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South Carolina Republican Primary; Mourning Scalia. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired February 19, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:45]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 3:00 p.m. Eastern, top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for my good friend Brooke Baldwin.

Happening now: the body of Justice Antonin Scalia lying in repose ahead of tomorrow's funeral. President Obama is expected to make an appearance there today. We will bring that to you live when he does arrive.

Also happening now, on the eve of the South Carolina Republican primary, the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, taking on that stage, just walked on the stage and Pawleys Island, South Carolina. This is one of three rallies he's holding in that state today.

All six Republicans blanketing South Carolina trying to earn last- minute voters in the first primary in the South.

Let's go to our Jeremy Diamond. He's Pawleys Island. He's at this event where Trump just took the stage.

Right off the bat, he goes after Ted Cruz, right?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, that was just at the last event. Donald Trump went in pretty hard against Ted Cruz, as he has pretty much since coming in second place to him and a little bit before that even. But this week, he's really ramped up his attacks on Ted Cruz.

Listen to what he said just earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He tells people that I'm going to help you with Wall Street, big bad Wall Street is terrible what they're doing, and yet he borrowed a million dollars with a personal guarantee at a low interest rate, a rate that you would be very proud to pay.

He forgets to mention that he's borrowed money from Citibank, Goldman Sachs and the rate of interest is like Rockefeller in his prime would have to pay, OK, so low. He forgot. And he didn't put it down on the form. He never put it down on the form that he borrowed $1 million.

And then he talks about how he's going to get -- well, Goldman Sachs. I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total, total control over him, just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And there you have it. That's Donald Trump just earlier in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Now he's speaking here in Pawleys Island, but that quote, that sound bite there just shows you how contentious and how tight this race has gotten in South Carolina.

Donald Trump still favored to come in first place here. But he of course really wants to get a win in South Carolina. It's going to be a great sign for him, give him some momentum off his victory in New Hampshire. But it shows also Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz really close together and Donald Trump and Marco Rubio kind of tag-teamed their attacks on Ted Cruz, both calling him a liar. That's kind of the way South Carolina politics is going right now.

HARLOW: They certainly have a history of it there in South Carolina. Politics can get kind of nasty, a very engaged electorate. They will be out in full force tomorrow, no question. We will be watching.

Jeremy Diamond, thank you.

I want to bring in now Ryan Williams, a former spokesman for Mitt Romney when he was governor, also Bob Cusack, editor in chief of "The Hill."

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Ryan, let me begin with you. Let's all listen to what Donald Trump said about Jeb Bush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I literally was just handed this. There's a report now out tonight on BuzzFeed that includes - I have not heard it - includes an audio clip of what appears to be you on Howard Stern talking on the radio on September 11, 2002. He asked you are you for invading Iraq? You said, yes, I guess so. You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly.

Is that accurate? Do you remember saying that?

TRUMP: No. But, I mean, I could - I could have said that. Nobody asked me - I wasn't a politician. It was probably the first time anybody asked me that question.

Do you know Jeb Bush said Donald Trump is a gifted, gifted politician. My wife said, I thought he was your enemy. Why is he saying that? I said, because he's stupid. What can I tell you?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No, he calls me a gifted politician. I never thought of myself. He's a highly gifted politician. OK. So I'm only kidding, Jeb. I didn't mean that. You're a very nice man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So, Ryan, to you. Sorry, we rolled the wrong sound bite first. But you heard the latter there and what he said about Jeb Bush. You're just a really nice guy.

Ryan, you are a Jeb Bush supporter. Lindsey Graham calls South Carolina a reset moment for the Bush campaign. We will see what happens tomorrow. But is this the fundamental problem, too nice?

RYAN WILLIAMS, REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT: Well, look, Governor Bush is making the point that Donald Trump is a very good entertainer. He's someone who makes people laugh. He's kind of a joke, but he's not ready to be commander in chief.

[15:05:02]

Jeb Bush is ready to be commander in chief. He has talked about over the course of his campaign how he would be the best person, and proven to be the best person chosen to lead our country as a chief executive who led a big state. Donald Trump is a joke. Jeb Bush has been really the only candidate for most of this campaign who has been calling him out for his outrageous statements and his inability to be our nominee and lead our country.

HARLOW: But then why aren't voters seeing it the way you do, by a wide margin?

WILLIAMS: Right now, we have a divided field amongst the mainstream candidates. Donald Trump is consolidating a small portion of the electorate -- of the primary electorate who is into his rhetoric.

But what we are going to see I think over the next several weeks is the mainstream field consolidate around Governor Jeb Bush as he builds steam heading into some of the March states.

HARLOW: Let's talk about, Bob, the sound bite we just ran, the first one there, what he said -- what Donald Trump said about the Iraq War, right? BuzzFeed found this 2002 interview that Donald Trump gave to Howard Stern actually on his show, saying he was supportive of the war.

Then he comes out after the headlines from 2003, '4 and on, saying he's not supportive of the war. What's your take on that? Does this hurt him among voters?

BOB CUSACK, "THE HILL": I think it hurts him a little bit, Poppy, but not that much, just because he's changed position on a number of issues, including on abortion and has cited Ronald Reagan who used to be a Democrat and Donald Trump used to be a Democrat.

It seems like Donald Trump is Teflon this cycle. He's been able to get away with a fair amount of controversial statements. And he's on top right now. And I think it's now a question -- I agree with Ryan, is that the mainstream lane, whether that's Kasich or Bush or Rubio, you know, they're competing with one another in South Carolina.

You don't want to finish fifth if you're in that trio. If you finish fifth, I think you're in real trouble, assuming that Carson finishes sixth. So it's all the expectations game. The expectation is Donald Trump is going to win and probably Cruz is going to finish second.

HARLOW: And, Ryan, I know you are a Jeb Bush supporter, but when you talk about sort of that mainstream line and having to winnow it and narrow it down, right, so the numbers look a little more clear, talk to me about Kasich last night.

I felt watching that just as a viewer, not as a journalist, like I really got to know Kasich for the first time and more so than I got to know Jeb Bush, even though he did talk in a very revealing way about his family and his wife.

WILLIAMS: Well, John Kasich is a candidate that does not have a national organization. He's not even going to be in South Carolina on primary night. He has no ability to win this nomination. He's not a strong enough candidate. Doesn't have the resources for it and really cannot consolidate the party.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: You don't think Jeb Bush should be threatened by him at all, even though he came in second in New Hampshire?

HARLOW: Governor Kasich is competing still in the race, but he does not have the type of organization that Governor Bush and other candidates have, which can take on Donald Trump, which can help us get a strong nominee in November, so no, he's not...

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: When you say organization, what do you mean by that? Because, yes, Jeb Bush has all the money, but that didn't help him in Iowa or New Hampshire.

WILLIAMS: Well, we're going to be heading into March, where there will be a number of different states on the same day, on some of the upcoming Tuesdays. You are going to need a candidate that has a campaign that can compete everywhere, not just in I think Kasich's focusing on Michigan and Ohio and a few states. You need to be able to run a national campaign once we get out of the first early few states.

And Governor Kasich simply does not have the organization needed to move forward.

HARLOW: Let's talk, Bob, about one of the moments that we saw last night with Governor Kasich. Let's roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How would you address the American people and our current state, our values, our moral compass and our willingness to put our trust in a man who gets more out of making fun of other candidates than really truly embracing the issues?

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's up to you. I mean, you guys tell your friends. What do you think? I'm going to get on stage -- I should just like tackle him, you know? I mean, that ain't going to work. He weighs more than I do.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Bob, that's an interesting response that I haven't really heard before, right? It's on you, the voter. What did you make of it?

CUSACK: Yes, it's going to be interesting. I don't know the answer to it.

But Kasich has tried to stay above the fray in the last debate. Does that help him? And South Carolina is known for rough politics and voters like to see punching and being able to take a punch. I think Kasich does have momentum. However, I don't know if South Carolina is the state for him. Very conservative state. Some of the base certainly thinks he is a moderate.

But I do think that those moments, those are real moments. They're unscripted moments. They help John Kasich.

HARLOW: It was fascinating to hear him sort of plea with the audience last night, gentlemen, at the end and he said, please, I need your vote, I need the other states to see me and I need to have a shot in all this.

[15:10:00]

We will see tomorrow how it all plays out there in South Carolina. Ryan Williams, Bob Cusack, thank you very much.

CUSACK: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Reminder, as I mentioned, tomorrow, big day in politics.

CNN will have complete live coverage of the South Carolina primary and the Democratic caucuses in Nevada all day tomorrow right here on CNN.

Coming up next, we turn to the Democrats, Hillary Clinton being tested in what is shaping up to be a very close neck-and-neck race in Nevada. The former secretary of state just picked up a very key endorsement. It's an endorsement that eluded her back in 2008, Congressman Jim Clyburn. How influential is he when it comes to getting out the vote for her?

Also, we're looking at live pictures of Justice Scalia lying in repose at the Great Hall at the Supreme Court. We will discuss the man, his legacy and President Obama, who is expected to pay respects today. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back.

As Republicans battle for South Carolina, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, they're out West, the two Democratic rivals entering the final stretch before tomorrow's Nevada caucuses.

[15:15:00]

Hillary Clinton just picked up a huge endorsement, an endorsement she hopes will translate into votes. It's something she wanted, she coveted in 2008. South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, highest ranking African-American on Capitol Hill, the number three ranking Democrat in Congress, just gave his powerful stamp of approval to Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: I learned a long time ago that Hillary Clinton is a fighter. And that's what we need in our next president. The change we seek for this great country will not come easy.

We need a real fighter. And I believe Hillary Clinton is that fighter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Bakari Sellers is with me. He's a CNN commentator. He supports Hillary Clinton. He's there in his native South Carolina. Jeff Zeleny, CNN Washington correspondent, is with us as well in Las Vegas with the Sanders camp.

But let me start with you, Bakari. We know all the headlines, right, that he's the third ranking Democrat in Congress, that he's the highest ranking African-American in Congress. There are those that argue right now endorsements are not what they were in 2008 in this election today. How much do you think this really helps Clinton?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think it helps her tremendously. You said it best, that he's not just a Democrat from South Carolina, but he is the highest ranking African-American official in the United States Congress.

And in 2008, Congressman Clyburn didn't endorse anyone. In fact , he was more of an umpire, calling balls and strikes fair and unfair. Hillary Clinton is doing extremely well before this endorsement. This is the cherry on top. But this also subsequently breaks the back of any momentum that Bernie Sanders may have had here in South Carolina.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Bakari, doesn't it just help her with the vote she already had? She already overwhelmingly holds the African-American vote, at least when you look at the polling, OK, over Sanders. SELLERS: Well, I think it helps coalesce and helps solidify, but this

just isn't about South Carolina. This is what I'm attempting to get through.

It's more about after she comes out victorious in South Carolina, doing extremely well, and using this a springboard into Super Tuesday. Congressman Clyburn's voice today, his stamp today is not just a stamp for South Carolina, but it's a stamp that will reverberate throughout the SEC primary and carry on.

HARLOW: Yes. It's an important point to make, right? I shouldn't -- it's not just that he helps her with African-American voters. It's what he stands for that may help her with voters across the board who support those same things.

SELLERS: Right.

HARLOW: An important distinction I should have made.

Jeff, to you. You have got the Clark County Black Caucus in Nevada where you are just came out, reversely, and backed Sanders. Can you walk me through how much that matters?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Poppy.

This is definitely a good endorsement for Senator Sanders. It is not like the endorsement of a leading congressman. There's no question about that, because Congressman Clyburn does have an apparatus.

But in this anti-establishment mood of this electorate, I'm not sure that any endorsement is carrying its weight, but this endorsement of the black leadership of the Las Vegas area, some who are supporting Senator Sanders, certainly gives him some validation.

He's the insurgent here. But really going forward here, what Senator Sanders is trying to do in Nevada is get people to turn out and vote. That sounds obvious, but the Nevada caucuses are still a pretty new event. The South Carolina primary's very well-established as the first primary in the South, but this is only the second election cycle where Nevada has played such a role here.

Listen to what he said just a few minutes ago in Elko, Nevada, trying to make a big turnout argument for tomorrow's caucus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And what I have always said, and I really believe this from my heart of hearts, is, obviously, we are here to win, and we hope will win.

But I want democracy to flourish. And I hope that Nevada shows the entire country. The country is going to be looking at your state tomorrow. I hope we have a huge vote. Huge, did you get that word?

(LAUGHTER) SANDERS: All right. Ever since I have been on "Saturday Night Live," I'm afraid of I keep thinking of other adjectives. I'm afraid to use that word.

(LAUGHTER)

SANDERS: But I hope we have very large, very, very large voter turnout tomorrow. Show the world that democracy is alive and well here in Nevada.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right, Bernie Sanders there in Nevada.

I do want to let you know, though, guys, we have got to wrap it up there.

Jeff Zeleny, thank you very much, Bakari Sellers.

Because we do have some news just into us here at CNN. And that is President Obama and the first lady have just left the White House. They're on their way to the Supreme Court to pay respects to Antonin Scalia, the justice lying who is in repose after serving on our nation's highest court for 30 years.

I want to bring in presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

[15:20:00]

Douglas, as we await the president and the first lady paying their respects that they're going to do today, we know they will not be at the funeral tomorrow. The vice president, Joe Biden, will be at the funeral tomorrow. Your thoughts?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: President Obama is not very close and never really personally knew Justice Scalia in any meaningful way.

There are not any funny anecdotes to tell about each other, and I think the president thought it wouldn't be proper for him to eat up the oxygen at the memorial church service funeral, so he decided not to go. They both are constitutional lawyers.

They both graduated from Harvard Law School. But they really are on opposite sides of all these key issues. In fact, Justice Scalia was opposed to affirmative action and some union rights and certain things that Barack Obama's built his whole career on.

HARLOW: Jeffrey Toobin, to you, our senior legal analyst, Supreme Court expert, author "The Nine."

You were with me for hours and hours on the air on Saturday when the news of Justice Scalia's death broke. And now as sit here, Jeffrey, five days later, I'm just interested in what you think the world has learned about Justice Scalia since his passing that perhaps most people didn't know about the man? JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: You know, it's true, I was over at the Great Hall earlier paying my own respects, just where everyone is -- where the camera is focused there now.

The thing that strikes you when you go to the Supreme Court at a moment like this is what an intimate place it is. This is not an enormous bureaucracy. There are not a lot people who work at the Supreme Court. There are nine justices. They have four law clerks apiece. They work very closely together.

They can't talk about their work with other people. And you just get this sense of real grief in that building. Justice Scalia was a larger-than-life figure. It's going to be a very different thing to go to a Supreme Court argument for the first time when Justice Scalia isn't there.

And on Monday, they will be back at work. This is a politically polarizing moment, because he was a politically polarizing person. And I think his legacy is very uncertain at this moment, because if President Obama or a Democrat gets to fill Justice Scalia's seat, that will convert the court to a five-member liberal majority, which it has not had in two generations.

So the court could be looking at profound change away from Justice Scalia, depending on how this confirmation fight turns out.

HARLOW: I wonder, Jeffrey, if you think there is a lesson for all of us to learn from Justice Scalia, remember, someone who in 1986 was unanimously confirmed by the Senate after being nominated by then President Ronald Reagan, but someone who called one of his dearest and closest friends his ideological opposite and that is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Is there something about cooperation perhaps we could learn from him in a time like this?

TOOBIN: Well, I think the lesson might be more about friendship than cooperation. They didn't cooperate. They voted against each other on every major constitutional issue that they were -- that was before them. But they were also friendly with each other.

HARLOW: Right. Right.

TOOBIN: Doug would know a lot about this, that, you know, there was a time in Washington in the 1950s, perhaps in the 1960s, even into the '70s, where people, after work, would get along, cooperate when they could.

Now it's a much more socially separated city. It's a place where people, Republicans socialize with Republicans and Democrats socialize with Democrats. Frankly, I don't know what difference that makes in the public's business in terms of what government does, but it was a more congenial place perhaps in those days and the friendship between Ginsburg and Scalia really was a reflection of that kind of world.

HARLOW: And, Douglas Brinkley, to you. Your thoughts on certainly how the political world in Washington has changed as we await the president and the first lady appearing here in the Great Hall.

BRINKLEY: Well, it certainly has.

We're now looking at President Obama coming. He just didn't have much of a relationship with Justice Scalia at all. It wasn't that old-time Washington feeling. Joe Biden, however, has been a fixture in D.C., and so he knew the family, knows some of the children. And I think he's going to be the White House spokesperson coming up.

It's worth noting that the president, upon the death of Justice Scalia, did issue a very moving tribute to him as being an American giant.

HARLOW: Yes. We heard him come out and speak there live in California on the night of his passing.

Michelle Kosinski is also with us from the White House.

And, Michelle, we had some news just this afternoon from the White House, and the process now, the process for the president, who has said he will name a nominee to replace Scalia. What did we learn?

[15:25:01]

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. It's under way in earnest.

The White House team has been on it. In the past 24 hours, the president called four senators who are, you know, in the leadership, and two of whom, Senators McConnell and Grassley, just wrote an op-ed for "The Washington Post" saying that the president should wait, that this should be the job of the next president.

So the president had phone conversations with them, also Senators Leahy and Reid. These conversations are described as brief, but the president wanted to lay out his argument that this was his constitutional duty, that it's the constitutional duty of the Senate to take up his nominee, although some Republicans have even disputed the premise of that argument.

There's been this back and forth. I mean, the White House today was tweeting out something Senator Grassley said in 2008, that the Senate doesn't stop confirming nominees just because it's an election year.

Republicans have been digging up things that Democrats said years ago about wanting to wait or something along those lines, so the battle is really just beginning. And it could be an epic one. In the meantime, though, what the president plans to do this weekend is, as the White House put it, spend a significant amount of time going through a large amount of material that the White House team has put together on the potential nominees.

They're not naming any names at this point. But we know these are, you know, files composed on their biographies, their public records and their backgrounds for the president to go over. They're not giving an exact number of how many, but they're saying this isn't the short list, that this number is going to change. The list isn't complete yet. This is very preliminary, although, again, they said this is a large amount of information.

As for the number, they would only say it's more than two people. And that is how the president is going to work this weekend on that. The White House is also backing away from saying at this point that it's a foregone conclusion that his nominee is going to be a moderate, even though many people think so.

The vice president himself has said now in interviews that a consensus candidate would be best, that this pretty much has to be a moderate candidate. But the White House isn't going there. They're only saying that this person's qualifications will be indisputable, Poppy.

HARLOW: All right, Michelle Kosinski at the White House, stay with us.

Back to Douglas Brinkley, CNN presidential historian, and Jeffrey Toobin, CNN senior legal analyst.

Jeffrey, to you. I just want to take about a very sort of beautiful, poignant moment today when we saw Justice Scalia's son, a son who is a Catholic priest, praying over his father's casket today. He will deliver and celebrate mass tomorrow at the ceremony.

This is a father of nine, someone who is a grandfather of 28. Talk to me about that moment.

TOOBIN: Well, latest development is, Poppy, it's 36 grandchildren, not 28. That number has been -- lots of us have been trying to track down the precise number. But 36 does appear to be the final number.

HARLOW: Wow.

TOOBIN: It was a beautiful moment. That room, the Great Hall, is so extraordinary. People can see a live picture now. It's a room where there are busts of all the chief justices who have served.

And just to give you an idea of how significant it is to be the chief justice of the United States, as we all know, there have been 44 presidents of the United States. But there's been only 17 chief justices of the United States. So it is a very rarefied air.

And it was frankly wonderful to see Paul Scalia offer that prayer and to see the justices lined up in the order in which they will now sit.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Let's show that, Jeffrey, and talk about it because I believe we have that image from earlier today, because it was this really stunning moment. You saw the justices seated in that order without their robes, in a way, if we can pull it up, in a way we haven't seen them before, Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: Right, and what's so extraordinary is they are now in the order in which they will sit without Justice Scalia. You can see Elena Kagan there in the blue shirt, Justice Alito next to

her, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, and Chief Justice Roberts. What's -- where Anthony Kennedy is standing, that's where Justice Scalia used to be, because the senior associate justice, the longest tenured associate justice always sits to the right of the chief justice.

And Justice Scalia was such a big presence in the courtroom, right next to the chief justice, that it is going to be very weird, frankly, to be in that courtroom on Monday without chief justice -- without Justice Scalia there.