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Trump Skips Colorado Convention, Focuses On New York; GOP Braces For Possible Contested Convention; Two Dead In Shooting At Lackland Air Force Base; Suspect Connected To University of Texas Student's Murder In Custody. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired April 08, 2016 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Trump better win big in New York, or he should get out of the race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): I'm assuming Donald is very strong in his home state. If he doesn't win his home state, in fact, if he doesn't get pretty close to over 50 percent -- he's at 50 percent now, if he doesn't get over 50 percent, he should probably consider dropping out. Like everyone else has when they don't win their home state, in a dramatic fashion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Maybe he was joking, I don't know. Joining us to talk about that and more, is Susan McNeil. She's the co-chair of the Trump campaign leadership team, here in New York. Good morning.
SUSAN MCNEIL, CO-CHAIR, NEW YORK LEADERSHIP FOR THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Good morning.
COSTELLO: Did you hear that suggestion, that Mr. Trump should drop out if he doesn't win New York State, big?
MCNEIL: I heard the suggestion.
COSTELLO: I'm assuming you're like, "really?"
MCNEIL: Yes. Of course they're going to say that.
COSTELLO: So, Mr. Trump, he seems to be, he's well ahead in the polls, right? Here in the state of New York. Is he worried at all?
MCNEIL: It would be wrong for me to say not to be worried. I think that you always want to be concerned. But do we have New York? We won't know quite yet, obviously. Being concerned, sure. I would be concerned. You never know what's going to happen until it happens. So we're just going to stay positive and think for the best.
COSTELLO: OK, so you're staying positive. Of course, Senator Cruz is trying to cast doubt in the minds of voters. Because he told Dana Bash that Mr. Trump might have a ceiling. This is what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR TED CRUZ, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald has had a floor, about 20 percent, 25 percent, he seems to get, no matter what. As he said, you know, he may be right that he could go out on 5th Avenue and shoot someone, and that floor would stay there.
But he also has a ceiling. He has a ceiling of 35 percent to 40 percent, that he has a very hard time breaking. The worst day for the entire Trump campaign was the day Marco Rubio suspended his campaign. Because what happened is, over 80 percent of Marco's supporters came to us. And it unified much of the remainder of the party behind our campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So, is Ted Cruz right, does Mr. Trump have a ceiling?
MCNEIL: I don't know where that's coming from, why Ted Cruz would make a comment like that, that someone has a ceiling. And it would be as ridiculous as Trump making a comment that Ted Cruz has that same ceiling. That's just nonsense.
COSTELLO: Trump's public schedule on his website is empty right now. It says to try back later. That's 11 days until the New York primary. Why not have more events today, in the state or anywhere?
MCNEIL: We're working on the events in the area, and actually I have seen some information that came through, that he already has some downstate scheduled. He's got Buffalo scheduled, we're working on Albany for Monday, that is scheduled. So I believe the scheduling is being put into effect, yet nothing is confirmed.
COSTELLO: All right, Susan McNeil. Thanks for joining me this morning. Still to come in the Newsroom, what happens if no Republican candidate can win enough delegates to clinch the nomination? Ah, I couldn't even get that out this morning. Well in a word, anything. We'll be back with that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: We've heard a lot this election season about delegate math. It is, afterall, the roadmap to the nomination for both parties. But in a contested convention, delegate math can get tossed out the window. It's happened before. Our Chief Political Analyst, Gloria Borger, has been looking at the last time Republicans faced a contested convention. That would be back in 1976. Good morning, Gloria.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol. And it was a chaotic convention in 1976, and it could happen all over again. Except this time, it might be even worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BORGER (voice-over): After millions of votes, dozens of contests, and heaps of mud flung along the way, the Republican presidential race has a bit of everything, except a nominee.
The last time a contested convention happened was in 1976. When former California governor, Ronald Reagan was the outsider, challenging the President, Gerald Ford. Both men claimed to have the votes, heading into the convention, but nobody was sure. Not even Jim Baker, who was then Ford's top delegate hunter.
JAMES BAKER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We had no assurance whatsoever, that he would get the majority of votes necessary to be nominated.
BORGER (voice-over): But he did. Winning the nomination, and earning Baker headlines. But it was far from easy.
BAKER: Governor Reagan, Ronald Reagan almost knocked off an incumbent, Republican president. We had to get in there and scramble for it, and fight for it.
BORGER (voice-over): So, as Donald Trump gets ready to rumble at the convention, Baker has little sympathy for the argument that if Trump is closest to the finish line going in, he should be declared the winner.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's mathematically unfair.
BORGER: Is that the way the process works?
BAKER: Well, that's a very good political argument for him to make.
BORGER: Yes.
BAKER: But that's not actually the way the process is supposed to work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty votes for our fellow Texan.
BAKER: It's supposed to work in a vote, or a series of votes, by the delegates on the floor of the convention. They select the nominee. It is afterall, a party's nominating convention.
BORGER (voice-over): The good news for Trump is that his supporters, like Ronald Reagan's 40 years ago, are die-hard.
BAKER: Reagan had the benefit of the movement. I mean, his delegates were really committed to what he stood for.
BORGER: Just the same way Trump's delegates, by the way, are very committed to Donald Trump as the outsider.
BAKER: Provided Trump can get them selected as delegates, and not have his delegate slots filled by a Kasich or Cruz person.
BORGER (voice-over): In other words, just winning the most votes on primary night is not enough.
Winning states is one thing, but keeping your state delegates is another matter entirely. Not only on the first ballot, but hanging onto them if there are multiple votes, leaving delegates free to roam, even defect. And that's where Trump's anti-establishment campaign is playing catch-up.
BORGER: If you were running the Trump delegate selection process now, what would you be doing?
BAKER: Well, I think they need to be ramping up a sophisticated delegate selection process. I'm not sure that they've been paying very much attention to their ground-game.
BORGER: So how do you keep track of it?
BAKER: What you have to do, you have to -- first of all, you need to know everything there is to know about a potential delegate, or a delegate. Most important thing to know is what turns him on, what turns him off, what they believe in, what they favor, what they disfavor, who they're sleeping with, the whole schmear, OK?
You make a point to learn everything you can about each delegate. And then you just massage that delegate. You stay in touch with them, you work them, you protect them, to keep them from being stolen by the other side. It's a zero-sum game, and as people say all the time, "it ain't bing-bang."
BORGER (voice-over): With very few rules.
BAKER: Now, you've got to be very careful. You can't buy votes.
BORGER: So what can you do?
BAKER: Well there's some things you can do. And of course, we took great advantage of it in 1976. Our head of the party was the President of the United States. --
BORGER: That helps.
BAKER: Yes, he was -- yes, it helps a lot. There was a dinner for the Queen of England, OK? So you have a -- you get an uncommitted delegate and invite him to the White House for state dinner for the Queen of England, you don't think you have a good chance of getting his votes? You've got a pretty good chance of getting his vote.
BORGER: Did you?
BAKER: But he was -- yes, we did. And I bet I went to more state dinners than anybody in the Ford administration, with the possibly exception of Betty, and Gerald Ford.
BORGER (voice-over): And some delegates brazenly ask for favors, some crossing the line.
BAKER: We got a lot of inappropriate requests, and there were some really outrageous ones like, jobs, federal jobs, and things --
BORGER: Federal jobs? BAKER: Yes, federal jobs. If I'm not mistaken, there was a request to lay off a relative of one of the delegates who was being prosecuted for a federal crime. I mean, things like that.
BORGER (voice-over): And proper requests aside, what's to stop a few friendly plane rides to Mar-a-lago? Or a hunting trip --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He shot the wrong kind of bird.
BORGER (voice-over): -- to Texas.
BAKER: And the game wasn't only played on our side, it was played on their side, too. We just had some better --
BORGER: So how do you --
BAKER: Better inducements we could offer.
BORGER (voice-over): Still, it was close. When it came to a head on the convention floor, Ford beat Reagan outright, by just 117 votes.
REAGAN: We must go forth from here, united.
BORGER (voice-over): But this fight could be more bitter, and last longer. And Baker warns that if it does, and the rules start changing in the middle of the game, there could be hell to pay. For the entire Republican Party.
BAKER: If you have a candidate who's within 100 or 150 delegate votes of getting the majority, and you start changing the rules to screw the candidate out of the nomination, I think you're going to buy yourself some grief. You're going to buy yourself some grief in the general election. Because his supporters, all of whom thought that they were voting for significant change, might stay home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: An ominous thought for the Republican Party.
BORGER: Yes.
COSTELLO: So, Gloria, does Jim Baker think that the guy who was ahead in the delegate count, going into the convention, ought to get the nomination?
BORGER: No. He thinks you've got to fight for it. He thinks that, you know in his convention, nobody knew what was going on when they went in, and they had to scratch and wrangle up every single delegate, make sure that if there was more than on ballot, that if they weren't with you on one ballot, they'd be with you on the second ballot. So he thinks you have to do your work.
What he doesn't believe should happen, is that he doesn't believe you should change rules in the middle of the game. This is how the game is played, this is not a constitutional convention, it is a political convention. But he doesn't think that you should change the rules in the middle of the game, because then you're going to have all these voters, as he said at the end of the piece, who are going to feel disenfranchised, angry, bitter. And the worst thing that can happen for the Republican Party, is that their voters are so mad at the Party apparatus, that they decide to sit on their hands on election day, and not come out and support the nominee.
COSTELLO: Wow. Fascinating. --
BORGER: Yes.
COSTELLO: Gloria Borger, thanks for bringing us that story --
BORGER: Thanks.
COSTELLO: -- It was fascinating. All right, we're following breaking news out of Texas, I want to share it with you now. We have an active shooter situation going on right now at the Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio. It's on lockdown, as I said. The Sheriff's department there saying that they do have victims, the scene is still active, the FBI now responding. We'll have more information on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: All right, more, a little more information on the breaking news out of Texas. As I told you, we have an active shooter situation going on right now, at the Lackland Air Force Base. That's located in San Antonio. The whole thing's on lockdown. This is a very big place, more than 9,000 people work at this Air Force Base.
We understand that two people now confirmed dead, but everything within this joint base of operation is on lockdown, as well as maybe some of the things outside the base. Tom Fuentes is on the phone right now, he's our expert in all things that involve police activity. So what does a lockdown involve, Tom?
TOM FUENTES, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well basically it would involve not letting anybody off the base right now, and then restricting people coming on. And just trying to start looking around to see if they have another shooter. I think the preliminary information, in this case, was that it was possibly a murder-suicide. But now they have two deceased people, but they're still trying to verify if one of them actually was the shooter. --
COSTELLO: Yes.
FUENTES: -- So, I think until they verify that, in the interest of being very cautious, they're locking down the base. And some of the neighboring businesses outside the base are locking down.
COSTELLO: Yes, we do have some information from the Bexar County Sheriff's Department. It's Twitter page confirms that two are confirmed dead. And the bodies are apparently inside a building on the base.
FUENTES: Right. COSTELLO: So again, so they're just making sure everything's OK. If indeed this is a murder-suicide, you'd think the lockdown would be lifted, but why hasn't it been?
FUENTES: Right, well they have to verify that they, you know, to some extent, that they think they have this contained, and that the shooter is one of the two deceased persons there. And they have -- the Air Force has the office of OSI, which is their police force, basically, similar to Army CID, or Navy NCIS.
And then because it's a US Government Military reservation, then the FBI would come in as well, and have jurisdiction for capital crimes on that base. So I think right now that's the interest, is verifying what exactly happened, and whether there's still a remaining danger to the community at large.
COSTELLO: All right, Tom Fuentes, I'm going to let you go. There's a lot of breaking news happening right at this moment. So I'm trying to get my, all my oars in the water. Because I also have breaking news to tell you about out of Belgium. Belgian authorities have made several arrests in connection to the Brussels attacks. Now we don't have the name of the suspects, or any other information. But we're gathering information, and of course I'll send you who exactly has been placed under arrest. But we believe it's a series of suspects in Brussels.
Also, back here in the United States, someone connected to a campus killing caught. That is the word from Austin police, who say they do have a person connected to the murder of that 18-year old student. Her name is Haruka Weiser. She was a first-year student at the University of Texas, Austin. She majored in dance and theater. Her body was found on campus earlier this week. Ed Lavandera has more information on this breaking news story. He joins us live from Austin. Good morning.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, information starting to trickle in. Austin police have scheduled a news conference for the next hour. Haruka Weiser, 18-years old, was last seen Sunday night, leaving the dance building, not too far from the dorm there, on the University of Texas campus. Where she had just, according to police, texted friends that she was on her way back to the dorms. But she never made it.
The next morning her roommates and friends reported her missing, and her body was discovered in a creek between that dance building and the dorm area, there, on the UT campus, on Tuesday afternoon. And then yesterday, Austin police, releasing some surveillance video of a person of interest in this case. Perhaps a student, or someone, a 6- foot, black male walking a red or pink woman's bicycle near that same area, just a couple of hours after Haruka Weiser was last seen.
Now we're getting word that Austin police have a suspect in custody. Whether or not this is the same person seen in that video is not clear at this point. So we'll wait and see the developments here that happen within the next hour. Carol?
COSTELLO: It's interesting that they made an arrest so quickly.
LAVANDERA: And what is perhaps even more interesting, is the detail about how exactly this came across. The fire department, there in Austin, tells us that they responded to a small fire this morning, and in that call, they discovered some of Haruka Weiser's belongings, in that small fire.
So the details of that are still kind of coming in, as well. But that could be what has brought investigators to make this arrest. So that will be an interesting develop as we follow that throughout the rest of the day.
COSTELLO: All right, Ed Lavandera. Many thanks for that. Thank you for joining me today, I'm Carol Costello. At This Hour, with Berman and Bolduan, after a break.
