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GOP Candidates Drop Pledge to Back Nominee; Donald Trump Defends Arrested Campaign Manager; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 30, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:00:05] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you continue to pledge whoever the Republican nominee is?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No. I don't anymore.

COSTELLO: Pledge? What pledge?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family.

COOPER: You're kind of waiting to see.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I would say that that would be a good way to describe it.

COSTELLO: Here's another way to describe it -- Republican revolt.

Also Donald Trump's campaign manager arrested, accused of grabbing a reporter. But Trump says she started it.

TRUMP: She was grabbing me. She had a pen in her hand which Secret Service is not liking because they don't know what it is, and whether it's a little bomb.

COSTELLO: Plus blown-out windows, charred debris. A new haunting look inside the Brussels airport.

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. CNN brings together the Republican candidates but they end up only unraveling the tattered fabric of Republican unity.

In the town hall meeting, all three GOP candidates back away from their pledge to support the party's eventual nominee. This newest assault on Republican loyalty becomes the latest landmine on the road to the convention.

Here's some of the back-pedaling from the candidates. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASICH: I've been disturbed by some of the things that I've seen and I have to think about what my word and endorsement would mean in a presidential campaign. So I want to see how this thing finishes out. And you know what, I want to tell you, I think the little engine that can keeps going. I sure hope they'll endorse me for president when I'm the nominee coming out of the convention in Cleveland. How's that? Is that a good answer. I don't know.

COOPER: But I would be remiss not to follow up. Essentially you are saying it is in the balance. You are kind of waiting and seeing.

KASICH: Well, I would say that that would be a good way to describe it. If the nominee is somebody that I think is really hurting the country and dividing the country, I can't stand behind them. But we have a ways to go. Let's see how this all folds out.

CRUZ: I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family. I think that is going beyond the line. I think our wives, I think our kids should be off limits.

COOPER: I just have to follow up. If Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, would you support him?

CRUZ: Let me tell you my solution to that.

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: Donald is not going to be the GOP nominee. We're going to beat him.

COOPER: Do you continue to pledge whoever the Republican nominee is?

TRUMP: No, I don't anymore. Look --

COOPER: You don't?

TRUMP: No. We'll see who it is.

COOPER: The pledge you took is null and void. The idea of who's supporting whoever the Republican nominee is, you say you will no longer guarantee that you will support the Republican nominee.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I have been treated very unfairly. Look, I won the state of Missouri. Right? No, I have. Truly Cruz people. I've been treated -- I've been treated very unfairly. I'll give you an example, I won --

COOPER: Unfairly by who?

TRUMP: I think by basically the RNC, the Republican Party, the establishment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Chief political correspondent Dana Bash live in Milwaukee with more on this.

Hi, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Good morning. It is still -- you know, we watched it live and I have all morning long been hearing it over and over again but still, as somebody who's covered politics for a long time, I'm still shaking my head because it all started with Ted Cruz, he was first up with Anderson last night. And Anderson asked him not once, not twice, but three times to stand by his pledge to support Donald Trump if Trump is the nominee, and he wouldn't go there and that's what kind of started the ball rolling.

Trump heard that he came out and that's why he didn't go there. But John Kasich even who is a party guy through and through was even talking about the tone and the tenor of the campaign. And the reason why it's such a big deal is because the pledge isn't just kind of willy-nilly thing. Six months ago, the RNC chair, the chair of the Republican Party was so worried that Donald Trump was going to bolt from the party, run an independent bid and hurt a potential Republican candidate that he made every candidate sign a pledge and Reince Priebus went to Trump Tower to personally ask Donald Trump to do so. So that is why this is kind of so incredible.

Now having said all that, we'll see what happens when the voting is done in June, when the actual convention happens to see who it is and how things fall in line. But it just really does show you how frayed the party is. And it's not just the party, it's also the individual campaigns and the tone and tenor. And you mentioned what has been going on with Donald Trump and his campaign manager who was charged in Florida yesterday with one count of battery and he is still by his side and Donald Trump was asked by Anderson if he's going to stick with Corey Lewandowski. Here's what happened there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:02] COOPER: Your campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, charged with simple battery for grabbing a reporter by the arm. Will he continue as your campaign manager?

TRUMP: Yes, he will. Look what she says, Michelle Fields, by the way, she's not a baby. OK. In her own words, exactly, I was jolted backwards. Well, she was -- I mean, she's standing there. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm. Tightly. And yanked me down. She wasn't yanked down. She was like -- she didn't even have any expression.

If somebody in this audience get whacked or gets hurt, including me, you get hit a little bit, you go wow. There's no emotion. OK. Wait a minute. "I almost fell to the ground." I almost fell to the ground. She didn't almost fall to the ground. She got in the way. And by the way, she was grabbing me. Am I suppose to press charges against her? My arm is hurting.

COOPER: You're suggesting you might.

TRUMP: Anderson, my arm is just killing me. It's never been the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So Donald Trump is standing by his man fighting back the way he would if he personally were accused of this.

The other two remaining candidates were asked if they would fire Corey Lewandowski if he worked for them. Listen to how they answered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: If he was your campaign manager, would you ask him to resign?

CRUZ: Of course. Look, it shouldn't be complicated that members of the campaign staff should not be physically assaulting the press. I mean, that shouldn't be a complicated decision.

KASICH: You want to give people the benefit of the doubt but, you know, when you see things that are pretty clear, from what I understand, the video is clear, of course I would fire him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now in this case, one thing is clear. It is case in point of what Donald Trump says about his campaign versus others. Those two candidates, John Kasich and Ted Cruz are conventional. They would very clearly get rid of a staffer who was accused of doing what Corey Lewandowski did, not Donald Trump. This is a perfect example of how unconventional he is in every single way -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Dana Bash reporting live for us this morning. Thank you.

Well, as you heard Dana say, the GOP is getting crushed by the weight of its own elephant in the room and that would be Donald Trump. But the question now becomes, can it recover in time for the Republican convention?

So let's talk about that. I'm joined by national political commentator for USA Radio Networks and Trump campaign surrogate, Scottie Nell Hughes, along with the national spokesman for the Ted Cruz campaign, Ron Nehring.

Welcome to both of you.

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, USA RADIO NETWORKS: Good morning.

RON NEHRING, NATIONAL SPOKESMAN, TED CRUZ CAMPAIGN: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Where to start? Why can't Donald Trump and Ted Cruz just put aside the wives thing and carry on with real issues and talk about them, Ron? NEHRING: Well, Senator Cruz has made very clear that he's entirely

focused on the issues in this campaign. It's why he's doing so well --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: No, no, no. Come on, Ron.

NEHRING: -- in the state of Wisconsin right now. Hold on --

COSTELLO: Senator Cruz is using this, too.

NEHRING: Let me finish. Let me -- what is this with the interrupting here? So Senator Cruz has made clear that that's what we want to talk about and every opportunity that's what we do. That's what Senator Cruz has been doing in the state of Wisconsin. That's part of the reason why Governor Walker has endorsed him. But what we have here with Donald Trump and part of the reason why nobody is willing to support him as the Republican nominee if he were to become the Republican nominee which we have the solution to in terms of Ted Cruz becoming the nominee, of course, is because at the time that that pledge was made, there was an assumption that candidates would act like normal human beings, would act like professionals, would act like people -- like a person who was worthy of the office of the presidency of the United States.

But what we've seen from Donald Trump is an increasingly erratic candidate who seems to stay up late at night and sent hate tweets to women he doesn't know, including Megyn Kelly, Carly Fiorina and now most recently Heidi Cruz which has backfired on him terribly. It's why his poll numbers in Wisconsin are dropping like a stone because people are finally seeing the type of person who Donald Trump really is and someone who just goes on the attack all of the time, attacks women he doesn't know, seems intimidated by strong women.

And seems to have this real obsession with going after Senator Cruz's wife which is completely inappropriate. Donald Trump knows very well what it is that he's doing and, unfortunately, you have some people in the media who kind of play along when Donald Trump sends a couple of tweets at 11:00, 12:00 at night and then the media the following morning decides, OK, well, that's what our talking points are for the following day.

So we want to focus on the issues of national security. We want to focus on these issues because Senator Cruz is so much better prepared than Donald Trump is to talk about these issues. That's where our greatest strength is.

COSTELLO: OK. All right.

(CROSSTALK)

NEHRING: But unfortunately, Donald Trump keeps --

COSTELLO: OK. We get it. We get it, Ron. We do. Scottie -- let Scottie get in here. HUGHES: Thank you.

COSTELLO: So, Scottie, a lot of what Ron says is true about Donald Trump's really kind of strange attacks on -- especially Megyn Kelly. I don't get that either. So stand up for your candidate.

HUGHES: Well, let me say this. Just -- that was a typical Cruz response that Ron just gave. He's going to sit there and say that Ted Cruz rises above the fray, that he wants to talk about policy and then he's going to go on this whole monologue about how horrible and how petty Donald Trump is and yet never actually gives specific policy points.

That is why we are not getting along, Carol, is because people are saying one thing. It's kind of like we've got this massive passive aggressive campaign going from the Cruz campaign right now.

[10:10:06] We're not going to sit here and go negative and, yes, we're to sit here and slam Donald Trump for what's going on with his campaign. Yesterday, Ted Cruz, who I respect immensely, however, when he said this just shows the type of atmosphere that the Trump campaign is creating. That was such a passive aggressive move and a typical politician's move. So when it comes to the ballot, and this is why Mr. Trump is winning, you can either vote for a typical lawyer-esque politician that has gotten us into the trouble that we are in today or get a businessman who tells it like it is and at least you have something that people don't have much in politicians anymore. It's called trust in the truth of what they are saying.

COSTELLO: OK.

HUGHES: And that's what people don't have.

COSTELLO: So both of you have had your say now. And I just want to like make the conversation a little bigger than just the two candidates, Ron. What do you think that this campaign on the Republican side -- because it's gotten so very nasty, what effect ultimately will it have on the Republican Party?

NEHRING: Yes. That's a really good question. You know, I served as the chairman of the California Republican Party for four years and so it was part of my job after the primary election was over to make sure that the party can come back together and rally behind our nominee. What's unique and different about this campaign is that when one particular candidate, that is --whose name rhymes with Donald Trump in this campaign, makes everything so personal and resorts to petty insults all of the time about anybody who might disagree with him at any point in time, it makes it much harder for the party to be able to come back together because he's made it so intensely personal.

And that's rare. It really is rare because primary contests often get nasty but never have we seen a national election, and the parties really are defined nationally, where a leading presidential candidate resorts to such personal attacks on the spouse of an opponent. In this case, Heidi Cruz --

(CROSSTALK)

HUGHES: That started with --

NEHRING: That makes it very -- you know, here we go again with what Anderson Cooper said is the response of a 5-year-old, which is he started it. Well, the Trump people know very well that that is not the case. But that's not the point.

COSTELLO: OK, let's go back to the --

NEHRING: Everything becoming so personal.

HUGHES: Go back to her question, Ron.

HUGHES: It makes it much more difficult. It's going to be a real challenge after the convention. That's for sure.

COSTELLO: It's going to be a challenge during the convention. That's a lot of people's fear, right, Scottie? So why can't Mr. Trump tamped down the personal attacks? Because he does get personal. Let's just admit it. And he said -- Anderson Cooper asked him if there's anything that he ever apologized for and it took him a minute, and then he came up with he apologized to his mom a long time ago for cussing.

So can't we just -- why doesn't he be less of a divisive figure and show the country that he can be a uniter like he says he can?

HUGHES: Because he's too busy having to be defensive from the attacks from everybody else. You have to admit, Carol, Donald Trump is getting hit by everybody not only on the other side of the aisle, as Hillary Clinton has just launched another anti-Trump commercial, and everything that Hillary Clinton is talking about is -- I mean, she's more concerned about Trump right now than she is about Bernie which speaks a lot about who they fear the most. And he's also getting hit from the inside from not only, you know, conservatives that support Ted Cruz but also Kasich, people that have sour grapes because they lost to Mr. Trump.

He's getting hit from every direction. He's having to play defense. If people would just leave him alone I guarantee, and that was what was kind of refreshing -- very refreshing about the town hall like what we saw last night. He does get into some policy points. He does start things off.

COSTELLO: But the reason they don't leave him alone, Scottie, is because he bites back and ultimately, especially among women, he hurts himself. You know, if you look at the latest CNN-ORC poll, it shows 73 percent of Republican women have an unfavorable view of Mr. Trump. I mean, they hit him because it works.

HUGHES: Well, they have an unfavorable but that doesn't mean when they go to the ballot box they're not going to vote for him especially if he's up against Hillary Clinton if that's the only thing that we're worried about. But I do agree with you, there are some things but once again, when you look at it and when you look at how he's promoted women within his own organization, the people of his own campaign, the females that are out speaking on his behalf, when you go to his campaign rallies, you see large female crowds. I'd almost say 50/50, if not more of a majority of females in his crowds.

Then, you know, the pictures are not backing up these words and these supposed poll numbers that women don't like him. I might be unfavorable with somebody. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to vote for them or support them or that I hate them.

COSTELLO: OK. Ron, last word. Go for it.

NEHRING: Well, I think last night at the town hall we saw a clear difference between Senator Cruz and Donald Trump, both on the issues and in terms of the approach that they would take as candidates and for the office of the presidency of the United States. This is -- you know, these are serious times. And fortunately, we're seeing now what Donald Trump really is made of. That's why his poll numbers in Wisconsin are doing so badly and he's dropping like a stone there.

We have five former presidential candidates who dropped out, five of the four rivals who Senator Cruz, who are now on board, which is really encouraging. So Senator Cruz is going to be able to bring the party together because during the campaign he's not resorted to the type of personal attacks that we've seen from Donald Trump.

[10:15:06] HUGHES: Congratulations.

COSTELLO: OK, I have to --

HUGHES: You got the establishment vote. Way to go, Ron. That's exactly what we did not want.

COSTELLO: All right. I've got to leave it there. Ron Nehring, Scottie Nell Hughes, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump standing by his campaign manager and the reporter is sticking to his story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's a case of he said-she said. Except now there is video. I'm talking about the scuffle between Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and reporter Michelle Fields. Trump now dispending Lewandowski who faces a misdemeanor charge of simple battery stemming from this incident.

Watch carefully. You can see Fields trailing Trump at one point and then you can see Lewandowski reaching out. In case you missed it, we have a couple of other shots to show you, too. All right. Here it is. Field says Lewandowski grabbed her so hard he left bruises on her arm. Mr. Trump says his aide was simply trying to protect him from what could have been a major security threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She was grabbing me. Am I supposed to press charges against her? My arm is hurting.

COOPER: You're suggesting you might.

TRUMP: Anderson, my arm is just killing me. It's never been the same.

[10:20:02] COOPER: You've suggested you might.

TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me. I didn't suggest. I tweeted.

COOPER: Yes, you did.

TRUMP: No, no, I tweeted.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: A tweet is a suggestion.

TRUMP: Should I press charges?

COOPER: Right.

TRUMP: Yes.

COOPER: Are you going to?

TRUMP: I don't know. Maybe I should. Right? Because you know what, she was -- she was grabbing me. And just so you understand she was off base because she went through the Secret Service. She had a pen in her hand which Secret Service is not liking because they don't know what it is or whether it's a little bomb.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In response to a Trump tweet asking why no one is questioning Fields' story, she tweeted this, quote, "Because my story never changed. Seriously, just stop lying."

With me now is Jamie Weinstein, he's Michelle's boyfriend, he's also senior editor at the "Daily Caller."

Welcome, Jamie.

JAMIE WEINSTEIN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DAILY CALLER: Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. First of all, how is Michelle?

WEINSTEIN: Well, she's strong. She's doing OK. You know, it's not easy when you have the leading candidate in one of the parties defaming her. But, you know, she's shouldering on, as you would expect someone like Michelle to do.

COSTELLO: Yes. I just want to ask you a couple of questions like that and then I'd like to take a look at the bigger picture. You heard Mr. Trump. He said that Secret Service and Corey Lewandowski thought the pen in Michelle Fields' hands could have been a weapon. Possibly a bomb. They didn't know. Your thoughts?

WEINSTEIN: Well, as you know, Carol, I don't want to talk too much about this because I think the process is playing itself out but I think the other reason is that the Trump campaign statements are just, you know, on their face ridiculous and he's kind of hanging himself with his own words right now. When this first happened, he told CNN after the debate they held in Miami that he talked to the Secret Service, they don't know what she's talking about. She was never touched. Nothing ever happened.

Now all of a sudden he remembers this great threat that was to him. And not only did the Secret Service not act, he needed his campaign manager to act when he was surrounded by Secret Service. I don't think anyone who's fair-minded finds this at any respect plausible. So I hope that he just keeps talking because he just at this point looks somewhat ridiculous in his stories.

COSTELLO: And just one last question about Michelle herself because she had to quit her job over this, right? And I'm sure on social media she's not having a fun time at the moment. Is she staying underground?

WEINSTEIN: Well, you know, there's a lot of people that accused her of wanting to do this as the Trump campaign did for attention seeking. She doesn't like this attention. This is not the type of attention she wants. She is a -- you know, she'll talk when she needs to talk but she's not, you know, going to go on every news show that asks her to repeat these stories and fight back. Right now she sees Donald Trump talking and hurting himself. She doesn't need the spotlight here to, you know, get press. That's not what she wanted. That's not what she ever wanted. You know, she didn't need this for attention.

COSTELLO: All right. So bigger picture now, what does this incident say, you know, about our political process and how it's playing out. I just want -- I want to show you a video of a Trump rally in Wisconsin. A 15-year-old girl was pepper sprayed by a Trump supporter. There's a sexual assault investigation going on right now. What does this all say to you?

WEINSTEIN: Well, you know, politics has always been, you know, somewhat seedy at times. But oftentimes the most seedy elements were kind of away from the campaign, or at least there was plausible deniability. What's interesting with the Trump campaign in particular is it seems that they don't shy away from this stuff. As you know, there was this kind of insidious allegation -- I won't mention names or anything -- about affairs by the "National Enquirer" but the Trump campaign social media director tweets it out, he ties the Trump campaign to this. Doesn't even have plausible deniability that it's not the Trump campaign pushing it.

So, you know, they have a whole sorts of these incidents. Of course Trump himself basically tweeted out a picture, calling Ted Cruz's wife ugly. So this is actually tied to the Trump campaign, and I think that is a new development. Usually campaigns, if they do these type of stuff, it's kind of covertly and through, you know, second sources that don't really tie themselves to the campaign. Trump's campaign is tied to much of this.

COSTELLO: So nothing ever seems to affect his popularity among his supporters, though.

WEINSTEIN: That's true.

COSTELLO: Do you think that might change?

WEINSTEIN: You're absolutely right. You know, when he called John McCain not a war hero and he only rose in the polls when people thought it would end his campaign. But what I think we're seeing right now and if you look at the polls in Wisconsin, you do not see someone who at his position as the frontrunner who is unifying the party in a way that you would expect the frontrunner at this point to unify. You know, he might lose Wisconsin. This fight seems like it's going to go all the way to June 7th, the last day of the primaries and probably to a contested convention.

So I don't know if it's an individual story that's sticking but you'd see some of this stuff and you think that maybe this is preventing Trump from really breaking out and getting that majority of support in state after state he needs to win this nomination outright on the first ballot.

[10:25:11] So maybe as a combination of stories, this may be preventing him from shooting up to where he needs to be to win this nomination outright.

COSTELLO: Well, we'll see what happens in Wisconsin, right?

WEINSTEIN: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Jamie Weinstein, thanks so much for joining me.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, remember when the Republicans all pledged to support the eventual nominee? Well, not anymore.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The race for the White House, Democrats make a play for the Big Apple. Bernie Sanders cranked up the pressure on Hillary Clinton to debate him here --