible, but could be, and that is that Hillary Clinton might, in fact, be supporting Martin O'Malley. Let me repeat that, Hillary Clinton might, in fact, be supporting Martin O'Malley. And the reason for that is because of the strangeness of the Democratic caucusing process. If he falls below 15 percent, his supporters have to scatter and take a camp to go to. And many say that they would probably favor Bernie Sanders. So effectively how on earth would Hillary Clinton know this for starters, and then, b, how would she possibly get her supporters in those various precincts to actually make some kind of a move over to O'Malley's camp, if, in fact, the reporting is true? PRESTON: Well, you know, look, we'll have to see if that happens

tonight. But this is what can be said about Hillary Clinton's campaign here in Iowa. It has been built for the past year. They have precinct captains at every one of these. They know by and large how many people are going to show up to support them if they reach the threshold and they're fine and they're going to win by a large margin, then they do want to take out Bernie Sanders. At the same time, they're going to be trying to coerce Martin O'Malley supporters to come to their side, as is the Bernie Sanders campaign as well.

This just goes to show you how much is at stake right now and all the strategy that is behind trying to win a caucus. And for most of our viewers out there, it is nothing like just going in and pulling the curtain and voting for who you want. It is just an amazing process that will play out in just a few hours now.

BANFIELD: Yes, all this reporting that, you know, that her supporters all have the apps on their phones that will real-time track exactly what's happening and that they could just move room to room and keep Martin O'Malley afloat so as not to lose the potential of all his supporters heading over to Bernie Sanders. It's pretty -- it is pretty strategic and pretty amazing.

Mark Preston, thank you for braving the cold and doing all that great work in Iowa for us.

Also want to remind our viewers that Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, is going to join us live from Iowa a little later in this hour.

And when Iowa ends tonight and the race moves to New Hampshire, CNN is going to have a very special event there. Coming this Wednesday night, just two days from now, all three Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley, are going to take part in a presidential town hall in Dairy, New Hampshire. And that will be live right here on CNN. A critical moment for each of the candidates to face the voters of New Hampshire this time and answer their questions directly and make their closing arguments. Again, Wednesday night, 8:00 p.m., live right here only on CNN.

And coming up next, we're waiting and we're watching for Bernie Sanders to arrive and speak live this hour. Expecting him to show up at his headquarters in Des Moines. It should be pretty exciting. Those supporters have worked real hard for him, so they're probably going to be thrilled to see him live and in person. We're going to bring it to you the minute it happens. So what would an Iowa win mean for Bernie Sanders' campaign going forward? We're going ask his campaign communications chair, Tad Devine, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:24:20] BURNETT: All right, the 2016 campaign has so far proven something pretty significant, which is conventional wisdom is that nobody thought we'd be here in any stretch of the imagination. Not with Donald Trump. Not with Bernie Sanders. Yet here we are. A year ago, who would have imaged Bernie Sanders in a dead heat against Hillary Clinton in Iowa? His unconventional campaign is tapping into a well spring of enthusiasm and passion, mostly from young voters. And enthusiasm is obviously crucial, but it doesn't matter how happy those young voters are with Sanders, they actually need to go and vote for it to matter.

Joining me now, Democratic strategist, senior media advisor to Bernie Sanders' campaign, Tad Devine.

OK, Tad, so you and I have been talking a lot over the weeks. We spoke once earlier this morning. You were getting ready for these final hours.

[12:25:01] TAD DEVINE, SENIOR MEDIA ADVISER, BERNIE 2016: Right.

BURNETT: I know you've been talking to your Iowa chair. And what's happening right now? What are you seeing in these final hours?

DEVINE: A massive effort on the ground. We have 4,000 volunteers right now on the ground in Iowa. We're making tens of thousands of phone calls to contact people. We have a huge digital campaign, particularly targeting young voters to make sure they're -- they're aware of the caucus location, get them out tonight. So it's just a huge outreach going on.

BURNETT: All right, so I know, you know, you do all these things and it's sort of like spaghetti against a wall, right, you don't know exactly what's sticking. But is that -- that's primarily what it is right now, it's calls and it's still knocking on doors and trying to get people to commit?

DEVINE: Yes, that's it, just contact. Voter contact. And we'll, you know, if they need transportation, we'll give them help with transportation tonight. So we're making sure that everybody knows tonight's the caucus. Every -- all the ones we've identified, we have enough ones to win this, we've just got to get them out.

BURNETT: All right, so what do you think the young turnout is going to be versus what it was historically? I mean -- or how about this, what's your hope of what it's going to be?

DEVINE: My hope would be that it would resemble the levels of 2008. Twenty-two percent of the electorate in 2008 was 17 to 29-year-olds. When I worked here -- the last time I worked here in 2004 with John Kerry it was 17 percent. So, you know, if we can get it above 17 and get it up into the 20s, that's a huge advantage for us.

BURNETT: OK, when you say, though, 22 percent in 2008, that, of course, is Barack Obama.

DEVINE: Yes.

BURNETT: So you really do think that you could pull numbers like Barack Obama did? I mean that was a history-shifting Democratic caucus here in Iowa.

DEVINE: Sure. Yes. I hope we can. And, you know, we have tools that were not available to President Obama and his campaign in 2008. Smartphones now, ability to talk to people in a way that they just couldn't in those days because of technology. So we're going to try to use all those to our advantage.

BURNETT: All right. All right, well, Tad, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

DEVINE: Thanks.

BURNETT: As I continue here in these final hours, you can see, it's, in a sense, back to old school, right, knocking on doors, making phone calls, doing whatever they can do.

Coming up right here on LEGAL VIEW, Republican candidate Mike Huckabee live in person. He knows what it takes to win Iowa because he did it back in 2008.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)