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Democratic Rivals Battle for Votes During Town Hall in New Hampshire; Sanders Tout Outreach to Minorities; Donald Trump Accuses Ted Cruz of Election Fraud in Iowa; GOP Candidates Blitz New Hampshire; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 04, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:00:08] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Clinton versus Sanders. Who's more progressive?

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Sanders has set himself up to be the gatekeeper on who's a progressive.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You can't go and say you are a moderate on one day and be a progressive on the other day.

CLINTON: I'm not going to let that bother me. I know where I stand.

COSTELLO: The Democrats duking it out on Wall Street, Iraq, veterans' care at CNN's town hall. Who won over voters?

Also.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ted Cruz goes out. You talk about liars.

COSTELLO: Trump on a tear saying Cruz stole Iowa.

TRUMP: That voter fraud.

COSTELLO: Cruz's response?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think people are interested in a temper tantrum or you could call it a Trumper tantrum.

COSTELLO: Plus parts of Florida under a health emergency as concern over a Zika outbreak grows. Now the government has released new travel guidelines for pregnant women.

Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders go head-to-head and battle it out on the same stage just days before the New Hampshire primaries. The race for the Granite State now heating up as Clinton and Sanders compete for votes during CNN's town hall.

The big question, did this help voters make up their minds. The two rivals wasting no time trading punches on policy and what it means to be a progressive. As voters unleash tough questions directed to the candidates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: You can't go and say you're a moderate one day and be a progressive on the other day. Some of my best friends are moderates. I love moderates, but you can't be a moderate and a progressive. They are different.

CLINTON: I said that I'm a progressive who likes to get things done, and I was somewhat amused today that Senator Sanders has set himself up to be the gatekeeper on who's a progressive because under the definition that was flying around on Twitter and statements by the campaign, Barack Obama would not be a progressive, Joe Biden would not be a progressive.

SANDERS: I do not know any progressive who has a super PAC and takes $15 million from Wall Street. That's just not progressive.

(APPLAUSE)

ANDERSON COOPER, MODERATOR, CNN TOWN HALL: One of the things that Senator Sanders points to and a lot of the critics point to is you made three speeches for Goldman Sachs. You were paid $675,000 for three speeches by. Was that a mistake? I mean, was that a bad err in judgment?

CLINTON: Look, I made speeches to lots of group. I told them what I thought. I answered questions.

COOPER: But did you have to be paid $675,000?

CLINTON: Well, I don't know. That's what they offered, so --

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: You know, every secretary of state that I know has done that.

COOPER: But that's -- once they're office and not running for an office again.

CLINTON: Well, I didn't know -- to be honest, I wasn't -- I wasn't committed to running.

SANDERS: The key foreign policy vote of modern American history was the war in Iraq. The progressive community was pretty united in saying, don't listen to Bush. Don't go to war. Secretary Clinton voted to go to war.

CLINTON: I did make a mistake, and I admitted that I made a mistake, and in large measure, that mistake really arose from the Bush administration's approach to what they thought they could accomplish in Iraq.

COOPER: You were on the Veteran's Affairs Committee for eight years. You headed it for two years. There were 18 inspector general reports talking about problems plaguing the V.A. Why did it take so long and did it take you too long to act?

SANDERS: Fair question. And I think, you know, the answer is that we have worked on many, many issues, Anderson. And your point is fair that we should have acted sooner. We should have known what was going on in Phoenix, those waiting on, and the lies that some administrators were telling us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's bring in CNN senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar. She's live in Manchester, New Hampshire. What stood out to you, Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think the main overarching theme, Carol, was just this battle for liberal credentials, but there were a number of really interesting moments. It's actually one of the reasons why I personally really like this town hall format. One was a sort of personal note, and something that we especially hadn't heard from Senator Sanders, and that was both of these candidates talking about religion and their spirituality. Here's what they said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: What do you say to a voter out there who says -- and who sees faith as a guiding principle in their lives and wants it to be a guiding principle for this country.

SANDERS: It's a guiding principle in my life. Absolutely it is. You know, everybody practices religion in a different way.

[10:05:05] To me, I would not be here tonight, I would not be running for president of the United States if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings. My spirituality is that we are all in this together. And that when children go hungry, when veterans sleep out on the street, it impacts me. That's my very strong spiritual feeling.

CLINTON: I'm constantly trying to balance how do I assume the mantle of a position as essentially august, as president of the United States, and not lose track of who I am, what I believe in, and what I want to do to serve.

I have that dialogue at least once a day in some setting or another. And I don't know that there is any, ever, absolute answer, like, OK, universe, here I am, watch me roar, or oh, my gosh, I can't do it, it's just overwhelming, I have to retreat. It's that balance that I keep to try to find in my life that I want to see back in our country, and it will be something that I continue to talk about with a -- you know, with a group of faith advisers who are close to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It was also noteworthy, Carol, that each of these candidates faced a question that was pretty obvious. For Hillary Clinton it was Wall Street and the money that she has accepted to speak. You know, six-figure paydays just to do a speech before or a speech that maybe hosted by a bank. And then for Bernie Sanders, it was what about the V.A.? You were the chairman of the V.A. committee at a certain point, and there was this huge scandal where veterans were waiting ridiculous amounts of time to get help, basically, and I thought each of them sort of struggled a little bit with the answer to this question about a vulnerability of theirs that you would have thought they would have been a little more prepared for.

COSTELLO: You got that right because it's only get to get worse from here, right?

KEILAR: That's right. Definitely. And I think that you're going to hear this -- you know, this Wall Street attack line that Bernie Sanders is using against Hillary Clinton, I really think this is just going to continue, and I also think that that veteran's question that we heard him asked is something that may continue as well once we get beyond New Hampshire.

COSTELLO: All right. Brianna Keilar, reporting live for us from Manchester, New Hampshire.

So let's talk some more about the town hall. I want to bring in my panel, Democratic strategist Keith Boykin and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, Angela Rye.

Welcome to both of you.

ANGELA RYE, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: Thank you.

KEITH BOYKIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So, Keith, I want to just touch on the religion question for just a second. Do Democratic voters overwhelmingly care about a candidate's faith?

BOYKIN: That is a good question, Carol. I don't think that a candidate's faith in the Democratic Party will determine whether voters will support that candidate or not. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, I think, are within the mainstream in terms of faith issues, and I don't think it's an issue that resonates as much as it does with the Republican Party. So it's interesting insight. It's refreshing to hear them talk about that, but I don't think voters will go into the ballot box and decide who to choose based on that.

COSTELLO: Gotcha. So, Angela, I want to move over to the minority vote because a source just told us that Ben Jealous, the former head of the NAACP, will endorse Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders gave an interesting answer on minority issues at last night's town hall. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: We are reaching out as strongly as we can, for example, to the African-American community and for the Latino community. And I think we are gaining more and more support in those communities. For a couple of reasons, number one, within the African-American community it's not only an economic issue, raising the minimum wage and providing jobs, youth unemployment for African-American kids now is 51 percent. So those are important issues. But I'll tell you what else is an important issue. And that is the criminal justice issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Angela, are more minority leaders going Bernie Sanders' way? Does he need more? And what did you think of his answer?

RYE: Well, a couple of things, Carol. I think that he's been pretty consistent on mass incarceration and the fact that there does -- we definitely need criminal reform in this country, and he's also talked several times about minority youth unemployment. But that's nothing new under the sun.

As you introduced me, the CBC has been talking about youth unemployment and summer jobs for years. So this is something that's very, very familiar to me and I think to a lot of people of color in this country.

[10:10:01] I think what's puzzling to me for Bernie Sanders is a piece that Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a week or two ago on Senator Sanders' position on reparations because he is very, very Democratic socialist. Of course we heard him criticized Hillary Clinton and the fact that she's not progressive enough or at least sometimes she's progressive and sometimes she's moderate.

Well, all of a sudden we see Bernie Sanders get pretty moderate when it's time to talk about reparations which is a huge controversial issue but you would certainly expect someone who labels himself a Democratic socialist to support reparations.

COSTELLO: And I should mention the Congressional Black Caucus is supporting Hillary Clinton. Hasn't it endorsed Hillary Clinton?

RYE: The Congressional Black Caucus has endorsed Hillary Clinton, but you will also note that several members of Congress have still -- are still deciding who they are going to endorse. There are also CBC members who have endorsed individually Bernie Sanders.

COSTELLO: So, Keith, what do you make of this fight for minority voters? Who is winning, in your mind, for lack of a better way to put it?

BOYKIN: Well, you know, that's a tough question. I think Hillary Clinton has a strong record, a long record, I should say, in dealing with African-Americans, and I think that's part of the reason why she has sort of the early support, but you remember back in 2008, she actually was leading in the polls with black voters before the Iowa caucuses. It wasn't until Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses that African-American voters started to turn around and support him more.

I don't think it was because they were critical of Obama vis-a-vis Clinton but because they thought that Clinton was the most electable, the most practical candidate, and Obama would have his chance in the future, but that was going back to 2007 and 2008.

I think today Bernie Sanders has some work to do to sort of reach out to African-American voters because they don't have the sense of familiarity with him as they do with the Clintons. And so, you know, Hillary Clinton is wise to tie herself to Obama which she's starting to do and has done repeatedly, and I think Bernie Sanders has a little risk of a danger when he criticized Clinton as not being progressive enough in issues like TPP. He's also criticizing Barack Obama who supports the TPP. So I think, you know, he has to sort of thread the needle very carefully.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave there. Angela Rye, Keith Boykin, thanks to both of you.

And still to come in the NEWSROOM --

RYE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

The insults and accusations flying between these two GOP frontrunners, Ted Cruz, moments away from kicking off another event in New Hampshire. What the campaign is saying today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:27] COSTELLO: Senator Ted Cruz about to speak in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, you have to wonder if he will use the new word he added to the GOP election playbook -- Trumper tantrum. That term born out of the war of words between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

You may have heard by now Trump is accusing Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Now the guy that came in second, but actually, I think I came in first, because if you take a look -- OK? You know. Oh, that voter fraud. You know, these politicians are brutal. They're brutal. Voter violation, and then it has all sorts of problems and then it says go vote for this guy, and I said, man, that's like a fraud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. From those accusations that term was born, Trumper tantrum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: It is no surprise that Donald is throwing yet another temper tantrum, or if you like, yet another Trumper tantrum. It seems his reaction to everything is to throw a fit, to engage in insults. And I understand that Donald finds it very hard to lose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now, Rick Tyler, he's the national spokesperson for Ted Cruz.

Welcome, Rick.

RICK TYLER, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON FOR TED CRUZ: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Thanks for waiting. I know you waited through President Obama's remarks. And I appreciate that. OK. First question.

TYLER: No problem.

COSTELLO: Do you think that engaging Trump in a war of words is helping anything?

TYLER: Well, you notice Cruz doesn't respond to his war of words. He doesn't. He defends himself but he doesn't trade invective for invective.

Look, Donald Trump is a sore loser. He lost the Iowa caucus. You know, Ben Carson outperformed his numbers. Ted Cruz outperformed his numbers, Donald Trump didn't outperform his numbers, and of course that can't be his fault. That's got to be somebody else's fault. And so he's now lashing out. And you know, he's actually calling for, you know, a recall, and I guess they can do it and maybe he'll make Mexico pay for it.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: You know, one way the Cruz campaign could settle this spat is to fire the Iowa staffer responsible for planting the notion that Ben Carson was going to drop out of the presidential race. So why not fire that staffer?

TYLER: Well, it was a little bit like telephone. The staff sent out a message repeating the CNN reporting which was accurate, by the way, and that got translated by one staffer to be unfortunately to suggest that Carson might be dropping out, but I don't think it was widespread, and I don't think anybody was convinced by it. Again, you know, nobody -- Carson outperformed his numbers.

But this isn't about Ben Carson. It's about Donald Trump. You know, he's trying to find a way to get back in. He's upset that nobody is talking about him. But what was really instructive about the Iowa caucuses, and nobody has been reporting on this --

COSTELLO: Well, let's go back --

TYLER: Go ahead.

COSTELLO: Let's go back for just a second to the staffer. So should there be any disciplinary action at all? Because what this staffer did was serious. He told caucus-goers that Ben Carson was going to drop out of the presidential race and they should now throw their support toward Ted Cruz.

TYLER: Well, look, we told everybody they should throw their support toward Ted Cruz, not just Ben Carson voters but Trump voters and all the voters.

COSTELLO: But I mean the part about Ben Carson dropping out of the presidential race.

TYLER: He didn't directly say that he was dropping out. He was inferring, as, you know, some of your correspondents inferred that if --

COSTELLO: No, they didn't.

TYLER: That if Ben Carson went to Florida that he wasn't serious -- well, no, they said, you know, you're not serious about running for president, or maybe you don't want to be president.

[10:20:03] That was said on this network. And that's a fair analysis, I think. And so that information was shared. But look, what came out of the Iowa --

COSTELLO: Well, let me report --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Just to clear this up so my viewers understand. This is what this staffer sent out. "Breaking news, the press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week." Making a big announcement next week. That's in Spence Rogers' e-mail. "Please inform any Carson caucus-goers of this news and urge people to caucus for Ted Cruz.

Now Ben Carson is really angry about that.

TYLER: Well, Ben Carson went to Florida, and that was what was reported, and that's what -- and that's the information that we relayed. I don't know why Ben Carson announced that he was going to Florida and then to D.C. and that was his big announcement, he was going to speak at the Prayer Breakfast. So, look, everything about that is accurate. That is what happened.

But, you know, again, it's not about Ben Carson. This is about -- this is about Donald Trump. Ben Carson outperformed his numbers. Donald Trump underperformed his numbers. He doesn't like it so he's going to raise, you know, what they call, you know, fear, uncertainty and doubt, FUD. That's what salesmen do who have now -- who can't rely on the reliability of their product. They create fear, uncertainty and doubt. Because he doesn't have anything positive to sell. He doesn't know his position, he doesn't even know what a ground game is this week we learned. Gee, I should have a ground game.

Well, the weather here has been great. We've knocked on 50,000 doors this week. We're making hundreds of thousands of phone calls. We'll continue to do that. We have Camp Cruz set up here in New Hampshire. And so we're trying hard to win., you know, trying hard to win here and then in the future --

COSTELLO: Well, still.

TYLER: I don't know --

COSTELLO: In light of all of what you just said, most polls show Donald Trump is ahead in New Hampshire by 20 points.

TYLER: He is.

COSTELLO: So --

TYLER: That's right. There's a big expectation that he should win, and Marco Rubio has got some momentum coming out of Iowa. And there's a lot of pressure on him that he should win, and notice all of his moderate counterparts are attacking Marco Rubio. They have not been attacking Ted Cruz. But we want to represent the conservatives that are here in New Hampshire. And conservatives that told us throughout this campaign that they are so grateful that they have an actual conservative to vote for, one who can actually win the nomination, the first conservative since Ronald Reagan.

So we're pretty excited about being able to represent those people and give them someone to vote for.

COSTELLO: Well -- Rick, let me ask you this question because I know that Ted Cruz wants to attract more support in New Hampshire. This is how he -- after his Iowa win, this is how he thanks voters. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: God bless the great state of Iowa. Let me, first of all, say to God be the glory. Tonight is a victory for the grassroots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. So New Hampshire has the second lowest rate of church attendance in the country. Most of the country, sadly, is not so religious, so will Ted Cruz adjust his language a little? And might that -- might his language be sort of giving New Hampshire voters pause?

TYLER: I don't know. I heard the president just now give a great speech where he invoked Jesus Christ as our savior. And he talked about that. And so people are open about their faith. And I don't think anybody is offended that Ted Cruz is a faithful person. But look at the numbers in Iowa actually. Ted Cruz led the largest turnout of Iowa voters. Now he couldn't have done that if we only had evangelicals. We had a broad base of conservative support and Reagan Democrats and people you wouldn't expect to vote for Ted Cruz because we had a data driven campaign that was -- that we had a grassroots campaign. We got those people to the polls and Ted Cruz led. He got the most

votes any Republican ever got out of Iowa. And yes, he did well among evangelicals, but we would not have won unless he had a broad base of support among Tea Party and that's where Ted Cruz came from. He started with the Tea Party. The Tea Party put him in the U.S. Senate and continues to support him.

We're getting a lot of libertarian votes. In fact we had a New Hampshire state representative Gannon who endorsed us. He was a Rand Paul libertarian supporter. He endorsed us today. So we're excited about that.

We've raised $10 million since the beginning of the year, and remember, the Democrat vote went down 30 percent over the last open seat which was back in 2008. The Republican vote in Iowa went up 30 percent, and I'm reading these reports about electability. Well, here's the study we need to look at, look at Iowa. Ted Cruz drove the largest number of the people to caucuses and was the lead vote getter. And that bodes well for the Republican Party down ticket.

COSTELLO: Well --

TYLER: Because you need someone who brings people out and they're enthusiastic.

COSTELLO: Donald trump could make the same argument, right?

TYLER: But he didn't. He didn't. He said he would, but he didn't drive the people to the polls. Everybody thought they would, but it was actually Ted Cruz who drove people to the polls because he won.

(CROSSTALK)

TYLER: He had the largest vote.

COSTELLO: That's right. Rick Tyler, thank you so much for joining me.

TYLER: You bet.

[10:25:03] COSTELLO: With Cruz and Trump hitting each other, the other GOP candidates are hitting the stump with four town halls getting underway this hour alone.

CNN's Phil Mattingly is at a Chris Christie in Keene, and Manu Raju is in Manchester for an upcoming Rubio event.

Phil, we'll start with you. Good morning.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. For Chris Christie, this is really his moment. He's got five days left before the primary that he said yesterday he's making his last stand on. Now you're seeing behind me right now, this is his 70th day in the state since the cycle started. There's a pathway here. Sixty percent -- as many as 60 percent of voters in this state -- likely Republican voters remain undecided or only leaning one way, Carol. So they believe over the last five days inside this campaign they can close that gap.

Another key moment here attacking Marco Rubio. He's been explicit in his swipes at Marco Rubio in recent days. Sharpening the contrast today, going after him on abortion and Marco Rubio's opposition to exceptions.

Carol, you made this point with Rick just a few minutes ago. This is a different electorate than Iowa. And Chris Christie thinks he could strike and that attack is going straight at Marco Rubio, Carol.

COSTELLO: So if Chris Christie does not fare well in New Hampshire, do you think he'll drop out of the race?

MATTINGLY: Right now his team is not saying yes or no, but the fact of the matter is this, Carol. If he doesn't fare well here, he's going to run out of money. He has an OK finance structure right now. They put ads in South Carolina, but they have been very explicit. This is their key state. This is where they have to make a move, and they can make a move in the days ahead if he can break out. If he doesn't, though, there are going to be a lot of questions they have to answer come February 10th.

COSTELLO: All right. Phil Mattingly, thank you.

Let's head to Manu Raju at the Rubio rally. Good morning. Tell us more.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Now Marco Rubio did a different strategy than Chris Christie. He's trying to keep this a three-man race, something that he just looking at Donald Trump, actually not really even engaging Donald Trump. Really he's going after Ted Cruz more aggressively. He wants to see this to be the beginning of the end of the Cruz campaign. If Cruz does not fare particularly well. And I don't think that right now the Rubio campaign views Christie as much as a threat as Christie views himself, which is one reason why Christie is really sharpening those attacks.

It was interesting to hear Chris Christie go after Marco Rubio on that issue of abortion. You don't really hear that happening in the Republican campaign. But Marco Rubio only supports exceptions to save the life of a mother, not for rape or incest. I had that chance actually to ask him about that last week. And he said that he would sign legislation that only had that one exception for the life of a mother if it were to restrict abortion. So clearly that's an issue that Chris Christie sees plays well with moderate voters. The question is whether Marco Rubio can seize that momentum in Iowa and take it to New Hampshire. We'll find out on Tuesday.

COSTELLO: Yes. We will. Manu Raju, many thanks.

Tonight Donald Trump is joining Anderson Cooper at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Be sure to catch that.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the clock is ticking down in -- in the New Hampshire primary. And Hillary Clinton is lagging in the polls, but is there an advantage to being the underdog? I'll ask her press secretary, next.

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