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Interview With Presidential Candidate Ben Carson; Nevada Caucuses. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 23, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:40]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, 3:00 Eastern. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for my friend Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with us.

This afternoon, competing rallies from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, Trump in Sparks, Nevada, Cruz in the town of Minden, this just hours before the real competition tonight, the Nevada Republican caucuses. Will Donald Trump bring home a third-in-a-row win for the Republican nomination? Or will we see an upset surprise?

Let's get straight to our correspondents in Nevada. Sunlen Serfaty is with the Cruz camp in Minden. Maeve Reston is with Trump in Sparks.

And, Maeve, let me begin with you.

Trump, by all accounts, if you believe the polls, expected to have a big night. But what we know about Nevada, two things, low turnout typically in these caucuses, and, also, the polling is not great.

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Not great, but it's definitely feeling like Trump country out here in Nevada.

We do know that Donald Trump is trying to turn out his supporters. He's been saying at the last couple of rallies that all of these big rallies that he's having aren't worth anything if people don't show up to caucus tonight.

It is such a quirky system here in Nevada that it's very difficult to figure out who's going to turn out. But, of course, he also has been really going after Ted Cruz with some of his harshest language yet in Las Vegas last night, calling Ted Cruz thick and saying that he's not getting evangelical voters because he's running a dishonest campaign.

We're expecting to hear more on that from Trump here in Sparks as he tries to make his final pitch to voters here in Nevada.

HARLOW: And, Sunlen, to you. You have got Ted Cruz and Donald Trump just going head to head to head. And you know Ted Cruz, he is trying to sort of get last-minute support, last-minute momentum. He'd like to see another finish like Iowa. What's he doing?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's really having a multistop day, Poppy. He has a series of four events today. And then he will stop at a caucus site actually in Sparks, Nevada, later tonight with his wife trying to shore up some last-minute votes there. But a big part of his message today that been responding to Donald Trump.

HARLOW: Right.

SERFATY: As Maeve said, those allegations, those point-blank accusations that he is thick and a liar, well, Ted Cruz directly responded to Trump on this today and really launched his most direct attack on Trump's character, saying that it shows that he lacks core principles.

Here's a little bit of what Ted Cruz said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I frankly don't care what position Donald decides to support today or tomorrow or the next day. They change every day. I don't care what they are. But pick one and defend it and don't pretend whenever people suddenly point out what you said, oh, never mind.

And, look, part of the reason someone vacillates from position to position to position is they're not starting from a core set of principles and beliefs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Trump -- he is also fighting this multifront battle also with Marco Rubio, who's been arguing here in Nevada that he is the electable candidate as the alternative to Trump, and conservatives should coalesce behind his candidacy.

Well, the Cruz campaign today really starting to push this message today through their surrogates, telling voters at events today point- blank that don't let anyone tell you that Ted Cruz is not electable, Poppy.

HARLOW: We will watch. It all starts tonight. We will have live coverage throughout, of course, with the best political team in television. Maeve Reston, Sunlen Serfaty, thank you both.

We are, as we said, just about six hours away from the start of the Nevada Republican caucuses.

Dr. Ben Carson, one of the presidential hopefuls left in the GOP field that has been winnowing down hoping to get those votes tonight. He joins me now from Las Vegas.

Thank you for being with me, sir.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A pleasure.

HARLOW: Let's talk about the numbers so far, because, yes, there are many, many, many delegates and many, many states still to go. But you finished fourth in Iowa, eighth in New Hampshire, sixth in South Carolina. The latest CNN poll of polls has you with 7 percent of the support nationally. How do you turn this around?

CARSON: Well, hopefully, what we will start doing now that the number of candidates is smaller is actually look at the issues, actually talk about the solutions, and not make it a personality contest.

[15:05:01]

And I think that will help quite a bit, you know, just being able to focus on the real problems, rather than getting people into arguments all the time.

HARLOW: But how does it, Doctor, significantly change, when you have all -- you know, most of the headlines are right now Trump vs. Cruz, you know, who's lying, who's telling the truth, et cetera? How does that get to the issues?

CARSON: Well, obviously, it's going to have to be we the people who change the issues. That's not ever going to happen with the media, because, you know, they want to sell headlines.

They're not interested in what is happening to the country.

HARLOW: But that's what the candidates are talking about, sir. They're pointing fingers at one another.

CARSON: No, no, that's what the -- that's what the candidates are asked about.

They're always asked about the controversy. You know, it's like the ancient Romans in the Coliseum. Everybody wants to go and see the blood and the gore. Nobody is paying attention to the fact that Rome is burning.

HARLOW: You say to get back to the issues, but you said this during an interview. Let's play it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CARSON: Like most Americans, I was proud that we broke the color barrier when he was elected. But I also recognize that his experience and my experience are night-and-day different. He didn't grow up like I grew up, by any stretch. That's right, not even close.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is an African American, as opposed to an African-American.

CARSON: He's an African American. He was, you know, raised white. Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So, you say, sir, talk about the issues, yet you spend a good portion of the interview with Politico last night talking about President Obama's race. Why is that?

CARSON: Well, I would say go back and read the whole interview. That wasn't very much of it, quite frankly.

HARLOW: I did read it.

CARSON: And Politico did put the whole thing out there, so you can see that that's a relatively small portion of it.

But here's the real key. You know, America, and many people in America are still very uncomfortable when it comes to issues of race. And, you know, I once again crossed the P.C. barrier. I don't think anybody would deny that someone who is raised in Hawaii by his white grandparents, and then spent formative years in Indonesia with his white mother, does not have the typical black experience.

If anybody can explain to me how that's the typical black experience, I stand corrected.

HARLOW: The president lived in Indonesia from age 6 to age 10.

When you said that he was raised white, can you walk us through, what does that mean? How should people understand that?

CARSON: Well, that doesn't mean anything bad. It's only the P.C. police who have tried to interpret that as something bad.

HARLOW: So, what does it mean?

CARSON: It's just that his -- I'm going to tell you.

His cultural experience is vastly different than that of the majority of black people who were raised in America. That's what I'm saying. Does it mean that it's worse? No. People are raised in different cultures. And they have different cultural experiences.

HARLOW: What did you experience growing up as a black man in Detroit? What did you experience that is different from the president? Because it seems like juxtaposing the two, and that's fair. So walk me through it.

CARSON: Well, that would take a very, very long time.

But the fact of the matter is, you know, I grew up in Detroit and I grew up in Boston. In Boston, you know, we lived in the ghetto. There were a lot of violent episodes there. There were rats, there were roaches. It was dire poverty. I had a mother who worked starting at 5:00 in the morning, getting home after midnight, going from job to job to job.

She didn't like the idea of being on welfare. Most people said, you got two boys, you can be on aid to dependent children. She didn't want to do that.

Now, let me contrast that to the president, who went to private schools, grew up in a relatively affluent environment. I had an opportunity to live in multiple cultures in different countries. I think that's a very different experience.

HARLOW: Why -- why not criticize President Obama on his policy, on merits, instead...

CARSON: I wasn't criticizing him.

See, that's -- excuse me, but that's you guys in the news media who are trying to make it into a fight.

HARLOW: OK. Let me read...

(CROSSTALK)

CARSON: I'm just stating the obvious facts.

HARLOW: Let me reframe it this way, then, if that's what you believe. That's how many people interpret it, I would tell you, Dr. Carson.

But why then speak about the president in terms of race and how he was raised, and not on policy and merits? Because this isn't a candidate you're running against. And this comes on the eve of the Nevada caucuses.

[15:10:08]

How does this help you get more support?

CARSON: Well, I'm talking about the facts.

And what we were talking about is, I said I was proud of the fact that the color barrier had been broken. But there's a difference in breaking the color barrier in somebody who's had the typical experience vs. somebody who has not.

And for you and the rest of the media to try to pretend like, just because your skin is the same color, it means you have all grown up in the same way doesn't make any sense. I'm pointing that fact out. You're not supposed to point that fact out, because it makes people uncomfortable. And, therefore, the P.C. police come down on you.

But I will fight them tooth and nail on this. And I will tell you that anybody who's sensible knows that the way that he was brought up is very different from the way that most black people in this country are brought up.

HARLOW: Are you saying, then, so that if you were elected president, you would be the first truly African-American, black...

CARSON: That was you guys.

HARLOW: I'm asking -- that's why I'm asking you.

CARSON: I never said that.

HARLOW: I'm asking you...

CARSON: No.

HARLOW: ... do you believe the headlines that said that this morning?

CARSON: I believe that all the emphasis on race is way overblown. And I think it -- I think this conversation is contributing to it. I think this is a nothing burger, myself.

HARLOW: All right, I want to turn to a major headline today, the president's plans to close Guantanamo Bay.

Let's listen to part of what he said earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With this plan, we have the opportunity finally to eliminate a terrorist propaganda tool, strengthen relationships with allies and partners, enhance our national security, and most importantly uphold the values that define us as Americans.

I'm absolutely committed to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: This is something that he pledged to do, you will remember, sir, back in 2009, just as he became president.

CARSON: Sure.

HARLOW: Seven years later, he's presenting it to Congress, not just him. I mean, his predecessor, President George W. Bush, wanted to close Guantanamo. What would you do as president?

CARSON: Well, you would have to look at, you know, what are the benefits and what are the costs?

Now, they're saying that because it costs $400 million-plus a year to keep open, that it's not worth doing. But you have to also ask yourself, where do we have that we can take these prisoners of war? We're involved in a long-term war here. This is not something that's just going to disappear.

And we need to have a place to take people. We need to have a place where we can try to derive information from them that would be beneficial to us in terms of our safety. And I'm not seeing what the alternative is, quite frankly.

So, until we have a better alternative, I certainly would not close it. I want to hear the explanations on how we're going to derive that information. And he's assuming that the next president will want to do the things the way that he does them, which is to kill the opposition, rather than to capture the opposition and derive important information that can help us to protect ourselves.

HARLOW: So, to the president's claim that not only is it extraordinarily expensive, but to his claim, as he spoke about today, that it helps recruit terrorists, that it is one of the things that drives terrorists against this country, are you concerned about that? Do you agree with him that it is used as a recruitment tool?

CARSON: No.

I think what used as a recruitment tool frequently is money. And people should go to my Web site, BenCarson.com, and read about ways to tap down terrorism. One of the ways is, you shut down their monetary channels, because they go after the disaffected members of society from all over the world. And they're able to improve their standard of living with money. That's their recruitment tool, not Guantanamo Bay.

HARLOW: So, Ted Cruz came out, obviously. He lambasted the president for this announcement, as did Marco Rubio, as did a number of your competitors on the GOP side.

But Ted Cruz said -- and I'm paraphrasing here, but, basically, we should put more people in there, and how do you look families in the face who have been harmed through terrorism and had their loved ones taken from them and keep it open?

So, I'm interested specifically in what you would do as president. Would you bring more suspected terrorists there?

CARSON: Well, I don't think we need to raise the tenor of discord here.

What we need to say is, what alternative do we have to this when we capture these terrorists? And if somebody has a good alternative, I would be all ears. I would be wanting to listen to it. I don't think we have to make this into an ideological argument. I think we need to ask ourselves, what are we trying to accomplish and what is the best way to do that, and sit down and talk about it. That's what I would do.

[15:15:05]

HARLOW: But you don't agree that the president's plan to send some of those detainees over to other countries, such as Oman, et cetera, to be overseen by their authorities and to put some in maximum security and DOD facilities in the U.S. is the right plan; that's not a plan you accept?

CARSON: Well, just remember, for the ones that we have sent to other countries, a third of them at least seem to end up back on the battlefield, threatening our security.

So, that obviously is not the correct way to do it. We need to be looking at evidence. When you make decisions based on ideology and not on evidence, they inevitably turn out to be wrong.

HARLOW: So, the numbers we have, just to be clear for our viewers here, that three former Gitmo detainees who were sent back to Yemen then went on to join AQAP. But, moving on, I want to get your take on this. Last week at a

campaign event in South Carolina, Donald Trump was asked about water- boarding, and he referred to it as -- quote -- "sort of the least form of torture" or -- quote -- "the minimal form."

He then went on to suggest that the United States should perhaps go beyond water-boarding, use other methods terror, and he said at the end of his remarks -- quote -- "Torture works."

Do you agree with Mr. Trump on that?

CARSON: I believe there are a number of ways to extract information, including, you know, some medical ways of, you know, putting people into a less-than-conscious state, which allows information to be extracted much more humanely.

HARLOW: What do you mean, sir, by medical -- what do you mean by medical ways?

CARSON: Well, the average person might understand it as truth serum.

But, you know, there are ways where you decrease a person's conscious defenses, and they might be much more willing to give up information.

HARLOW: What is that? What is truth serum?

CARSON: Excuse me?

HARLOW: What is that?

CARSON: Sodium amytal. But there are a variety of different things that can be used now. We have made some advances in that kind of science.

HARLOW: Is Donald Trump right when he talks about water-boarding as being sort of the minimal form of torture and perhaps we should go beyond it? Should we go beyond it?

CARSON: Well, it's not really about Donald Trump. It's about, how do we protect the American people? What methods do we use?

And I think we use what we need to use in order to protect the American people, and I don't think we necessarily need to be broadcasting what we do.

HARLOW: You very publicly had a campaign shakeup. You replaced your campaign manager. As you sit back and look at that, do you think that has helped you? Has it hurt the campaign?

CARSON: It has helped me tremendously. There's no question about it.

You know, we had people who really didn't seem to understand finances. Or maybe they did. Maybe -- maybe they were doing it on purpose. But, obviously, things have improved tremendously since that time, and the morale is much better, the esprit de corps. So, yes, it was a tremendous benefit to us. HARLOW: All right, so let's take a look, if we talk about the map and

the map that lies ahead after Nevada tonight. What does your path forward look like, Dr. Carson? What states are you banking on? What states can you win?

CARSON: I am banking on the American people recognizing that it is we the people which will be the only thing that will change the course that we're on. Doesn't matter whether it's Democrats or Republicans.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Which states?

CARSON: Listen carefully, what I'm saying.

All states, all states where there are people, I think there's a possibility that the people begin to recognize that they're being manipulated by the political class and by the media, who want to control them and want to control the narrative and want to control who the candidates are. I believe that is going to happen.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Do you think that's really giving due -- do you think that's giving enough credit, Dr. Carson, to the voter, to say that they're being manipulated by the political class and by the media, that they are not thinking on their own?

CARSON: I know that that's an attempt for you to try to get them on your side, but I think they're smarter than that, and I think they're going to see through it.

They have to recognize and we all have to recognize, we, the people, the reason that people are so angry and the reason that people are moving toward people like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is because they're angry. When people make decisions out of anger, you get different decisions.

But, as we go further into this process, I believe people are going to start actually looking at the policies that people are putting forth and the solutions to the things that are creating the anger. And that is what is going to solve the problem for us.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: All right, I'm out of time, Dr. Carson, but I very much appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to us. Good luck tonight in Nevada. Thank you.

CARSON: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, we will take you live to two rallies.

Donald Trump is speaking live. He's about to take the podium. Also, Ted Cruz taking the podium as well. Both in Nevada, ahead of the caucuses tonight, making that last-minute pitch to voters ahead of tonight.

[15:20:08]

Also, Cruz reversing his position about sending agents door to door to hunt down undocumented immigrants. Will this help him? Will this hurt him in Nevada tonight?

And President Obama finally revealing his plan to try to close Gitmo, where he says the detainees would go once some of them arrive on American soil, and the swift backlash that has erupted over his proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what I think of the president's plan to send terrorists to the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The Nevada Republican caucus is just hours away. It all kicks off tonight there. The hostility continues to build between GOP rivals Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

[15:25:03]

Here to discuss all of it and more, CNN chief political analyst Gloria and Eliana Johnson, a conservative writer just the Washington editor for "The National Review."

Thank you, ladies, for being with me.

Gloria, I want to start with you.

Ted Cruz clearly changing his position on deporting undocumented immigrants from this country from his interview a few weeks ago with Jake Tapper back in January to what he said last night with O'Reilly on FOX. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: I don't intend to send jack boots to knock on your door and every door in America. That's not how we enforce the law for any crime.

BILL O'REILLY, HOST, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR": Mr. Trump would look for them to get them out. Would you do that if you were president?

CRUZ: Look, Bill, of course you would. That's what ICE exists for. We have law enforcement that looks for people who are violating the laws that apprehends them and deports them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What do you think, Gloria? Was it a calculated decision to change his position now on the eve of Nevada when things are getting so contentious? Is it going to be effective? Is it going to help him get those Trump supporters?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, when you talk to the Cruz people, they say this isn't a change of position, Poppy.

HARLOW: But it is if you look at the words.

BORGER: Right. What the difference is here, is that Donald Trump wants a deportation force.

HARLOW: OK.

BORGER: And Ted Cruz is trying to thread this needle, right?

What he's saying is, he doesn't call for a deportation force, but what he says is that the federal government is already doing this, right, and he would want to enhance, it seems to me, what the government already does. What Cruz is trying to do politically here is differentiate himself not only from Trump, right, who is to his right and calling for a deportation force, but also differentiate himself from Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio, he says, is for -- quote, unquote -- "amnesty," right? So he's to the right of Marco Rubio. So was this calculated? Everything is calculated at this point in a campaign. Does it get him anything? Probably not.

HARLOW: So, Eliana, I'm interested in what you think of that. Does it get him anything? Because just to read the quote, as Gloria said, it's kind of semantics, it's kind of threading the needle here because he was asked about a hypothetical situation by Bill O'Reilly last night.

He said, would you, for example, an immigrant who's here undocumented illegally from Ireland, with "a couple kids," settled in on Long Island, would you "send the feds to his house, take him out and put him on a plane back to Ireland?" And Cruz said, "You better believe it."

Eliana, hold that thought. Let's listen in to Donald Trump speaking live in Nevada.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... fired his director of communications, who I always thought was a decent guy. He's taking orders from Cruz, folks. I mean, give me a break.

And, you know, he didn't report he had big loans with Goldman Sachs and with Citibank. And he puts in his financial disclosure form. And he didn't, because he's Robin Hood. He's going to help you with the banks. He's going to tell those banks what to do. He's going to be -- believe me, folks, got two loans for $1 million. And he didn't put them down. He didn't disclose the loans, OK?

(BOOING)

TRUMP: No, well, think of it. And you would love to pay the interest rate. He had very favorable -- they call it very favorable. How about like he's paying practically no interest, all right?

Now, I know why he doesn't want that disclosed. We all know why he doesn't. But you got to be honest. You got to be honest. And we will see. I mean, look, is that a correct statement?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: So, we have to be careful. But I think we're going to win. I shouldn't say this, because I know we're going to do well there. I have been to Texas many times. I have so many friends in Texas. They're all calling me.

Mark Cuban actually gave us the Dallas Mavericks Arena, and he gave it to us on a Thursday and by Monday it was like -- you had to see that place, 21,000 people. It was the most incredible evening. But we have had 35,000. We have had 20,000 all the time.

We have by far the biggest crowd. Look at this room. Now, the press won't show it. The press will show these few people back here, right? The press -- no, no. The press isn't going to show this. The press isn't going to show that corner. They are the most.

They are the most dishonest. No, they're really dishonest people. They are disgusting, I tell you. No, they're the most dishonest. They're probably worse than Cruz, but not much.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Well, it's sort of funny how they tell you what to do, like they're great, like they're great, like they know.

"The New York Times," which is -- forget it. I call it the failing "New York Times." They buy a building, and they have a building in New York. They sell it for $125 million or so. Right? A couple of years, a little, a few years later, guy sells it for $525 million.

And then they tell you what to do. They buy "The Boston Globe" for $1.3 billion.