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Trump Looks to Regain Momentum in Wisconsin; Clinton, Sanders Clash Over Debate Date; Clinton Feels "Sorry" for Young People? Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00] ROY WILLIAMS, NORTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH: Hopefully the experience of being there for would help me try to make -- say the right thing. Then you never know. If at the end of the game, if we won, I'll say I've said the right thing, if we don't, I'll say I screwed it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: The action tips off tonight at 9:19 Eastern on TBS. In case you're wondering, Las Vegas has the Tar Heels at a two-point favorite in the game.

And, Poppy, I mentioned real quick in those CNN bracket standings, they don't call it "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" for no reason. He already won the CNN anchor bracket pool even though we haven't even played the championship game yet.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I came in 12th. I think I'm going to keep my day job, Andy. What do you think? Good idea?

SCHOLES: Yes, probably so. I got fourth. I needed Oklahoma to win. A little disappointing for me.

HARLOW: Have fun tonight, Andy. Thanks so much.

SCHOLES: I will. All right, thanks.

HARLOW: All right. The next hour of NEWSROOM begins right now. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining us.

It is the final sprint for Wisconsin. Today Donald Trump and Ted Cruz blanketing the battle ground state as they gear up for tomorrow's critical primary. Next hour they'll hold competing town halls. The stakes are incredibly high. 42 delegates up for grabs and the battle is fierce as Trump tries to bounce back from a rocky week. He's doubling down on calls for rival John Kasich to drop out. Ted Cruz now launching his own offensive against the Ohio governor with a new ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After Kasich became governor, that same company received 619 grand in state tax breaks for job creation. But last year the company laid off 100 Ohioans even as the CEO cut a half million dollar check to Kasich's super PAC.

John Kasich is not for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's get straight to Jason Carroll, he's live in La Crosse, Wisconsin. That is where Trump will speak next hour.

What is his strategy here to get back the votes that the polls have him down 10 points?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the things he wants to do, and you heard there, is to try to get John Kasich out of the race. He says it's time for him to go. When he was speaking to a group of supporters last night at a rally he said that -- basically that Kasich is, quote, "littering up the race." He called it a disgrace. He said that Kasich is basically taking votes from him, not from Ted Cruz. He also said, Poppy, that Kasich doesn't have the track record to be able to move forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kasich is now 1 for 30. Is it 1 for 30 or 1 for 29? He's 1 for 30. It's good if he gets out. I don't want him in. I don't want him in. Why are you in? And everyone says, he's such a nice guy. He's not a nice guy. Do you remember the first debates? He came at me so strong. I said, wait a minute, you were a managing director of Lehman Brothers which almost took the entire economy down. OK. Give me a break. He's not a nice guy. He's a nasty guy, you want to know the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Ted Cruz, as you know, you saw it from that ad there, also asking and calling for Kasich to drop out. They want this to be a two-man race, but so far, Poppy, no sign that Kasich is going anywhere.

HARLOW: Yes. I don't think that's happening, especially before tomorrow from everything Kasich has said.

Jason, before I let you go, when it comes to the female vote, I mean, this is something that Trump has struggled with, and perhaps may have gotten worse last week with the back and forth over abortion. His wife Melania hits the trail today in Wisconsin. How much is this strategy a play for the women's vote?

CARROLL: Well, I think they're certainly hoping that it will help. Something to sort of buffer some of the things that he has said in the past week. As you know his wife and his daughter have both said to him, try and be more presidential when you're interacting not only with the press but when you're speaking at rallies like the one we're about to have right here today. So far it doesn't -- hasn't seemed to work.

I mean, when you look at some of the ratings -- I mean, excuse me, some of the percentage points which show that Republican female voters in terms of Republican female voters are 39 disapproval rating with Donald Trump. So that's something that they're simply going to have to figure out a way to deal with. Perhaps having his wife out here on the campaign, maybe that will help in some way, but clearly, Poppy, they have some ground to make up for, especially considering what happened last week -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Exactly. Jason Carroll, thank you so much there in La Crosse, again where Trump will hold that rally just next hour.

So how will this all play out in Wisconsin with the voters tomorrow? Let's bring in CNN political commentator and Ted Cruz supporter, Ben Ferguson. Also with me is talk radio host and political columnist John Phillips. He is a Trump supporter.

Nice to have you on, gentlemen.

Ben, let me begin with you.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

HARLOW: Good morning. We have seen Cruz spend so much time in Wisconsin, more time than Trump, playing up the ground game. And this looks a lot like the Iowa strategy, right? Where he won the Iowa offensive. If Cruz wins, your guy, how damaging do you think that is for Trump? Does that really turn this race?

[10:05:07] FERGUSON: I think it does because I think at this point Donald Trump thought he would probably have this wrapped up and he would be able to say, look, I am going to be the nominee. It's time for everybody to unite and move together. He's not been able to do that. And what you see is there's a big difference here in the way these two campaigns are being run. Ted Cruz is on the ground. He's doing the old school shake hands, talk to people, lots of smaller events. Donald Trump is used to coming in on his big jet, having a rally big and immediately flying back out and saying I'm done here. So I think that is -- the big difference you're seeing is the ground game moving forward.

I also think, though, a lot of this comes down to another issue. That is the fact that Donald Trump is having a really hard time explaining his stances on important moral issues. Abortion last week is a prime example of it. And Wisconsin voters paid attention to that. They realize that Donald Trump is sound biting trying to speak, you know, pro-life talk. He got it wrong and you can't fake out Wisconsin voters that way, and it's costing him in the polls.

HARLOW: John, to you, I want to give you a chance to defend your candidate and also speak to that issue that Ben brings up, a critical issue when it comes to -- to many voters across the country, right, is abortion and the fact that he had four positions in one week. Are you concerned about what that does to him in Wisconsin?

JOHN PHILLIPS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, he certainly flubbed the abortion question, and walked it back, but this has been the worst week of the campaign so far for Donald Trump. I don't know what his Secret Service code name is, but it should be (INAUDIBLE), because he's taking twice as much incoming fire as $0.50. So he's got to shake it off. He's got to mitigate the damage in the state of Wisconsin and then he's got to move to friendlier ground, which is the state of New York.

There's a new poll that came out this weekend that has him north of 50 percent. There's a new poll out in the state of Pennsylvania that has him way ahead. Other northeastern states still haven't voted. Other states on the Pacific Coast haven't voted yet.

HARLOW: Are you conceding --

PHILLIPS: And Ted Cruz is running out of friendly states.

HARLOW: Are you conceding Wisconsin? Are you -- are you saying your guy can't Wisconsin?

PHILLIPS: Well, I -- I don't know if I'm conceding it, but I'm certainly acknowledging that he's behind in the polls and it's a tough pot. If he were to win in Wisconsin, that might be the death blow to Ted Cruz because is just running out of states that have a lot of evangelical Christians, a lot of voters that are predisposed to like his brand of Republican politics.

FERGUSON: Poppy --

HARLOW: Ben.

FERGUSON: Poppy, let's be clear. Wisconsin was an ideal state for Donald Trump going in.

HARLOW: Right.

FERGUSON: This was a place where he should have done well. This is not a place where he was going to do poorly. This was a place where he thought -- and had a legitimate shot at winning. The reason why he has flubbed it is because of, yes, his policy positions, having four different positions on abortion, but to act somehow as if this was a state that they're not going to be concerned with, the Trump campaign, him losing. This is a place where he was supposed to do well, and he did not do well -- or is not doing well.

HARLOW: I want to -- of course you're talking about the --

PHILLIPS: Can I respond to that, Poppy?

HARLOW: Yes, in a moment. I also want to you respond to this Politico report this morning --

PHILLIPS: OK. Sure.

HARLOW: That has a lot of people talking. And it says that basically behind the scenes Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski's role is being diminished, it's shrinking, especially after being given those misdemeanor simple battery charges last week. Should Lewandowski's role be diminished? PHILLIPS: OK, so first on the Midwestern states. That's been the one

region of the country where we haven't seen any sort of discernable pattern. You had Marco Rubio win in Minnesota. You had Ted Cruz win in Iowa. You had Donald Trump win in Michigan. You had John Kasich win in Ohio. So it's been all over the board. So I don't necessarily know if any Midwestern state is a home game for any of these candidates.

In terms of Lewandowski, look, I'm an athlete. I used -- I grew up playing basketball. Sometimes one team drops 12 points on the other, there's a scoring run and you've got to stop the bleeding, and you've got to move on and you have to come back out at halftime and do better. And that's what's going on right now with the Donald Trump campaign. They had a horrible week. I am acknowledging that right now. But it's a new week. It's time to move on. It's time to mitigate the damage in Wisconsin.

HARLOW: But what are you saying about Lewandowski?

PHILLIPS: And it's time to run up the score in New York.

HARLOW: What are saying about Lewandowski? Is he a safe bet for Trump going forward?

PHILLIPS: I'm saying that if those reports in Politico are true, that would probably be reflective of the bad week that they had last week and the poor numbers in Wisconsin.

Look, if you're Donald Trump, you want to put the baby to bed as soon as possible. You don't want this process to linger on. Ted Cruz does not have a path to the nomination outside of a contested convention. If this thing goes to a contested convention, it's going to get really ugly. If you're Donald Trump, you want to win this thing outright.

FERGUSON: Poppy --

PHILLIPS: And if what you're doing doesn't allow that to happen, you've got to make some changes.

HARLOW: Getting the wrap, gentlemen. Getting the wrap. Ben, I got to leave it there.

FERGUSON: Yes. Let me say this -- all right, that's fine.

HARLOW: I got to leave it. You'll be on again, you know it. Ben Ferguson, John Phillips, thank you both so much.

FERGUSON: Thanks.

HARLOW: Soon Bernie Sanders will meet with more Wisconsin voters.

[10:10:03] The Vermont senator is hosting a rally in the city of Janesville next hour as he makes a mad dash across the state ahead of the primary there tomorrow. Hillary Clinton, though, is in New York as the debate dispute is heating up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm confident we'll work out a time that's good for both of our schedules and when large numbers of people will be watching.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm confident that there will be. But I'm not -- I'm not the one negotiating it. That's going on between our campaigns. And I do know my campaign has been really trying to get a time that Senator Sanders' campaign will agree with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: CNN's Chris Frates live for us in Wisconsin where Sanders is campaigning this morning.

Good morning to you, Chris. He's a little bit ahead in the polls and Clinton is not in the state today.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right, Poppy. And you know, what's really dominated the campaign trail this past weekend was this debate over debates with the Bernie Sanders campaign and the Hillary Clinton campaign blaming each other for refusing to lock down a date to debate in the Empire State, and then there's a little Dr. Suessing. So let's break it down.

Clinton was first on the gate saying look, we proposed three different dates to debate Bernie Sanders in New York. He rejected all of those. Bernie Sanders saying hey, wait a minute here. Those debate dates don't work. In fact, one of the proposed dates was today. And tonight of course is the NCAA Men's basketball tournament. So Sanders folks saying, people are going to want to watch the game. They're not going to want to watch a presidential debate.

One of the other date that was floated was April 14th. That is a day that the Sanders folks are trying to have a huge rally in Washington Square Park in New York City. They say they expect 10,000 to 20,000 people. So they said, you know, thanks but no thanks, we're busy that day. And they countered with a number of dates themselves.

Now of course Sanders and Clinton in interviews this weekend said they're both confident that this debate will happen. Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, saying that he thinks this will get -- telling me that he thinks this will get settled soon. But Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders still slugging it out on the campaign trail. Take a listen to what Hillary Clinton had to say just a few days ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I'm also a Democrat. And have been a proud Democrat all my adult life. And I think that's kind of important if we're selecting somebody to be the Democratic nominee of the Democratic Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So no surprise why Hillary Clinton hitting Bernie Sanders. He expected to do very well in Wisconsin here tomorrow, but there's only 86 delegates at stake here. He is lagging Clinton by about 240 delegates. So he's really looking to upset Hillary Clinton in her home state where there's 250 delegates at stake, although important to always note that this is not a winner-take-all primary. It's proportional. Bernie Sanders needs to win 75 percent of the delegates left on the table to clinch the nomination.

Hillary Clinton needs just 35 percent, Poppy. And that's why this debate is so important. When and where it is will help Democratic voters in New York decide between Sanders and Clinton. And that could have a huge impact on this race -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Well, you know, Chris Frates, if it was going to be tonight versus the game, you and I would totally geek it out and watch the -- watch the debate, wouldn't we?

FRATES: I might have to go split screen, I'll tell you, Poppy. You know, like kind of one on each?

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: All right. Spoken like a true basketball fan and a political reporter.

Chris Frates, thank you so much.

Still to come here in the NEWSROOM, Clinton takes a swing at Sanders but hits young voters. How will her comments play out with millennials? You'll hear them next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:31] HARLOW: Hillary Clinton, saying she is sick of people getting her record on fossil fuel corporate donations wrong, but did she just insult young voters in the process? Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: When people make these kinds of claims which now I think have been debunked, actually "The Washington Post" said three Pinocchios, the "New York Times" also analyzed it and other independent analysts have said that they are misrepresenting my record. I'm just not going to -- I feel sorry sometimes for the young people who, you know, believe this. They don't do their own research and I'm glad that we now can point to reliable independent analysis to say no, it's just not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's talk about this. I'm joined by the host of the "Bill Press Show" and the author of "Buyer's Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down," Bill Press. Also with me, the --

BILL PRESS, HOST, "THE BILL PRESS SHOW": Hi, Poppy.

HARLOW: The president -- hello -- of the Center for American Progress and former policy director for Hillary Clinton in 2008, Neera Tanden.

Welcome to you both. Neera, let me begin with you as a Clinton supporter, someone who worked with her before. We heard what she said, she said she felt sorry for some of the, quote-unquote, "young people" who don't do their research and believe this stuff. Does that hurt her?

NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I really don't think so. I think if you look at the facts, if you step back and look at the situation, the Sanders campaign -- you know, I have deep respect for Senator Sanders, but he pledged from the beginning of this campaign to run a positive campaign, and yet his campaign and he himself have launched attacks on Hillary, on her record, saying she's essentially captive for -- because of captive to the fossil fuel industry because of these donations from actual people who work there, not the companies themselves.

Then it turns out that he himself has taken the same kinds of donations. And that is why he got three Pinocchios, which is translating to say he's making false charges.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: But what about --

TANDEN: And so I think --

HARLOW: What about what she said about the young voters saying, I feel sorry for them that they believe him.

TANDEN: I think the reality is that it's too bad that anyone believes this. Young people, old people. I mean, we should say it's wrong since he's launching a false attack. It's wrong and it's too bad anyone believes it. I think that's exactly what she's saying.

HARLOW: Bill -- Bill, to you, how did you read those comments?

PRESS: I think it is so condescending and it is insulting to young people and to old people. The question that Hillary Clinton should be asking is not why -- feeling sorry for young people who support Bernie Sanders.

[10:20:05] She should be asking why do 83 percent of young people across the board, men, women, black, white, brown, whatever, support Bernie Sanders? That's the issue. And she doesn't do herself any favor, I think, by saying she feels sorry for them.

And I want to come back to the facts. OK. The facts are two questions. Did Hillary Clinton take money from the fossil fuel industry? OK, here's an article from the "Huffington Post." "Hillary Clinton's biggest campaign bundlers fossil fuel lobbyists." And how much money did she take? Here's an article from the Center for Responsible Politics. $4.5 million. Now Neera, this is a talking point from the Clinton campaign.

TANDEN: For the love of God, this is totally -- HARLOW: Bill, I --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Bill, I've got to jump in there. I just want to set the scene for our viewers.

TANDEN: It's so wrong.

HARLOW: And then we should move on. The numbers that are out there are the $4.5 million you're talking about.

PRESS: Right.

HARLOW: Comes only from Greenpeace and it talks about lobbyists who work for many, many industries including the fossil fuel industry.

TANDEN: Yes, that's not --

HARLOW: To her super PAC, not to her campaign.

PRESS: No, no. These are --

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: These are 11 who work for the fossil fuel industry.

TANDEN: No, that's wrong.

HARLOW: The numbers are 300,000 roughly for Clinton's camp in terms of people who work for the fossil fuel industry in the selection.

PRESS: Right . Right.

HARLOW: And $54,000 for Bernie Sanders from people who work for the industry.

PRESS: Right. Right.

HARLOW: Moving on, I want to talk about the debate. Those are the numbers. Moving on, I want to talk about the New York debate.

Neera, the back and forth, the back and forth. Does Clinton want this debate to happen?

TANDEN: Absolutely. I mean, the problem we're having is Senator Sanders' campaign can't take yes for an answer. He offered dates. We've accepted those dates. I think we should have a debate and we can have a debate about facts, and not the kind of innuendo and errors, and frankly, Bill, I'm a big fan of yours, but I've -- really shame on you for providing false facts.

PRESS: Wait. Wait. Wait. What's a false fact?

TANDEN: That is just wrong.

PRESS: What is the false fact? No, no, wait.

TANDEN: $4.5 million -- $4.5 million does not come from the fossil fuel industry. It comes from people associated and lots of other money as well.

PRESS: That is --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Bill, finally to you.

PRESS: Whoa. Poppy.

HARLOW: Bill, finally to you on this debate. Bill.

PRESS: OK.

HARLOW: What is the one thing that Bernie Sanders has to do on the stage to make up the 12-point gap?

PRESS: OK. I'm going to tell you, but I do have to say, you cannot accuse me of getting my facts wrong. Go to the Center for Responsive Politics that said what Hillary Clinton --

TANDEN: Yes. That is a group that's actually disagreeing with your campaign.

PRESS: Pardon me. It is my turn. It is my turn. It is -- no. The Center for Responsible Politics --

TANDEN: I'm trying to provide clarity.

PRESS: -- is an independent organization that --

TANDEN: Yes. That is disagreeing with your campaign.

PRESS: It reflects what Hillary Clinton herself reported. On the debate --

HARLOW: All right, guys. I'm out of time.

PRESS: I think there's going to be a debate. We'll find the debate. Neera and I can get a lunch date quicker than they could go to a debate date. There will be a debate before April 19th.

HARLOW: I think you guys do need to go to lunch and duke this out at lunch and come back.

(LAUGHTER)

TANDEN: Any time.

HARLOW: Thank you very much, Bill Press, Neera Tanden. We do appreciate it.

PRESS: All right. See you. HARLOW: Coming up, the Wisconsin presidential primaries critical

matchups for both Republicans and Democrats. CNN all over it all day tomorrow. Special coverage of the Wisconsin primary starting tomorrow morning.

Still to come here in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump calls NATO obsolete and says he wouldn't mind if the alliance broke up. Wonder if that will come up next hour when President Obama meets with the chief of NATO. We'll talk about it all ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:27:51] HARLOW: Welcome back. A source close to the federal investigation into a fatal Amtrak crash over the weekend says a, quote, "colossal mistake" is to blame. The maintenance crew that was using that backhoe on the track near Philadelphia when the passenger train traveling from New York to Savannah, Georgia, slammed into them. Well, were they on the correct set of tracks?

Sara Ganim joins us now from Philadelphia right near the crash site. What are they saying?

SARA GAMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Good morning, Poppy. Yes, we're learning new information from a source close to the investigation that it appears that the two workers, one in a backhoe and one near the backhoe, were on the wrong track. They were on an active track when they weren't supposed to be. Now the source stressing that there's a 12-step process when Amtrak conducts construction like this near an active rail line like this was. And it's not clear at this point in the investigation where along that 12- step process the mistake was made. But clearly there was a mistake.

And as these questions linger, how did an Amtrak train and did these two Amtrak workers not both know that they were on a collision course? You know, you could see from pictures of that train yesterday the force of the impact, throwing that engine off the tracks, clearly causing a lot of damage to that train and passengers who were on board said -- at least one of them said they knew, they could tell in the moments leading up to the crash that something was wrong.

One describing seeing a dust cloud outside the window, feeling like they were riding on gravel. Another passenger describing his experience. Quite frightening. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I woke up to being thrown into the seat in front of me and the window got blown out right beside me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just woke up to kind of a boom and a hesitation, and smoky kind of nasty smelling smoke started coming in the train. People were -- it was scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANIM: Now construction work for Amtrak, we're told, is typically done on Sunday, but it's not clear if this was scheduled construction. We do know that investigators are also looking into scheduling and a possible human error as one of the many factors as part of their investigation, Poppy.

HARLOW: Really tragic and colossal mistake they're calling it.