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Cruz and Sanders Win Wisconsin Primaries. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired April 06, 2016 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:01:24] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: So is the night, as Ted Cruz says, a turning point in the Republican race?
I'm Wolf Blitzer. This is CNN's special live coverage. Wisconsin voted. Ted Cruz notched a big, big win. The question now, will the rest of the nation follow Wisconsin's lead? We're going to find out as the race moves east to New York state, Donald Trump's home turf.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders keeps his hot streak alive beating Hillary Clinton. We didn't hear from Hillary Clinton tonight. Will her campaign change how it takes on Bernie Sanders? We may find out when she sits down for an interview right here on CNN at 11:15 a.m. Eastern.
Both Senator Cruz and Senator Sanders, they had a lot to say about the momentum they received after tonight's big win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: God bless the great state of Wisconsin.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With our victory tonight in Wisconsin, we have now won seven out of eight of the last caucuses.
CRUZ: Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, Wisconsin. Four victories.
SANDERS: And we have an excellent chance to win in Oregon and to win in California.
CRUZ: When Colorado and Wyoming finish voting, we are likely to have gained over 100 delegates on Donald Trump.
SANDERS: Please keep this a secret. Do not tell Secretary Clinton, she's getting a little nervous. And I don't want her to get more nervous. But I believe we've got a excellent chance to win New York and a lot of delegates in that state.
CRUZ: Hillary, get ready. Here we come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz, speaking to Hillary Clinton. Dana, you're here with David. There's going to be a Democratic caucus
Saturday in Wyoming. That's why Bernie Sanders was in Laramie, presumably he'll do well there as well.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly he's hoping to. But to your point he generally does better in caucuses. But I wanted to kind of take a step back and turn to the Republican side as we discuss tonight. And just revisit this concept of Ted Cruz, the guy who Republicans in Congress and in Washington could not stand, I don't know, five minutes ago, is now this establishment candidate. I mean, it is official. He is the establishment candidate.
It was going that way. But the fact that he did so well that his numbers were so strong in Wisconsin with the help and the backing of the entire Republican establishment. Donald Trump is right about that. And John Kasich who is more establishment that pretty much anybody in the race has been, didn't do anything. He got goose egg tonight.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. I think John Kasich had a really, really bad night tonight. And I think he is now going to be really searching for a rationale because his rationale, even as recently as the last few days when Donald Trump started having all these controversies, he said, and people asking me why I'm staying in the race, this is why I'm staying in the race, to be an alternative.
But you know what? The Republican Party has chosen another alternative to Donald Trump. They have not chosen John Kasich. As you said, are all behind Ted Cruz to be that alternative to Donald Trump. And so now John Kasich, as the Cruz campaign points out, really is just in the way of a clean one-on-one Trump versus the non- Trump candidate.
How many times have you interviewed Ted Cruz and asked him about who his friends are in the Senate or what his relationships are like with his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill?
[01:05:02] And I've seen you ask him that question and what that's like. And now --
BASH: They're all his best friends.
CHALIAN: It is an astonishing development in the Republican Party and in Ted Cruz's arch in his short time here in Washington.
BASH: And the one thing I do have to say for Ted Cruz is that, you know, we give him, you know, a lot of ribbing that he deserves in some ways about the fact that he embraced Donald Trump for so long and then all of a sudden he started hitting him. But you know what? At least for where we are right now, given the fact that he is the establishment candidate, which is again crazy, but the fact that he stayed in for so long, and he just kind of waited it out, it worked.
And he is -- you know, who knows what's going to happen down the road but it works so far. And I do think, to your point about the spoiler in John Kasich, already the Cruz campaign has been, you know, apoplectic about John Kasich being in the race. They were running ads against John Kasich.
CHALIAN: Right.
BASH: In Wisconsin to try to keep his vote threshold down. It's going to be even more of an issue going forward especially in New York where Donald Trump -- it's more of his turf. And they're going to be splitting the votes and that is going to matter for delegates in some of these congressional districts because that's how it's apportioned, just very similarly to tonight.
CHALIAN: Yes. And what you're saying about Cruz hugging Trump and hanging in.
BASH: Yes.
CHALIAN: Listen, last fall -- last year when there were 17 candidates and Donald Trump was on the rise, the party wasn't open. I mean, ask Jeb Bush's Super PAC. The party wasn't open to the argument against Trump at that point. They didn't want to hear that argument. They were riding that anger wave. As the field whittled, and we're down to just a couple of candidates now, there is a whole segment of the party that is -- that wants that argument against Trump made and Cruz as their vehicle.
BASH: It's true. It's amazing.
Wolf, did you ever think a few years ago when I was reporting from the Capitol about the shutdown and how angry everybody was at Ted Cruz that we would be sitting here tonight saying Ted Cruz is the establishment candidate?
BLITZER: Because of Donald Trump.
BASH: Right. Exactly.
BLITZER: The establishment really doesn't like Donald Trump. You're absolutely right.
We didn't hear from Donald Trump directly tonight but his campaign did put out that strong statement. Not a congratulatory note to Ted Cruz but saying this, among other things. "Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet. He is a Trojan horse being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump."
BASH: Which I will say that it's a little bit ironic since so many people within the Republican Party have called Donald Trump a Trojan horse. Somebody who is trying to come in and basically sneak into the Republican Party and somebody who is not really Republican, which is what he said.
BLITZER: All right. Let's go back to Jake. Jake, over to you.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Wolf. Let's talk about this. Mary Katherine, let me start with you. Do you think that the
Republican establishment, their reluctance to embrace Donald Trump, to put it kindly, is because they don't like him or is because they are afraid that they will get killed in the general election? I mean, what's motivating this?
MARY KATHERINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think he's unpredictable. He doesn't follow any normal rules and therefore they're sure how this is going to work out. Cruz is a creature of ideology and you can sort of know where he's going and he has things he believes in. Trump does operate that way.
Another word for the establishment candidate, by the way, in this race is the viable alternative candidate or the professional candidate who absorbs normal rules and doesn't put out statements accusing other people of crimes without having any evidence. So that's the guy that maybe many people want to get behind instead of Trump because of those reasons.
TAPPER: Amanda, you worked for Cruz during some of these tough times when the establishment truly loathed him. Did you ever think we would be at a time and place when the Republican establishment was supporting him so strongly?
AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen, Cruz -- I disagree with the assessment that he's the establishment candidate.
TAPPER: He's supported by --
CARPENTER: He is the winning candidate.
TAPPER: He's supported by the establishment.
CARPENTER: He earned it. No. What happens is, the establishment guy lost. They were not viable this campaign season. Cruz wins a winning campaign. He compromised nothing to get where he is. And so when I hear people say that he's the establishment candidate, it makes me think that he compromised something. No. He chartered his own path. He develops his own fundraising network. He had his own strategy. He's winning in places where people said he never would like, you know, Wisconsin.
Everyone said he's a southern evangelical candidate. No, he actually didn't win some of those states. And he picked up states like Maine. He did well in new Hampshire. He did pretty well in Michigan. And he won Wisconsin. He's a competitive all-state candidate. And so to say that he's somehow sacrificed something or, you know, compromised, and now he's the establishment, I just agree with that. People realize he can win now and they're getting on board.
TAPPER: And Kayleigh, let me ask you. Why do you think the Republican establishment is so opposed to Donald Trump whom you support?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because for the Republican establishment, believe it or not, this isn't about winning the election and defeating Hillary. This is about protecting their interests.
[01:10:02] I heard Rush Limbaugh describe the establishment as a country club. And I think that's a smart characterization. At the end of the day, it's about protecting their hold on the Republican Party. Ted Cruz poses a threat to that to some extent but Donald Trump poses a heavy threat to the establishment because he's the one who's not beholden to money, not beholden to lobbyists. End of pork spending if Donald Trump is president. The pet projects go away. He is a threat to the establishment interest.
(CROSSTALK)
PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm not a member or a big fan of the Republican establishment but I think the Republicans are also generally concerned about a guy who encourages violence at his rallies, who has very, very little respect for core freedoms, who wants to ban an entire religion from entering the country, who's made statements about Vladimir Putin and see him as a kind of model of a leader. I think across the party --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Let's go to (INAUDIBLE) for a second.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: They don't think he's a conservative.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
BORGER: Period.
BROWNSTEIN: Right. Right.
BORGER: I mean, it's not that they love Ted Cruz. He's the anti- Trump vehicle. And they believe, whatever the establishment is, that Trump is too malleable. He's too left-wing in a way, you know. And he's unpredictable as you were pointing out and they don't think he represents their party's conservative values. Period.
TAPPER: Well, let me -- let me posit this to you, Ron. And then I want everybody to weigh in.
I see, if you strip away the -- some of the more controversial stuff, there are four things really that are going on here with the Trump candidacy. One is, he really, truly is an outsider in the sense that none of these guys want him in Washington, want him to be the nominee or very, very few of them want him to be the nominee. Two, there is the immigration issue that's been festering for decades.
Three, there's counterterrorism which is fairly -- you know, fairly mainstream in terms of how Republicans attack Barack Obama, President Obama on that. And then lastly of course is trade.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
TAPPER: And those are not insane categories of reasons why voters might be --
BROWNSTEIN: And entitlement. I mean, look, I think --
TAPPER: And protecting the entitlements.
BROWNSTEIN: Protecting the entitlements.
TAPPER: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: The answer of why the Republican establish doesn't like Donald Trump, you could really say all of the above. He upends decades of Republican policy commitments in all directions from his views on NATO and foreign policy to his defense of entitlements against the party that's been looking to constrain them despite the fact that they're now relying on all the white voters for most of their votes.
He's unpredictable. You don't know what he is going to do next. He's a general election risk at this point facing unprecedented negatives among the groups at the core of the modern Democratic coalition, all of which are growing in the electorate, minorities, millennial, college educated whites.
And I think they also see him as greater long-term risk than Cruz. I think many Republicans think that Donald Trump might actually more competitive and more unpredictable in this election. You know, in the media term, 2016.
BORGER: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: But they're worried about the long-term brand that he puts on the party because of all of these racially charged positions and whether it defines the Republican Party, particularly this younger generation that has grown up with diversity as essentially a party of white backlash.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: And Nia-Malika, one of the Democrats who is concerned about what Donald Trump might actually be able to achieve in November is a little guy we like to call Bill Clinton. He is worried that maybe Trump will be able to reshape the map.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, I wonder if he's really worried or not. I mean, if you look at older groups he alienates, I do think there was that brief moment where Republicans and Democrats said, maybe he will reshape the map and he can bring in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, but now if you look all the projections, Larry Sabato had a map out a couple of days ago, which showed there isn't really much realignment. And in fact, in some states, I mean, it's really early, states like Utah, states like Michigan with Trump on the ballot of the Democrats are competitive. He just alienates such a huge swath of voters that it's a problem for the party.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: You know, we spent all our time focusing on the presidential elections, right? Because it is the most exciting thing. The commander-in-chief, leader of the free world, what have you. But there are so many other contests that are going to happen in November. And I was talking to a Republican who has a big stake in this election and they did a new round of polling. Many are not going to like what I say here.
They said that the polling that has come back in several competitive Senate districts right now show that Donald Trump is helping the Republican candidate better than Ted Cruz is. The reason being is that Ted Cruz is a Republican that is hated by the establishment. We know that. But they have glommed on to him because of what Ron has said that Donald Trump is so unpredictable that they don't know how to handle Donald Trump. However, when you get out there and you talk to the voters, Donald Trump potentially, potentially now could help some vulnerable Republicans.
TAPPER: All right. Some Hillary Clinton backers have accused Bernie Sanders of being a protest candidate. But now after another big win, it's the Sanders campaign that says Clinton might be willing to destroy the Democratic Party, quote, "to satisfy the secretary's ambitions to become president."
[01:15:08] CNN special coverage continues after this very quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Wisconsin tonight, Ted Cruz the big winner on the Republican side. Take a look at this, 97 percent of the vote is in. That means almost all the votes are in. He's got 48.4 percent. Donald Trump, 35 percent. John Kasich a very disappointing 14 percent. That's a 13- point advantage for Ted Cruz. He's the winner of the Republican presidential primary in Wisconsin.
Thirteen-point lead for Bernie Sanders. 99 percent of the vote is in there. He's got 56.4 percent. 43.3 percent for Hillary Clinton. A huge win for Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin as well.
Let's go over to John King at the magic wall.
The Democratic contest is different than the Republican contest because in the Democratic contest there are these super delegates.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Super delegates that are waiting and also proportional rules. So how does Bernie Sanders change the arch of the race right now?
This is what it's going to look like tomorrow morning give or take a delegate when we're finally done with the count. So Bernie Sanders is going to wake up about 230 pledged delegates behind Hillary Clinton. Save the super delegates out of this for now. The challenge is, can he use that momentum going forward to bend the demographic arc in this race? The next contest for the Democrats is out here. Bernie Sanders is out in Wyoming tonight. He's favored there. This gets it to 55- 45. He could well do much better than that. So this gives him a net gain of two delegates. If he wins by a higher percentage, he'd get a net gain. Well, let's just shoot there. [01:20:03] Then he comes here. This has been Bernie Sanders' problem.
When he gets to a larger state that has a more diverse population -- this also happens to be, of course, Hillary Clinton's adopted home state -- Bernie Sanders has to change because if you look at the pattern of the race so far, this is a state that Hillary Clinton wins.
Now will Bernie Sanders win tonight change the arc? It could. But if you look at the demographics of the past states, Ron Brownstein was talking about this earlier, you'd have to say as of today she has to be favored there. Then the race moves on -- I'm going to go through the rest of the month. Then the race goes onto Pennsylvania. Again a state with a significant African-American Democratic base. As demographics as we see them today, you'd have to say Hillary Clinton is favored there.
The state of Maryland also votes before the end of the month. Again you've got Baltimore, other areas. You'd have to say as of today, you'd have to favor Hillary Clinton there. So in the big states with a diverse population, look at the number of delegates here. They're splitting them because of proportional rules. But she starts to edge out again. Even if you said Senator Sanders was going to get Connecticut, which also votes before the end of the month, Rhode Island, that's Massachusetts. You got stretch this out a little bit. Close that down. Come into Rhode Island here. There we go.
Let's say Senator Sanders gets Rhode Island and if Senator Sanders gets Delaware, which also votes before the end of the month. The problem is if he's winning these smaller states and she wins the bigger states, by the end of the month she stretches her lead. So the big challenge for Senator Sanders is to take the momentum, legitimate momentum out of Wisconsin. Build on it in Wyoming and then come east and prove with that momentum and his organization skills he can change these big states where you have African-Americans, where you have Latinos. That is what he's failed to do so far. He has to do it by the end of the month in these big states to start to change that math.
BLITZER: Yes. We're not even talking, as you point out, super delegates, more than 700 of them. Right now Hillary Clinton has a huge advantage on that front.
All right. Let's go back to Jake.
TAPPER: Thanks, Wolf. Let's talk about the Sanders-Clinton race.
Ron, let me start with you. You say you don't think it's likely that Bernie Sanders will be able to prevent Hillary Clinton from getting number of delegates needed to secure the nomination.
BROWNSTEIN: Right. He's got to change the dynamic, as John was saying. I mean, Sanders as we've said has done better than anyone probably including his own campaign expected. By the time this is over he's going to win a higher share of the vote than almost any insurgent Democratic Party history, more than McGovern, more than Hart, more than -- you know, just about anybody -- Kennedy in 1980 against Jimmy Carter. So he's done a lot of things here. But what he has not yet solved is
how to win the big states because on the Democratic side the big states are all diverse. He is now winning white voters in almost all states outside of the south. And that sets him up for a lot of victories in the final stages of the campaign. We go to states like Kentucky and South Dakota, and Montana and West Virginia.
But the big four that are still out there are New York, Pennsylvania and then California and New Jersey on the last day. And in all of them, unless he can crack the diversity of the party, he's likely to lose those states and that puts Hillary Clinton still on the path.
HENDERSON: Yes, and the momentum hasn't really worked. I mean, him winning in all of these states doesn't necessarily transfer to another state. He's probably going to win in Wyoming obviously. Won tonight in Wisconsin. That means very little for New York because the demographics are just so different in the same way that Hillary Clinton's sweep of the south didn't mean much for her when she won out west.
TAPPER: Mark, I want to get your reaction to something. Earlier this evening we had Jeff Weaver, Sanders campaign manager, on the show. And Jeff Zeleny, CNN reporter, noted that Clinton's campaign strategists are now saying they're going to go tougher after Bernie Sanders than they have. And I asked Jeff Weaver what his response to that was. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF WEAVER, CAMPAIGN MANAGER, BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT: The senator tried to run a issue-oriented campaign. Obviously the contrast has become sharper of late. We're fully prepared to engage in that environment if they want to. But this is what I would say to them, which is, you know, don't destroy the Democratic Party to satisfy the secretary's ambitions to become president of the United States. Right?
We want to have a party at the end of this that we can unify. Let's have a tough debate. Let's talk about the issues. There are sharp contrasts between the two. But let's not, you know, denigrate other people's supporters and tear the party apart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Mark Preston, "Don't destroy the Democratic Party in order to satisfy the secretary's ambitions to be president of the United States." Dems fighting words.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESTON: It's been on. We just haven't seen it play out because Donald Trump has sucked every bit of oxygen.
TAPPER: Well, it hasn't gotten that nasty.
PRESTON: No. Behind the scenes, Jake, it has -- it is pretty nasty right now. I have to tell you --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Their feelings for one another are not the same thing as --
PRESTON: They're not hugging. There's no doubt about it. You know, what's interesting about Bernie Sanders is that the Clinton people are trying to push Bernie Sanders out. They're saying listen, you're not going to win, you're not going to win the delegates, you know, as Ron says accurately, he's not going to win the requisite number of delegates in these big states in order --
BROWNSTEIN: Unless he breaks --
PRESTON: Right. Yes. I was just trying to get there. But isn't the irony of all this is, is that he has won six of the last seven contests. Won six of the last seven contests when we're saying get out of race. At the same time --
TAPPER: I'm not saying it.
PRESTON: No. Nor any of us are up here. I'm guessing. But the bottom line is, doesn't he just have to win over the super delegates? The power brokers?
[01:25:05] The people that he is running against are going to be the people potentially that are going to deny him that opportunity.
BORGER: And that's his problem. Because he needs to win the super delegates. You talk to people who work for Sanders and they said we're going to win over those super delegates. How are you going to do that? Because we're winning. Right? That's how we're going to do that. Except those super delegates have not seen Bernie Sanders as a Democratic activist. He's never been a Democratic activists. He hasn't been out there raising money for them. And they don't feel any particular loyalty to Bernie Sanders nor do they see him as a better general election candidate than Hillary Clinton. So it's a really tough case.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWNSTEIN: One quick last point. Regardless of how this turns out, the fact that he has won young voters in almost every state, everyone except Alabama and Mississippi, and he's won them by even bigger margins than Barack Obama did in 2008 is a signal to the party that there is an audience for a message that goes beyond what they have been offering. They're going to have to respond no matter who is the nominee.
BEINART: The really unanswered question, if we assume that it is going to be very, very hard for Bernie Sanders to get the nomination is what comes of his candidacy in terms of changing the Democratic Party? Is he able to basically find some way of trying to hold Hillary Clinton's feet to the fire so she won't be able to turn around and support trade deals? So she won't be able to appoint people from Wall Street to top positions in the Treasury Department? Can he force her to try to do something big on campaign finance reform? Can he change the kind of president that Hillary Clinton will be?
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: Well, he is a senator but he's never used his position in the Senate to do anything which I think is so interesting. You know, I was thinking about Bernie Sanders had this great platform. He did that terrible interview in New York where he really flubbed the Wall Street answers. And this is a guy who's been working on this issue for years. And then I start to think, well, what did he do in the House? What has really done in the Senate? It's a big fat nothing.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESTON: Well, listen, just one thing, it's almost impossible to get anything done in Congress whether you're a Democrat or Republican.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: What has anybody done, by the way, right? Did anybody get anything done?
MCENANY: It's really important for people to be inclusive of Bernie Sanders' voters and his viewpoint because there's an NBC poll that came out two weeks ago, it said 36 percent of Bernie supporters couldn't see themselves voting for Hillary Clinton. So when I hear this report from Jeff Zeleny that she might go negative on him, I would really caution her against that because it is crucial that she brings in Bernie Sanders in the general election, therefore bringing in the white middle class voters who could very well go for Trump. You have to respect Bernie Sanders and what he's done and bring him into the fold.
TAPPER: And Mary Katherine, I think that that's what Jeff Weaver was suggesting when he said don't destroy the Democratic Party, was don't -- you know, we have this coalition in which we bring our two groups of supporters together, don't destroy it. But I have not seen Clinton be able to successfully reach out to these young voters in the way that she's going to need to.
HAM: Yes, I mean, as much as we talk about how Bernie Sanders has not tapped into the diversity of the Democratic Party, this other giant part of their coalition that was so important to the Obama coalition and by the way is particularly hard to get out to vote and to volunteer because they're young people and they have their video games and whatnot, as Bernie Sanders was saying.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: Video games.
HAM: Sorry. She has not been able to crack that. And that is a huge part of this. And she will have to work very hard to bring these people, and to keep them interested.
(CROSSTALK) HENDERSON: Yes. And you saw her kind of make a misstep when she was on the Sunday program. She said something like, you know, she feels sorry for young people who believe certain things that Bernie Sanders says. Not a way to reach out to them.
TAPPER: Stay right there. For one night never Trump, beat Donald Trump, the groups aligned against the business mogul say Wisconsin is the beginning of the end for Trump. They've said that before. Could they be right this time or is tonight an anomaly? That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Momentum is that when you look at national polls or you look at statewide polls, we are defeating Donald Trump by very significant numbers.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When Colorado and Wyoming finish voting, we are likely to have gained over 100 delegates on Donald Trump.
SANDERS: When we stand together and we don't allow the Trumps of the world to divide us up, we can create a government that represents all of us and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors.
CRUZ: Three weeks ago the media said Wisconsin was a perfect state for Donald Trump, but the hard working men and women of Wisconsin stood and campaigned tirelessly to make sure that tonight was a victory for every American.
TAPPER: The two winners of the Wisconsin primary, Senator Bernie Sanders, winner of the Democrat primary, and Senator Ted Cruz, winner of the Republican primary. And they had a lot of Trump on their mind. Let's bring back our mega monster panel.
Can Trump be stopped, do you think, Hailey? I mean, you're a supporter of us. You don't want him to be stopped. Do you think he can, though?
MCENANY: He can be stopped from getting 1,237, but he cannot, in my opinion, from getting the most delegates as we enter into the convention.
And you know, one thing I really want to address quickly is Ted Cruz mentioning that this was a perfect state for Donald Trump, that Wisconsin was a perfect state. Well, first of all, I don't think anyone in the media ever said that.
It's worth pointing out right now that Donald Trump just reached 35 percent in Wisconsin. And Nate Cohn after at "The New York Times" made a very powerful argument for why Wisconsin was one of the worst states demographically for Donald Trump. And he said look tonight to see if Donald Trump gets over 35 percent. If he does, that is very much in line with what we've been projected here at "The Times" with Nate Kohn, and if he gets over 35 percent --
(CROSSTALK)
MCENANY: -- and he did --
TAPPER: We'll go to you.
MCENANY: -- it's not a momentum problem. It is a demographic problem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, excellent.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That just doesn't hold up. I mean, that argument is just kind of -- I just -- I find it strange all the way through.
In 2012, the share of the vote in Wisconsin that was cast by non- college whites was 57 percent. It was the highest of any state on the Republican side.
Donald Trump has won blue collar whites in virtually every state, 17 out of the first 20. Even tonight, 55 percent of the vote were cast by non-college white voters, and Donald Trump lost them.
So I think the idea that this was inherently a bad state for him, just -- to me just doesn't hold up. It was not majority evangelical. It was majority blue collar. It's exactly the kind of place that has dominated, even against opposition by the state political leadership.
I mean, you know, so the idea that he was kind of doomed or fated to lose here, I think, doesn't hold up. And in fact, we saw him erode significantly among his core groups. He lost non-college white men.
MCENANY: But here's the thing. He lost the state overall. So even when he does well traditionally among this faction, when you lose a state overall, you lose typically among the factions you do well in. Again, so --
PETER BEINART, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Again, -- the problem is -- the problem is that it's not that Donald Trump's number was so low. It's that Cruz was able to get so high. This was the closest we've seen to a real two-person race.
You remember a lot of the other states, even though the candidates had left the race because of early voting, people had banked votes for people like Marco Rubio. Because Kasich declined so much, what you saw was that Rubio was able to take advantage of those other candidates. If he can do that in the states to come, he will be formidable.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, and what's telling about that for me and for Cruz is that he gained all of these Kasich folks with Kasich still in the race --
BEINART: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- in state that should have --
BEINART: He won in Madison, the most liberal area.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right. In a state that should have worked for Kasich, not for Cruz. That's to me is telling.
AMANDA CARPENTER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: One of the things that Cruz obviously had going for him was not only did Scott Walker endorsement him and all the infrastructure that Scott Walker lent to Ted Cruz going through so many tough re-election battles from that, but also the role of Carly Fiorina in the state.
I mean, Cruz really exploited Donald Trump's weaknesses with women. Carly Fiorina was a great asset campaigning around the state with him. And this is why you need to get help from your friends.
Donald Trump hasn't had that help. He has Sarah Palin come to the stage. She gave a disastrous speech. People didn't clap. They were stunned and silent because of how bad it was. You need good surrogates. You cannot win the Republican presidential primary on your own.
GLORIA BORGER, CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST, CNN: You know, you can't win the Super Bowl unless you change your game at halftime. OK? And Donald Trump, after these last couple of lousy weeks, has got to sit down with himself and his --
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: -- and say, look --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And his iPhone.
BORGER: -- there is -- he admitted to a mistake on the Heidi Cruz retweet, but there is a lot he's done wrong. And if he wants to take this and win this at the convention, you know, nobody's entitled to it if you're a hundred votes away. You've got to cross the finish line.
It's not like whoever's doing best going in, wins. That's not the way the rules work. So you have to play by the rules. You can't say it's -- you know, it's rigged against you. You just got to -- if you're running for President, there are rules.
MCENANY: But when your people are telling you that they don't like the rules -- in Wisconsin tonight, they say they didn't like the rules when 54 percent --
BORGER: But you can't change them. Ask -- in Bush v. Gore, you know, Jim Baker's whole argument was these are the rules that this election was governed by, and you can't change the rules this the middle of the game. When you're running for President, you know what the rules are.
MCENANY: But that fall on deaf ears when the people are rejecting the rules. And I beg, I plead with the RNC for everyone to listen to your voters where nationally among Republican voters --
BORGER: It's late.
MCENANY: -- a majority said, hey, whoever gets the most delegates should get the nomination. Tonight in Wisconsin --
(CROSSTALK)
MCENANY: -- where they elected Ted Cruz, they said the same thing.
(CROSSTALK)
MARK PRESTON, POLITICAL DIRECTOR, CNN: Yes, but a couple things. Sure, if we want to play the populist argument that this is what people are thinking at the time. But the rules were created for a reason to try to keep order. Right?
I mean, but the one rule we're not having spoken about tonight, which is extremely important, is the rule that you have to win eight states --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PRESTON: -- in order to have your name --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A majority.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A majority of the delegates in eight states.
PRESTON: In order to have your name in nomination. And the fact that you have Ted Cruz and you have Donald Trump basically aligned on this --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
PRESTON: -- to try to squeeze out John Kasich to try to win it, is going to be an epic battle --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
PRESTON: -- as we head into (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but --
(CROSSTALK)
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, CNN: You know, John Kasich tonight, his chief strategist sending out a memo saying that the nomination is wide open and that he still thinks that he's the best to go up against Clinton, and at least polls and hypothetical matchups show that. I think that Kasich's big flaw is that he's not playing in any of these states. He's accumulating kind of the delegates, the people that can make that case for him --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The argument.
HENDERSON: -- the argument, yes.
TAPPER: All right, don't go anywhere. He says he has the momentum, but Bernie Sanders has a problem when it comes to the math. We asked his campaign manager to chart the senator's path forward. How does the Sanders campaign plan to win the nomination? That's ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
You're watching CNN special coverage. I'm Wolf Blitzer in the CNN election center.
Bernie Sanders keeps racking up wins. He notched another one tonight in Wisconsin, but Hillary Clinton's delegate lead is so large, many people say the race for the Democratic nomination is effectively over.
Just a few hours ago, Jake Tapper and John King spoke to Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver. They asked him where the Sanders campaign will win going forward and how he could catch up to Hillary Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: All right, so let's by Wisconsin tonight, a good win. Looks like you're going to win somewhere 55, 45. If that happens, net gain of eight tonight. You might get nine. Right now, the senator stands to win 56-43.
You might do a little better than that. So that would get you here in the pledged delegate battle.
JEFF WEAVER, BERNIE SANDERS' CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Right.
KING: The question is, you know -- you know the math. You've got to win, A, you're going into New York. Can you win New York?
WEAVER: Well, we're going to go to Wyoming next.
KING: Wyoming next. That's right. Yes.
WEAVER: And we're going to win in Wyoming.
KING: OK.
WEAVER: And we're going to go to New York. New York's going to be a tough fight. There's no doubt about it. The Secretary has a lot of, you know, political support in New York. But I think we can win it.
KING: You can win it. All right, well, let's say for the sake of argument, you win it, 55-45.
WEAVER: That would be nice.
KING: That would be nice? You would take that?
WEAVER: From your lips to God's ears.
KING: But you think if you do win, it's going to be 51-49 probably?
WEAVER: Well, maybe closer.
KING: Maybe closer. I'm going to be nice. I'm going to be nice. Because you know the skepticism.
WEAVER: Sure, sir. Of course.
KING: I'm not -- I'm not -- I'm not doing this to be a jerk. You know the skeptism.
WEAVER: No, no, no. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got.
KING: That can you make it up?
WEAVER: Sure.
KING: OK. And so when you go through all these states, let's -- I'm, you know -- go to Pennsylvania.
WEAVER: Yes.
KING: Secretary Clinton thinks she's going to win that.
WEAVER: OK.
KING: I'm going to give it to Bernie Sanders, all right, 55-45. You start to pick up some delegate math there.
WEAVER: Yes.
KING: But even look, you're still -- you know, she's getting under the Democratic party rules. This helped you in states you've lost. You get, you know, 40-something percent.
WEAVER: Absolutely.
KING: But, OK, we go forward. Can Bernie Sanders win Connecticut?
WEAVER: Yes, absolutely.
KING: A lot of guys who work on Wall Street live in Connecticut.
WEAVER: That's right. No, I know. There's a lot of other people in Connecticut, too. And a lot of guys on Wall Street are voting for Bernie Sanders.
KING: We're just having fun here. There we go. So I'll give you that one, 55-45. State of New Jersey?
WEAVER: Absolutely.
KING: All right, so you're on a roll. We're being generous. I know the Clinton supporters watching are getting -- all already mad at me.
WEAVER: Their heads are swelling.
KING: They've been mad at you for a long time.
WEAVER: Exactly.
KING: Now they're really mad at me. But here we go. We'll give it to you, 55-45. I'm going to stretch it out a little bit. I started my career in the great state of Rhode Island.
WEAVER: Oh, yes.
KING: Can Bernie Sanders win there?
WEAVER: Absolutely.
KING: A lot of great blue collar people. All right, 55-45.
Now we can go on and on through all these.
WEAVER: Right.
KING: I'm going to do this. For the sake of argument --
WEAVER: Sure.
KING: I'm going to give them all to you. OK?
WEAVER: Right.
KING: This is like the "Price Is Right" or whatever it is.
WEAVER: Right.
KING: If we give it all to you, at 55-45 --
WEAVER: Right.
KING: -- you almost catch her --
WEAVER: Right.
KING: -- but you come up a little short. So obviously, especially in some of these big states where there are, you know, a couple hundred delegates at stake --
WEAVER: Right. Right.
KING: -- you've got to win bigger than that.
WEAVER: Yes, of course.
KING: You don't dispute that?
WEAVER: Well, in some smaller states, as you know, we have won a lot of these earlier -- these states in the last couple of weeks by, you know, 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent in Alaska. And so, yes, in some of these states we're going to have a much bigger margin.
KING: Let's just show what that means when you do that, though. In state like Alaska, there's only 20 delegates. So you win huge, but you get a net gain of 10.
WEAVER: That's correct.
KING: You need better than that.
WEAVER: No, no, but look. And as we saw in Nevada, in many of these caucus state actually, Senator Sanders is going to end up with more delegates --
KING: Right.
WEAVER: -- because he's going to through the iterative caucus process. He's going to end up getting -- netting many more delegates than what he gets initially.
KING: So now I'm going to go back a few.
WEAVER: Sure.
KING: I'm just going to play -- since we're playing devil's advocate, let's assume actually Hillary Clinton wins the state of Pennsylvania, and you come in second, because she thinks she's going to do that. OK?
I'm going to say just for the sake of argument that she wins New York. Maybe she doesn't win it by this margin.
WEAVER: Right.
KING: This goes back to 55-45. But if you get -- this is -- this is even -- you know, I'm still giving you a bunch of states, and the Clinton people are watching are saying there's no way New Jersey. There's no way West Virginia.
But if this happens -- so I guess the question is, in terms of pledge delegates -- and I haven't done that little trick where I bring up the super delegates.
WEAVER: Right, right, right.
KING: Because obviously, if you do something like this, some of those super delegates are going to change their minds. So the question is how many. But how do you change the map so that you catch her? Not just get close to her, but catch her. WEAVER: Right. Well, in some of the states, we're going to have
bigger margins. And the truth is it's going to many of the smaller states. I mean, you mentioned West Virginia. Those polls -- and it shows Senator Sanders 20 points ahead in West Virginia right now. We haven't campaigned a bit.
KING: But it's 37 delegates. I mean, even if you win 60-40, it's not making up big math.
WEAVER: It's -- you're -- no, it's not. You're never making up big math. It's slow and steady win the race. And this is the number right here, or course --
KING: Right.
WEAVER: -- 2,383. None of these scenarios show either person getting to 2,383, so we're going to an open convention. Everybody's talking about a Republican open convention. The Democrats are going to an open convention.
KING: You sincerely believe that?
WEAVER: Absolutely.
KING: Do you think you can make the argument successfully to super delegates that they should change their vote, even if she enters -- Hillary Clinton enters the convention ahead in the pledge delegates?
WEAVER: Look, this is what super delegates have to -- have to grapple with. They want to win. Many of these people are elected officials, party insiders. At the end of the day, they want the candidate who's going to be able to beat the Republicans. And the polling consistently shows that's Bernie Sanders.
He obviously has the moment here on the second half of the primaries and caucuses. And so I think that their desire to win, as he continues to demonstrate that he's the strongest candidate, I think will be very powerful with super delegates.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZHER: A double-digit win for Ted Cruz. Bernie Sanders thumping Hillary Clinton. Wisconsin voters, they had their say tonight. Now the race moves to New York. Can Clinton and Donald Trump defend their home turf? We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN's live coverage of the Wisconsin primary. Two big victories, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders. Let's bring back our mega monster, super duper panel.
Mark Preston, I want to start with you. Where are we now? We're all talking about delegates. Every delegate matters. Every delegate counts. How are we ending the night? Who has what? PRESTON: A battle of inches no doubt as we head into July, not only
for Democrats and Republicans. Let's look at delegates to date right now.
Donald Trump didn't have a terribly good night tonight in Wisconsin. Still has a huge lead, 743 delegates. Ted Cruz, 507 delegates. John Kasich shut out tonight, 145 delegates on the board. You need 1,237 to become the Republican nominee. I think we're headed to a contested convention.
Let's flip it over to the Democrat side right now. Jeff Weaver was just on our air saying that he thinks he's headed to a contested convention. Probably not so, but yet Hillary Clinton right now has 1,778 delegates. Of those, 1,295 of those are pledged, and 483 are super delegates.
Bernie Sanders has 1,097 delegates. Of those, 1,066 are pledged super delegates for him of 31, which goes to show you that Hillary Clinton at this point certainly has the backing of the establishment Democratic party, Jake.
TAPPER: Very interesting. Peter Beinart, let me go to you, because I want to look forward to New York, and you're the only New Yorker. You live in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: I'll do this special treatment for you when we get to California. But for the New York, what are you looking forward to in the New York primary?
BEINART: One of the things that we know is that when candidates come to New York, Middle East becomes a bigger issue.
TAPPER: Israel.
BEINART: Large Jewish population. Israel in particular.
TAPPER: Yes.
BEINART: What's very interesting is that Bernie Sanders, without a lot of fanfare, over the last couple of weeks, has staked out some positions on the Israel-Palestinian question that are substantially to the left of where Hillary Clinton is. And that debate will be, I think, amplified as we go into New York. It'll be a bigger issue than it has been.
TAPPER: It's interesting. I was listening to the speeches earlier. And Ted Cruz, Amanda, was talking about protecting the religious liberty of Hebrew day schools. He always talks about Israel, but he emphasized it perhaps just a scooch more this evening.
BEINART: I'd say as someone who has children in Jewish day school, that was the first thing that Ted Cruz said that actually I kind of liked.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go.
CARPENTER: But I am excited to see a little bit more emphasis on the Democratic side as they go into New York where I think it'll be more competitive Hillary and Bernie. But then potentially Trump and Cruz going into the CNN debate, because there's been so much infighting on the Republican side. Hillary and Bernie do have legitimate issues to debate. I think Hillary does need to be a -- have a lot more scrutiny to be a better general election candidate. So let's go to Brooklyn.
TAPPER: Kayleigh, I'm going to give you the last word here, because Donald Trump, it's his home state. You're expecting a big victory.
MCENANY: Yes, he's poised to do very well. In fact, I foresee him getting over 50 percent and becoming a winner take all state in that column that we just heard Mark Preston spell out as to Trump's delegates. Add 95 to that, because I think he's going to breach 50 percent, and New York will be a winner take all state.
TAPPER: You think he's going to get them all?
MCENANY: I think he'll get all 95, and that number is only going to increase that Mark reporterd.
TAPPER: All right. Great panel. Thank you so much, every one of you. Really appreciate it.
Hillary Clinton sits down tomorrow morning for an interview with CNN. We'll ask her about her strategy for victory in the New York primary and much, much more. You can see the interview at 11:15 a.m. Eastern.
And New York is where CNN will host the next Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders face to face next week straight out of Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, our special coverage of the Wisconsin primary continues with John Vause and Isha Sesay. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
