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Trump Blames Earpiece in KKK Flap; Interview with Hugh Hewitt; Former Top DNC Official Backs Bernie Sanders; Chris Rock Takes on Diversity at the Oscars. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 29, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:00:07] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump on the KKK.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know nothing about white supremacists. I've disavowed David Duke all weekend long. On Facebook, on Twitter. And obviously it's never enough.

COSTELLO: One day to go until Super Tuesday.

TRUMP: I'm looking at little Marco, and I said, man, there's something happening with him. And he's like melting.

COSTELLO: And the GOP race gets personal.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And you know what they say about men with small hands. You can't trust them.

COSTELLO: Also, Hillary Clinton turns her focus to November targeting Trump.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great.

COSTELLO: But Bernie Sanders is saying don't count him out.

Plus, Chris Rocking the Oscars.

CHRIS ROCK, HOST, THE 88TH ACADEMY AWARD: Otherwise known as the white people's choice awards.

COSTELLO: Taking on the Oscars' so-white controversy head on. But will anything change?

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. This may be the single most important week of this crazy political season and maybe one of the bloodiest, at least among Republicans. You're looking live at Marco Rubio. He's rallying in Alcoa,

Tennessee, taking swipes at Donald Trump, calling the frontrunner unelectable. By this time tomorrow, voting will have begun in primaries and caucuses across 13 states and Super Tuesdays with its hundreds of delegates could push the frontrunners closer to locking up the nominations.

Here's how the race is stack up right now. According to a new CNN-ORC poll, Hillary Clinton appears to be pulling away from Bernie Sanders, 55 percent support to 38 percent. And on the Republican side it's now looking even more lopsided. Donald Trump simply dominates with 49 percent or roughly more than all of his challengers combined.

Alabama's Jeff Sessions becomes the first sitting senator to officially back Donald Trump. His rivals, though, are attacking Trump with a new zeal over a show of support for Trump by white supremacist David Duke. And specifically, a CNN interview in which Trump appeared reluctant to disavow the former clansman. Here's how responded to the criticism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The question was asked about David Duke and various groups. And I don't know who the groups are. I said, would you do me a favor and tell me the groups. He was unable to tell me them.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He says, I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, and you said, honestly, I don't know David Duke.

TRUMP: Well, let me tell you. OK. So let me tell you. I'm sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad earpiece that they gave me and you could hardly hear what he was saying. But what I heard was various groups. And I don't mind disavowing anybody and I disavow David Duke and I disavowed him the day before in a major news conference which is surprising because he was at the major news conference. CNN was at the major news conference. And they heard me very easily disavow David Duke.

Now I go and I sit down again. I have a lousy earpiece set, it's provided by them, and frankly he talked about groups. He also talked about groups. And I have no problem with disavowing groups but I'd least like to know who they are. It would be very unfair to disavow a group, Matt, if the group shouldn't be disavowed. I have to know who the groups are. But I disavowed David Duke.

Now if you look on Facebook right after that I also disavowed David Duke. When we looked at it, I looked at the question, I disavowed David Duke. So I disavowed David Duke all weekend long on Facebook, on Twitter, and obviously it's never enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. So we have a lot to cover. Let's begin with CNN's Chris Frates. He's live in Birmingham, Alabama.

Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Carol. So this refusal by Donald Trump to disavow David Duke and the KKK really driving the news cycle. And I think it's important for our viewers to understand the timeline here.

So on Friday he was asked whether or not he would disavow that support in a news conference. He did in fact disavow that, but then with our very own Jake Tapper he was asked repeatedly whether or not he would disavow the KKK's support and David Duke's support and he refused to do that. His rivals jumped on that, both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio hitting Donald Trump for refusing to repudiate David Duke and the clan. Here's what Marco Rubio said about it on the trail yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: Should the head of the conservative movement, should the Republican nominee be someone that today, like Donald Trump, refused -- refused -- to criticize the Ku Klux Klan?

He was interviewed on CNN and asked to disavow the Ku Klux Klan. He refused to do it. He was asked to disavow and criticize David Duke. He said, I don't know who that is. He knows exactly who that is. He knows exactly who that is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So there's Marco Rubio. And he is right. Donald Trump does know who David Duke is.

[10:05:02] If you go back to 2000, Donald Trump decided not to run for the Reform Party presidential nomination in part because David Duke, a clansman, was part of that. He said that's not the company he wants to keep. So certainly Trump did know of David Duke and he did know about his affiliations with the Ku Klux Klan.

On Saturday, Carol, Donald Trump taking to Twitter to disavow David Duke again, but -- and then, of course, we heard in that "Today" show interview him saying that he does, in fact, disavow David Duke and blamed his inability to disavow him on Sunday on a bad earpiece. But this has been an issue on the campaign trail. Both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz hitting him on it. I suspect we'll continue to hear more of that as we go into Super Tuesday, the big primary day tomorrow -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I suspect we will. Chris Frates, thanks so much.

As Chris was so ably explaining this is what he meant when Donald Trump responded to Jake Tapper's query about whether Trump would disavow white supremacist groups. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't know anything about David Duke, OK? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists, so I don't know. I mean, I don't know -- did he endorse me, or what's going on.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: But I guess the question from the -- from the Anti-defamation League is even if you don't know about their endorsement, there are these groups and individuals endorsing you, would you just say unequivocally you condemn them and you don't want their support?

TRUMP: Well, I have to look at the group. I mean, I don't know what group you're talking about.

TAPPER: I mean, I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here but --

TRUMP: I don't know -- honestly, I don't know David Duke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. And then you heard how Donald Trump responded to Matt Lauer on the "Today" show this morning. He said he couldn't hear Jake Tapper, but he does disavow David Duke. He also tweeted that this morning and also over the weekend.

So let's talk about that with conservative radio talk show host, Hugh Hewitt.

Hi, Hugh.

HUGH HEWITT, HOST, "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW": Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'll just ask you point blank. Is Donald Trump racist?

HEWITT: No, I don't think he is, but I do believe that that is the 47th percent moment of this campaign cycle, and I heard earlier today on the other network, Joe Scarborough, saying it's a disqualifying moment for Donald Trump. And Joe Scarborough is now enemy of Trump. Neither am I. But it does remind us of the 47 percent error that Mitt Romney made and actually it's much, much worse than the 47 percent.

So when Marco Rubio went after it, I was listening to the audio feed, he went that and he went after Hillary Clinton's server which is her 47 percent error. And so you look for these moments that define a campaign. And I am reminded -- and you'll remember this, Carol. In 2000 the Gore campaign dropped George W. Bush's DUI on him five days before the election. George W. Bush was six points up, it ended up with losing the popular electoral vote to -- the popular vote to Al Gore all winning electoral college.

So I think you're going to see significant damage to Donald Trump enough to deny him wins tomorrow. I don't know. He'll have to come to our March 10th debate and defend this. And there's some rumors that he's going to try and skip out on that debate which I think are actually being planted by the other campaigns because now Donald Trump has to do what Mitt Romney did not do on the 47 percent which is go after the KKK at every stop again and again.

He ought to be calling every radio station in America to denounce the KKK because that is a disqualifying audio. That Jake Tapper audio --

COSTELLO: So, so --

HEWITT: -- may be in every book about this campaign cycle in the first paragraph.

COSTELLO: What if Donald Trump did as Ronald Reagan did back in 1984? Because the KKK also endorsed Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan -- this is a quote from the "New York Times" from 1984. Ronald Reagan said, "Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition or the repugnant doctrines of hate their espouse." And then Reagan went on to say he repudiated the clan's endorsement.

So what if Donald Trump would come out and say strongly? And you know, in Donald Trump's mind he has disavowed him strongly, but what if he came out and he mirrored the words of Ronald Reagan? Would that be his 47 percent moment still then?

HEWITT: Carol, the 30 years that separate 1984 from us today, or 32 years, is a year in which the media has shattered. So it's impossible to actually capture the audience again. But the audio remains inflexible and forever. And it would be in every Hillary Clinton ad. It will be in every Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz speech. It is there. It's marked.

Now Donald is doing exactly what he needs to do. He should be doing it on every show today to try and get it back. But that audio that you played, the Jake Tapper audio, you can't erase it. It's never going away. And -- can you imagine the impact that will have when that plays on the weekend before the November election in every African-American community across every swing state in America?

That's what Joe Scarborough was saying this morning when he said it's disqualifying. Political professionals think in terms of 30-second sound bites and push-out ads. And that is a devastating piece of -- because no Republican -- the Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act over the filibuster of the southern Democrats, over the filibuster mounted by Al Gore's father.

[10:10:05] They beat back the white racists of the south. And this is important for the Republican Party to be known for. They are the party of Lincoln. They denounced the KKK. And so Donald has to -- with that kind of passion go out and attack this. It was a huge error yesterday, terrible.

COSTELLO: Yes. But he's got the endorsement of a southern senator, Jeff Sessions, right, from Alabama? He came out and endorsed Donald Trump.

HEWITT: He did get that but you also saw Ben Sasse come out -- a Nebraska senator and said he's never support Trump. And I'll try and talk to Jeff Sessions. I'm sure Jeff Sessions has denounced the KKK more times than everyone that you'll talk to today because he knows that the legacy of that group is evil. And so -- and everybody knows who David Duke is. Honest to goodness. That was -- I don't know if he can get away with the ear piece explanation on this one. It's a very bad -- and it comes, Carol, after the tax return questions and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz asking, does he have mob ties, does he have no charitable giving, does he have overstatement of wealth?

It comes after Trump University, after Trump mortgage. Yes, he's ahead in the new national CNN poll, but this is the kind of thing that over two weeks can sink a campaign, which is why I think on March 10th, he has to use that national stage that CNN will give him in our next CNN Salem Media Group debate to denounce right in the camera -- let me put Ted and Marco aside, the KKK is evil and I denounce them and David Duke. That's his opportunity on March 10th.

COSTELLO: Unless some out there don't know who David Duke is, right? He was a former grand wizard for the Ku Klux Klan. Right? And the Ku Klux Klan itself --

(CROSSTALK)

HEWITT: I can't imagine --

COSTELLO: -- was responsible for the 1960s church bombings in Alabama that killed those three little girls?

HEWITT: You know, I can't imagine anyone who wants to be president not knowing who David Duke is? I don't know what Donald was thinking yesterday. And he had denounced David Duke two days earlier. It's an inexplicable. It's like Mitt Romney's 47 percent moment. It's one of those -- it's like Gerald Ford saying Poland is free in the 1976 debate. Sometimes candidates -- it's like Hillary Clinton saying that she left the White House impoverished. It's like Hillary Clinton saying she was named Sir Edmond Hillary. She's got a long list of this as well, but none of them would be as devastating on election weekend in November as this one.

COSTELLO: So let's talk about how Marco Rubio could pull it out because the latest CNN-ORC poll shows him lagging far behind Donald Trump nationally. Donald Trump has something like 49 percent. Marco Rubio has 16 percent.

Marco Rubio, as you heard, has come out swinging against Donald Trump. He's also using crude, rude language. Will that do it, Hugh?

HEWITT: I don't think he's using crude, rude language. I think he's using innuendo and funny lines. And I don't think it's a -- and I think it's a delegate hunt. I don't much care about polls. The polls have been so wrong. They're wrong in 2014. They were wrong in Great Britain, they were wrong in (INAUDIBLE), they were wrong in Iowa, they were wrong in South Carolina. They're just wrong. I don't know.

It's a delegate hunt. You got to get 1,237 delegates. Right now we get 600 delegates up for play tomorrow. When the dust settles, and when the dust settles on March 15th, I think you will see that we're going to an open convention in Cleveland. And I would not be surprised to see some combination of Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich get together and try and run as a ticket, maybe brought together by intermediaries who are coming from the place where we cannot have a KKK sound bite, you know, defining the party.

And that is -- and Donald Trump has got to -- I go back to the March 10th debate. He's got to use that moment to kill this story and spend all day trying -- he began on "Today" show this morning in doing exactly what he needs to do, but that Jake Tapper audio, that is going to be the defining moment of this primary season, I think.

COSTELLO: I want to ask you before you go about John Kasich. Is there any path to the nomination for the Ohio governor?

HEWITT: Oh, sure. Sure.

COSTELLO: Really?

HEWITT: Look, an open convention means anyone can go, and John Kasich is doing well in Michigan. He's going to win Ohio. He carried 86 out of 88 counties in Ohio. He's got an absolute chips at the table when they sit down and negotiate in Cleveland, who's going to be the nominee, who's going to be the vice president, you know, who's going to be the secretary of state, who's going to be the secretary -- you know, there's going to be an open convention, it's not a brokered convention. There aren't any brokers anymore.

But if you have delegates committed to you, and you have sway over them, they will listen to you. So John Kasich has got a lot of options. But I think right now Ted Cruz can rightly say he's the only guy that's won something. Marco Rubio probably ain't going to win anything until March 15th unless there's a stunner tomorrow. But this impact of these last five days, Trump University, Trump Mortgage, that's the "Washington Post" this morning. The tax returns not coming out and now the KKK. The race has been thrown into disarray again.

It's like the Oscars last night. It began with racism, it ended on with climate change, in between everyone went into something and it was a mess. And so -- then the broadcast ended. So that's what we're doing right now.

COSTELLO: All right. Hugh Hewitt, always a pleasure. Thank you.

HEWITT: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

The Democrats are also preparing for a Super Tuesday showdown. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders crisscrossing several states including Massachusetts and Texas as voters get ready to head to the polls.

[10:15:02] Our senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns traveling with the Sanders campaign. He's in Minnesota this morning.

Hi, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. One of the big things happening in the orbit, if you will, of Bernie Sanders is that he's got a new endorsement, a big new endorsement. This is from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She of course is an outspoken critic of what's been going on with debates in the Democratic Party. But she says that her support for Bernie Sanders has more to do with the commander-in-chief and uses of the military. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D), HAWAII: We need a commander-in-chief will exercise good judgment and foresight and stop getting us into these interventionist regime change wars as we've seen in Iraq, as we've seen in Libya, and as we're seeing now occurring in Syria. The stakes are very high and the contrast is very clear between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: The endorsement of a member of Congress is not to be underestimated in a presidential campaign. They are superdelegates to the conventions and I think the other thing, more important thing is that they intimately know their congressional districts so it could be a help.

Back to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Joe Johns, reporting live from Minneapolis this morning.

The Democratic contest moves to the Midwest. The next debate is live from Flint, Michigan. Join us for the CNN Democratic presidential debate Sunday night 8:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Chris rocks the Oscars in the middle of a diversity controversy. Will it spark change?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:34] COSTELLO: Forget who are you wearing. Last night's Oscars was all about what do you stand for, and we know where comedian Chris Rock stands. The host bringing the Oscars' so-white controversy center stage at the Academy Awards.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS ROCK, HOST, THE 88TH ACADEMY AWARD: Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards. Otherwise known as the white people's choice awards. You realize if they nominated host, I wouldn't even get this job. So you all be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.

But here's the funny thing, this is -- this is the wildest, craziest Oscars to ever host because we got all this controversy. No black nominees. You know? And people are like, Chris, you should boycott. Chris, you should quit. You should quit. You know, how come it's only unemployed people who tell you to quit something, huh?

The big question, why this Oscars? Why this Oscars? You know? It's the 88th Academy Awards. The 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times.

I'm sure there were no black nominees some of those years. Say '62 or '63, and black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time. You know?

We had real things to protest. Yes, we're too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won Best Cinematographer.

(LAUGHTER)

You know, when your grandmother is swinging from a tree, it's really hard to care about Best Documentary Foreign Short.

Everybody wants to know in the world is this Hollywood racist? Is Hollywood racist? You know, that's a -- you know, you got to go at that at the right way. Is it burning cross racist? No. Is it fetch me some lemonade racist? No. No, no, no. It's a different type of racist.

We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities.

(APPLAUSE)

And what else, that's it. That's it. You know? You know, not just once. You know, Leo gets a great part every year, and, you know, and everybody -- look, all you guys get great parts all the time. But what about the black actors?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So let's talk about this now with cultural critic and writer Michaela Angela Davis and CNN's Stephanie Elam.

Welcome to both of you.

So, Stephanie, you're out there in California. You were on the red carpet last night. How did the actors react to Chris Rock's monologue?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think a lot of it, when you look at it, Carol, it was expected. Right? We all knew that Chris Rock was going to go in, and he was in his element. It was almost a complex of perfect timing to have this Oscar so-white scandal happening and to have Chris Rock host it. Because you know he's going to go at it direct, he's going to go about it and call it as he sees it.

And he didn't leave anything alone. He touched everybody. I mean, he went after Jada Pinkett-Smith. He also went after the Academy a bit. He also talked about the people who are in decision-making positions. So he did do all of that and I think people expected that. If you didn't expect that, you were coming from a different planet.

So most everyone expected that. And I think because he did it with humor that it made people uncomfortable but happy that he was the one who was at the -- at the, you know, at the command center at that point to make it happen. Over all I think --

COSTELLO: Some people looked really, really uncomfortable.

(LAUGHTER)

ELAM: Uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. But a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about race in this country so as soon as they hear it they get frazzled, but I think for a lot of people, they were happy with the way it went. And overall, I've heard people say that they were happy with his performance.

COSTELLO: I think the moment that I realized how uncomfortable some members of the audience were was -- was I ecumenically correct, Michaela -- was when Chris Rock singled out Leonardo DiCaprio, and there was a close-up shot of Leonardo DiCaprio's face, and Chris Rock was saying, you know what, Leonardo DiCaprio was offered great roles every year. Black actors are not.

MICHAELA ANGELA DAVIS, CULTURAL CRITIC/WRITER: Yes, you know, it's interesting. That opening clip, what was -- it was just an awkward night. It was Oscars so awkward.

[10:25:03] But you know, when he said -- when you said, what do you stand for at the same time Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler were raising money for poor people in Flint. Right? So some of Hollywood's biggest stars were somewhere else doing something that we were really standing for. So that was an awkward -- like the opening was awkward because a lot of black folks are thinking, should we be watching this or should we be watching Flint?

And so everyone on different levels felt awkward and the lens of the whole night changed. And that's what activism does. Right? Because I was watching it, and the actresses seemed extra white and extra skinny and some of the black people seemed extra tokened. You know, I feel like, you know, they were wheeling black people out for gratuitous things. So it was a very weird night, but that's what change is. Right? I think people felt like they should be happy, but they also felt really uncomfortable, and some of it went too far, and some of it didn't go far enough.

COSTELLO: Well, I want to -- I want to --

DAVIS: It was weird.

COSTELLO: I want to continue on that vent because you're right, Michaela, it went on the entire night.

DAVIS: The entire night. Yes.

COSTELLO: They shad sketches. And after a while, it was like, please stop and let me enjoy this for just a moment.

Stephanie, did you get any sense of that from people?

ELAM: But -- yes, it did go a long time. But I think also if you have Chris Rock as your host, you should know that that is what you're going to get. That, to me, is not a shocker. Also when you take a look at this whole conversation about diversity, with Chris Rock he kept it very specific to black actors, but a lot of the conversation about it has been wider than that.

And what I also saw, I saw some Asian actors who were coming out on stage. You saw -- but the problem is they're not nominated. Right? You have Alejandro Inarritu, the director who won for "The Revenant." He was also talking about it because, obviously, he's Hispanic, and talking about the fact that he's put into this category as well.

So you have to look at this diversity conversation as being whiter than it is, and at the same time, while it makes a lot of people uncomfortable to talk about race, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable that they can't get roles. And one movie that actually did better about this was "The Martian." You just have Martinez who just happens to be Hispanic in the movie. You had, you know, and Donald Glover who just happens to be the truly great mathematician who happens to be black.

And I think that's where the conversation needs to go, not necessarily casting the black guy to be the black guy, but maybe this is just a good character and he's a good actor who could be in that role. And that's the change that --

COSTELLO: Well, I think --

ELAM: They're saying isn't happening.

COSTELLO: I think change is happening, but at a -- you know, at a smaller level. Like if you watch shows on Netflix, there's a lot of diversity in roles on Netflix. Even if you watch television, Michaela. It's just not happening in movies.

DAVIS: Television, Broadway. But change is awkward. And Hollywood has been so white, so male, so straight for so long that this is the process. Right? Like from one night you can feel awkward in your designer clothes.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Michaela Angela Davis, Stephanie Elam, thanks to both of you.

DAVIS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Coming up in the NEWSROOM, he seizes the spotlight and loves playing to the crowd. So what does Donald Trump like behind closed doors? I'll talk to a Trump biographer next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)