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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

GOP Delegate Fight. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 01, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] (CROSS TALK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Doug, let - I want you to have the final thought here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Oh, real quick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say in responding to these comments and also what Jim Garrity (ph), who's a great reporter, said earlier today -

BOLDUAN: And I think we lost Doug. That was no statement on what we think of you, Doug. I think we just lost - lost your satellite.

All right, guys, thanks so much for joining me.

Thanks so much for joining me "AT THIS HOUR." LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now on this fine Friday.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We're going to begin this hour with a presidential contest that may not be on your radar because it isn't really a contest at all. Wait for it. At least as far as actual voters are concerned, that's the contest we're talking about. While the candidates are stumping in Wisconsin, where both parties hold primaries on Tuesday, and New York, the biggest delegate jackpot on - of this entire month, Republican insiders in North Dakota, yes, North Dakota, are gathering this weekend to choose more than two dozen delegates who are not bound to choose any particular candidate.

And this year, more than any in recent memory, the battle over delegates at the GOP convention this summer looms over every primary and every caucus and campaign speech and debate. And my colleague, Phil Mattingly, is watching it all. He joins me live now to spell out the numbers, the delegates, those who have to vote a certain way and maybe, most importantly, those who do not have to vote a certain way when they get there.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, look, the golden number for everybody is 1,237. That's the number of delegates that a candidate can lock in and secure the nomination and not have to worry about any of this at all. But, as we stand right now, it looks more likely that a brokered convention, an open convention, is the way this is going. And that's when we head towards those unbound delegates you were talking to.

Now, there are more than 100 delegates from various states that will head to the convention in Cleveland unbound. That means they can pick any candidate they want. And that is exactly why Fargo, North Dakota, is the place to be tomorrow. Ted Cruz will be giving a key note speech there. Ben Carson there for the - for the Donald - representing the Donald Trump campaign. There are 25 unbound delegates there. And, Ashleigh, look, 25 delegates out of 2,000 plus.

Why does it matter? Because they can break any way they want to at the convention. Arguably more important than Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, where 42 delegates are at stake. North Dakota, 25 delegates. Everybody focusing there on Saturday and Sunday, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And then we should also remind our - our viewers of the real civics lesson that's critical here. Whether you're pledged or not, you might have to vote a certain way on that first ballot.

MATTINGLY: Right.

BANFIELD: But even the pledged or the bound delegates, they are free agents after that.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's exactly right. This is - we're all going to get very smart very quickly on convention floor procedure. And I think one of the wild cards here is that going into the convention, Republican actually make a good portion of the rules up each - every four years. So there are going to be a new set of rules going forward here. But the basics of this are on that first ballot, for the vast majority of delegates that are pledged, no matter who you support, if you are a delegate, you are bound to support the person who won your state, who won your caucus. That starts to change on the second ballot. By the third, fourth and fifth, it is a total tossup.

And, Ashleigh, when you're looking at the three candidates that are currently in the Republican field, most notably John Kasich, who's trailing by a large margin in delegates right now, it's as we get to those fourth, fifth or sixth ballots, it will be a complete madhouse. That's when they hope to strike. That's really the only chance they have to strike. But just the fact that they think there's a chance shows you how fluid the situation really is, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Hence the campaign within the campaign. Phil Mattingly, thank you for that, from Pennsylvania.

I want to dig more into this campaign within the campaign. I know it's confusing, but it will all make perfect sense once you hear our chief political correspondent Dana Bash, Mark Preston as well, our executive editor of CNN Politics, and we also welcome Mike Shields, former chief of staff of the Republican National Committee, now president of the Congressional Leadership Fund.

Welcome to all three of you. Dana Bash, I'm going to begin with you and I'm going to repeat it

again, the shadow campaign that has begun in earnest. I like to say that a lot of those unpledged delegates are going to find themselves whipping posts, only because there is an effort to start to whip up those delegates to side with your guy. So take me first to South Carolina and the weirdness that has happened there.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I think that this speaks to what you just heard from Phil and what we have been trying to begin to explain and understand ourselves, which is that in this process voters are voting throughout the country in primaries and caucuses, but it is the delegates that are going to matter and how the delegates are chosen is different in each state.

[12:05:02] You asked about South Carolina. The reason why this has popped up in the news is because South Carolina's rules require the nominee, or the person that that state goes for at the convention for president, pledge to be a Republican. Well, you remember, a couple of days ago at CNN's town hall, Donald Trump, who is the one who won all of the delegates in South Carolina, so he's the only one we're talking about here, he went back on his pledge. And so the open question is whether or not that means that the - that the 50 or so delegates that South Carolina right now has allotted for him will go bye-bye or not.

The answer right now, according to the South Carolina Republican Party chair, Ashleigh, is, it's way too early to talk about that. There are so many things that could happen and will happen between now and the convention that they're not even going there at this point. So that's -

BANFIELD: Wow!

BASH: That's - that's the answer. That's the answer. But - but -

BANFIELD: That's a big 50 wow! That's a lot of delegates, yes.

BASH: A big 50 wow. But - but what - what Matt Moore said right here on CNN this morning is that he does not think that those 50 delegates are going to be unbound. That - that in that first ballot you just talked about, will be -

BANFIELD: Really? You think that that - he thinks they'll sick with their - with their winner, which is Donald Trump, in that - in that state?

BASH: For now. Yes.

BANFIELD: All right, so let's move away from South Carolina. Over to you, Mark Preston, and way up to North Dakota. We don't talk about North Dakota a lot in the primary - in fact, I don't remember ever having to have a big discussion about North Dakota in the primary and caucus races, but they don't have a primary or caucus. It's a very different process there. And now all of a sudden that matters, why?

MARK PRESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It matters because those delegates that are going to be chosen by that state party will be unbound. They'll be able to go with anybody they want. You know what's interesting, if we go back to the change in the rules that we now see here in 2016, the Republican National Committee, and Mike could probably talk a little bit to this, was hoping that the primary would over by this point, in many ways, to gear up for the general election.

But let's just talk about two words that really matter a lot and our viewers should really focus on them over the next couple of weeks. One is electability. The argument that whoever wins the Republican nomination can defeat Hillary Clinton. And momentum. It is all about momentum.

Let me just read you a couple of things right here that will give our viewers an understanding about how important these two weeks are. Saturday, 25 delegates unbound. If someone can go in there and win all 25, that is momentum leading into Wisconsin on Tuesday night. Now, in Wisconsin, as Dana said, the rules are different. However, if you win statewide in Wisconsin, if you are the statewide winner, you automatically get 18 of the 42 delegates that are on the table. That is a sizable amount.

And then there are two more contests that are very similar to North Dakota that will take place before New York. The first one is out in Colorado. Thirteen delegates will be chosen on April 9th. They will be unbound. And then on April 16th in Wyoming, another 14 delegates will be chosen. They will be unbound. These are free agents. They can go for anybody. And as we've seen so far, the Ted Cruz campaign is actively trying to get these delegates on to their side. And then, of course, we go into New York, where you are, Ashleigh. Ninety-five delegates on the table. A huge treasure trove of delegates. If you get more than 50 percent, if you are the statewide winner with more than 50 percent, you walk away with all 95. So that's why, two big words, momentum, electability.

BANFIELD: Add that unpledged word there too because that just means there's going to be a lot of surrogates and drinks being bought and bloomin' onions being served and a lot of effort to try to get people swayed over to your side.

And that's where you come in, Mike Shields. There is a piece in "The New York Times" today, which I know you probably read. Its title is "Donald Trump clears the air with the Republican leaders." It's all about that meeting with Reince Priebus yesterday and the RNC. And within that meeting, "The New York Times" says its sources said that Donald Trump effectively threw some of his staffers under the bus for not doing a good enough job at whipping and wrangling these delegates. Is that their fault or is this the fault of a machine that was never put in place from the beginning and a guy who kind of thought, it's my race to win and I can do it with my own personal chutzpah.

MIKE SHIELDS, FORMER RNC CHIEF OF STAFF: Yes, I thought it was a remarkable report because we had just seen previously, during the earlier part of the week, Donald Trump really standing by his staffer who got into a legal problem and now he's sort of saying, maybe it's their fault. Look, it always - the buck always rests with the candidate. And I think a presidential contest is difficult in part because you're testing someone who could be the president of the United States. So how do they figure out the nominating process? Do they understand the rules? Do they understand how the delegates are to be counted? Do they understand how to conduct a campaign in all these different states?

Those are things that a lot of the other campaigns, I think, you know, your reporters would tell you, they've been talking to these campaigns, all the way through the campaign, a lot of them have people that were set up just to look at all of these delegate counts. Marco Rubio's campaign, John Kasich's campaign, Ted Cruz's campaign, they were looking at this. And so it is a real question as to how the Trump campaign moves forward. Do they have the apparatus in all these states to start completing for a delegate fight, which appears is where we're going.

[12:10:12] BANFIELD: Yes, and, Mike, and to that point, to that exact point, I want to read you something that Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, has said and this is quoted in "The Times" as well today. "It's almost as though he," meaning Trump, "is so full of himself that he can't slow down and recognize that being president of the United States is a team sport that requires a stable personality that allows other people to help him." Now, he did announce that he hired one Paul J. Maniford (ph), a longtime Republican strategist, to lead the delegate wrangling efforts, but it is too little too late or too much already under the bridge? Mike, do you think it can actually be rewrangled and brought back into a workable machine?

SHIELDS: I mean, sure, it could. I mean he's still in the lead in delegates. He has to win, I think, 60 percent of the remaining delegates. I think one of the questions going into the convention is, is he sort of 50 delegates short, in which case he's got to go find 50 people and you guys are going to start chasing these delegates around and doing stories on who they are. By the way, you're going to find out, they are the furthest thing from the Republican establishment, whatever you want to describe that as. These are local Republicans that come up through the county ranks that wear the funny hats, not the establishment.

If he's 200 short, then I think he's got a real problem because I think they have not put the game together up until this point. He's only getting, you know, in Wisconsin, something like 32 percent of the vote. So he's been a movement candidate. That movement sort of has a ceiling on it. The rest of the party has been voting against him. You're going to go to the convention and then you're going to have delegates decide who they want and then it's an open game. And I think if you don't get the nomination on the first ballot, I really believe you're finished after that.

BANFIELD: Wow.

And, Dana, I know you wanted to add something. Real quick because we're out of time. Go ahead.

BASH: Yes, real quick. To Mike's point, the Cruz campaign, they have had this apparatus in place since day one, or at least plans for it.

BANFIELD: Yes. BASH: They have a war room right now where they have people going to all of the meetings and the subcommittee meetings and the conventions and know - they know exactly where the delegates are in all of these states. This is something that was very, very well planned out because they understood this process.

BANFIELD: Who - who thought for a moment that we would have been talking about this arcanity in the - in the primary process. It's remarkable.

Dana Bash, Mark Preston, Mike Shields, you are certainly the guests to get - to get us through this stuff. Thank you so much. I love you because you're nerdy and wonderful, all three of you.

PRESTON: You're all nerds.

BASH: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Hey, I'm a nerd!

All right, up next, he can be shallow. He likes to go for the jugular. And when he goes after someone, he does it as viciously as he can. Now, if you think that I am biased by saying those things, hold your horses, because those descriptions of Donald Trump come from someone else. They come from the person who knows him best. They come from Donald Trump himself. I will put those up on the screen so you can read them for yourself. Donald, on The Donald, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:50] BANFIELD: Safe to say, this has not been the smoothest week for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He is ten points now officially behind Ted Cruz in two new polls, in the state of Wisconsin, and that's next.

He staked out three positions on abortion in three hour and then he rescinded two of them. He declared his loyalty to a campaign chief accused of manhandling a female reporter and then he scrapped a loyalty pledge to the party. Whether those factored into the ten points or not, nobody knows. Whether they'll have an effect further, nobody knows.

But joining me now with strong opinions on all of this are senior Trump adviser and top aide to GOP Senator Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, and also Rebecca Hagelin, who's the author and advocate and supporter for Ted Cruz.

Welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for being here.

Rebecca, if I could begin with you. Things are looking good for your guy in Wisconsin.

REBECCA HAGELIN, TED CRUZ SUPPORTER: Yes.

BANFIELD: But, my friend, that is Wisconsin. And then after Wisconsin, there are great big whales coming in the form of New York and Pennsylvania. I think there's 95 delegates alone in New York. Then there's those Eastern seaboard and those Atlantic state contests that are coming up. And many of them are quite favorable to Donald Trump. Do you think Wisconsin will have some sort of boomerang effect to those states?

HAGELIN: Well, it absolutely will. And Ted Cruz has a plan to pick up delegates in every single state. We have to look at the states that are remaining, and most of them are closed primaries where Donald Trump does not do well.

You know, isn't it interesting that he does well when Democrats can cross over and vote for him. Many of whom I think are doing that because they know in a head-to-head matchup between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, that Donald Trump loses.

This is one reason why Ted Cruz is picking up steam. The other is because Americans are now tired of the entertainment they've been getting from Donald Trump, who's really just a reality TV star who likes to beat up on women verbally and they're starting to think seriously about this campaign. And what they're realizing is that America is at a crossroads. We've got a Constitution that is being trampled underfoot by the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton will do more of the same. Donald Trump has no experience in these kinds of critical issues and Ted Cruz does. So people are now realizing the seriousness -

BANFIELD: So it's one thing to say all those things, Rebecca, but it's another thing to get down and dirty and actually go and scrape up those delegates. And that - mean you can say these great things on television that sound fantastic, but those delegates, you need to really do the hard work to get them.

HAGELIN: And he will. He will.

BANFIELD: So, to that - to that point -

HAGELIN: Well, and, Ted Cruz is doing the hard work.

BANFIELD: Stephen Miller, let me get you to jump in here. Let me get you, Steven Miller, on this.

STEPHEN MILLER, DONALD TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: OK, thank you.

BANFIELD: One thing that a lot of people are very critical of your candidate, well, he's getting a lot of criticism, but in particularly when it comes to the strategy of scraping up the delegates and getting ahead in the numbers, he's plateaued. If you read in "The New York Times" today, there is this notion that he has not been able to do what a conventional frontrunner at this point would have been able to do, despite what it looks like, sweeping lots of states and being ahead in the delegate count, he doesn't have the same kind of upward trajectory of unifying the party and getting enough votes, like say Mitt Romney, even though Mitt Romney's contest went longer, it was still a higher trajectory in consolidated delegates and votes at this point, and that many criticized Donald Trump as having plateaued out. He's not doing any better than he was say weeks and weeks ago and that he may have reached his ceiling.

[12:20:12] MILLER: Well, Donald Trump's pledged delegate lead is larger than Hillary Clinton's pledged delegate lead. And Donald Trump has won as many states as Hillary Clinton has won. So that tells you a lot about -

BANFIELD: No, I'm talking about the Republican race. I'm not talking about Hillary Clinton.

MILLER: Right. No, but that tells you a lot about - that tells you a lot about how strong his position is as frontrunner.

But I do want to make the point about the question of unifying the party. The reality is, is that you have entrenched political interests who have been used to running things for years, wo see their economic model of self-enrichment at stake. So, of course, they're going to fight with everything they have to go after Mr. Trump.

But I want to do something here that I think's really important, which is, I'd like to talk about the issues for a second. You know, we heard your first guest talk a lot about personality and tone. I'd like to talk about issues for a second. The biggest issues facing this country right now are uncontrolled immigration, which is overcrowding our schools, pulling down our wages, putting income security out of reach and threatening us with terrorism. The other biggest issue facing the country is trade, which has destroyed the middle class of Wisconsin. Wisconsin's middle class has shrunk more than any other state and Ted Cruz are supports off shoring. He supports increased migration. He supports Chinese currency cheating. On the issues that matter to real Americans, Ted Cruz - Ted Cruz is with the globalist.

BANFIELD: Stephen, you're doing the same thing that Rebecca did, you're giving the stump speech and that's not what I'm asking you two about.

MILLER: That is not - that is not a - that is not a stump speech.

BANFIELD: I am asking you how your guy is going to strategize. These are things that he says in those rallies and that's fine. I'm talking about how to get consolidation within your party, how to get those delegates, because that's what it's about, it's about the math and it's about actually trying to push yourself -

HAGELIN: I can tell you that.

MILLER: Yes, we're going to -

BANFIELD: You're flat right now, Stephen.

MILLER: Yes, we're going - well -

BANFIELD: You're flat in the primaries over the last (INAUDIBLE).

HAGELIN: I can tell you that. Exactly.

MILLER: I don't - I don't know - I don't - I don't know what you mean by -

HAGELIN: I can tell you how we can do that.

MILLER: Yes, I don't know what you mean by flat, but I -

HAGELIN: And how we're doing that already.

MILLER: I don't know what you mean by flat, but I do think that (INAUDIBLE) -

BANFIELD: Well, I - I'll tell you what I mean. There was an analysis that was circulated just in mid-March by a Republican strategist named Alex Gauge (ph) and it said that his average support in the primaries appears to nearly be flat over the last two months combined - or compared to the rapid climb that Mitt Romney had in the same period in 2012. That's what I mean.

MILLER: Right. But I just - right, but I just - I just - right, but I - I just - I just address that.

HAGELIN: Here's the reality - here's the reality of the situation.

MILLER: No, if I - if I could answer the question. The - the reality is, is that -

HAGELIN: Donald Trump is - Donald Trump is not going to get the delegates.

BANFIELD: Rebecca, let him answer that and then I'll give you the last word.

HAGELIN: He's not going to get the delegates.

MILLER: Yes, I would really - I would like to answer the question.

HAGELIN: OK, great, thank you.

MILLER: The - the reality is, is that Mr. Trump is heading into states, as you mentioned, where he has more than 50 percent of the vote. He's at almost 60 percent in New York. So there's nothing that's flat about that.

But again, what we are seeing right now is an unprecedented moment in American history where a failed political establishment, that has left our borders open and has destroyed our middle class, is trying to grasp on to power any way that they possibly can. And I do want to mention, these policy differences, they affect the lives of tens of millions of Americans in profound ways. And I would just ask, to make it real clear and real specific, because I do think policy matters, Wisconsin is a manufacturing state. Wisconsin has been hollowed out economically. In 1983, Ronald Reagan saved Harley Davidson with a 45 percent tax on Japanese motorcycles.

BANFIELD: OK. So -

MILLER: Quick question for Rebecca. BANFIELD: Let me get Rebecca - no, no, no, no, I'm going to ask the questions, if you don't mind.

MILLER: Does Ted Cruz agree with a 45 percent - does she agree with the 45 percent tax on - on Japanese imports?

HAGELIN: OK, now my turn, buddy.

BANFIELD: I'm going to -

HAGELIN: Here we go.

BANFIELD: Stephen, I'd like to ask Rebecca the question, if I can -

HAGELIN: Listen -

BANFIELD: And I would like to give you some of the work of my colleagues who have worked very hard to mine Donald Trump's own words. Maeve Reston came up with a very compendious piece today. Just a few of the words that we have found from Donald Trump's own writings and speeches. I'm going to read them for you. "I try to step back and remember my first shallow reaction, the day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was for me a deep experience." He went on to say at other times, "go for the jugular so that people watching will not want to mess with you." He's talked about "vengeance" and "revenge." And I've got to ask you this if I can, Rebecca, despite all of these things that would sink a conventional candidate, your candidate, Ted Cruz, does not seem to benefit from that. Does that mean that he struggles with his own problems?

HAGELIN: Absolutely not. What Ted Cruz has struggled with is a divided field where we had so many candidates and then you had Donald Trump on this side. Now that the field has narrowed, it is very clear that Ted Cruz is on a roll. Donald Trump will not get to 1,237, the magic number. This is going to go into a convention where Ted Cruz may have more delegates than him. Certainly Donald Trump will not have enough. It will be decided by the delegates. And people are flocking to Ted Cruz now because of his policy stance on jobs, on security, on freedom.

And I'll tell you this right now, as far as the whole issue of illegal immigration, the person who stood and stopped amnesty in the United States Senate was Ted Cruz. He has a proven record on all of these conservative issues.

[12:25:10] BANFIELD: Got to leave it there.

HAGELIN: He stood against the establishment and Donald Trump has empty words and many ill words at that.

BANFIELD: Rebecca Hagelin, thank you. Stephen Miller, thank you to both of you.

HAGELIN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: It is a fascinating race no matter what. Appreciate your time.

Coming up next, looking beyond Wisconsin to an even bigger battle right here in New York, where Hillary Clinton is caught in a two-front war, trying to take on Trump, but still fighting off Bernie Sanders for the biggest delegate prize of the election so far.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:09] BANFIELD: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are nowhere near at each other's throats the way the Republican candidates are