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Interview With Kentucky Senator Rand Paul; Interview With Former Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra; Republican Turmoil. Aired 15-15:30p ET

Aired April 11, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:0]

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unable to attend a ceremony honoring the men who saved his life, Dern's wife Kelly read a letter on his behalf.

KELLY DERN, CAPTAIN PETE DERN'S WIFE: You gave my wife back her husband. My daughter back letter dad, my mom back her son, and my sisters back their brother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's even hard to -- hard to hear, too, because I don't want my wife going through that either. Our goal every day is to go home safely and, unfortunately, Pete wasn't able to that day.

ELAM: But lucky for Captain Dern, his fellow firefighters were willing to go beyond the call of duty to save one of their own.

Stephanie Elam, CNN, Fresno, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Brooke Baldwin today in New York.

And we begin with accusations flying in the race for the White House, Donald Trump calling the Colorado Republican Convention rigged and crooked after Ted Cruz won 34 delegates there over the weekend. Some are now calling it a voterless country, because there's no primary in Colorado and no caucus.

Instead, convention-goers pick a candidate's delegates. Well, today, Trump tweeted out a video of a Colorado Republican who burned his party registration after attending that convention. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have been a Republican all my life. But I will never be a Republican again. I quit the party. And for the time being at least, I will be independent. And I'm voting for Trump. And to hell with the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right. Well, Cruz's camp says he won fairly through a -- quote -- "superior

organization."

Joining me now, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and Mark Preston, CNN politics executive editor.

Well, first of all, Cruz was there. Trump was not there. But it sounds like Cruz ground game, if you will, is just was better there and in other states we're seeing, right, Mark?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Right.

Yes. And, look, these changes were made last year. It's not as if these changes were made just in the last couple of days, let alone the last couple of weeks.

The problem is for the Republican Party is that you are going to have voters out there that say this is just an insiders game, this is another Washington way of try to control the process, and this is why we hate the national parties and why we hate Washington.

BROWN: Yes, and Trump sees that opening, saying it's crooked, it's rigged. This is what we hate about politics.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This plays right into his brand, right, which is sort of anti-establishment. I think Trump has a problem, though. While it does play into his brand, he still has to get delegates.

And so long as the party doesn't start changing the rules in the middle of the game, which I think would be a problem for the party, they can say, the party can say, these are the rules. These are the rules. You should have known them. You know, running for president is a serious enterprise. You ought to know what you're getting into before you get into it and you ought to be organized enough to do it, you know.

And Trump was playing an air game, and this is retail and minute at this point and the Trump campaign is starting to understand they have to do that, which is why they hired the delegate wrangler Paul Manafort, right?

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: It's interesting, though. He compared himself, his situation to Bernie Sanders, Mark, basically saying we keep hear he's winning, winning, and he doesn't have the delegates.

PRESTON: Right. No doubt. And, listen, we hear the same thing from Bernie Sanders as well, because he says, listen, I have won is it seven out of the last eight contents up to this point, but Hillary Clinton had such a good run down in the South that she was able to build a lead over him when it came to pledged delegates, which is basically delegates in the states, and she also got the establishment behind her. She got these so-called superdelegates, these governors, these

senators, these House members, these select people who can pledge their allegiance to a candidate, and they don't have to do anything through the state.

BORGER: The thing is about a convention, going towards a convention and a potentially contested convention, it's not a constitutional convention. It's a party convention.

It's full of party people. And so what Trump has to try and do, and I saw that voter, that angry Trump supporter over there, what Trump has to try and do is convince his supporters to go be delegates to the convention and get them on these slates, and that's what they're trying to do, and they're a little late in starting that process right now.

BROWN: When you look at Trump's strategy just this past week, it seems different. He was very low-key for several days. He skipped out on the Sunday morning talk shows, I think for the first time in four months.

BORGER: Oh, my gosh.

BROWN: And then he came out, I guess, what was it, yesterday, and he started talking about the rigged delegate system.

But first to you, Gloria. What do you make of that?

BORGER: I think he's got people around him now who are telling him to kind of cool it. He's sitting on a big lead in New York. You don't want to blow it. We saw what happened in Wisconsin. He had a bad two weeks before Wisconsin. And it really hurt him in that state.

[15:05:05]

So they want to sit on their lead. They want to try and tone it down a little bit. And the only time we have heard him come out is to say that this process is rigged. And, you know, as I was saying before, this is an argument that I think makes sense for Trump to make.

BROWN: Strategic, exactly.

BORGER: It's strategic. I'm not sure it's going to work, but it is strategic.

PRESTON: Right. What got him to this point was the bombastic rhetoric, was owning the media, was reaching out and, really, getting support from folks who, A, hadn't voted, or folks who were very upset at the national parties.

However, as Gloria said earlier, the bottom line is you can have that and that can get you to a certain point in the campaign, but you have to have this whole infrastructure underneath you to make sure that it carries you through, and Donald Trump did not have that infrastructure built. Or he's right now in the middle of trying to build it, which could be

a little bit too late, meaning we will go into a contested convention. Where Donald Trump has some issues as well is when he comes out and attacks the Republican Party as a whole, when he attacks the RNC, because let's assume he does win the nomination, he needs the Republican National Committee.

And, quite frankly, he does need those deep-pocketed donors if we are to believe that Donald Trump is not going to self-fund the campaign.

BROWN: Well, Mark Preston, safe to say you have not been sleeping the last several days because you have been organizing, helping to organize these town halls starting tonight with John Kasich and his family and then of course Ted Cruz, his family, and Donald Trump and his family.

What should we look for in these family town halls? This seems pretty unique.

PRESTON: Yes, it is unique, certainly for our viewers.

The three of us get an up-close look at these candidates and certainly their families that most voters are not able to get, unless you live in New Hampshire or Iowa or South Carolina, those privileged states. But what we can see tonight is really beyond the policy, beyond the rhetoric.

Where you get to see -- tonight we will see Reese and Emma, the 15- year-old daughters, twin daughters, of John Kasich talk about their dad as a person. We will see his wife, Karen, talk about him as a husband, you know, just the whole family aspect that you don't normally get during a campaign.

And I think at this point, we know so much where the candidates are when it comes to policy issues, how are they personally? And that's what we will see tonight and over the next three nights.

BORGER: And, also, running for president is such a family enterprise. And we tend to forget that if their dad is criticized, they're going to be upset about it. You know, the spouse is...

BROWN: Right, how it impacts them.

BORGER: How it impacts them. Spouses are often the best character witnesses for the candidate. So I think you're going to see that a little bit out of all of these spouses, but it kind of lifts the veil a little bit on what it's like to actually run for the presidency and how the family becomes so invested and how difficult, how difficult it really, really is on a deep personal level to see somebody you love being out there, being criticized, getting negative attacks.

PRESTON: Constantly.

BORGER: Constantly.

PRESTON: Constantly. BROWN: It will be so interesting to hear their perspective. Family

does matter. It's not just the candidates. They really provide the backbones that we're looking forward. And tonight is the first one with John Kasich and his family, as I said.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Mark Preston, thank you. Gloria Borger, we really appreciate it.

BORGER: Sure.

BROWN: And staying with Ohio Governor John Kasich, I'm going to turn now to former Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who is endorsing Kasich for president.

Congressman, thank you so much for coming on.

First off, what is your reaction when you hear Donald Trump complain about a -- quote -- "rigged system"?

PETE HOEKSTRA (R), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Well, you can say it's a rigged system but he could have rigged it, as could have Ted Cruz or John Kasich. You rig the system by getting your supporters to come out to the state conventions and county caucuses and these things.

You do have to have the follow-through that after you win an election or if there's not even a primary, make sure your people participate in the process. The process is clearly laid out in each of these states.

BROWN: The Cruz campaign is saying your campaign and the Trump campaign boxed out Ted Cruz from winning delegates in Michigan. In fact, accusing Kasich supporters of -- quote -- "double-crossing them."

And the governor just commented on it. What happened? What does this mean in the long run?

HOEKSTRA: I don't think it means much in the long run. What it means is that, at the state convention in Michigan, we elected people and what they're complaining about is we elected people, number one, to be the delegates and the alternates in the convention.

And then we elected -- again, through the delegate process, we elected people to represent Michigan on the key committees, the rules committee, the credentials committee, and those types of things at the national convention. And what you have to do as the campaigns do talk, they do work together, is to make sure they're fairly represented.

And in this case, it appears that the Trump people and the Kasich people could work together and ensure some equity and they felt that they were double-crossed by the Cruz people.

BROWN: But it's interesting, though, because it was once thought Trump and Cruz had formed an alliance to deny Kasich any sort of path to the nomination. Does this signal a shift in alliances to you?

[15:10:00]

HOEKSTRA: I think what it shifts -- I think what it signals here at least -- remember, this is not John Kasich and the national team, you know, dictating a strategy or trying to dictate a strategy down to the people in Michigan.

A lot of it depends on the dynamics of the individuals in the state who know each other, who have worked together. These are grassroots activists. These are party leaders who have worked together for years. In certain cases, perhaps the Trump and the Kasich people have better relationships.

In other places, maybe it's the Kasich and the Cruz people who have better relationships. It is all about relationship politics at this point. And, as Michigan moves forward, that's going to be the most important thing.

BROWN: And you were just saying, you know, with the notion of a rigged system, you said the rules are the rules; it's how good you are with navigating those rules and getting delegates on your side.

In light of that, there's been so much focus on Trump's ground game weaknesses, but what about Kasich? How long ago did the Kasich campaign realize this?

HOEKSTRA: Well, I think John's been fully aware of this. He has had some very, very -- he has some very talented people on his staff. They understand this. This is why in a place like Michigan they have reached out to myself, the lieutenant governor and others as well, as grassroots people, to make sure that we have got a cohesive team all the way from the national team, all the way down to grassroots people in the counties who could go to county conventions.

BROWN: Right.

HOEKSTRA: That's why we were successful in Michigan.

BROWN: But did you notice that Trump's ground game was weak and when did that happen, if so?

HOEKSTRA: Oh, no, I think we have known for a long time the Trump game was relatively weak in a state like Michigan, because they weren't there actively involved at the county level, which is where it all begins.

Do they have the people, the people that have been part of the process, that know how the system works? And if they were getting new people, did they have new people who were willing to learn how the process worked to make sure they could have an impact?

BROWN: But, still, the Trump camp fared much better than Cruz did in Michigan when it comes to putting those delegates on committees.

Pete Hoekstra, thank you very much. Appreciate it. HOEKSTRA: Thank you.

BROWN: And all three GOP candidates and their families will sit down with CNN this week for town hall events. Tonight at 9:00 Eastern, the Kasiches, in fact, and John Kasich just mentioned -- his supporters a moment ago in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know what it's going to be, Anderson Cooper tonight at 9:00. If you want to see my wife and kids, then tune it in. I don't know -- they're 16. I don't know what they're going to say. OK?

(LAUGHTER)

KASICH: But I have been giving them a lot of stuff, so they will say good things. Anyway...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And, tomorrow, the Trumps and Wednesday the Cruz family, only on CNN.

And up next, President Obama goes out of his way to defend Hillary Clinton over her personal e-mails, but did he go too far during an investigation? Senator Rand Paul has a few words. He joins me live.

Plus, as the wives of the Republican rivals get ready to answer voters' questions on CNN, we will talk about what they need to do to shine.

And first Bruce Springsteen, now Bryan Adams canceling one of his concerts in the South over a new law critics say discriminates. I will speak live with the mayor of the city to get his reaction.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:05]

BROWN: Well, President Obama seems to be going out of his way to defend Hillary Clinton over the use of her personal e-mails. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy.

And what I also know, because I handle a lot of classified information, is that there is classified and then there's classified. There's stuff that is really top secret, top secret, and then there's stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of state that you might not want on the transom or, you know, going out over the wire, but is basically stuff that you could get in open source. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And joining me now to discuss, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, my home state, and former Republican presidential candidate.

Senator, thank you so much for coming on.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Sure.

BROWN: I first just want to address what we heard President Obama said he said there's classification and then there's classification. What do you make of that?

PAUL: Well, the one thing I didn't hear from him is where his e-mail is kept. I think it's probably kept on a viewer server. And I'm very glad it is, because there is a risk with foreign entity, foreign intelligence agencies getting access to e-mails.

I think it was really -- it was a judgment call. And I have always been more about whether -- not whether it's legal, illegal, top secret, or this, is I want a commander in chief who has good judgment about security of the nation. So it does concern me. If I'm thinking about who to vote for, and I'm not exactly unbiased -- but if I'm thinking about who to vote for, it goes to her judgment, whether it was good judgment to put e-mail that could have been sensitive and/or top secret, to put that on a server that's not protected by all the controls terrorist our government has to try to keep out hackers and spies.

BROWN: And President Obama said in terms of the FBI investigation that whatever the outcome of it is, it will not be politically motivated, do you trust that?

PAUL: You know, I hope that's right. And I have a great deal of confidence that the FBI does try to be above partisan politics.

But, you know, we do have appointees that run them, that are political appointees, but I'm very hopeful that is accurate. I think it is a serious and a worrisome thing to have top secret e-mails just floating around the Internet. And I think there is already evidence -- there was evidence -- they brought somebody, a hacker from Europe, that they're talking about whether or not that hacker may have hacked into Clinton e-mails.

I don't know that to be true.

BROWN: We don't have any reporting on that.

PAUL: Yes, but there's people asking that question.

BROWN: But the Clinton campaign contends that this overclassification run amok, and that nothing was marked classified at the time and that it was classified later.

And I have spoken to people in the government who say commonly we e- mail and people dance around classified topics, some better than others.

PAUL: I guess, to me, it's less important the exact detail classified vs. sensitive vs. this. It's really the judgment of whether or not the secretary of state should have had her e-mails that could have had sensitive information on a private server.

[15:20:05]

To me, it goes to judgment. I want somebody to be in charge of the country who is very careful with our nation's secrets and it doesn't sound to me like she was very careful.

BROWN: Does it change your view at all because the State Department inspector general came out and said actually there was some e-mails on Colin Powell's private e-mail, and Condoleezza Rice's that are now marked classified?

PAUL: No, I think what worries me is that there's a few e-mails they tell me I can't even look at now, that they're so top secret I don't have access to these e-mails.

I think there were 12 of Clinton's e-mails that they have said I can't look at. That sounds to me pretty secret and she was sending them on a private server.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Or receiving them. We don't know if she was sending.

PAUL: Yes. It also troubles me though that she fired one of her ambassadors for doing the same thing she did, so she apparently thought it was a serious enough breach to fire one of her ambassadors that was using a private e-mail server.

And so that goes to sort of hypocrisy, whether or not what's good for her is good for her employees and vice versa.

BROWN: President Obama was also asked about the worst mistake of his presidency. I want to take a listen to that and talk to you after.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you agree, that's his biggest mistake?

PAUL: I think it was a really big mistake. And I think we should learn from our mistakes. And I have asked the president directly about this.

In a lunch conference, I asked the president, I thought you promised us not to take us to war without the authority of Congress. The Constitution's very explicit. We should have never been involved in Libya without a vote of Congress. I think when we did get to Syria, you remember, there was an argument about bombing Assad after the chemical weapons attack. I made that same argument.

And I think the president did listen somewhat to the people and to those of us who were saying you can't go to war on your own. No president should unilaterally go to war. I hope he learned from it. But I also hope Hillary Clinton learns from it because Hillary Clinton was in favor of that same policy.

BROWN: Well, that's what I wonder. When you listen to that, is that sound bite going to end up in a Republican ad? It could be construed that he was indirectly pointing his finger at Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state then.

PAUL: Well, I hope everybody learns from it, because it wasn't just Democrats. President Obama supported the war in Libya. So did Hillary Clinton. But many leading Republicans were for that war as well.

But it's been a disaster. Libya's utter chaos. A third of Libya now pledges allegiance to ISIS. If you ask yourself, was it a good decision to topple Gadhafi now, I think it was a terrible decision. But I it also happened because President Obama didn't obey the Constitution.

The Constitution says that Congress declares war, and he went to war on his own. If we use the checks and balances of the Constitution, I think we're less likely to make mistakes like Libya.

BROWN: I want to turn to some reporting from my colleague Manu Raju, who says your colleagues and the Senate -- Republican senators are not rushing to back Ted Cruz, they're staying on the sidelines, and you're staying on the sidelines too. Why is that?

PAUL: I think I have said my piece. I was involved in a lot of the presidential debates. I got to point out what I thought were my attributes, as well as some of other weaknesses.

And we didn't have enough votes. We valiantly moved forward. But now, you know, I'm running for reelection in Kentucky. I think my job is more to unify Republicans, rather than continue to point out what I think are some weaknesses of the candidates. And really I think my message is somewhat unique in the party. I bring a libertarian sort of message. A message for privacy. Less military intervention. A conservative military budget that doesn't cause us to go further into debt.

I want to keep promoting those issues, as opposed to sort of being a pundit or a spokesman for any particular candidate.

BROWN: But not everyone else is running for reelection. Why aren't the other Republican senators rushing to back him?

PAUL: I think it's some of the same, though, because everybody sort of has a state they represent in the U.S. Senate and they're trying to promote their agenda. BROWN: You don't think it has to do with them not liking Ted Cruz?

PAUL: I think that might be overstated. People say that over and over again, this personal sort of battle. With me, I just figure that what I want the Republican Party to be is a bigger, better, bolder party, more diverse.

So I have spent a lot of my time over the last two year speaking to African-American audiences saying this is our message, and we want you in our party, Hispanic audiences saying this is our message, we want you in our party, and I think that's a useful thing. But it isn't so useful if I'm just a surrogate for one candidate or another. I will support the nominee, I have said, who wins the Republican nomination. I will support them.

BROWN: OK. Hypothetically, if Donald Trump is the nominee, how do you think he would do against Hillary Clinton?

PAUL: You know, I think on some issues...

BROWN: If she's the nominee, obviously.

PAUL: I think on some issues, like on the trade issues, he mixes it up. And so states like Ohio, Wisconsin, maybe even New York, where there is a certain part of the population that has misgivings about job loss with regard to trade, Trump has a chance that some other Republicans might not have.

[15:25:06]

But I think his rhetoric, his inflammatory rhetoric that I think sometimes incites hatred, I think isn't good for the party. I have said before that we can have variety of opinions on how to fix immigration. I'm for more security at the border, but I think we should not vilify those who want to emigrate to our country, because part of the reason they want to come here is, it's such a great place.

They come here seeking freedom. They come here seeking opportunity. They need to come lawfully. But I think it's a mistake to somehow sort of say, oh, it's a bunch of drug dealers and rapists that have come here. Most people come here -- I would say the overwhelming majority are coming here looking for freedom and prosperity.

BROWN: So with Donald Trump, his latest complaint, if you will, is that the delegate system is rigged and crooked. Do you think he has a point?

PAUL: You know, I have been involved since I was a kid. I was actually at the last contested convention in 1976. I was 13 and my dad was a Reagan delegate. And it wasn't decided.

And Ford wins on the first ballot by about 100 delegates. Interestingly, even back then, Pennsylvania was undecided. This year, they will be undecided. So, in 1976, Pennsylvania sent, you know, unobligated delegates. They're doing it again. And people had to jockey back and forth. We have these rules in presidential elections as well.

You vote. States vote. And then electors vote. And, interestingly, electors haven't always voted for the candidate they were supposed to. In 1972, a Nixon elector actually voted for the libertarian candidate, John Hospers. We have all these rules, but you have to be involved with it and you have to have the enthusiasm of the party.

And Trump needs to do a better job because I think he's losing overwhelmingly in the delegate count.

BROWN: Because that is a possible scenario we could see if there's a contested convention with these so-called double agent delegates, where they vote for Trump on the first ballot and the second ballot, go for Cruz. What do you think about that if that does play out?

PAUL: Right.

You have to be active in the party. Trump has bought new people into the party. And that's good. New people that are enthused about his candidacy. But they also have to participate. You have to show up at the precinct convention and the county convention, the state convention. It's always been that way. Those are the rules. And enthusiasm goes a long way.

You know, in 2012, when my dad was running, he got that enthusiasm. He did actually better in the delegate count than he did in the actual popular count. But that's the way the system works. And the rules are the same for everybody.

BROWN: Just really quickly, I know you're running for reelection in Kentucky. You dropped out of the presidential race shortly after the Iowa caucuses. Do you ever have any regret that perhaps you dropped out too early?

PAUL: No, not really. We got 5 percent of the vote. We beat Jeb Bush. I beat Kasich. I beat Fiorina. I beat half of the field.

But the problem is, is that they had hundreds of millions of dollar dollars to spend in New Hampshire and that money, I think, was overwhelming our message. Plus, I think the Trump phenomenon, the microphone that he was granted for one reason or another, it was 25 times bigger than the entire Republican field together.

And that overwhelming news cycle that was dominated by Trump, dominated all others, other than, you know, maybe the one remaining Cruz now. So it's interesting to see how it shakes out, but, no, no real regrets. I feel honored to be in the U.S. Senate. I feel honored to have been part of the debate.

BROWN: All right, Senator Rand Paul, thank you very much for coming on.

PAUL: Thank you.

BROWN: And still ahead on this Monday, Singer Bryan Adams cancels a show in Biloxi, Mississippi, after the state passed a controversial religious freedom bill.

The mayor of Biloxi also taking a strong stand against that new law that many say discriminates against the LGBT community -- the mayor joins me live up next.

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