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Trump: Not Much Violence at Rallies; Florida a Must Win for Rubio Tomorrow; Inside Rebel-Held Syria; Russia Withdrawing Troops from Syria. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired March 14, 2016 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00] TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Did Ronald Reagan say he was going to pay for the legal bills of someone that punched a protester in the face? I don't care what the protester said. He wasn't violent.
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And let's also be clear about the history. Ronald Reagan started his campaign in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where three individuals were murdered because they were trying to get the right to vote. So states rights, all of this violence, it's bringing back some dog-whistle type of leadership. That's not what we're about. That's not what we're about.
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: And I think we have to condemn it, whether it comes from the left or the right, Jeffrey. And for making excuses --
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But it doesn't come from the right.
BRAZILE: It is coming from the right. This dog-whistle, this dog- whistle politics, this "President Obama is breaking the law" when all he is trying to do is use the constitutional framework, his powers as the chief executive of this country to advance the goals of freedom and equality for all. Raising the wage of workers --
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: -- making sure that people --
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: -- who are gay are not discriminated against in the federal workforce. Those are laws you can debate whether or not you like America or not, but he's the president of the United States. He's going to --
(CROSSTALK)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
BRAZILE: And he should follow the Constitution. (CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Tara, hold on a moment. Hold on a moment.
SETMAYER: Today. Today.
BLITZER: Everyone hold on for a moment.
I want to play a little clip right now. Bernie Sanders holding a rally in Akron, Ohio. Ohio voting, as we know, tomorrow. Listen to what he just said a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When voter turnout is high, when working people and lower income people and young people begin to stand up and fight back and demand that we have a government that represents all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors --
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: -- when people come out to vote in large numbers to reclaim their democracy, we win. When voter turnout is low, we lose. Let's make sure that tomorrow we have a huge voter turnout!
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Donna, do you think there will be a huge voter turnout? Because Donald Trump, you heard say, voter turnout so far on the Democratic side is down from 2008, as compared to the Republican side, it's up.
BRAZILE: There is no question we have less candidates and the turnout is not as good as we want it to be. But let me say this to Mr. Trump. Hillary Clinton has more voters in terms of the popular vote. She has more voters. And she has more delegates. So she's proud of what she's been able to accomplish. Bernie Sanders is also very proud. He's very close to catching up with Mr. Trump. So if we have a good turnout, I do believe that will help us. In 2000, we had a low turnout, and do you know who won the popular vote? Al Gore.
BLITZER: All right. Everybody stand by. We have more to discuss just ahead.
Rubio's fight for Florida. Can he pull off an upset win in his home state tomorrow? Is this presidential campaign over if he doesn't? And we'll talk to a senior adviser to Senator Rubio. All that and a whole lot more when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:37:35] BLITZER: For Marco Rubio, it all comes down to Florida. The future of his presidential campaign depends on his home state's 99 Republican delegates. A new poll today shows Donald Trump leading Rubio by a 2:1 margin in Florida. At a stop in Jacksonville today, Rubio urged supporters to help him stop Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R), FLORIDA & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tomorrow, we have a chance to make a powerful statement to the country. And that is that the Republican Party is not going to allow itself to be hijacked by fake conservatives and people who go around dividing us against each other.
(CHEERING)
RUBIO: We are a country of people with a lot of different opinions. And we should continue to debate toes pi those opinions and we should continue to argue over those opinions, but we cannot have a country where everyone hates each other, where everyone is at each other's throat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Jason Roe is a senior advisor to Senator Rubio and he's joining us now from San Diego.
Jason, thanks very much for joining us.
As you know, Governor Kasich says his campaign is over if he loses his home state of Ohio tomorrow. Is it over for Senator Rubio if he loses Florida tomorrow?
JASON ROE, SENIOR ADVISOR, MARCO RUBIO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: It's obviously very difficult if we don't win Florida tomorrow, but Marco has a history of coming from behind in his home state. You'll remember when he ran against the establishment choice sitting governor, Charlie Crist, at one point, he was down 40 points and ended up prevailing. So we're very optimistic that people are going to come around and support Marco. The polls have been incredibly volatile. There have been other polls that showed single digits and one last week showed that Marco actually leads amongst absentee voters that have already voted by 25 percent. So we feel pretty good about the direction things are going and we just have to keep working hard until the polls close tomorrow.
BLITZER: Because it's winner-take-all, 99 delegates on the line. If you come in second, it doesn't mean anything as far as Florida is concerned. Same for Ohio. Bottom line, though, if he loses Florida, and we don't know if he will win or lose, we'll see what the voters say. But if he loses Florida, is it over?
ROE: I think you're right, if you're not first, you're last when it comes to Florida with the winner-take-all. And obviously Ohio is winner-take-all, as well. But we do have to remember I think some context and that is that as of right now, Donald Trump doesn't even have half the delegates he needs in order to secure the nomination. And so regardless of the outcome tomorrow, this race still has a long way to go before it's settled. And I think everyone realizes that, at this point, it's most likely that we'll be settling this at convention.
[13:40:13] BLITZER: If he gets the most, gets a plurality, shall we say, Trump, but he doesn't get 1237, which is what you need for the majority in order to be guaranteed the Republican nomination, but let's say he gets a whole lot more than anyone else, is that not good enough?
ROE: The ultimate goal is defeating Hillary Clinton and winning in November. And there is not a poll out there that shows Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton. As we get closer to that election and this whole process gets clear, I think Republican voters will look at the situation and realize that we are doomed if Donald Trump is our nominee. And so I think there is a lot of sobering up as we get closer to that convention where delegates that cast a vote in their respective states for choosing their preference, I think in July, Republicans, regardless of who they support going into that convention, are going to want to field the strongest candidate to win in November, and I can guarantee you that's not going to be Donald Trump.
BLITZER: Jason Roe, senior adviser to Senator Rubio.
Jason, thanks very much.
ROE: Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: Coming up, we have an exclusive look inside war-torn Syria. CNN goes undercover where no Western journalist has dared to go in over a year. Our report when we come back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(EXPLOSION)
(SHOUTING)
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:45:33] BLITZER: Now to a CNN exclusive. Our senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, and producer, Salma Abdelaziz, went undercover into rebel-held Syria where virtually no Western journalists have gone for more than a year, witnessing first hand the turmoil these civilians face. They worked with Syrian-based filmmaker, Bilal Abdul Kareem, on this exclusive report.
We want to warn our viewers, some of these images are very graphic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Moving through rebel-held northern Syria is difficult and dangerous. As foreign journalists in areas with a strong jihadist presence, we had to travel undercover to see a war few outsiders have witnessed. The city of Idlib is the only provincial capital under rebel control.
This was its courthouse until it was hit by an air strike in December. Dozens were killed.
40-year-old lawyer, Talal Aljawi, told us he was inside the building when it was hit. His arm was smashed, but he was lucky to survive.
TALAL ALJAWI, LAWYER (through translation): The Russian planes target anything that works in the interest of the people. The goal is that people here live a destroyed life, that people never see any good, that they never taste life. This is the tax of living in a liberated area.
WARD: An hour later, we saw that tax for ourselves while filming in a town nearby. We heard the scream of fighter jets wheeling overhead.
(EXPLOSION)
WARD: Moments later, a hit.
(on camera): There was just an air strike here in the town of Ariha. So we're now driving very quickly. It's not clear yet what was hit, but we are hearing that there are still planes in the sky.
(EXPLOSION)
WARD (voice-over): Arriving on the scene, our team found chaos and carnage.
(SCREAMING)
WARD: Volunteers shouted for an ambulance as they tried to ferret out the wound. For many, it was too late.
(SHOUTING)
WARD: A woman lay dead on the ground, a jacket draped over her, in an attempt to preserve her dignity.
(SHOUTING)
WARD: Russia has repeatedly claimed it is only hitting terrorist targets. This strike hit a busy fruit market.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): This is just a civilian market. This is not a military area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): There are no military installations here or anything. It's a market! Look! It's a market! A fruit market! Is this what you want, Bashar?
WARD: We couldn't stay long. Often jets circle back to hit the same place twice. It's called a double tap.
(SIREN) WARD (on camera): We just arrived here at the hospital where they're bringing the dead and the wounded from those three strikes in Ariha, which hit a park and a fruit market. We don't know the exact number of casualties there. But the scenes of devastation, blood on the ground, dismembered body parts, and the injured and dead that we've seen arriving here indicate that this was a very bad strike indeed.
(voice-over): Among the injured brought in, a young boy moaning in pain.
(SHOUTING)
WARD: He died moments later.
The strikes on Ariha that day killed 11 people, among them, a woman and two children. Rescue workers wasted no time in clearing away the rubble. In this ugly war, massacres have become routine.
Clarissa Ward, CNN, Ariha, Syria.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Amazing reporting.
Clarissa is joining us now live.
Clarissa, you went undercover in Syria. Brutal situation. Five years now, hundreds of thousands of people killed. Talk a little bit about what it was like behind the scenes. It must have been so frightening, so harrowing.
[13:49:47] WARD: Our experience in six days in this area really just gives us a small window into what has become the everyday life for people who are living in these rebel-held areas. Those air strikes that we showed you in this piece just now, Wolf, happened less than 24 hours after we were on the ground, so it was almost like a baptism by fire type of situation, where immediately you were just thrust into this situation, where you could see so clearly the situation, the intensity of the bombardment that the Syrian people are living under, and what is extraordinary to notice on the ground is not so much that so have fled, which of course we have seen quite a lot of this in the coverage over the past months and years.
But to see that people actually remain, that there are still people who are committed to trying to fulfill the sort of end goal of this uprising that looked very different when it began five years ago, but which, essentially, at its core, is still about the same thing, that President Bashar al Assad must go, and that the people have the right to self-determination. So it was an extraordinary assignment on many levels and obviously a lot of security concerns from the threat of kidnapping, which is very real. But to be honest, my primary security threat or the thing that concerned me the most was the threat of aerial bombardment because it is seemingly so random and there's no good way to protect yourself from it.
BLITZER: The aerial bombardment you're talking about, correct me if I'm wrong, largely Russian bombardment?
WARD: There are basically only two players in the skies in Syria, and that's the air force of the regime of Assad and also the Russian air force. Since Russia intervened militarily in Syria last September, they have been carrying out the vast majority of air strikes. We're talking about thousands of air strikes every month. In this instance, we actually went to the Russian defense ministry. We told them about this strike we witnessed. We asked them for some kind of clarification as to whether they were responsible. The only thing they told us is that the Russian defense ministry has always maintained that we do not hit civilians and we do not hit civilian targets. I have to say, and you'll see this playing out in our series throughout the week, that is at odds with what we saw on the ground -- Wolf?
BLITZER: Clarissa, I want you to stand by for a moment.
We're getting some breaking news into CNN. CNN has learned Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the withdrawal of his troops from inside Syria.
Our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, is joining us on the phone.
Nick, what are you hearing?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, it's early stages at this point, but we're hearing from the Russian state news agency that Putin has ordered -- I think it's fair to say -- the beginning of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, saying that, in fact, as far as he can see it, that task has been completed. He's also, apparently, in a phone call with Bashar al Assad, the Syrian president, informed him of this, and also confirmed their mutual desire to see speeding up or intensification of the political process inside of Syria.
Now, it's remarkable to get such public gestures made by the Kremlin. Normally, Russian diplomacy, Russian military maneuvers are done under some sort of veil. This is a bold open statement that pretty much says we're done here. He says in the statements here -- and these are early stages -- they believe that it is done.
Obviously, ISIS still have a strong presence there. Obviously, al Qaeda-affiliate al Nusra still have a presence in Syria. But perhaps Damascus and Moscow's perception of who they see as the international terrorists, those moderates fighting against the regime, well, they've taken a severe pounding in the past few months or so. Some may look at this as the Kremlin having established their military goals they sought, pushing back from key coastal strongholds and around Aleppo, those anti-regime forces they sought to attack. That might be one reason. Or the other reason could be some sort of domestic fatigue. Perhaps Putin's economic status and financial budget isn't doing as well as they'd like to think.
Another alternative, too, potentially, that given the fact the political process is days ahead in Geneva to take some kind of shape in the second phase of these new round of talks, perhaps this is a physical manifestation, open signal from Moscow to Damascus that they need to think about a deal and they need to concentrate more on a political transition. There have been suggestions in the media in the past weeks that perhaps the Kremlin is not too happy with the strident tones we've heard from Damascus about how Assad leaving power is a red line they can't contemplate.
Always hard to divine the tea leaves when it comes to the Kremlin's political goals. But we have this very bold statement here of remarkably important timing that the withdrawal of the Russian military from Syria will begin, starting tomorrow -- Wolf?
[13:55:08] BLITZER: Well, standby for a moment, Nick.
I want to bring back Clarissa Ward, who just was inside Syria, under cover, for us.
It's unclear to me, Clarissa -- I'll get Nick to weigh in on this as well -- whether the withdrawal of Russian ground forces also means a halt to any aerial bombardment, if you will, of sites inside Syria, because that's caused such devastation, as your eyewitness report showed us, Clarissa. What's your reaction to the breaking news?
WARD: First of all, I have to say it's flabbergasting, Wolf. It's not that often that breaking news really shocks you. But this news is very shocking to me for a number of reasons. First of all, Russia has been unwavering in its support of the Assad regime really since day one. What we saw happen back in September was an intensification of its efforts to bolster the Assad regime. But for Russia to say at this stage that, essentially, quote, "their task is completed," would still seem to be, you know, a little early in the game to make a statement like that. The stated goal of the Russian intervention was to fight terrorism, to take out ISIS, to take out al Qaeda-affiliate Jabbad al Nusra. And I certainly think the Russian strikes have had only limited effect on ISIS areas.
It's had significant effect on the areas that we spent time in, where Jabbad al Nusra does have a presence, but certainly al Nusra's presence still is strong on the ground. It hasn't been decimated at all by the Russian aerial campaign. Actually it's really the civilian infrastructure that has taken much more of a hit.
And I think you hit on a really crucial issue there, Wolf, which is the distinction. Does Russia ordering its ground troops out of the country mean they will cease and desist from this aerial bombardment? Certainly, it is fair to say since the cessation of hostilities took hold a few weeks ago, the Russians have certainly dramatically reduced the intensification of the bombardment.
If they were to stop it altogether, you would certainly see another dramatic shift on the battlefield, particularly in the city of Aleppo, where Russians essentially carpet bombing had allowed Assad ground forces to encircle almost completely rebel-held areas of the city, leaving up more than 300,000 people potentially under siege. It will be very interesting to see if the Russians really do stop the aerial bombardment, as well as pulling out their ground troops. That is going to, again, have a dramatic effect, and you're going to see some real shifts on the battlefield on the ground -- Wolf?
BLITZER: Let me get Nick back. He's on the phone still.
Nick, is there any explanation? Removal of the ground forces, does it also mean a halt to air strikes by the Russians?
PATON WALSH: Well, it suggests little groups which would, by definition, suggest you might be talking more about ground forces but some of the others suggest a broader issue. And I think you have to look at the signals. Russia has been on the ground since the beginning of the war in a low capacity, a low intensity, assisting here and there, perhaps. What they've done in the last few months is ramp that up.
But the point here is the signal. The Kremlin doesn't make big gestures like this about its military operations without a specific motive. And what we're seeing perhaps today is the beginning of what many had thought may have been the case, that there is actually more tension perhaps between Damascus and Moscow than previously thought to be the case, that perhaps the Russian appetite for intervention in Syria, as it plays well domestically at times, but lots of kind of maybe high-octane video from the front lines state media has been playing, that the Russian appetite for involvement is not limitless. Finances can take a battering.
I think what's important here is the beginning of the withdrawal and I think it's also important that it comes as peace negotiations are supposed to be taking on a new kind of momentum.
There have been suggestions that Assad has perhaps pushed the whole notion of him staying forever a little bit too far. There have been suggestions that maybe Damascus and Tehran, and Damascus and Moscow are not all on the same page about the future here, and that maybe the Russians came in at some point to assist Damascus from being dominated by Iran. A lot of speculation, as you would expect, from these kinds of closed door relationships and meetings. But breaking that door wide open here is a very clear signal from Moscow and that says we're leaving. Now, it may not be tonight, and it will take a long time, and they may leave some kind of presence behind, like, for example, they had in Ukraine. But this is a key moment, Wolf, in the conflict.
BLITZER: It certainly is.
Nick Paton Walsh with the breaking news. And we will stay all over it.
Thanks to Nick Paton Walsh and Clarissa Ward, excellent reporting.
That's it for me. Thanks for watching. The news continues next on CNN.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
