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Trump Accuses Cruz of Stealing Iowa Vote; Cruz Campaign Responds to Trump; Clinton and Sanders Prep for CNN Town Hall; Clinton and Sanders Intensifying Fight for New Hampshire; Bill Clinton Campaigns in South Carolina. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 03, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:01] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening right now, you have a Rubio town hall, a Kasich tow hall in Durham and a Cruz town hall in Henniker.

Wonder if the Iowa winner has seen Trump's tweets yet. Started off his rant with this, this is from Donald Trump. Quote, "Ted Cruz didn't win in Iowa. He stole it. That's why all of the polls were so wrong."

CNN's Dana Bash is covering the Cruz campaign but I want to start with Sara Murray because she has this -- she has the news on the Trump tweets.

Good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, Trump has been on something of a Twitter storm this morning. He's even calling for a new election in Iowa or the results to be nullified. He has a number of complaints today. He basically is saying that Ted Cruz stole the election by sending out these mailers that were a little bit questionable in Iowa. They said they were voter violations and suggested that people should turn out for Ted Cruz in order to improve their voting scores in Iowa, otherwise their neighbors would know that they're the kind of people who don't turn out.

Of course, the Iowa secretary of state said there's no such thing as a voter violation. You don't get a score based on turnout.

Now Trump is also taking issue with the fact that there were a couple of Cruz staffers and supporters who suggested that Ben Carson was going to drop out of the race and tried to convince people to caucus for Ted Cruz instead of caucusing for Ben Carson in Iowa. Of course, Ben Carson is not dropping out of the race. This was all based on a CNN report that just said that Carson would be taking a little bit of time off the trail. He was going home to get fresh clothes and there were a couple of Cruz supporters and Cruz staffers who took that a step further and suggested to people that Ben Carson was dropping out.

All of this setting off a Donald Trump Twitter storm as we see. He is clearly not as complacent with coming in second in Iowa as he seemed in that not very gracious concession speech -- Carol. COSTELLO: All right. So Ben Carson is also angry at the Cruz

campaign saying that it probably cost them some votes by saying that Ben Carson had dropped out of the race.

MURRAY: Yes. That's right. And Ben Carson is taking this issue with the Cruz campaign. The Cruz campaign has apologized and Carson has essentially said the damage is already done. You already took those votes away from me. Obviously here's no way to prove that and now we move on to New Hampshire but this is a territory that's not as friendly for Ben Carson. There are not as many evangelical voters here. And the next place where Ben Carson could potentially have a stronger showing is South Carolina.

But it's also worth noting that the Carson campaign, of course, was struggling. They have a lot of issues leading up into Iowa. And while they did have a foundation of support, the polls in these final weeks did not show Ben Carson as one of the folks who was vying for the first, second or even the third slot there.

COSTELLO: All right. Sara Murray reporting.

Let's go to Dana Bash, she's at a Cruz event. And has Senator Cruz responded to all of this, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They have. Ted Cruz, I should say, is just about to come in here for a town hall. But I spoke with his communications director, Rick Tyler, who said the following. He said, the reality has -- excuse, reality hit the reality TV star in Iowa so nobody is talking about him now. So he's trying to regain some attention on Twitter. He said there are Twitter addiction support groups so he should seek out his local chapter.

Tongue firmly in cheek there, obviously, Carol, but that is what the Cruz campaign privately and now publicly have been saying, that they think that Donald Trump is in the unusual position of not being the headliner, not getting all of the attention that he generally does and he wants to try to kind of soak attention back up. That's why he's doing this. He's trying to attack Ted Cruz.

COSTELLO: Isn't there just one little problem with this? The Cruz campaign did tell caucus-goers in Iowa that Ben Carson was dropping out and they should throw their support behind Ted Cruz. That did, indeed, happen and the Cruz campaign apologized for that. So the damage is done.

BASH: Damage is done and that's exactly what I was just going to say. I was going to say that the "but" part of that, which is that what the Cruz campaign insists is that their precinct captains, their people who are in touch with the grassroots on caucus night didn't actually say Ben Carson is dropping out or at least they weren't directed to. Some might have but they weren't directed to by the Cruz campaign. That they were just simply repeating what we were reporting on CNN, that he was going back to Florida.

Regardless our understanding is that Ted Cruz called Ben Carson and apologized, saying, if anything, we went over the line, we apologize, we shouldn't have done that. But this is a peak at how things work and how real-time in a campaign and in an election where motivation and intensity really matters. Every campaign is going to use everything that they have to their advantage and sometimes it goes right up to the line of dirty tricks. Other times, it crosses them.

[10:05:05] COSTELLO: All right. Dana Bash reporting live from Henniker, New Hampshire.

Big stakes, small state. The presidential candidates are blitzing New Hampshire and as the Republicans go on the road the two remaining Democrats go primetime. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton getting ready for tonight's town hall meeting right here on CNN. And Sanders, after rallying to a virtual tie in Iowa, offers a glimpse of the sharper elbows to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton has a super PAC. I don't have a super PAC. You have a super PAC which has $25 million from Secretary Clinton, $15 million coming from Wall Street. Our campaign contributions are $27 a piece coming from $3.5 million individual contributions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Our senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar is in Derry with more on this big event tonight.

Good morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Perhaps that's a preview, Carol, of what we're going to see here tonight. It will be the first time that we have seen these two candidates in the same place since Iowans had their say. This is going to get under way tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Anderson Cooper is going to be moderating. They'll be weighing in a little bit with questions and follow-ups but really this is going to be driven by New Hampshirites.

They will come with the questions. They are going to dictate the conversation that they have with the candidates and so it provides us really unique forum aside from some of the debates that we've seen and this is also happening, of course, on the tails of Iowa where, you said it, Bernie Sanders almost tied there with Hillary Clinton and he's not ruling out that he may contest the results. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: She ends up getting about 22 delegates. We got about 20 delegates. We started that campaign about 40 or 50 points down. We ended up losing it by .02 of 1 percent, although to tell you the truth, the Iowa caucus is so complicated, it's not 100 percent sure that we didn't win it. But we feel fantastic. We came a long, long way in Iowa. And now we're in New Hampshire. We have a lot of momentum.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Really quickly, would you contest those results?

SANDERS: We're being looking in it right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Not ruling it out. Very interesting. Bernie Sanders is going to be taking the stage first tonight for his time with voters having some Q&A. It's a bit unpredictable, Carol, because you don't really what these voters are going to ask. So we saw some unpredictable moments when we did this in Iowa. I think we're going to see that tonight in New Hampshire. And they're going to be inside. Bernie Sanders then Hillary Clinton here at the Derry Opera House.

Just a little bit of information about this very interesting place. It was built with money, willed by a distant cousin of John Quincy Adams. And this building behind me has actually survived two fires. So perhaps it's an apt metaphor for what has unexpectedly become a crucible of a Democratic primary race -- Carol.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Interesting stuff. Brianna Keilar, thanks so much.

This time around CNN's town hall is likely be with firing. You heard Brianna Keilar say it. Bernie Sanders wants a big win in New Hampshire and with that, it seems Sanders has forgotten his promise not to run a negative campaign. And so has Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am a progressive who likes to get things done. I'm actually a progressive who likes to make progress.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think Hillary Clinton is a progressive?

SANDERS: Some days, yes. Except when she announces that she's a proud moderate and then I guess she's not a progressive. I think, frankly, it is very hard to be a real progressive. And to take on the establishment in a way that I think has to be taken when you become as dependent as she has through her super PAC and in other ways on Wall Street or drug company money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now, Bill Press, CNN political commentator and a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Welcome. I have to mention your book, too. You're also the author of "Buyer's Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down." Welcome, Bill.

BILL PRESS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, Carol. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Hi. So Bernie Sanders said he wouldn't go negative but obviously he is. Why? PRESS: Well, look, I don't think that real negative, frankly. I

mean, campaigns would be boring. Number one. And a campaign wouldn't be a campaign if the candidates don't point out the differences between them. I think Hillary Clinton is legitimately doing that and so is Bernie Sanders.

I think the reality is, Carol, coming out of Iowa, that what a lot of people didn't expect, we've got a real horse race here. We've got two strong candidates. Bernie Sanders, you know, he didn't win in Iowa. Let's give Hillary the win, barely, right? But Bernie Sanders comes out of it a very, very strong -- you can't dismiss him as a crank anymore. Right? You can't dismiss him as somebody who's even impractical.

[10:10:04] This guy is for real. He's serious. He's got a great organization.

COSTELLO: Well --

PRESS: He's got money, money, money. And he's in it for the long haul.

COSTELLO: He does. And I understand that but -- OK. So you gave Hillary Clinton the win in Iowa. Why doesn't Bernie Sanders just give her the win? Why say he's looking into voter irregularities?

PRESS: Well, I don't think -- I don't think -- look, Donald Trump has called for cancelling the election and having a new one. I think Bernie just says there are some serious questions about Iowa, but he's not focusing on that. He's focusing on getting as big a win as he can in New Hampshire and then building beyond that.

There are officials who are looking into the Iowa thing. I think he'll just let that happen. He's not going to make that his focus. He's moving forward. And you know what I find interesting, Carol is that --

COSTELLO: Well, he's not moving forward.

PRESS: Go ahead.

COSTELLO: He keeps saying it to reporters. He's not moving forward.

PRESS: Well, when they ask him about it, he's going to say, OK --

COSTELLO: I'm looking into voter irregularities instead of I'm going to leave the Iowa win to Hillary Clinton.

PRESS: Yes. But I'll just say, he's not making that, come on, his number one focus. Look what he's doing today. He's out there campaigning. This is what I find so strange is now the Hillary -- Clinton campaign is now saying well, you know, we can't really promise everybody everything. We've got to be practical. We have to lower our expectations.

I find that a strange message. I mean, I think it's -- it's like the head and the heart and Hillary is saying, you can't go with your heart, you've got to go with your head, and I think in an election, people want to go with their heart.

COSTELLO: Well --

PRESS: If I can use a phrase, for hope and change.

COSTELLO: For hope and change. OK. So -- and I hear you. But when you look at the entrance polls from Iowa, Bernie Sanders captured mostly liberal Democrats. He didn't get moderate Democrats, right? He didn't get somewhat --

PRESS: But wait --

COSTELLO: He didn't. So doesn't that mean that a lot of Democrats really think that his ideas are pie in the sky?

PRESS: But wait a minute. He got about 80 percent of people younger than 45. That's the Barack Obama vote. That's the -- that's the future. They're the people that the Democratic Party needs. When people are asked, caucus-goers were asking, who do you find -- would you vote for the kind of the most trustworthy and honest, 83 percent they would vote for Bernie Sanders. When people said, would you vote for somebody who would fight for somebody like you, I think it was like 75 percent say would go for Bernie Sanders.

So that's a message that is resonating and I think for the Clinton campaign or anybody else to discount the appeal of Bernie's message are just not facing reality.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Bill Press, thanks for stopping by.

PRESS: Hey, Carol. Great to be here. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thanks. You're welcome.

Now I want to bring in Karen Finney, she's the senior spokesperson for the Hillary for America campaign.

Good morning.

KAREN FINNEY, SENIOR SPOKESPERSON, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: Good morning, Carol. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm good. So everybody is saying that this town hall tonight, it's going to be fiery and kind of negative between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. What do you say?

FINNEY: You know, I don't know about that. Look, I think what Hillary is trying to do is engage in a contest of ideas and obviously she and Senator Sanders share many of the same values, the differences between where we are as Democrats and where the Republicans are and what they want to do in terms of stripping away the progress that we've made couldn't be more stark. So I think tonight what you'll see is, you know, Hillary Clinton is going to lay out her ideas and talk about what she wants to do for this country and how she wants to get it done and then you'll hear from -- and I guess Senator Sanders is going first and I hope that's what you hear from Senator Sanders rather than suggesting -- sort of attacking her for sort of not being progressive, which is just the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

COSTELLO: Well, I think -- I think the reason he's saying that it's because of the words that came out of her own mouth. I mean, she told an audience in Ohio, quote, "I get accused of being kind of moderate and center. I plead guilty."

FINNEY: Yes.

COSTELLO: And then last night in New Hampshire, she called herself, in her own words, a progressive who likes to get things done. So which is it?

FINNEY: Yes. Well, she's been saying she's a progressive who likes to get things done for quite some time. And I guess, when I look at Hillary Clinton's record, when I look at the things that she's been fighting for, you know, when I first started working for her back in the '90s, she was already well into her career, fighting for children and families. She was talking about things like equal pay and paid leave and child care. You know, 20 years ago when those ideas were thought crazy. And very progressive, if you will.

And that's what she's been fighting for. She's fought for civil rights, she's fought for equal rights for women, for gay people. I mean, all of these issues are issues that she has been fighting for for a very long time.

My goodness, health care. I mean, you know, she started that in the '90s. We couldn't get it done then. Obviously then she kind of went back to the table and helped get --

COSTELLO: Right. But --

FINNEY: But those are progressive -- universal health care is a progressive idea.

COSTELLO: No, I hear you. But I think a cynic might say that, you know, this is a year where backlash against the establishment is very real.

[10:15:07] So when Hillary Clinton said she's moderate, that probably didn't rub some voters the right way so she changed it to progressive.

FINNEY: Well, yes, I mean, look. She's -- when she says she's a progressive who likes to get things done, I think part of what people should hear in that is and we still have big things to accomplish in this country and I sort of take issue with the idea, I heard my friend and colleague, Bill Press, on before to suggest that she doesn't want to do big things or suggesting anybody lower expectations, that's absolutely wrong.

I mean, when we talk about getting equal pay for women, when we talk about what we have to do to protect the Voting Rights Act, I mean, those are big things and they are going to be hard to do and I think what you're seeing and what you saw in Iowa with the win that Hillary had there is people saying this is the person that I trust to take on that fight and win for myself and my families. And so I think that's what you're going to hear tonight from Hillary.

And I have to tell you, Carol, I also take on -- take issue with and I've seen a lot of folks online saying the same thing, this idea of the establishment. I mean, I can tell you that the man that she met in New Hampshire who takes his mother to work because she has Alzheimer's and he can't afford care, he is not establishment. He's supporting Hillary Clinton. Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon -- Trayvon Martin's mother, is supporting Hillary Clinton. She is not establishment.

So I think that's a little bit offensive to all of the people working so hard for her campaign, who have worked so hard and got out to caucus, you know, in Iowa, they are not establishment. They are people who believe in Hillary Clinton and I think it's a little offensive.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there.

Karen Finney, the senior spokesperson for Hillary for America.

FINNEY: All right.

COSTELLO: Thanks for stopping by.

FINNEY: Thanks.

COSTELLO: Keep it right here on -- you're welcome.

Keep it right here on CNN because today, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Wolf Blitzer sits down to talk with Bernie Sanders about Hillary Clinton, the town hall, and what it's like to be the frontrunner in New Hampshire.

Also tonight, Clinton and Sanders answer questions directly from voters as a presidential town hall tonight in Derry, New Hampshire, moderated by Anderson Cooper. That's tonight 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

And still to come in the NEWSROOM, Bill Clinton once deriding Barack Obama's candidacy as a fairytale in 2008 now embracing Obama's legacy in South Carolina. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:21:45] COSTELLO: Bill Clinton will rally for his wife in Columbia, South Carolina, tonight. Hillary Clinton will have to maintain or grow her support from the minority community in that state to combat Bernie Sanders.

It's rather ironic. Bill Clinton would rally minority voters in South Carolina when last time around, in 2008, many felt Mr. Clinton damaged his wife's presidential run when he accused the media of playing the race card while following narratives Bill Clinton felt were driven by the Obama campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This is almost like once you accuse somebody of racism or bigotry, or something, the facts become irrelevant. There are facts here. And the final thing I'd like to say is, you're asking me about this. You sat through this whole meeting. Not one, single, solitary soul asked about any of this and they never do. They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover. This is what you live for. But this hurts the people of South Carolina.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now, Mark Preston, CNN Politics executive editor, and Bakari Sellers, CNN political commentator and former South Carolina state representative.

So, Bakari, when you watch that Bill Clinton clip, what goes through your mind?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, I remember those days. In 2008, I was the co-chair for the Barack Obama steering committee and part of a truth squad that ran around and stayed behind Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton as we pulled off an amazing upset. And I tell you that to say that today I stand before you as a Hillary Clinton supporter. What we realized in 2008 is that this wasn't a repudiation per se of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, but instead, we embraced Barack Obama here.

But today the streets are jam packed. People are excited. Everybody is talking about 42. He's going to stop by the general assembly and meet with Democrats there and then go rally at Allen. I mean, this is the type of excitement that they say was lacking in Iowa and New Hampshire. But when Bill Clinton touches down, as people know around the country, the excitement jacks up.

COSTELLO: So, Bakari, all is forgiven?

SELLERS: Yes. I mean, there was not -- there was not as if we threw Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton per se under the bus. It was just that we embraced Barack Obama and even more importantly than that, Democrats in South Carolina and throughout the south, as we are about to find out, believe this primary is about building on and protecting the legacy of Barack Obama and there is nobody better suited to do that than Hillary Clinton and that's what we're seeing today.

And, you know, after Iowa and New Hampshire, the demographics do change and people in South Carolina, we have this really, really high fervor about making history and we're ready to shatter that glass ceiling and make history for Hillary Clinton again.

COSTELLO: So, Mark Preston, all I have to say is, politics are really, really weird. So go ahead.

(LAUGHTER) COSTELLO: OK, so you don't have to answer --

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Yes. There's no doubt about that.

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

PRESTON: Well, no, let me just say a couple of things. One is, before Barack Obama was elected, who did we call the first black president? Bill Clinton. Right?

COSTELLO: Bill Clinton.

PRESTON: You know? He was embraced -- right. Right. So he was embraced by African-Americans across the country. At that time when that controversy happened it was a very pitch battle. You know, it was really bare knuckle to bare knuckle. And that was an explosive moment. But to Bakari's point, that was a past campaign. We're in a different campaign right now.

[10:25:08] I do have to say this, though. I do think that the Clintons are being very smart by sending Bill Clinton ahead to South Carolina today to try to make sure that they can solidify that support because Bernie Sanders has shown that he can get out young voters. He's showed that in Iowa. His next step now is to try to make his message of income inequality, you know, resonate more with the African-American community.

And they're going to try to do that hard. So, again, a pitch battle here in New Hampshire. But after New Hampshire, Carol, we're heading down to Bakari's backyard.

SELLERS: That's right.

COSTELLO: I'll be there, too, so I'm excited. Mark Preston, Bakari Sellers, thanks to both of you.

SELLERS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hillary Clinton takes on Bernie Sanders in his own backyard. How can she take on her opponent's home field advantage?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)