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Clinton, Sanders Face Off in New Hampshire; Should Clinton Skip New Hampshire; Sanders Stands by Claim Questioning Clinton's Progressive Record. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 03, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[14:30:00] HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We've been fighting the progressive fight and getting results for people for years. So I hope we keep it on the issues, because if it's about our records, hey, I'm going to win by a landslide on Tuesday.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN senior political correspondent, Briana Keilar, is live in Derry, New Hampshire, the site of tonight's town hall.

I spoke too quickly. I meant to say unusual underdog status. When it comes to Hillary Clinton, she is definitely in this to win this.

Brianna, this will be the first town all since now it's down to two. Walk me through Sanders and Clinton, who has the most to gain or to lose by answering questions tonight from voters.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sanders has at most to lose if this is an evening, Brooke, that goes for Hillary Clinton. She has the most to gain. When you are looking at our most recent poll of the race here, this is the one where Sanders has the best chance by far. More than 20 points up on Clinton looking that the last poll. That's why Hillary Clinton is really embracing these moments to talk to not only people here in New Hampshire but also people across the country.

So this town hall tonight, you will be hearing from Bernie Sanders. He'll have his time answering questions from New Hampshire voters. Then Hillary Clinton will go separately. And it's this really unique forum. I particularly like it because I think it takes our viewers into this bread and butter of retail politics, which is this town hall forum. This is what these candidates do in these early primary states. They go, they talk to people. They answer questions directly. And you are going to see that playing out tonight with what I'm sure are some rather unpredictable questions. There is always some really interesting moments in this kind of forum.

Anderson Cooper is going to be moderating. He is going to be asking some questions and following up, but really, it is New Hampshire voters who are going to be driving this conversation -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: You are right. It's nice, no time constraints, no jabbing from rivals, standing up against them behind the podium.

Brianna Keilar, thank you so much, from Derry.

Let's broaden this out. With Hillary Clinton down in the polls against Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, there are questions as to whether or not she should just campaign her campaign train moving on along and not even really spend much time in New Hampshire. To that notion, Hillary Clinton just said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: A lot of political pundits have been opining, as political pundits do, that I should have just skipped coming to New Hampshire because, well, you know, their argument is -- and it's got -- it's got some strength to it. Their argument is, look, you are behind here. I am. You're in your opponent's backyard. I just could not ever skip New Hampshire.

(CHEERING)

CLINTON: I cannot even imagine not being here, not --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. Let's talk about precisely that. I have with me John Hudak, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Democratic strategist, Jamal Simmons.

Gentlemen, nice to have you on.

John, to you first.

The opining political pundit, to borrow a phrase from Hillary Clinton just there, it's precisely your suggestion, skip New Hampshire. Tell me why you think Camp Clinton should do that.

JOHN HUDAK, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, in New Hampshire, as the secretary said, she is down in the polls. It is a tough five. It's going to be tough to beat Bernie Sanders there. But what's more important is that she needs to change the narrative. The narrative right now is that her campaign having trouble, it's hit the skids. But the reality is she is still the front-runner, well funded, and needs to do everything she can could transform that media narrative. And doing something bold and skipping New Hampshire and moving to a place not just where the race is close but where Bernie Sanders is struggling, South Carolina or Nevada, would be a benefit for her. Of course, she disagrees.

BALDWIN: Part of your thesis, if I read it correctly, was pertaining to this suspicious character in the West Wing and how that perhaps could work out for you. But at the same time, when you throw down a bunch of surrogates in a state and she doesn't spend a lot of time there, that may not bode well for you. Jamal, let me have you respond to that.

JAMAL SIMMONS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: First of all, John gets the golden megaphone award today for having a presidential candidate respond to something he said or wrote. That's a big deal.

BALDWIN: There you go.

SIMMONS: There you go.

You know, listen, she is running for president of the United States, not president of a few states. I think New Hampshire is a big deal because we all believe it to be a big deal. And there's something about that state that opens up the Clinton's. It's true for Bill Clinton in 1992. It was true for Hillary Clinton in 2008. And it gave us a window into Hillary Clinton and her fight and her soul. She almost teared up at that rally. And that really connected people to her in that campaign. I think there is something romantic and emotional about that state for them. She should stay there, fight for it and at least close the gap a little bit.

BALDWIN: I'm sure she will fight for it, John.

But I think part of your idea is -- listen, you look at the polls and she is down by double digits. Her big focus is South Carolina, Nevada, and beyond. How does she take that CNN town hall tonight, create this opening, answer questions directly from New Hampshire voters, with her eyes on a bigger prize?

[14:35:28] HUDAK: One of the most interesting things about Secretary Clinton over the past few days -- this started before the Iowa caucuses and you are hearing it now in New Hampshire, is this new passion, new enthusiasm, this new anger and excitement that she is exploring all at once. And if she can continue that into the town hall tonight and outperform Bernie Sanders, not just in message, but in theater, she's going to do well and she can close that gap. As long as she closes the gap enough where the narrative coming out of New Hampshire is, she did well, then it's a pretty good strategy. But if she comes out of New Hampshire looking damaged, it's one more media cycle she and her campaign are going to have to plod through.

BALDWIN: Jamal --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let me just let everyone know we just received a statement from the Sanders campaign on this notion of skipping New Hampshire, saying it's basically an insult for the Clinton campaign to even suggest that voters in New Hampshire are only supporting him because he is from neighboring Vermont.

Do you think that's a valid point that it's more than just geography?

SIMMONS: Oh, I think it is spin. But there is a historical fact here which is that people from neighboring states tend to do well in New Hampshire. You can't really run away from that. I do think, Brooke, there is this underlying negative message about

Hillary Clinton that's been doing on for a long time, which is that she kind of does whatever it takes for her to win politically and she won't stick. If she were to leave New Hampshire, not participate or fight hard there, that would only reinforce that message. For her, sticking fighting is what people need to see from her and to see she cares about something and he's going the fight for it. That's why I think it's important for her to stay.

BALDWIN: Jamal and John, thank you so much.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Just as a reminder, as we are talking New Hampshire tonight, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders answer questions directly from the voters at the CNN presidential town hall in Derry, New Hampshire. The event will be moderated by and Anderson Cooper. Tune in, tonight at 9:00 eastern, only here on CNN.

Coming up next, we just heard from Bernie Sanders himself moments ago talking to Wolf Blitzer, telling him he is standing behind his claim questioning Hillary Clinton's progressive record. Well, her spokesman joins me live to respond to that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:51] BALDWIN: New Hampshire has been quite kind to Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton in past elections. But this go around, polls show Bernie Sanders has double digit lead over Clinton in the state. Clinton has tried to chalk those numbers up to New Hampshire's proximity to Vermont, Sanders' home state, but she is also beefing up her ground game there. She is sending 150 new staffers and she's repeating word that appeals to liberal voters there, the word being "progressive."

But her rival takes issue with that label. Senator Sanders just speaking with Wolf Blitzer addressing that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You can be a moderate, that's fine. You can be a progressive. But you can't be both. Second point, Wolf, is most progressives that I know really do not raise millions of dollars from Wall Street. Most progressives that I know are firm from day one in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP agreement. They didn't have to think about it a whole lot. They were opposed to the Keystone Pipeline from day one. Didn't have to vacillate on that issue. Most progressives historically were against the war in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's get a response from Brian Fallon. He is the press secretary for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Brian, nice to see you there in New Hampshire. Just out of the gate, your response to Senator Sanders?

BRIAN FALLON, PRESS SECRETARY, HILLARY CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Well, it's unfortunate that in the last few weeks, after pledging to run a different type of campaign, Senator Sanders has increasingly turned personal. You've heard him engage in some insults against Hillary Clinton. He likened her to Dick Cheney for instance. He has called her integrity into question with respect to financial reform. And --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Is that personal -- just to be clear, Brian, is that personal attacks or is that really just over policy?

FALLON: No. It's -- it's a personal attack, to question Hillary Clinton's commitment to progressive values when she's made a career out of fighting for women and children. This was someone who her first job out of law school after going to Yale Law School and having her pick of jobs out in the corporate law world, instead went to the Children's Defense Fund, went to Alabama to investigate the degree to which the government from was thumbing their nose at court-imposed desegregation of the schools. She went and registered voters in the Latino community. As first lady, she took on the drug companies and worked to pass children's health insurance for eight million kids. She has made a career of this. I don't think this will be an effective line of attack. It doesn't ring true to Democratic voters.

BALDWIN: I understand she said she was a progressive since law school. But then she said this in September.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I guess accused of being kind of moderate and center. I plead guilty.

(CHEERING)

CLINTON: I think sometimes it's important when you are in the elected arena, you try to figure out how do you bring people together to get something done, instead of just standing on the opposite sides yelling at each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So moderate and center, or progressive? Senator Sanders says you can't be both, Brian. So which is it?

[14:45:12] FALLON: She's a progressive who likes to get things done. And as you heard in the latter part of that comment there, she's not shy to admit that when it comes to governing, to get actual results on these progressive values that both she and Senator Sanders share sometimes that means working across the aisle to get thing done. And that's the track record that she is, which I think is in stark contrast to Senator Sanders, who spent two decades in Washington talking about the ideals that they share but having little to show for it.

BALDWIN: You agree it is possible to be both, moderate and progressive, and that is Hillary Clinton?

FALLON: She is a progressive through and through, a progressive who likes to get things done. And sometimes that means meeting people in the middle to get things done. That's what she'll do as president.

BALDWIN: Let me move on to this whole "should she or should she not" skip New Hampshire. We heard her saying today I just cannot ever skip New Hampshire, I cannot imagine not being there. Being there is one thing. Being competitive, Brian, is another. Do you think a New Hampshire win is within her reach? Are you seeing numbers the rest of us are not?

FALLON: It is an uphill fight for sure. It's going to be tough. We are competing in New Hampshire. We will be here every day. It's important for Hillary Clinton. She came here on Monday night. She is doing events tonight, three different events prior to the town hall on CNN. She is going to be back out there tomorrow. She is going to pour her heart into this campaign in this state because there is a lot of personal affection among both Clintons for the state of New Hampshire.

That said, it is certainly a case of home field advantage for Senator Sanders. Like I mentioned, he has been a statewide-elected official in Vermont for a long time.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: He called that an insult, by the way, pointing out the Vermont connection.

FALLON: I don't think there is any doubt there is a home-field advantage here for Senator Sanders, and the polls show it. We know that we're down but we are going to fight like heck over the next week and we'll see what happens next week, but we know if will be tough for us.

BALDWIN: Final question, Brian, what do you think -- looking back from '08 to 2006, what do you think the difference is in a Hillary Clinton on the trail fighting for her party's nomination there?

FALLON: I think that we are now seven years into President Barack Obama's administration and we have made some great inroads on some of those great progressive causes that both Hillary Clinton and Senator Sanders talk about out on the campaign trail. We passed the Affordable Care Act, Dodd/Frank financial reform. The president has taken serious steps to improve our immigration laws so that we can grant relief to these folks that are here through DAPA and DOCA, the executive actions he has taken. And there is going to be lot on the line in this election. Democratic voters, I think, are going to prioritize the candidate who will protect the gains we've made under President Obama and fight for progressive change to continue those advances. Hillary Clinton is the one candidate in this race who has a proven record on achieving results on all the progressive areas that Democrats care about. That's what's going to be on the minds of the voters in these closing days in New Hampshire.

BALDWIN: Brian Fallon, we will see you in New Hampshire, less than a week away.

Tonight, as you mentioned, big town hall here on CNN.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

FALLON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, for some make-or-break candidates like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, what are some kitchen-sink strategies? You know, what if anything could they do to make sure they get a ticket out of New Hampshire? We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:52:44] BALDWIN: Four days from the Super Bowl, and with silicon valley so close to the game, we are looking at high-tech companies are changing sports. Coy Wire is live in San Francisco.

Coy Wire, tell me, what's changing?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORT CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke. Good to see you. Beautiful day here in Super Bowl city.

All week long, we've been highlighting some of the forward-thinking folks who are changing the world of sports with advancements in technology. Today, we have a maker named Swetha Prabhakar. She's developed a new app to help long-distance fans find each other.

Check out this technology in "Bleacher Report" by Intel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SWETHA PRABHAKAR, APP DEVELOPER: The idea came from my own pain points as a sports fan. I am a huge San Antonio Spurs fan living in the bay area. While I was a data scientist at Facebook, I got to play with cool data. I founded that half of all San Antonio Spurs fans live outside of Texas. I was one of them. I didn't expect that anybody to be so high. I thought there are so many fans like me, over half of all fans in the United States live outside of the state of their favorite team. I wanted to create a place for them to be able to discover one another.

In terms of other sports apps, what separates mine from those is that we are really focused on social discovery and helping give fans the voice to share their opinions and build a community of intelligent sports fans.

We are really built on chatter, which is a voting model for fans to be able to decide what the most interesting content is so it can surface to the average fan when they want to see it.

It's a great way to communicate with other fans during a game and have everything all in one place while you are watching the game. (END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: It is catching momentum. The company was recently named the best sports start-up at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. It supports the MLB, the NBA, the NFL, and one of the best things about it, Brook, it's a free downloadable at the app store and Google Play.

BALDWIN: Very cool, Coy Wire. Thank you.

Coming up next, we back to politics. Donald Trump saying he was the real winner in Iowa and that the Ted Cruz campaign committed fraud. Are there legal ramifications from these allegations?

[14:55:00] Also, more are our breaking news that Rick Santorum is expected to drop out of the race soon and officially endorse one of his Republican rivals. Who could it be? We have details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:59:50] BALDWIN: Here we go. Top of the next hour. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me here.

We begin with breaking news in the world of politics, the Republican race for president to be precise, losing another candidate. First, we learned this morning Senator Rand Paul would be dropping. Now we are getting word -- this is all according to our host, John King -- that it is former Pennsylvania Rick Santorum who also will be dropping out.