Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Trump Vows Bounce Back; Cruz Defeats Trump in Iowa; Rubio Finishes Strong; Iowa Caucus. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 02, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:53] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

Iowa is officially history, and now Republicans and Democrats are charging on and pushing toward New Hampshire primary. That's just seven days away, folks.

So the results from last night, Texas Senator Ted Cruz with a big win over Donald Trump. Twenty-eight percent of Iowa voters chose Cruz versus 24 percent for Trump. And a surging Senator Marco Rubio came in a close third, just one point behind Trump with 23 percent of the vote. But on the Democrat's side, not as simple a picture. Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in a dead heat. Just look at how close this race is. Hillary's camp is declaring victory, but Bernie's camp is not. They're not saying either way. They say it's a virtual tie and he has yet to concede.

I want to go live right away to Nashua, New Hampshire, because it continues, folks. Brand new state, brand new message. Here's Hillary Clinton live.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The arrival at the right time in this campaign for you to understand what the contest of ideas really is between me and my esteemed opponent, Senator Sanders. I am excited by that because that's the best way for you to make up your minds. What do we stand for? What do we think needs to be done? How do we believe we can to it together? How do we make a real difference in people's lives? How do we make sure this country that we care so deeply about stays true to its values, keeps providing opportunity, begins to go after the inequality and not just economic inequality. We have to deal with racial inequality, with gender inequality, with sexual orientation inequality, with the kind of poverty of spirit that has too much influence over the lives of too many of our fellow Americans.

So I come to you with a lifetime of service and advocacy and of getting results. And I am grateful that Bill was out here because he does know a little bit about the job we are competing for. I have to confess, not just because, yes, we did meet 45 years ago. I'm always surprised when I say that. But because he produced results for the American people. And he got the opportunity to do that because of the people in New Hampshire. So I want to make this case to you, and I want to ask you, during

these next days to go out there, talk to your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues about what is at stake. It could not be more stark between what I offer and what the Republicans offer, between my records of results and their efforts to turn the clock back on all the progress that we have made in America.

So let me just run through some of the basics because one of the things I love about New Hampshire voters is, you all sift through it, you give it the once over, you make up your minds about what makes sense, you take a hard look about what people are proposing. You ask yourself, does this just sound good on paper or can this get done? And who's most likely to be able to deliver what you need for yourself and your family.

I think the key issue has to be and must be the economy. That is something that we Democrats agree on. You know, we believe that we've got to get the economy producing more good paying jobs and raising incomes again for everybody willing to work hard, do their part, to get ahead and stay ahead.

[12:05:00] And I think it's fair to point out that the facts are on our side. The Democratic Party produces presidents who improve the economy and give more Americans the chance to live up to their dreams. That is a convenient - that is a convenient argument, but it has the benefit of being true. I'm not just standing here telling you this because I'm back in New Hampshire. We know our economy does better with a Democrat in the White House, and we know that our last two Democratic presidents were pretty darn effective in taking what the Republicans handed off to them, turning it around, and putting us back on the right track. That is exactly what I will do.

BANFIELD: Hillary Clinton campaigning live in Nashua, New Hampshire. Not a moment to spare. The candidates amskra (ph) from Iowa to begin the job in earnest, to try to get New Hampshire. Coming up in the next hour, Secretary Clinton is going to join my colleague, Wolf Blitzer, live from New Hampshire.

And then tomorrow night live on CNN, she is going to join Bernie Sanders and they're going to meet with New Hampshire voters mono-a- mono (ph) in a town hall that's going to be moderated by Anderson Cooper. It begins live at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here only on CNN.

As for Donald Trump, as much as he hates to lose, that's exactly what happened to him last night in Iowa. And, unfortunately for him, if you type in the word loser.com in your browser, his Wikipedia page comes right up. He, however, is staying very positive about this. You might even say gracious. Certainly by Donald's standards, gracious, as he presses ahead to the next state, New Hampshire. Things look pretty good for him there as well. You cannot deny that.

CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta standing by live. He is following The Donald in New Hampshire.

So he just started tweeting again. He'd been pretty much radio silent - JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

BANFIELD: Since last night's slightly conciliatory speech, I do have to say.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: But the tweets sound like we are back to the same old. It's not a tail between your legs at all. It is back to same old Donald, isn't it, Jim?

ACOSTA: Absolutely, Ashleigh. You know, and I think, to the people who started that loser.com website, I think it's a little too early to count out Donald Trump. I mean he is leading in the polls here in New Hampshire by double digits. And it is pretty extraordinary what he was able to pull off in Iowa. Yes, the voters, the caucus goers did drift away from him at the very end of that race there and perhaps that's a lesson learned for his campaign.

But Donald Trump is not out of this by - by any stretch. And he went right on to Twitter this morning after about 14 hours of radio silence, as you put it, and he's been on a Twitter storm over the last few minutes you could say. He says in one tweet, and I'll put it up on screen for you, "my experience in Iowa was a great one. I started out with all of the experts saying I couldn't do well there and ended up in second place. Nice."

Trump is also going after the news media saying that his second place finish in Iowa is not being covered properly. And he also seems to be lashing out just a little bit at the voters in Iowa. You know, we'll leave this to the viewers to decide how to interpret this tweet. It's a little hard to discern, but he says, "I don't believe I've been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign. The only one. I will keep doing, but not worth it!"

So, Ashleigh, perhaps a little bit of doubt there as to whether or not Donald Trump feels like all of this is worth it, if you can read into that what I think I'm reading into that. But at the same time, take a look at what he said last night. He sounded very gracious, very humble. Not the brash billionaire at the podium last night when he was essentially conceding the race to Ted Cruz there in Iowa. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Iowa, we love you. We thank you. You're special. We will be back many, many times. In fact, I think I might come here and buy a farm. I love it. OK?

I don't know who's going to win between Bernie and Hillary. I don't know what's going happen with Hillary. She's got other problems. Maybe bigger than the problems she's got in terms of nominations. But we've had so many different indications and polls that we beat her and we beat her easily, and we will go on to get the Republican nomination and we will go on to easily beat Hillary or Bernie or whoever the hell they throw up there. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, Trump will be in Milford, New Hampshire, later on this evening. That will be his first event of the day since what happened in Iowa last night, Ashleigh. That's at 7:00 p.m. And Donald Trump even tweeted about that saying that he's going to be talking about his unfair treatment by the media at that event later on this evening. He likes to go after the press during these events, as we all know all too well when we watch him up on stage. But, Ashleigh, just judging by this Twitter storm that we're seeing from Donald Trump in the last several minutes, it sounds like the old Donald Trump's going to be back later on today, Ashleigh.

[12:10:15] BANFIELD: Yes, he likes to go after the media not just at the events. I can attest to that. Jim Acosta, thank you.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BANFIELD: Thank you, sir. Stay warm out there, my friend. Great job that you guys have been doing out there.

ACOSTA: You're right.

BANFIELD: Really impressive.

About 30 minutes from now we are expecting to hear from Texas Senator Ted Cruz as he holds a campaign event in Windham, New Hampshire. That's about 12:30 Eastern Time. Obviously he's going to want to capitalize on what happened in Iowa yesterday. That was great news for him. It was God bless Iowa in and God bless Iowa out, but now he's in New Hampshire.

MJ Lee is with the Cruz campaign in Windham.

MJ.

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Hey, Ashleigh. A very triumphant Ted Cruz in hitting the ground running in New Hampshire today, right after he delivered his victory speech in Iowa last night. He immediately got on a charter plane and made his way east here to New Hampshire. And as you mentioned, just behind me, he will be taking the stage in just a little bit. We are at a local church here in Windham, New Hampshire.

And, of course, last night marked a huge victory for Ted Cruz. The fact that he beat Donald Trump and not only that he defeated him, but that he handedly beat Donald Trump means that he now has a fresh boost of momentum heading into New Hampshire. He even told our Dana Bash last night that he thinks that by March he may have clinched the GOP nomination. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it is entirely possible that we know our nominee by the end of March. If you look at the states, the states are front loaded. A great many of the delegates are chosen by the end of March. And winning Iowa is a good first step. You've got to do more. That doesn't do it on its own. But winning Iowa particularly, you know, it's interesting, if you look at the past two Iowa caucus winners, very good men. People of principle. But when they came out of Iowa, they were broke.

Now, the finance reports that were filed last night show that at the end of December 31st, that we had almost as much money in the bank, our campaign, as the campaigns of Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Chris Christie combined.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Now, here is the political reality for Ted Cruz. Yes, he won Iowa. Yes, he has a lot of money in the bank. But New Hampshire is a very different beat than Iowa. Independents can participate in the GOP primary here. There are far lessee evangelicals living in New Hampshire. So this is a - this is going to be an uphill climb for Ted Cruz. And the question going forward is, can he use his momentum out of Iowa to become the clear leading anti-establishment candidate here?

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK, MJ Lee, thank you for that.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio finishing a very strong third place in Iowa, beating fairly low expectations there as well and really raising the stakes for that next state, for New Hampshire. The primary, again, it's just a week from today. It's not a lot of time. When you're on the ground and trying to skip between all of those places you need to be.

CNN senior political reporter Manu Raju is trying to keep up. He's following Senator Rubio in Manchester, New Hampshire, today.

They were - they were pretty excited and pretty surprised, but just elated over the showing last night. So today, first stop was "GMA." What does it feel like on that campaign today?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, right now Marco Rubio's trying to make the case that this - he's the only electable Republican. Expect that to really be the message heading into the New Hampshire primary next week, electability. That's something that already does resonate with Republican voters here, about half of whom have not decided who their candidate is heading into the New Hampshire primary next week. And already his super PAC, Conservative Solutions, that came out with an ad today going after Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, saying that if you vote for them, you're actually going to elect a Democrat. Part of that electability argument. And he wasn't - didn't hold back earlier today when he was asked about Ted Cruz. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ted's whole campaign is built on this notion that he's the only one that's a pure conservative and everyone else is a rhino or a sell-out. It's just not accurate. He criticizes New York values, but he's raised millions of dollars from New York City. So these are the sorts of things that voters are going to start learning about. And as they do, I think a lot of these numbers will begin to continue to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Well, he's not just targeting Ted Cruz, but Marco Rubio is also looking over his left shoulder against those establishment candidates. The ones who are running to find - to court those more moderate voters in New Hampshire, like Chris Christie, like Jeb Bush, like John Kasich. People who could do presumably well. Right now the polls have all these candidates sort of in a pile-up right behind Donald Trump. We'll see how much that changes after Iowa. But, clearly, those candidates present a threat for Marco Rubio if he does not exceed them, does not beat them next week, it could be very difficult for him to regain that momentum heading into South Carolina. So look for this two front war against Ted Cruz and against the establishment candidates to continue for Marco Rubio.

[12:15:08] Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK. Manu Raju, thank you for that. Appreciate all the good reporting out there in the field from our amazing stable of reporters who have been following the candidates.

And if you follow the newspapers, especially if you're in New York City, you get these kinds of headlines, but this is the one that really stands out, "Cruz-ified." Donald Trump cruz-ified, and other ones that aren't as nice as that. So, what happened? Donald Trump himself said we're going win, we're going to win and we're going to win. That didn't happen last night. Some strategic things that he may pull away from what happened in Iowa. We're going to go over those next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: One of the big takeaways from last night's results is that more than half of the undecided Republican voters who waited until the last few days to make up their minds, they did not choose Donald Trump. In fact, a whopping 55 percent of them went to Cruz and to Rubio instead. Thirty percent to Rubio. Twenty-five to Cruz. But only 14 of those last minuters decided on Trump.

Now, why is that? It could be because they didn't see him up on that big stage in the Iowa debate late last week. But the Iowa voters did see him in a bunch of TV ads that were launched by Ted Cruz in those last few days, and they were none too flattering towards Trump.

[12:20:16] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, hey, I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, OK, so, you know, my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): They are different. Like on abortion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would President Trump ban partial-birth abortion.

TRUMP: Well, look, I am pro-choice in every respect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what does Trump think about Iowa?

TRUMP: How stupid are the people of Iowa?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump, New York values, not ours.

TRUMP: You know, my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Ted Cruz, and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in CNN's senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, host of "Reliable Sources," as well as Alex Castellanos, who's a Republican strategist and founder of newrepublican.com.

Brian, first to you.

Bad strategic move by Donald Trump to skip that debate?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Certainly Fox News says so. Their commentators have been united against Trump on that point.

I spoke to a senior Rubio aide just now who says they believe Trump not being on that stage last week did help Rubio, gave him more talk time, for example, to make a closing argument. The conventional wisdom after the debate was that Trump had won by not being there. And we were all citing data from Twitter and FaceBook showing Trump was the most talked about candidate.

Well, being talked about is not always a good thing. There's news and then there's good news. That might have been bad news for Trump. Certainly a lot of the talk was negative. And some people were motivated to vote against Trump. Some people, I think - we see the high turnout numbers on the GOP side. They were going to the caucuses particularly to vote against Trump.

But I do think there's been an overreaction, an overcorrection in some of the coverage today. I'm hearing a lot of anti-Trump coverage, even though we know he is the favorite to win in New Hampshire and in other states.

BANFIELD: You know, since you just said that, let's just go ahead and put those New Hampshire - I think we have the poll of polls numbers.

STELTER: Yes, they're striking.

BANFIELD: Unbelievable. Let's all remember this, folks. If you're basking in the glory of Donald Trump losing by four points last night -

STELTER: And some people are.

BALDWIN: We've got Trump at 31 percent and Cruz at 13. That's for New Hampshire.

STELTER: Now, we'll see how much that can change in the next few days.

BANFIELD: Right, it might.

STELTER: We'll see how much Rubio and Cruz can - can take advantage of this. But I just looked at the early, early ratings for last night's coverage, Ashleigh. These were the highest rated caucuses in many years. Probably ever. Why? Because people wanted to see if Donald Trump could be beaten.

BANFIELD: My kids were watching.

STELTER: I think people were tuning in for that reason.

Exactly.

BANFIELD: They're eight and 10 years old. My kid even sketched all the candidates. He's so fascinated by them. It's amazing.

STELTER: So certainly air has been punctured out of the balloon, right? This has been a tough moment for Trump and we see him tweeting. But I think it's dangerous to overreact to it -

BANFIELD: Yes.

STELTER: And go too critical about Trump given all the challenges he faces in Iowa.

BANFIELD: And I think, Alex, you might be able to weigh in on this. The notion that Donald Trump may have thought he was bigger than the process by skipping that debate. He may be chastened by what's happened last night, but I wonder if it's - if it's the machine. Did Donald Trump think that he was bigger than the machine, that his celebrity, that his prowess, his momentum was bigger than the machine, because Cruz had that machine fine-tuned. Will Donald Trump start looking at New Hampshire, even with that massive lead, and start fine- tuning that voter machine?

ALEX CASTELLANOS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I'm not sure Donald Trump has that great a voter machine. I think you've hit on the - on the big difference. Ted Cruz is a product that fewer people like looking at the surveys, but he had a better sales force, ground game. Donald Trump is a product that more people like, but he didn't have the sales force. And I think in a small state, in a small caucus state, give ted Cruz credit. He maximized what he could do.

New Hampshire doesn't fit Ted Cruz that well. Organization is less significant than media in a state like New Hampshire. Independents can vote in both Republican and Democrat. So I think this gets harder for Ted Cruz. I think you're right not to underestimate Trump.

And, by the way, I don't think the Fox debate hurt him at all. The reason we put candidates in these debates is to test their strength against each other. We put them in a pit like gladiators to see who's the strongest. Well, guess what, the strongest force in Republican politics is Fox News. Donald Trump took them on. He demonstrated strength.

BANFIELD: Well, I'll tell you what -

CASTELLANOS: I don't think that will hurt him in New Hampshire at all.

BANFIELD: I can tell you one thing.

STELTER: And still came in second place.

CASTELLANOS: Yes.

BANFIELD: I can tell you one thing that did not happen in New Hampshire, there's no sound bite out there saying, how stupid are the voters of New Hampshire? That is not on television right now and I guarantee you it will not be on television. I don't think Trump's going to be doing that any time soon.

Hey, I got to stop it there, guys. But, Brian, thank you for that. Alex Castellanos, we'll see you in a little bit on the program. And, by the way, even though Hillary Clinton - we're going to scoot over to the Hillary Clinton camp for a minute - is calling Iowa a win, Bernie Sanders is saying not so fast. He wants a lot more counting, in fact. We're going to take a closer look at why he's not ready to concede and what he's asking of the election officials before anyone says it's over.

Next hour, Hillary Clinton herself is going to join Wolf Blitzer live. It will be her first interview since the Iowa caucuses, so make sure you stick around for that. I know Wolf's going to ask her about those final numbers and what Bernie says about them too. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:29:25] BANFIELD: A day after the closest democratic caucuses in Iowa history, not only is the apparent runner-up not conceding, he wants to see all the paperwork first. With 100 percent of the precincts now counted, Bernie Sanders is less than half a percentage point behind Hillary Clinton. And that is plenty good enough for the former secretary of state, who has declared victory before most Iowans even went to bed last night. But a top aide to Sanders tells CNN, and I'll quote, "we will request the actual count sheets in a set of precincts, and we're going to be talking to the state party this morning to review the results." Hmm.

[12:30:07] In a few precincts, six by "The Des Moines Register's" count, the outcome came down to coin flips, all of