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GOP Rivals Tone Down Insults & Spar on Policy. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 11, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:06:05] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to special early edition of NEW DAY. Chris and I are live at the University of Miami. And John Berman is in New York for us.

Chris and I are at the site of what was the final Republican debate before the crucial winner-take-all primaries here in Florida and Ohio.

And there was a major shift in tone last night. The GOP rivals opted for policy over personal insults. They talked trade, Social Security, Islam, among other hotly debated topics. Donald Trump appearing presidential, some said, others said low key than he had in the previous 11 debates.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Ted Cruz only had eyes for Donald Trump. He made it clear it is a two-man race with one choice -- him.

Marco Rubio entered the night a desperate man. The question for him, did he do enough to survive?

We will ask the man himself. Senator Rubio is going to be in our 7:00 hour.

Now, all of this comes as Trump picks up endorsement of one-time rival Dr. Ben Carson this morning.

So, let's begin our coverage with CNN's Manu Raju.

Manu, this had a lot of heads shaking yesterday when word came out.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely, Chris. It is almost as if the candidates felt they couldn't beat Trump at his own game. There was no more name-calling, no talking over each other or petty insults. And there were no attacks over Donald Trump's business dealings. And Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio avoided each other all together.

And while there were certainly pointed jabs, the candidates instead tried to focus largely on the reasons why they think they should be president.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I cannot believe how civil it's been up here.

RAJU (voice-over): A major shift in tone at last night's GOP debate. The rivals moving away from the personal attacks in the past.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE : Have you seen his hands? They're like this.

TRUMP: And little Marco spews his crap.

And I call him lying Ted.

RAJU: And toward more civil contrast on policy, including U.S. trade deals.

TRUMP: Trade deals are absolutely killing our country. And the only way we're going to be able to do it is we're going to have to do taxes unless they behave.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald is right, for example. He was just talking about international trade. He's right about the problems. But his solutions don't work.

The effect of a 45 percent tariff would be when you go to the store, when you go to Walmart, when you're shopping for your kids, the prices you pay go up 45 percent.

TRUMP: The 45 percent tax is a threat. It is not a tax. It is a threat. It will be a tax if they don't behave.

RAJU: Social Security.

TRUMP: It is my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is. We're going to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse, and bring back business.

RUBIO: The numbers don't add up. The bottom line is we can't just continue to tip toe around this and throw out things like I'm going to get rid of fraud and abuse. But you still have hundreds of billions of deficit that you're going to have to make up.

RAJU: And Mideast peace.

TRUMP: If I go in, I'll say I'm pro-Israel and I told that to everybody and anybody that would listen. But I would like to at least have the other side think I'm somewhat neutral as to them so that we can maybe get a deal done.

RUBIO: But the policy Donald has outlined, I don't know if he realizes is an anti-Israeli policy. Maybe that's not your intent. But here's why it is an anti-Israeli policy -- there is no peace deal possible at this moment. There just isn't. But there is no one to negotiate with.

RAJU: The audience chuckling at Trump's seemingly simple response to whether he would close the U.S. embassy in Cuba.

TRUMP: I would probably have the embassy closed until such time as a really good deal was made and struck by the United States.

RAJU: And Rubio jumped in to get his opinion.

RUBIO: Here's a good deal. Cuba has free elections. Cuba stops putting people in jail for speaking out. Cuba has freedom of the press. Cuba kicks out the Russians from Lourdes and kicks out this Chinese listening station in Bejucal. Cuba stops helping North Korea evade U.N. sanctions.

RAJU: Rubio looking for any opportunity to go after Trump in this do- or-die debate for him.

[05:10:04] JAKE TAPPER, CNN MODERATOR: Last night, you told CNN, quote, "Islam hates us". Did you mean all 1.6 billion Muslims?

TRUMP: I mean a lot of them. I mean a lot of them.

There's tremendous hatred. I will stick with exactly what I said to Anderson Cooper.

RUBIO: The problem is the presidents can't just say anything they want. It has consequences here and around the world.

TRUMP: You can be politically correct if you want. I don't want to be so politically correct. I like to solve problems. We have a serious, serious problem of hate.

RUBIO: I'm not interested in being politically correct. I'm interested in being correct. We are going to have to work with people in the Muslim faith even as Islam itself faces a serious crisis within it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, of course, the big question is how much does this change the race heading into Tuesday, particularly here in Florida where Rubio must win to survive. Rubio campaign officials tell me they believe this race is tightening to the low single digits and they say he is doing better than many public polls are now showing. They're hoping that this performance, Chris, last night was a game changer.

CUOMO: All right. Manu, thank you very appreciate it.

And here's no question, they're holding out this x-factor that early voting here over million, almost a million and a half votes, that we don't understand that that break for Rubio maybe a game changer here in the race. So, that's a big one for them.

Donald Trump's comments about Islam, as you just heard, they were a hot topic last night. We caught up with Trump right after the debate and asked if he wanted to clarify that position.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: You said there's a hatred coming from Islam towards the United States.

TRUMP: No doubt about it.

CUOMO: The criticism is but not from all Muslims, but from some. You understand the sensitivity to it. You call it political correctness.

TRUMP: Always. But look --

CUOMO: The counter is it is just correctness. What do you want to say now?

TRUMP: I don't want to say anything. I answered the question. I answered it many times. There's a great hatred and we have to get to the bottom of it.

CUOMO: The concern is you are painting with too broad a brush. You said in the past, you hire Muslims, you have Muslim friends. You're not saying they're part of the hatred, right?

TRUMP: I do. But there's a lot of -- you look at the mosques and go to various places and you look at what's going on there. It is virtually 100 percent. And, certainly, you could say radical Islam is a disaster right now. It's causing tremendous problems worldwide. Not just here.

But the question was asked about Islam. There's a great hatred. No question about it.

CUOMO: One of the people on the stage with you tonight said it makes an environment around the world where Muslims feel the United States has antipathy towards them, has negativity toward them.

TRUMP: We're just going to have to run our own place. We have a country. We have a country with a lot of problems, a lot of debt, a lot of, you know, weakened military. We have so many different problems right now. We are just going to have to do our thing.

But the question was asked to me and I'll tell you what -- you probably heard the audience. The audience was, and I don't do it for the audience. I don't care in terms of doing it for the audience. I'm not doing it to be incorrect politically. But there is animosity like I have never seen before. And, hopefully, we can straighten it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: This was a big moment last night because it is one of the things that may mean one thing in the room as Mr. Trump was saying, but it could mean something different in the general election.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

CUOMO: But there are other big moments as well. So, let's bring back our friend Manu Raju to talk about that, as well as journalist David Gregory, and CNN political commentator and senior contributor to "The Daily Caller", Matt Lewis.

We have to get you a longer introduction.

DAVID GREGORY, JOURNALIST: Yes.

CUOMO: He's got like 15-seconds that go along with this.

All right. So, we saw that last night. What popped out to you?

GREGORY: Well, you see Donald Trump and his sloppiness, speaking about radical Islam and Islamists who hate the West. And he's really talking about ISIS.

But that lack of precision I think is just one area where he is still undermined as a general election candidate, assuming he is in a strong position to get the nomination.

And there's other areas. It's not just talking about Islam. Social Security, I mean, any serious politician who wants to get right with Social Security has to talk about raising taxes or cutting benefits, not cutting out waste, fraud and abuse. These are issues that I do think become a problem in a general election.

But last night, I thought he showed a different side to himself. He was more presidential. He was more serious and less cutting.

And I thought for one of the first times, he stopped talking about himself and he said, look, there's all these people who are behind me. It is time as a party, whatever you think of me, to unite. I think he did have a sense of a moment, a sense that come next week, he could be in an absolute commanding position to capture this nomination.

CAMEROTA: Matt, did the GOP rivals other than Trump miss an opportunity? When Trump said something, it seems as though because they were so focused on making the tone higher, that when he says things, somebody should have said, 1.6 billion Muslims do not hate us, Donald Trump. That's not leadership. That's not strength.

But they didn't do that.

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, you know, that would have been like a good Marco Rubio or John Kasich move.

CAMEROTA: And Rubio tried. I mean, Rubio said it, but he said things like they love America. But he didn't say it as forcefully as he could have.

LEWIS: Right. I think they go into the things with game plans they want to execute.

[05:15:02] And I think that they all did. I think Rubio went into the debate trying to get back to the Marco Rubio that we all knew and loved. The guy who is optimistic and he did that. I think that it was -- you know, I don't know if it is enough to win Florida, but I think he definitely did well. I think you've got to pick your spots. I think Rubio seized on the

Cuba issue and the Castro regime. And that was where I think he stood up to Trump. That's where it matters in south Florida.

CUOMO: There is also something that was done last night, Manu, that made it trickier to go at Donald Trump. The time elements were changed last night. There's more time to respond to a question. There was longer rebuttal time.

So, if you said his name, you know, he who shall not be named. If you do that during the debate, he got 45 seconds to come back. So, you heard Senator Cruz many times say now, if a candidate were to -- if a candidate were to -- then he would outline exactly what Trump would say.

RAJU: And going in, Jake Tapper, the moderator, our CNN colleague, said, "Look, you candidates cannot talk over each other." They actually listened to him. You did not see that at all last time.

CUOMO: He was in command last night, which was an important tone setter.

RAJU: And what Donald Trump also did and didn't do, he pulled his own punches. There was no lying Ted, there was no little Marco. None of that stuff to draw them into the fray, because of what David was saying, wanting to be a unifier.

GREGORY: You understand from Donald Trump's point of view. Next week, he could be on the verge of getting the nomination. So, he wants to hang back, he wants to run out the clock, show the country, show the party, show a general election electorate that he can be more sober, he's not putting everybody down. You get that.

But it was still incumbent upon the others to try to make the case against him, and I still say --

CUOMO: You think Cruz was doing that?

GREGORY: That's what I was going to say. I think Rubio was very strong for himself and kind of rising above the fray, showing why he is a big part of the future of the Republican Party.

Cruz I still think is very effective, drawing that contrast, issuing a litany about why Trump is inauthentic, why he's not a real conservative, why -- look how often he compared him to Hillary Clinton and making the case there's not enough of a contrast there and he would ultimately lose to Hillary Clinton, in his opinion. So, I still thought that was well done by Cruz.

But again, trying to disqualify Trump, we can talk about dis -- hasn't worked so far.

RAJU: I actually was surprised there was not more from Marco Rubio to draw those contrast. I think Cruz is very effective in drawing those contrasts. Going in, I was talking to Rubio officials yesterday. They made it

seem they would be pretty aggressive against Donald Trump. Not necessarily on the school yard taunts which he was embarrassed about, but on policy. And he tried to do that, as Matt said, on Cuba and some other issues.

But there are things that he pulled punches on, on immigration, maybe he could have even brought back questions about Trump's business dealings, which Rubio still thinks is fair game. He avoided that all together. I was surprised about that.

CAMEROTA: So, did they -- did they do enough to change any minds in the final debate before the primaries on Tuesday?

LEWIS: I think if you -- so, if you are Marco Rubio, one state and one state only matters, and that is Florida.

GREGORY: I agree with that.

LEWIS: So, that's the whole calculus going in.

CUOMO: He nailed the Cuba issue.

LEWIS: He did, and that may be all that matters. I think the race will tighten. I'm not predicting Rubio wins, but I think he did himself some good last night.

CAMEROTA: All right. Here are the poll of polls. Before you answer that, I just want to show, when you crunch the numbers all together, here's where it is as of yesterday. This is Florida, Republicans choice for nominee, Donald Trump still getting 40 percent, Rubio getting 26 percent. Cruz, 18 percent, and Kasich, 8 percent.

CUOMO: So, what do you think, David? Go to the smell factor. There have been 1.5 million ballots cast already in Florida. They -- many of them came at a time when Rubio looked like the best deal going in the race. What's the change that is a swing that is unknown? That would be about a third of what they're expecting ballots cast.

GREGORY: You know, we again, we look to these late deciders who had different assessment of candidates, certainly a different assessment of --

LEWIS: They tend to break toward Rubio.

GREGORY: Right, they tend to break toward Rubio, although I think Cruz is coming off some victories. But you look at Trump's strength in Mississippi and you look at it throughout the south, and you realize almost 50 percent in Mississippi says something about how he might perform in the northern part of this state, which is a lot like --

CUOMO: Key distinction, the different parts of Florida.

GREGORY: Yes, different parts of Florida. So, I think that's a big piece of it. Rubio's got a chance to surprise, if he does. If Kasich surprises in Ohio, there is a chance for this race to swing away from Trump at least for -- and keep it going.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you. Great to have you here this morning.

Coming up on NEW DAY, we will talk to Senator Marco Rubio. He will be live in our 7:00 hour. Stick around for that.

So, policy differences instead of personal attacks, as we've been saying, at the CNN Republican debate last night. How did the candidates describe their own differences? We'll show you, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:24:01] CAMEROTA: So, it was a Republican debate unlike the previous 11. This one was soft on tone, hard on substance. But who won on the issues?

Let's bring back David Gregory and we want to bring in, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic", Ron Brownstein, and CNN national political reporter, Maeve Reston.

Great to have all of you here this morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: OK. They drew some distinctions on policy. Let's look at a couple of moments.

Let's start with Social Security and show the contrasts. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I will do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is. To make this country rich again. To bring back our jobs. To get rid of deficits and get rid of waste, fraud and abuse, which is rampant in this country, rampant, totally rampant.

RUBIO: The numbers don't add up. The bottom line is, we can't just continue to tip-toe around this and threw out things like, I'm going to get rid of fraud and abuse. Let's get rid of fraud, let's get rid of abuse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, Ron, they went on from there. But what did you think about those differences?

[05:25:01] BROWNSTEIN: Well, Donald Trump has brought to the surface that is just under the surface for many years. There is a big part of the Republican coalition that simply does not want to retrench entitlement programs for retirement. If he would have been asked about Paul Ryan's Medicare plan last night, I bet he would have opposed that, too.

Donald Trump has had a consistent blue collar populism, some of which is pretty kind of edgy and, you know, kind of oppositional about things like immigration and trade, but it also is defending the entitlement.

Republican voters make a distinction between the programs for the elderly, which they view as earned and transfer which is unearned. And Donald Trump has brought that forward in a way that I think is going to make very uncomfortable for congressional Republican majority that has looked at retrenching that spending as a way of bringing the federal budget in balance.

CUOMO: So, they definitely laid out different ideas. But nothing unusual and it wasn't a huge point of inflection on the night. Where do you think people used opportunity to draw a contrast to advantage, Maeve?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, I don't think they used the opportunity last night. I think there were a lot of moments where Cruz and Rubio could have gone after Donald Trump a lot harder and made more policy distinctions. I mean, the thing that is so frustrating about his campaign is how little he got into specifics about anything and he got off the hook a lot of time last night.

CUOMO: You didn't feel Cruz was doing that? You know, he said, look, it's easy to see what the problem is, but what his solution, or his solution doesn't work, or you know, this is what this candidate does without saying his name to trigger a rebuttal?

RESTON: Without saying his name, it is like how effective is that punch? You know, nobody ever seems to be able to pin down Donald Trump on specifics and I think that's been a problem throughout the campaign.

GREGORY: I have a slightly different view. If we keep our concentration on the fact that as strong as Trump is among primary voters right now, as a general election candidate, we look at the polling, we see where he's vulnerable.

As Ron points out, he's a plurality candidate. He is not up to 50 percent.

On trade, he is talking about a tax on consumers. You go into Walmart, you buy something, if there is a tariff on Chinese goods, you're going to pay up to 45 percent more. He seems not to really understand that.

No serious candidate on Social Security takes about waste, fraud and abuse. That is a total cop out. You either cut benefits, or you raise taxes, period.

And it gives Cruz some credit. He talked about raising the retirement age and having private accounts for younger workers. So, again --

CUOMO: Rubio talked about raising the age. GREGORY: Right. So, not an issue now, but again, there could be

sustained attacks over these issues.

How about ISIS? How about the fact that he wants to beat them to hell and come back. So, he wants to commit U.S. forces? For how long? What is the role after the war?

What's the U.S. leadership role? He wants to come back and build bridges in America? These are vulnerabilities that show the shallowness of what he knows on policy.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, how about -- let's talk about foreign policy and how they feel. There's seemed to be some distinction about Israel. So, let's listen to this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Frankly, one concern I have with Donald is, although, his language is quite incendiary, when you look at substantive policies on Iran, he said he would not rip up this Iranian nuclear deal. I think that's a mistake.

On Israel, Donald has said he wants to be neutral between Israel and the Palestinians. As president, I will not be neutral.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, you know, as striking -- as they were saying, you look at the foreign policy issues and you see how far Donald Trump is, even though they're more impulses perhaps than agenda, how far he is from where the Republican Party has been in recent years.

Some ways, it is reminiscent of the realism around George H.W. Bush, again, not thought through in the same detail. But the impulse, I'm going to be the dealmaker between the Palestinians and Israelis. I mean, Bush was the president who tried to be a more -- kind of tipping point neutral figure. His view we will be tough and come home, people describe as a Jacksonian foreign policy. Don't mess with us, but don't go looking for dragon to slay abroad.

So, it was -- it is a -- I thought my takeaway of the debate was that it a remainder who many issues Donald Trump departs from where the Republican Party has been, and how big changing direction toward this blue collar populism it would be to choose him as nominee.

RESTON: And that's going to be a huge focus of Marco Rubio this weekend, the Israel issue, the distinction between Rubio and Donald Trump on that issue. I think we'll see him hit that repeatedly leading up to the contest on Tuesday.

CUOMO: Democrats love hearing Ted Cruz ripping up the Iran deal. You're going to hear this flood of experts come out --

GREGORY: That is a big deal for Jewish voters in Florida.

CUOMO: Well, certainly the Israeli/Palestinian issue is going to resonate here. But the idea of ripping up the Iran deal sounds great, but you're going to get a flood of military and diplomatic experts coming and saying, if you do that, you are in a worse position than ever. So, that will be interesting also.

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you. Great to talk to you.

CNN will have complete coverage of Super Tuesday number three. Five states head to the polls, including the winner-take-all states of Florida and Ohio. And that coverage all day Tuesday here on CNN.

CUOMO: We're probably a little bit late, but I don't think the Super Tuesday one, two, three worked as well as we wanted it to.

CAMEROTA: No.

CUOMO: I think they all need their own name.