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Donald Trump Wins Nevada; Super PAC Airs Anti-Trump Ads; Obama Drops Hints on Supreme Court Nominee; Searching for a Motive in Kalamazoo. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired February 24, 2016 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:33:17] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump is winning and winning and winning, racking up his third straight victory in Nevada and looking ahead to Super Tuesday.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've had some great numbers coming out of Texas and amazing numbers coming out of Tennessee and Georgia and Arkansas. And then in a couple of weeks later, Florida. We love Florida. So we're going to do very well in Ohio. We're beating the governor. That's good. It's always nice to be beating the governor.
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COSTELLO: OK, so let's talk about Mr. Trump and his campaign and where it's going now. I'm joined by his national spokesperson Katrina Pierson.
Welcome.
KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Hi, Carol. Great to be here.
COSTELLO: Hi. Nice to have you here.
So I noticed that Mr. Trump mentioned Texas first, which, of course, is Ted Cruz's home state. Does Donald Trump expect to win over Ted Cruz?
PIERSON: Well, you know, I think it's very likely that Mr. Trump can win here in Texas. You know, Mr. Trump's chief policy is illegal immigration and border security and that is very important to the hearts and minds of Texas for sure.
COSTELLO: Ted Cruz, recently adopted many of Donald Trump's policies seemingly. He's for the wall, right, and he now wants to deport all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Your thoughts?
PIERSON: Well, Senator Cruz knows what's important to the people of Texas and, you know, he's right and he was wise to adopt some of those policies because it's a very real issue, Carol. We can't even have an honest discussion, whether it's with regards to jobs, the economy, the debt, deficit, without stopping illegal immigration and getting it under control. So that is the winning issue, particularly in Texas.
[09:35:00] COSTELLO: Back in January, Donald Trump told CBS he would be a, quote, "much different person" if he became president. But this week again he told -- he called Ted Cruz a weak little baby, to which Ted Cruz responded on Twitter with a clip from Austin Powers. Take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wait a minute, he kind of looks like a baby. Come here. I'm gonna eat you. I'm bigger than you. I'm higher on the food chain. Get in my belly.
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COSTELLO: So Ted Cruz says he's going to go on the attack against Donald Trump even more. So can we just expect such language from both candidates going forward in the short-term?
PIERSON: Well, you know, I suspect so. And it hasn't really worked for Senator Cruz thus far. When we look at what happened in South Carolina, a state that he was supposed to win and he didn't win a single county, coming out of Nevada, with Mr. Trump winning overwhelmingly across the board once again, going into his home state of Texas, Senator Cruz is going to have to do something. However, if he had just focus on what he wants to do for America, he might do better off because everyone understands where Mr. Trump is coming from --
COSTELLO: But --
PIERSON: What his positions are and they support him wholeheartedly.
COSTELLO: But Mr. Trump -- Mr. Trump -- Mr. Trump beat Ted Cruz handily in Nevada. So why does Mr. Trump have to resort to name calling anymore? Can't he just fly above it because he's on a roll?
PIERSON: Well, Mr. Trump has always said, you know, he's going to focus on his platform, which is making America great again, and if he's attacked he will respond in kind. It's one of the reasons why he kept going after Jeb Bush. When he initially said Jeb Bush wouldn't be a factor, it turned out to be that was true. Mr. Trump is always going to respond when someone is attacking him, particularly when they're spending millions of dollars in attack ads against him to besmirch his character.
COSTELLO: Well, I was just going to ask you about that because the Club for Growth PAC is launching a major ad buy today in Oklahoma and Arkansas. What is Mr. Trump's response to that million dollar ad buy?
PIERSON: Well, it's a million dollars that they asked Mr. Trump for to begin with and we saw this happen early on in Iowa when they ran I think it was about $5 million against him. But it's going to be more of the same, Carol. And, you know, we have to realize here, Mr. Trump has something that no other candidate has. Whether it's the excitement, the enthusiasm, even the inspiration. So other candidates trying to tear him down, they're calling themselves the alternative. Why would you want to be the alternative to the most popular candidate, to the candidate that's inspiring people and drawing masses of crowds from people that would have never been paying attention to this election to begin with?
COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there. Katrina Pierson, thanks for joining me.
Still to come in the -- you're welcome.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a conservative group is going after Donald Trump. We just talked about that. We'll hear from -- we'll hear from the group itself, next.
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[09:41:57] COSTELLO: New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, Donald Trump is winning contest after contest. So now at least one conservative political action committee says it's time to end Donald Trump's race to the White House, buying $1 million worth of ad time, bashing the Republican frontrunner in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which presidential candidate supports higher taxes, national healthcare and the wall Street bailout? It's Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In many cases I probably identify more as a Democrat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump wants us to think he's Mr. Tell It Like It Is, but he has a record and it's very liberal. He's really just playing us for chumps.
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COSTELLO: I'm joined now by David McIntosh. He's the president of the Club for Growth, the political arm that's purchasing these ads.
Welcome, sir.
DAVID MCINTOSH, PRESIDENT, CLUB FOR GROWTH: Welcome. Thank you, Carol.
COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. I appreciate it.
Why do you think these ads will work? And I ask you that because "The National Review," which is an establishment magazine, ripped Trump apart. Marco Rubio has the backing of 57 lawmakers and governors. Trump has zero, by the way. And there were dozens of Trump attack ads in Nevada and Trump still won big time. So, again, why do you think these ads will work?
MCINTOSH: We tested these in Iowa last fall in real time playing for TV ads and they did work. They took Trump out of first place in to second place. What they do is they tell the truth about Donald Trump. That his vision for America will bankrupt us, essentially. You look at Atlantic City. That's where Trump had the biggest impact. And he went bankrupt. He survived, but everybody else was left holding the bag, losing their jobs, losing their homes. And we're going to continue to tell the truth about that because the stakes are so high. If Donald Trump is the nominee, the polls show it's the one Republican that almost guarantees Hillary Clinton will win the race in the fall. We'll lose the Senate. And now with Justice Scalia's passing, will lose the Supreme Court. So the ballgame -- there are a lot of stakes here in the next three weeks in the primaries.
COSTELLO: Well, as you know, Donald Trump does not like to be attacked and he does fight back. In fact, last year, he threatened to sue Club for Growth over this particular ad in Iowa when it ran in Iowa. Did the lawsuit ever get filed?
MCINTOSH: No. He sent us a nasty letter, but never filed a lawsuit. In a large part because what we do is put Donald Trump in his own words. The ad was accurate. The stations knew that. I think what he does is attack anybody who he thinks is attacking him. What we're going to show the voters is the real Donald Trump is not the way you change Washington. In fact, it will make matters worse here.
COSTELLO: I'm just curious, because you guys have put out ads before, are you more careful because Donald Trump threatened to sue?
MCINTOSH: We always try to be very accurate in what we're doing. But, yes, we're very careful to make sure we've got him on the record with what we're saying. And essentially that's our mission, show the voters the real Donald Trump. He won't make America great. It will be just what he did to Atlantic City, where he ended up filing bankruptcy.
[09:45:05] And he is playing us for chumps. He's the worst kind of politician who will say anything and do anything to get somebody's vote and then turn around and do the opposite.
COSTELLO: Here's the thing. You heard Katrina Pearson, the Trump spokeswoman. She said that the Club for Growth came to Donald Trump and asked him for a million dollars. Is that true?
MCINTOSH: No, it actually went the other way around. He invited us to come up and said I can give you a million dollars for your Senate races. I said, Donald, we still disagree with you, but if you want to give us a million dollars, I'll take the money. I think it was his effort to buy our silence. And we didn't take it. We're going to keep telling the truth to the voters.
COSTELLO: So he's lying when he says that you came to him?
MCINTOSH: Exactly. He invited me up to his office. It was an imposing office at Trump Towers, but I just said there and said we disagree with you on raising taxes, on trade. If you want to send us money, I never say no to that, but we're going to keep telling the truth about you.
COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there. David Mcintosh, thanks for being with me this morning.
MCINTOSH: My pleasure. Thank you, Carol.
COSTELLO: You're welcome.
Coming up in the NEWSROOM, President Obama hints about who his Supreme Court nominee could be next.
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[09:50:48] COSTELLO: All right, these numbers just in from Nevada. All precincts have now reported their results from last night's caucuses. As CNN projected last night, Donald Trump is the big winner. Marco Rubio finishes second with 23.9 percent of the vote. Ted Cruz comes in third with 21.4 percent in third. And then Kasich has 3.6 percent and you see Ben Carson there 4.8 percent. That's with 100 percent of all the caucuses reporting.
So just thought I'd pass that along because the second place finisher was hanging up there in the air and now we know it is Senator Marco Rubio.
President Barack Obama is now dropping hints about a possible Supreme Court nominee. Athena Jones has that at the White House this morning. Good morning.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This post on SCOTUSblog, a website devoted to Supreme Court news, is a way for the president to keep the pressure on Senate Republicans and also continue to state that he's going to name a nominee no matter what they say. We're facing a Senate Republicans who are making unprecedented moves. The Senate -- Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee saying that they're not going to hold any hearings on any nominee. That's unprecedented. We heard from the chair of that committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, who hasn't even responded to an invitation from the White House to sit down with the president and talk about this. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying that he probably won't meet with any nominee.
So that is the opposition he's facing. That's the context as he spells out some of the things he'd like to see in a nominee. He listed qualities like someone who is imminently qualified, someone who has an independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. Someone who has a mastery of the law, and this is interesting, he said someone who recognizes the limits of the judiciary's role, who understands that a judge's job is to interpret the law, not make law. The president said he seeks judges who approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather a commitment to impartial justice.
So this is a way for the president to continue to spell out and make clear that he plans to name a nominee. He considers this a very important duty. He wants to see the Senate fulfill their constitutional responsibility to consider any nominee. And they feel that a lot of the American public is going to be on their side in the end. We've seen two recent polls come out, one from Fox News, one from Pew Research; both show a majority of Americans, a pretty high majority in Fox, 62 percent, want to see the president and the Senate take steps to fill this vacancy.
Carol?
COSTELLO: All right, Athena Jones reporting live for us from the White House. Thank you.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, investigators baffled as they try to find a motive for the Kalamazoo shooting spree.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sure an investigation will disclose elements of his personal life in hopes of coming up with a reason for what happened.
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[09:57:41] COSTELLO: Surprising new details about the suspected Kalamazoo gunman's past. CNN confirming that just moments ago that the suspect, Jason Dalton, earned an associate's degree in law enforcement back in 1992. This is new images of Dalton surfaced, taken just hours before his alleged shooting spree. That's him inside a gun shop. The shop's owner said he saw no red flags.
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JONATHAN SOUTHWICK, GUN SHOP OWNER: He was a law abiding citizen up until the time he pulled the trigger on his first victim. He was in here three hours before that started. No indication at all. There are just some people that will never give you an indication that they're about to do something horrible.
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COSTELLO: Nick Valencia is in Kalamazoo with more for us. Good morning, Nick.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. I spoke to the police chief here in Kalamazoo early this morning who tells me the Kalamazoo shooting suspect legally purchased and registered the firearm that he used in his alleged ram page. However, he did tell me that the suspect did not have a concealed carry permit.
I did catch up with that gun store owner you just played sound from, who tells me that the suspect did not buy the gun or ammunition there, but did buy that conceal and carry jacket. It was just about three hours later that the suspect was spotted in an apartment complex. He would eventually, according to witnesses, unload at least 16 rounds into his first victim, Tiana Carruthers.
I spoke to a neighbor of Carruthers, who called her a hero and said that the gunman appeared to be aiming for children. And that's when Carruthers stepped in front of him.
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TAMMY GEORGE, SHOOTING WITNESS: I don't know if it was her mother instinct. She just knew something was wrong, told them to run.
VALENCIA: So she was a hero in all of this?
GEORGE: Yes.
VALENCIA: Could have been the kids that were shot.
GEORGE: Could have been the kids. And I really think that if any kids were out there, she would have done it for anyone's kids.
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VALENCIA: Police tell me that the suspect changed cars after that first shooting. Of course he would go on to allegedly kill six people, injuring eight all together. We have been checking into his mental health history. No such history exists. He was also, according to police chief, not on any medications. That chief tells me he believes that this suspect just one day snapped. The reason he did so? Well, that question is still left unanswered. Carol.
[10:00:00] COSTELLO: All right, Nick Valencia reporting living from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Thank you.
The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
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