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Jeb Bush Adds Family to Campaign Arsenal; Will Sanders' Past Help His Campaign. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired February 05, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:33:43] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are just past the bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
Jeb Bush has some new firepower in his campaign arsenal, his family. Days away from the New Hampshire primary, the guns are out, starting with this super PAC ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & BROTHER OF JEB BUSH: I know Jeb. I know he has a good heart and a strong backbone. Jeb will unite our country. He knows how to bring the world together against terror and he knows when tough measures must be taken. Experience and judgment count in the Oval Office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Also in addition to his brother, the family's matriarch, former first lady Barbara Bush, she is now in New Hampshire going to bat for her son.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES & MOTHER OF JEB BUSH: Jeb is the nicest, wisest, bragger.
(LAUGHTER)
We don't allow that.
(LAUGHTER)
But he's decent and honest. He's everything we need in a president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's go straight to Tim Miller, communications director for the Jeb Bush presidential campaign.
Tim Miller, welcome back. Good to see you.
TIM MILLER, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, JEB BUSH PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Thanks, Brooke. Isn't she great? BALDWIN: Listen, lots and lots of love on the trail for Barbara Bush,
you know, overflow crowds. My question to you is, why wait so long to bring her out?
[14:35:12] MILLER: Mrs. Bush is 90 years old, Brooke, so we were happy to be able to get her out on the trail the last week before New Hampshire. There's so many people in New Hampshire that have such love for her, having campaigned here a number of times before in the past. And look, Jeb brings it up very often on the trail when he says, you know, I recognize I won the genetic lottery when I was born in midland, Texas, and opened my eyes and saw this Barbara Bush pearls. I was the luckiest kid on earth. He talks about it all the time and we were grateful to have her up here, talking about how Jeb has the kind values that her generation had that this country has kind lost and we need to get back to so that was a great message for her to deliver.
BALDWIN: George W. Bush is in this new ad for the super PAC supporting Jeb. Saying, listen, we're like all families but we're different. He's definitely embracing his family and their 12 years in the White House. We know George W. Bush will be on the trail in South Carolina.
Listen, Tim, if things don't go, you know, outstanding for you all in New Hampshire, do you think you'd regret not bringing his big brother out on the trail
MILLER: Jeb has to make the case he is the person with the backbone to take on ISIS and he is the person who is ready to be commander-in- chief. Who better to vouch for him than his brother? Jeb had to lay out his plans to do this. He did it at the Reagan Library before the Paris attacks. I think what voters have seen in Jeb and what we see in polling is this is somebody who's prepared to be commander-in- chief. That's why he's the endorsement of 12 Medal of Honor recipients and 40 generals and their endorsement of him is so important. To have his brother vouch for him as well is a nice boost right before the primary --
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: -- in South Carolina, which we're all looking forward to.
BALDWIN: As you well know, Jeb has been hit because of the link with his brother in the war, and Hillary Clinton has been hit, you know, because of personal attacks with regard to her husband. I'm just curious, with these political dynasty families, the Clintons and the Bushes, do you think Jeb Bush gets more heat, more flack for his family than Hillary Clinton and hers?
MILLER: Look, Jeb has said that he knows the bar is higher on him. But he holds himself --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Is that a yes, Tim Miller? MILLER: Yes, of course, the bar is held higher for Jeb. But that's
OK. You need to earn it. Running for president is hard business. You know, while there are other campaigns out there the complaining if they get bad coverage or complaining if there's an attack against them, Marco Rubio's somebody that's been doing a lot of that lately, that's not Jeb. So he's going to go out there and he's going to earn it and take his lumps. He might get a little harder from you guys in the liberal media than Hillary Clinton does, but that's OK.
BALDWIN: You brought up Marco Rubio so let me ask you about that. I was talking to Jonathan Martin yesterday, broke the story in "The Times," talking about back channeling between operatives between you camp and Chris Christie's camp. The goal is to throw some molasses under Marco Rubio's shiny black boots. The campaign released this ad today.
Roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, MORNING JOE: What do you list as Marco Rubio's top accomplishment that made you decide to endorse him?
RICK SANTORUM, (R), FORMER SENATOR: I guess it's hard to say their accomplishments.
SCARBOROUGH: I'll ask one more time. List one accomplishment Marco Rubio has achieved in four years in the United States Senate.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, CO-HOST, MORNING JOE: Jeb Bush ran Florida. Marco Rubio -- finish the sentence.
SANTORUM: I would just say this is a guy who's been able to, number one --
SANTORUM: The bottom line is, he didn't get accomplishments done. Neither did President Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: OK, so that's the ad. Now with regard to this back channeling, you know, Chris Christie said the reporting was, in a word, "baloney." Care to comment?
MILLER: I think Christie was right. The more important issue is the substance of that app. And the reason why Marco Rubio and his surrogates can't say what his accomplishments are in the Senate is because the only one was the gang of eight immigration bill he worked on and then abandoned as soon as it got unpopular. Yesterday, Marco was asked about this on FOX. He cited a bill that passed by unanimous vote in the Senate and he didn't show up to vote for it. I mean, that is the best he has to offer when it companies to accomplishments. The fact is, it's just not there. We're facing really tough times. We need somebody who has had to make tough decisions. Jeb Bush has done that with the best conservative record in the field in Florida.
BALDWIN: We'll see if you all can slow Marco Rubio's roll into Tuesday.
Meantime, let me end with this. I'm seeing a lot of snow. I'm glad I'm packing my snow boots tonight.
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: It's not that bad.
[14:40:] BALDWIN: We do know that Trump was supposed to have an event. You know, he called it off because of weather.
And then let's pull up a tweet, guys, the Jeb Bush tweet, where he points out the fact his 90-year-old mother.
Here we go. He says, tweeting, "#Donald Trump. My 90-year-old mother made it out to a campaign. "
Point being, we're here, you're not. Is this a little Twitter trolling, Tim Miller?
MILLER: We expect to hear a response from Donald. He'll be tweeting from Trump Tower in his slippers and his robe because he couldn't make it to New Hampshire. I think he probably could have made it but that's all right. Jeb will be there.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll be there.
MILLER: He's got a town hall tonight.
BALDWIN: I'll be there.
MILLER: He has a town hall tonight. Yes, we look forward to having you up here.
BALDWIN: All right, Tim Miller, thank you very much.
MILLER: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Communications director, Jeb Bush presidential campaign. Thank you.
Let's remind everyone, tonight, CNN's Jamie Gangel will sit down with Jeb Bush and former first lady, Jeb Bush's mom, Barbara Bush. Watch that interview tonight, 8:00 eastern, on "A.C. 360," here on CNN.
Meantime, any moment now, we're watching, waiting to see Bernie Sanders and his big endorsement today. We'll take that live. We'll also talk to a long-time friend of Senator Sanders. They go way back to their friendship in the '70s. We'll talk about his arrest during a civil rights protest in the '60s.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:45:29] BALDWIN: We are two days away to the Super Bowl. With Silicon Valley so close to the game, we are looking at how high tech companies are really changing sports.
CNN's Coy Wire is in San Francisco.
Hey, Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: We've been highlighting makers who are changing the world of sports with technology.
Today, we're introducing you to Nate McKervey. He developed a new technology that can predict plays on the sidelines.
Check this technology out in "Bleacher Report" by Intel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATE MCKERVEY, DIRECTOR OF TECHNICAL MARKETING, SPLUNK: During the Broncos versus Patriot game, there was a moment where the Patriots didn't have access to their information on their tablets and they were pretty distraught. Coaches are using more data. Everybody needs access to the data in order to make the best decisions possible.
Splunk is a software company which enabled people to gain insight from their data. I was just using my golf swing to try to improve it. A friend of mine said, hey, can you Splunk the NBA. We realized this could be valuable. Let's say there's three yards to go. It's the third quarter, the third down, what's Peyton going to do? Well, historically, he would pass it 76 percent of the time. But in this case, learning the model, it looks like he's more likely to pass it than history says. So by analyzing all of the plays in the history of the NFL since the year 2000, we can see a lot of common threads. With that data, you can predict the next play. But if you're a coach, you can disrupt what the other team thinks. You might run a model on your own team and say, oh, they think we're going to pass right here, let's do something different.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: OK, Coy Wire, thank you, in San Francisco.
Coming up next, Bernie Sanders' history as an activist getting attention. He was arrested during a civil rights protests. He was talking to Anderson about this at our town hall earlier in the week. That was back in the '60s. Up next, we'll talk to someone would has known the Senator for decades. How will his history as an activist play with younger African-American voters?
Also ahead, breaking news on the exPLOsion inside a commercial jet. We are now hearing it was a laptop bomb. Those details next.
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[14:52:31] BALDWIN: Recent polls show Senator Bernie Sanders has struggled to grain traction, specifically among African-American voters. We have the numbers. This is a poll that shows Bernie Sanders has 17 percent support in South Carolina. That's the primary after New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton with a huge number there, 74 percent. That primary in South Carolina could be a huge test for the Vermont Senator.
In recent days, he has become more and more vocal. Here he was speaking out about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I suspect the secretary agrees, one wonders if this were a white suburban community what kind of response there would have been.
(APPLAUSE)
Flint, Michigan, is a poor community. It is disproportionately African-American and minority. And what has happened there is absolutely unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's bring in someone who has known Senator Sanders since the early '70s. He is John Franco. In the '80s, he was the city attorney under then-Mayor Bernie Sanders.
Welcome to you, John.
Also, he is back, CNN political commentator, Marc Lamont Hill.
Gentlemen, welcome, to both of you.
MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be here.
JOHN FRANCO, LONG-TIME FRIEND OF BERNIE SANDERS & FORMER CITY ATTORNEY: Thank you.
BALDWIN: John, on the personal side of Bernie Sanders, I think for those people, unlike us, who have been following this so, so closely, they didn't realize until they watched the town hall with Anderson Cooper about his arrest. They didn't know he was arrested and that he marched and, you know, this, you know, came from this lower middle class Jewish family, grew up in Brooklyn, went to college in Vermont. People are just learning about this.
FRANCO: Well, Bernie went to college at the University of Chicago, then he moved to Vermont.
BALDWIN: Moved to Vermont.
FRANCO: You mentioned his arrest to desegregate the university in Chicago in 1962. I was in probably the fourth or fifth grade at that time.
(LAUGHTER)
I met Bernie when I graduated from the University of --
LAMONT HILL: Don't age him. FRANCO: Yeah, in 1974. That tells you how long his commitment's
been. He went to the march on Washington. I remember watching that on television when I was in I believe the fifth grade. That's how long Bernie's commitment to civil rights has been and to social justice.
BALDWIN: So you were young. He was a smidge older. Point being, this has been a thread through his lose.
For you, Marc Lamont Hill, especially when you look at the numbers of American African-American voters in South Carolina, why do you think he's not polling higher?
[14:55:13] LAMONT HILL: I think there are a few reasons. One, the Clintons have a very strong connection to African-American communities. Despite the fact that Bill Clinton undermined black prosperity during the '90s through the crime bill three strikes, welfare reform, many black people still consider him the original first black president. Because of that, they feel connected to the Clintons as a proxy. The second reason is one where we can be somewhat critical of Bernie Sanders. Early on, Bernie Sanders responded to calls from Black Lives Matter movement and other black advocates by saying, hey, I marched with King. Or hey, my economic justice program will lead to racial justice. In a sense, his critique felt dismissive and a little condescending to people who say, hey, wait a minute, you don't know who I am.
BALDWIN: You don't think that worked for him?
LAMONT HILL: Not so much. Not so much.
BALDWIN: Not so much.
How would -- and then I want to ask about Hillary Clinton. John, you know, I was talking to Killer Mike, a rapper in Atlanta. He did this pretty fascinating interview with Sanders. He endorsed him. He said, look, I don't think he's resonating as much among African-Americans because he hasn't gone to, you know, black colleges, black churches. Do you think that will change knowing Bernie Sanders as you do?
FRANCO: Oh, it absolutely should. I think the fundamental problem with Bernie's traction with the African-American community is they haven't had a chance to become familiar with him. Secretary Clinton was first lady. Bill Clinton ran two presidential races. She herself ran a presidential race. She served in the United States Senate when she was secretary of state. People are just beginning to know Bernie Sanders and that's his challenge, frankly.
BALDWIN: John, knowing him as you do, watching him go back and forth with Hillary Clinton, what do you make of him, his style, his personality on screen?
FRANCO: I was talking with the Vermont reporter a couple of days ago and I remarked about how not in the debate last night but the last one they had, when it got a little testy, and I said, boy, this is like old Burlington city council meetings. BALDWIN: Really.
FRANCO: I said, for him, debating Secretary Clinton is easy because he's only up against one when he was on the city council, he had eight on the city council that were opposed to him so it's like old home week for him.
(LAUGHTER)
They used to call it in Burlington the Monday night fights literally. So he's very used to this. That is something he's I think fairly used to and fairly comfortable with, and stands up well.
BALDWIN: Bernie the brawler.
Marc, on the flip side.
(CROSSTALK)
FRANCO: Well, that's not really fair. Bernie the principled advocate, I would say.
BALDWIN: I'm being gentle how I say that. I hear you. I get it. He's used to it and then some.
On Hillary Clinton, Marc, you know, she is having a tougher time than expected. Courting the younger vote, especially among young women. In Iowa City all these young women they're like we're going to see a woman as president in our lifetime so we don't feel this pressure, you know, to support Hillary now. But she has been so totally active in women's rights ever since she graduated Yale Law School.
HILL: Well it depends how we're thinking about women's rights. In the same way Bernie's been active for social justice. We could demand more, right? Hillary Clinton represents a certain kind of bourgeois feminism. Women were just voting to be first. They don't want to just vote a woman in because she's a woman.
For some, Bernie Sanders represents a kind of vision of America that's different than Hillary Clinton. He seems like an outsider, although he's been in the Senate forever. Seems like he's not playing the traditional Wall Street and Washington games. For that reason, many people are connected to him. I think Hillary made a mistake. She took voters for granted. In the same way they took black voters for granted in 2008, I think they are beginning to take women voters for granted. Just because you're a woman, you're going to vote for Hillary Clinton, I think that's dangerous, it's dismissive, and it might cause her a problem in some key states come Super Tuesday.
BALDWIN: John Franco, Marc Lamont Hill, thank you both so much.
FRANCO: Thank you.
Got some breaking news. We've been reporting on this. We're learning more about that exPLOsion that caused this huge hole in a passenger plane. It was midair, this exPLOsion happened. We're learning about the man who was actually thrown out of the plane when something went off here.
Robyn Kriel is on the phone with me now.
As this plane was over, what, Mogadishu? Robyn, what do you know?
ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What we know at the moment is the device that investigators believe was the explosive device was actually a laptop. And that there was some kind of an explosive either inside the laptop or it was, indeed, a laptop bomb.
