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Sanders Hammers Away On Wall Street Donations; Democrats Hit Campaign Trail After Debate; GOP Candidates Speaking At Forum In South Carolina; Is Clinging To Obama A Winning Strategy?; Pope About To Make History Again; Clinton Embraces Obama And Blasts Sanders; Democratic Debate; World Powers Agree to Pause. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 12, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, everyone, for watching. My colleague, Jim Sciutto, is sitting in for Wolf. He starts right now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Jim Sciutto. Wolf Blitzer is on assignment. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Damascus, Syria. Wherever you are watching from around the world, thank you for joining us.

And we begin with presidential politics and the fight for the Democratic nomination. Democrats get back on the campaign trail today after sparring in their latest debate last night. Bernie Sanders kept hammering away on his main issue, the influence of big Wall Street donations in politics and in Americans' lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's not insult the intelligence of the American people. People aren't dumb. Why in god's name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it. They want to throw money around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Well, Hillary Clinton says she is the only one who is ready to deal with the problems facing the country, including Wall Street.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We agree that we've got to get unaccountable money out of politics. We agree that Wall Street should never be allowed to wreck main street again. But here's the point I want to make tonight. I am not a single issue candidate and I do not believe we live in a single issue country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: On the trail today, Bill Clinton attends an event in Cincinnati. Bernie Sanders has stops in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Hillary Clinton also traveling to St. Paul after a town hall today in Denmark, South Carolina. That is where we find CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Joe Johns.

Joe, big night last night, another one for the Democratic campaign. Does the Clinton campaign belief she accomplished her goals last night?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: They're pretty happy about it. Hillary Clinton aligning herself with the policies of the popular first African-American president, Barack Obama. And the focus here in South Carolina is so much about minority voters. She was taking on Bernie Sanders on a variety of issues, including the notion that had been suggested by Sanders that the president had let down the progressive wing of the party.

So, this plays very well in a place like South Carolina as the demographics expand in the presidential races. And I think the Hillary Clinton campaign is very happy about that -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: How important is South Carolina? You hear the phrase all the time that that is her fire wall. How important is that? And how do we see that, for instance, in the even that she's holding there tonight in South Carolina?

JOHNS: Well, it's critical, I think, for her because, as you know, she got blown out in New Hampshire. And now, she needs a big win here in South Carolina to try to restore her momentum.

And what she's doing here in South Carolina is essentially reaching out to African-American voters who are concerned about education. She is visiting a school, having a town hall here. And this school is located in what has been known as the corridor of shame, a series, an area of schools where it's very poor. And they need a lot of money and they haven't been able to get it.

So, she's going to come in and talk about her commitment to this issue over the years, pointing out that she was working for the children's defense fund right out of law school, with Marian Wright Edelman and others, and that she's been very committed to this cause for a long time.

So, you're getting specifics from Hillary Clinton here reaching out to African-American voters at a time, of course, when Bernie Sanders just happens to be over in Minnesota. He, too, is talking about race and economics in a town hall at a public school there as well.

So, a lot more to say about that. Bernie Sanders still expected to come here to South Carolina. But the question is whether Bernie Sanders will be able to make up some of the differences that we're seeing in the polls right now -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Right. And certainly South Carolina very different state from both New Hampshire and Iowa.

Joe Johns in Denmark, South Carolina. Thanks very much.

Well, the Republican presidential candidates are out in full force today as well. John Kasich, he has three events across South Carolina. And you're looking right now at live pictures, this from the faith and family presidential forum in Greenville, South Carolina. Four of the GOP candidates speaking there today. You see Ben Carson with the microphone. We'll also see Jeb Bush. We'll see Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as well.

Tomorrow, the Republican candidates have a much lighter campaign schedule. They'll be preparing for their debate in Greenfield -- Greenville, rather.

And that's where we find Sean Spicer. He's the communications director and chief strategist for the Republican National Committee. Good to have you on, Sean. Thanks for taking the time.

[13:05:00] You look at the race, in these 24 hours, taking a particularly vicious turn. I just want to draw your attention, I'm sure you've seen it, to one of the latest tweets from Donald Trump of course directed at Ted Cruz. He says, how can Ted Cruz be an evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest. We know the central role of evangelicals in the South Carolina race. Is this kind of vicious back and forth between the two Republican front runners -- is that good for the Republican Party?

SEAN SPICER, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, RNC: Well, look, Jim, I think you've probably heard me say before, I would appreciate our candidates talking positively about their vision and focusing their attacks on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But we understand that politics is a contact sport.

Fortunately, if the choice is between the two parties are our guys taking some punches at each other or being a party with a candidate under FBI investigation, I'll take our candidates any day of the week. And I think that's really the contrast. If you look at what's going to be discussed tomorrow night --

SCIUTTO: Listen, I --

SPICER: -- here in Greenville --

SCIUTTO: -- hear you.

SPICER: -- amongst our candidates versus --

SCIUTTO: Sean, I hear you on that. And a deaf turns to the -- you know, the challenges on the Democratic side. But this is a real challenge within the Republican Party, the tone of the race. I mean, you have Trump and Rubio campaigns also complaining about robocalls in South Carolina negative against their candidates. They're pointing fingers at the Cruz campaign. We know about the allegations of dirty poke -- dirty pool, so to speak in the Iowa campaign regarding Ben Carson's campaign. Is the RNC -- on those robocalls, is it looking into these robocalls?

SPICER: No, no. I mean, look, like I said, I would love everyone to be running a positive campaign, talking about why they want to be president and focusing their attacks on Hillary Clinton. But that being said, I mean, it's no secret that politics is tough. And, frankly, this is part of the game that is played. South Carolina has seen this before.

I don't -- this isn't something that we would rather have. We'd rather have everyone following Reagan's 11th commandment. But we recognize that this is part of the cycle. Are -- you know, it prepares them for a general. It makes them better candidates.

But, again, I would rather take some of these tough accusations that are happening on our side than either of the two candidates that were featured last night on the Democratic stage. You have a candidate, a leading candidate for president in the Democratic field that is under investigation by the FBI.

And, frankly, I think -- Jim, I think it you're your network so it's not that big -- it's not a problem for CNN. But I found it appalling that not one of the moderators, during the two-hour debate, asked a single question regarding a just revealed and just confirmed FBI investigation. That is appalling that that never came up.

SCIUTTO: Well, let me ask you this because when you look inside the race, really both races, you have now the prospect of a long, drawn- out contest, certainly on the Democratic side, more than many expected, but also certainly on the Republican side, which allows for the prospect of the kind of back and forth you're talking about here, some of which is potentially damaging for some of the candidates when they go to a general election.

You have Marco Rubio floating the idea now of a brokered convention. He says -- he says he doesn't think, you know, the uncertainty of not having a candidate going into the convention is necessarily a bad thing. But, of course, we're seeing one of the bad things here which is continuing this, you know, pretty bitter back and forth here.

SPICER: Well, look, here's the situation. Under chairman Reince Priebus's leadership, we -- basically, we defined the primary calendar. We moved it to start tying (ph) back a month into February from January. We moved it up from ending in June to probably ending in May. We shortened the cycle by a total of 68 days. So, the fact of the matter is it will be shorter. More people will be involved.

So, on March 1st, for example, you're going to have 11 states go. More voters will be involved in this process than ever before. But to put things in context, and chairman Priebus has said this all during the week. During the month of February, five percent of the Republican delegates will be selected. During the month of March, just about 60 percent of the delegates will be selected.

So, the notion of people trying to handicap how this race is going to end up is like predicting who's going to be in the World Series after opening day of major league baseball seaters (ph). It's a little premature for that to happen.

I think I am excited, however, by the level of intensity and enthusiasm that's happening on our side. By all accounts last night, there was one tweet from a reporter that focus group attendees were falling asleep during the Democratic debate. Quite the opposite is happening on the Republican side. You're seeing the level of interest, intensity, enthusiasm because we offer high-quality candidates. We offer a level of vision and solutions that America is yearning for right now.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, Sean. As we look ahead to this prospect of the race lasting longer than the GOP expected. Are you confident that you will have a candidate by the time of the convention?

SPICER: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Confident you'll have it, no brokered convention?

SPICER: Well, first of all, I think that term gets thrown around pretty loosely. You know, a brokered convention was back in the 1950s when people would come in and say, I'm going to give you X number of delegates. That's, frankly, not the way the process would work --

[13:10:07] SCIUTTO: Well, I --

SPICER: -- anyway.

SCIUTTO: Beyond the semantics, --

SPICER: But, frankly, I --

SCIUTTO: -- the ultimate question is, do you believe you'll have an uncontested nomination by the time you get around to the -- to the -- to the convention?

SPICER: I do. I do. Yes, I do believe that.

SCIUTTO: All right.

SPICER: And I think that we'll have a much better -- like I said, 60 percent of the delegates, we need 1,237 to take our nomination. More voters are going to have an opportunity to be involved in this process than ever before. And I think, come the end of march, you'll hopefully start to see the emergence of a presumptive nominee.

But I think we're pretty confident that by mid-April, you'll have an idea of who our nominee is going to be.

SCIUTTO: Sean Spicer, we'll come back into April and we'll test your prediction there. Director of communications at the RNC. Thanks for taking your time today.

SPICER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And coming up, who likes President Obama more? Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders made their cases last night. Is clinging to president Obama a winning strategy?

And the pope is on his way to Cuba. He's expected to land soon. We'll tell you how he's making history there once again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SCIUTTO: Last night's Democratic debate was between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

But President Obama's presence certainly also loomed large. President -- Clinton rather, embraced the Obama legacy and questioned Sanders' support for the president.

[13:15:10] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president, I expect from Republicans, I do not expect from someone running from the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That is - Madam Secretary, that is a low blow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Low blow.

S.E. Cupp is a CNN political commentator, a Republican. Jamal Simmons is a Democrat and principle of The Raven Group. He was also a campaign surrogate for the 2008 Obama/Biden campaign.

Jamal, if I could start with you, key here, of course, for the Hillary Clinton campaign is improving her - increasing her appeal among African-Americans. Attaching herself to the Obama legacy appears to be the strategy here. Does that work?

JAMAL SIMMONS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, it will work with older African-American voters who have an extraordinary attachment to the president and really want to be supportive. The place where it gets a little bit dodgy is with younger African-American voters who look back and they say, you know what, we thought we were going to get a little bit more, we thought we were going to move the ball more. Now these issues of criminal justice are on the table. They want somebody who's really going to pick those up and run with it. And Bernie Sanders is speaking to them in a much more emotional way about the problems and Hillary Clinton has to figure out a way to capture that if she wants to win those folks over.

SCIUTTO: And he's winning those younger voters among whites as well and among other groups. You were - you were going to pipe in. Yes.

S.E. CUPP, CNN COMMENTATOR: And more broadly - and more broadly I think that's - that's also because younger voters and non- establishment voters don't really care about preserving a president's legacy. That's not what moves them to go into a voting booth.

SIMMONS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CUPP: And I think, you know, going for a change candidate like Bernie feels more authentic and exciting to a young person. SCIUTTO: And -

SIMMONS: And, you know, frankly, what 20-year-old wants to do what their parents are doing?

SCIUTTO: Right.

SIMMONS: It's way more interesting to be on the outside.

CUPP: Right.

SCIUTTO: To do the exact opposite.

But I have to ask, you know, you saw the candidates falling over each other to attach themselves to the Obama legacy.

CUPP: Yes.

SCIUTTO: We now how that plays on the other side of the aisle, in the Republican part. I wonder if, as a Republican, you were relishing this watching them kind of say I'm - no, I'm the real Obama support, no, I'm the real Obama supporter?

CUPP: Oh, there were some fascinating acrobatics last night. To see Hillary Clinton skewing single payer and defending the insurance system was - was really remarkable. Look, say what you want about what's going on, on my side of the aisle, and it can be a circus. I think the Democrats campaign has devolved a bit as well. Who like Obama more? Who hates Wall Street the most? Is Bernie Sanders sexist? Are his female supporters just trying to meet guys? I mean I don't think this is the kind of stuff that voters in either the primary or the general really care about. So -

SCIUTTO: Well, to be fair, the - and we'll talk about that later with both of you, the Republican wave is not exactly - you know, a Tea Party -

CUPP: I know that. I admitted it. I admitted it.

SCIUTTO: If I could ask you, Jamal, so Sanders, he's trying to cut into Clinton's support among African-American voters, as we know. Let's just play a short clip here. Here's how he responded to a question about race relations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So race relations would be better under a Sanders presidency than they've been?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Absolutely. Because what we will do is say, instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, we are going to create millions of jobs for low income kids so they're not hanging out on street corners. We're going to make sure that those kids stay in school, are able to get a college education.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: So, Jamal, that's a fairly bold step to say -

SIMMONS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: That he would do better on these issues than the nation's first African-American president.

SIMMONS: Yes, and he got it precisely half wrong. I mean, first of all, every time you ask him a question it's about billionaires. So he's got to figure out a way to kind of - to talk to people in a bigger - in a bigger way.

SCIUTTO: Billionaires are billionaires.

SIMMONS: Secondly, the thing about race relations is not about African-American kids getting jobs. That's going to good for the African-American economy. The thing about race relations the economy will help is if more white Americans feel like they have an economic future and feel invested and are willing to be a little bit perhaps more generous and more open. But I think as people feel like the economy is not taking off as much, they're much more protective of what they have. And so every new person added to the pie seems a little like, you're taking something away from me versus me having something that I'm willing to share.

SCIUTTO: Right, (INAUDIBLE) competitor (ph). And you're right, a lot of polls have shown that it's white Americans who have a bleaker outlook about the future than black Americans.

I want you both to stay here because we're going to come back, talk about the other side of the race.

SIMMONS: OK.

SCIUTTO: Jamal Simmons and S.E. Cupp, they're going to stick with us. We'll see that later in the show.

And still to come in the meantime, Syria, a country wrecked, devastated by war. Thousands of civilians in desperate need of help. But under a new agreement, some relief could be on the way. We're going to test it. The details, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:24:09] SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

Four GOP presidential candidates are expected to speak at the Faith and Family Forum in Greenville, South Carolina, today. Ben Carson, you can see there, is speaking right now. We're going to listen in.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But I believe that we the people will be the ones who will make that determination, not they the media and not they the pundits and not they the political class. If we continue to listen to them, we will continue to go down the same path. They all do is they change it a little bit, they tweak it a little bit. But the fact of the matter is, they're all connected with all the special interest groups and the billionaires. It's one of the reasons why I absolutely refuse to take money from special interest groups and billionaire who want to influence the process, because it is corrupting everything. And as I've looked under the hood of what runs this nation, your first impression is to close it and run away. But the fact of the matter is, I have to think about those who are coming after us. I have to think about our -

[13:25:09] SCIUTTO: You've been listening there to Ben Carson, Republican presidential candidate. He's speaking at the Faith and Family Forum in Greenville, South Carolina. Four GOP candidates will be there today. We'll be watching throughout.

Looking now to overseas news. It is a deal that looks good, at least on paper. Now the question remains, is the cessation of hostilities in Syria, will that work on the ground? Here's what the us, Russia and other members of the international Syria support group agreed to, the acceleration and expansion of humanitarian aid efforts to besieged cities in Syria, and in one week, a nationwide pause crucially in the fighting. The principle goal here is to bring Bashar al Assad's government and the rebels back to the bargaining table. Now, this does not apply, however, to the battle against ISIS and the al Qaeda tied Al Nusra front and, keep this in mind, Russia will also continue its air strikes.

Senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen, he is the first correspondent to get into as many areas of norther Syria that have been closed off for fighting by - for several years now. he joins us now from Damascus.

So, Fred, let's talk about the Syrian reaction to this. What's their reaction to this agreed upon cessation and is it your feeling, is it your belief they will abide by this agreement?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's going to be the big question at - certainly at this point in time, Jim. The Syrian government feels that in the north of Aleppo, which is where I was yesterday, that they are winning. That they are pushing the rebels back very close to the Turkish border. Actually, I was in that area just two days ago where they have that offensive going on against the rebels, that we were so close to Turkish - to the Turkish space that we were actually getting Turkish cell phone networks. So that's how far the front line has moved north of Aleppo at this point in time.

It's interesting also because the Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, gave an interview to (INAUDIBLE) today where he said that his goal still is to take back all of Syria. Let's have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASHAR AL-ASSAD, SYRIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We have fully believed in negotiations and in political action since the beginning of the crisis. However, if we negotiate, it does not mean we stop fighting terrorism. The two tracks are inevitable in Syria, first through negotiations and second through fighting terrorism. And the two tracks are separate from each other. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So at this point the big question is, what sort of incentives does the outside government - does Bashar al Assad himself have to go to the negotiating table and to actually put this so-called cessation of hostilities in place? Certainly speaking to Syrian soldiers on the front lines in Aleppo, also north of Aleppo as well, they certainly say that are very confident, but they also acknowledge that they wouldn't have gotten to where they are right now without those Russian air strikes. (INAUDIBLE) say that that's something that's made a big difference.

And having been in Damascus today, Jim, just really quickly, after those negotiations took place there in Munich, we did see a lot of air strikes take place here in the Syrian capital on this day as well.

SCIUTTO: Well, no question, it's a cessation for some of the parties involved in the conflict. You've been to these - some of these besieged cities, particularly Aleppo. Tell us just how dire the circumstances are there because that's really what's been driving this. And I've spoken to aid agencies, Mercy Corps, for instance, they describe just a - just a horrible situation on the ground.

PLEITGEN: Yes. There's a big (INAUDIBLE) between a lot of these besieged areas, but a lot of them certainly are in an awful (INAUDIBLE). I was in two areas just two days ago that were pro- government areas actually that had been besieged by the (INAUDIBLE) for about (INAUDIBLE) years and they had to get goods air dropped in by regime helicopters for a while. They say the situation (INAUDIBLE) really bad.

And of course on the other side, you do have similar things happening as well and in some cases are worse. There's, for instance, (INAUDIBLE), which is a town that's really close here to - to Damascus where a siege has been going on for a very long time where aid people say that many people have died of starvation and that is really just in bad need of any sort of aide coming in at any (INAUDIBLE) in time. And then you also have places that are under ISIS siege, where some 200,000 (ph) people (INAUDIBLE) in their (INAUDIBLE) don't have access to even the basic goods, where event he Russians have air dropped goods in as well.

And so certainly this is a big problem. It's a problem that persists on all sides of the conflict where the United Nations has said it holds the Syrian government, some rebel groups, but also ISIS responsible for what is going on here on the ground. And it certainly was one of the main priorities at that Munich conference to try and get at least that sorted out, to make sure that the denial of food and the denial of medicine cannot be used as a weapon in this war any longer.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Fred Pleitgen, he is in Damascus, Syria. And just for our viewers, that's one reason why the signal has been difficult from there, but he's one of the closest reporters to the front lines. Fred Pleitgen in Damascus.

[13:30:09] Coming up, Pope Francis is on the move. The pontiff heading to Cuba to meet the head of the Russian orthodox