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Trump Rails Against "Rigged" Election System; The DNC on Its Candidates; Nigerian Senate Demands Update on Missing Girls. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 15, 2016 - 13:30   ET

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


JAMAL SIMMONS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Clinton is not even trying to compete for those votes. She's going to maximize the vote she has, African Americans, older voters, and try to get those voters out so she can win the primary, get the math and then worry about wooing the Sanders voters later.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Do you agree, Mary Katherine?

MARY KATHERINE HAM, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, CNN: Yes, I think I might have won that debate last night, because I enjoyed watching it so much. Like there are real ideological divides between these two, and there are real issues with Hillary's background, and there were real issues with Bernie's lack of details on the stage. And they were hitting at that.

I thought an interesting moment for her, of course, was on the transcripts when you guys really hit her really hard and kept drilling down on that, and she won't release to the transcripts. I think that speaks to a narrative that exists about her, which is why it's tough for her to shrug it off.

And then on the other side, Bernie had a bad moment on guns, I think, which the left of the party does not enjoy his position on that. But I thought his -- the tax returns don't necessarily speak to a narrative about him. People don't feel like he's really hiding anything. He may just like want to spruce up the paperwork before he passes it out.

BLITZER: He's going to release his 2014 tax returns on his campaign he said last night, and they said he's going to release it later today.

Scottie, you're a Trump supporter. From the Trump perspective, who would be a bigger challenge to him if he gets the Republican nomination? Would it be Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders?

SCOTTIE NEIL HUGHES, NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, USA RADIO NETWORKS: Well, I think it's definitely Hillary Clinton. I think that's who Mr. Trump has been running against since the very beginning. And I think what was interesting last night is I watched Bernie Sanders actually show some of his passion and emotion. To a certain extent, he almost lost his cool, which people said that he should have done from the very beginning. And I think my biggest point last night that I actually went wow was

the turning of the minimum wage for Hillary Clinton and kind of getting her to up her game and show that she's changed her opinion on that. And that's something that, you know, you obviously don't see often of Hillary changing on stage there, going from $13 to yes, she should support a $15 minimum wage.

And I think that is one of those reasons why Mr. Trump from the very beginning has been saying he's going to run against Hillary Clinton, and he's looking forward to running against her, because he can show that she changes based on where the heat is being put on at that moment.

BLITZER: Don't you agree, Jamal, that on several of these issues, he has pushed her more to the left, for example, raising the minimum wage nationally to $1%, as Scottie just pointed out?

SIMMONS: He has pushed her more to the left, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you understand the electorate to be -- this is going to be a contest between -- especially if Donald Trump is the nominee -- this is a contest between two of the most well-known, well-defined people in the United States. Each one of them probably has close to 100 percent name I.D.

And so this isn't going to be about defining one of those other people. This is going to be about turning out your core voters. And Hillary Clinton's biggest challenge is how does she get these young voters, these African Americans who are siding with Bernie Sanders, a small group, how does she get them to turn out and vote for her in the fall.

She's got to get the number up. And so I think the more she can appeal to those voters, the more Bernie gets her to move on some of those issues, the better off she'll be in the next election.

BLITZER: And Mary Katherine, on the Republican side, a national poll from Fox News shows Donald Trump widening his lead over Senator Ted Cruz. Trump's now at -- has an 18-point advantage. You see Trump 45, Cruz 27, Kasich 25. Any way at all you think that's going to change between now and Tuesday?

HAM: Not probably before Tuesday. I think Cruz's game smartly has been where can I pick off delegates in places that are vulnerable for him and maybe there's a couple of those places where we can work really hard and have people on the ground at various congressional districts in New York and various congressional districts in California.

The Cruz campaign has shown that they're able to do that on the ground, that they know the rules and that they work hard and they work competently to make sure that they can -- that they can gain delegates in those places. And I think that's what it comes down to. And each state will be a different story as to whether they can work that.

And the Trump campaign has been playing catch up in that way. That's why they were so upset about Colorado. And they're going to continue to play catch up, because they don't have as many people on the ground in these places to decipher this and to work the grassroots.

BLITZER: Trump's got an 18-point lead nationally in that new Fox poll. He's got a huge lead in New York State as well going in to New York's primary on Tuesday.

All right, guys. Thank you very much.

HAM: Thank you.

BLITZER: Coming up, protests are expected later today in Colorado over the selection of the state's Republican delegates. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, he's standing by live. There you see him. We're going to talk about that more involving the Republican party and how it picks its nominees, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Donald Trump rails against what he calls a " Democratic process." This time he's arguing his case in a new op-ed article in the "Wall Street Journal." Trump writes, among other things, this, "What we are seeing now is not a proper use of the rules but a flagrant abuse of the rules. Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is being rigged by party operatives with double-agent delegates who reject the decision of voters. The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed."

Joining us now is Reince Priebus. He's the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Reince, thanks very much for joining us.

A pretty tough article. You read the article in the "Wall Street Journal." He says he wants to work with the RNC to reform election policies. Is the system broken right now? Does it need fixing?

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: It was the same system that put Abraham Lincoln into office. No, I think the system is working, and all the delegates that are bound to the candidates will stay bound to the candidates. No one is losing any bound delegates whatsoever.

The convention in Colorado is a convention that took place four years ago, as well. Over 60,000 people participated starting a month ago, culminating to a state convention. All of the candidates, by the way, participated all along the way for the last month, and no complaints were made.

This is the way that the parties, and the Democrats do it in a similar way, choose their nominees. The delegates are empowered by the voters, but the delegates on the floor choose the nominee of the party after being empowered by the voters. This is a very normal system that we have been using for many years.

And by the way, if anyone wants to reform the system, they can do so on the rules committee, because every four years the rules committee gets together and they write the rules for the nomination of our -- for our party. So that's who decides the system. It's not the RNC that writes the rules to determine the system.

WOLF: That rules committee meets the week before the Republican convention.

In Cleveland, Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski echoed Trump's arguments that the system is rigged. Listen to what he said on CNN's "New Day" earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER: People know what the rules are, but the rules aren't fair and they should make it so people can go to the ballot box -- if you live in the state of New York or you live in the state of Colorado, you should be able to go to the ballot box, you should be able to vote for the person that you want, and that vote should count, and that person should ultimately -- whoever has the most votes, which Donald Trump has by millions, and the most delegates -- should be the nominee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF: How do you want to respond to Lewandowski?

PRIEBUS: Well, yes, I mean, there's a lot of people that like open primaries to choose our nominee. There's a lot of states that use the primary system. Wisconsin uses a primary system.

I like primaries. Some people like caucuses. There's a few states that do conventions. It's up to the individual states. It's their delegate election.

Each state has a delegate election, and the state writes the rules for that delegate election. And in some states, it's how Corey put forth, but in other places, it's different. And the campaigns have to learn the rules and execute on the rules.

This is a nomination for the Republican Party. Republican Party writes the rules of the nomination procedure for its own party.

WOLF: I'm going to be speaking a little bit later with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee. She said some pretty tough words. She said the Republicans right now -- these are her words -- are in a civil war food fight, and they're blowing themselves to smithereens. You want to react to what your counterpart on the Democratic side had to say?

PRIEBUS: Well, I don't -- honestly, I think she, you know, ought to look in the mirror.

Look, we're going to get together. We're going to be unified in Cleveland. I know there's drama. I know there's going to be work to do. I get it. I'm not, you know, oblivious to the world that I live in.

But look, I mean, you saw the debate last night front and center, Wolf. I mean, these -- it was -- they were gouging each other's eyes out. Comey, the FBI director is interviewing and immunizing employees and potentially preparing for charging papers. I really don't think Debbie Wasserman Schultz has a lot of room to talk.

WOLF: Who do you worry about more facing the Republican nominee, whoever that nominee may turn out to be? Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders?

PRIEBUS: Oh, I'm much more -- I'm much more comfortable, and I think -- I think everyone that's analyzed this knows that Hillary Clinton's in the ditch. We don't know how far in the ditch she's going to go, but she's not doing well. She's not even winning. You know, she's lost seven out of eight contests, I believe. Maybe it's eight out of nine.

So she's not winning. She's not popular.

WOLF: But she has -- she has --

PRIEBUS: Unfortunately for her, she's not likable.

WOLF: Hold on a second. Reince, she has almost 2.5 million more votes right now in all of the contests over Bernie Sanders. She has a million more votes than Donald Trump has, and Donald Trump has a lot more, almost two million more than Ted Cruz. So on the popular vote --

PRIEBUS: Well, you asked me --

WOLF: -- more than 30 contests so far, she's doing pretty well.

PRIEBUS: But you asked me who would be -- who would be better to run against. And I'm telling you I'd rather run against Hillary Clinton, because she's defined. She's not liked. And, you know, in a popular cultural vote in America, that's a really important question, and she doesn't do well on that question.

And I don't know what's going to happen with the FBI. So put her unpopularity together with another unknown that could make it even harder for her, I would rather run against Hillary Clinton. I'm just answering your question.

WOLF: All right, that's interesting that you fear Bernie Sanders more than you fear Hillary Clinton. That's the bottom line, right?

PRIEBUS: Well, I don't really fear either of them. I don't -- I don't fear either of them. I think after eight years of Obama, I think this is our year. But we have to work hard. I know that. And we've got work to do, but we're going to do that work so that we can win.

WOLF: Interesting. All right, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, thank you very much.

PRIEBUS: You bet.

WOLF: Just ahead, the war to win New York State far from finished right now. Is the fighting taking a toll on the Democratic Party? We're going to speak to the Democratic National Committee chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. There you see her. She's standing by live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF: The race for the Democratic presidential nominations turned in to a brawl last night. The angry tone of the race was on full display during the Democratic presidential debate in Brooklyn. It was a sharp contrast from their first debate back in October when Senator Bernie Sanders defended Hillary Clinton over the e-mail controversy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think the Secretary is right, and that is the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Me, too. Me, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait. Wait. I have stood on the debate stage with Senator Sanders eight prior times. I've said the exact same thing.

(CROSSTALK)

WOLF: Secretary, Senator, please.

(CROSSTALK)

WOLF: Secretary -- secretary, the viewers -- you're both screaming at each other. The viewers won't be able to hear either of you, so please don't talk over each other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF: Got lively there.

Joining us now is representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida. He's also the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Congresswoman, thanks very much for joining us.

What a difference six months can make. Are you concerned about the tone -- the tone that this race has taken, because clearly, it was bitter last night?

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: I'm really not. There would be something wrong with either one of our candidates if during this intense part of the campaign, when we've gotten to the most narrow end of the tunnel before the primary comes to a close, that they wouldn't be, you know, assertive about pointing out their differences. But look, while the debate was going on last night, I think it's

important to know that we are, at the same time, functioning as a united political party. You know, today we filed a lawsuit, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic senatorial campaign committee, the Kirkpatrick for Senate campaign, with the Arizona Democratic party. And both of our candidates' campaigns are joining that lawsuit to sue the state of Arizona over their horrendous voter suppression laws and the fact they have absolutely engaged in voter suppression that has denied people access to the polls.

And so our candidates understand that we share the same values. We want to achieve the same goals. They have slightly different approaches, and sometimes more than slightly different approaches to achieving those. But we are a united political party, and I'm confident we will be when our primary comes to and end and we have a nominee.

WOLF: Because there was so much bitterness last night. And you watch the audience. The Hillary Clinton supporters versus the Bernie Sanders supporters who were out in the audience there. And you were there. You were in Brooklyn. It's will be hard to get them to work together after a nominee is selected.

SCHULTZ: You know, there's always work to do at the end of a primary. There's no question. There was plenty of work to do at the end of 2008.

Frankly, the contest in 2008 was a lot more divisive for a lot longer period of time. There was a lot of intensity on the part of both the side of the supporters and the candidates themselves. And we were able to come back together, unite behind our nominee, Barack Obama, elect him president.

He asked Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter back then, and he asked me to chair the DNC after Tim Kaine ran for the Senate. So we know how to come back together, and we are preparing at the Democratic National Committee to be ready for the general and to be able to manage that process as well.

WOLF: We just heard your Republican counterpart, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican --

SCHULTZ: I heard him.

WOLF: -- National Committee, say basically that Hillary Clinton -- I think I'm paraphrasing now -- is in a rut right now. She's in deep trouble. They think she would be a weaker Democratic candidate than even Bernie Sanders would be. Your reaction?

SCHULTZ: You know, I know that my counterpart is doing his best not to pour Bailey's in his own coffee, to use his words from the other day. He's putting a really -- you know, the best spin on his situation that he can.

The reality is that he has utter chaos going on on the other side of the aisle. He has open warfare from his front-runner, who's likely to be his nominee, in Donald Trump.

He goes on TV and is not talking out the issues. He's talking about defending the rules, which by the way, I agree with him that we do have rules, and, you know, the candidates know what those are.

But be that as it may, no party chair wants to be debating their own likely nominee over rules and process. They want to make sure that at the end of the primary contest and even during it, that they're able to get their party's message out. And the message that's coming out of the Republicans is extremism, misogyny, bigotry. And their primary has basically sent a message to Americans --

WOLF: But, do you know -- Congresswoman --

SCHULTZ: -- no rational people need apply.

WOLF: -- just as -- just as Donald Trump is complaining about the Republican nominating process, you've got Bernie Sanders, his wife Jane Sanders, they're complaining about the Democratic process, saying that it's -- and I'm paraphrasing once again -- it's rigged. Your reaction?

SCHULTZ: No, not Really. I mean, there have been some complaints leveled here and there throughout the campaign, but not nearly in the way that is occurring with the -- with the Donald Trump campaign.

I mean, Senator Sanders has been at this a long time, been in office 25 years. And certainly, you know, the Sanders campaign, we've actually had, you know, a relatively good working relationship with them. And they were aware of the rules for each of the states, and we've not actually had a really tough time with them when it comes to each primary, as they've come. So, you know, complaints aside, I think there's no comparison.

WOLF: Who do you fear the most? Would it be Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich as the Republican nominee?

SCHULTZ: Well, I'll answer you the same way that I answer this question every single time you ask me, and that is, it doesn't much matter. Because throughout the entire unfolding of their primary, they have had a set of Republican candidates that have been extreme, that have talked about Mexicans being druggists and drug dealers and rapists, wanting to deport 11 million people, build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, patrol Muslim neighborhoods, actually bar an entire religion from entering the country.

This is the party that said after the 2012 election when they lost that if they were ever going to win another presidential election, their autopsy said they had to embrace, you know, groups of voters that they've been alienating and embrace comprehensive immigration reform and stop making people feel unwelcome in this country. That has not quite worked out the way they planned.

WOLF: Debbie Wassermann Schultz, the chair of the DNC, thank you very much.

SCHULTZ: Thanks, Wolf.

WOLF: Still ahead, Nigerian lawmakers are demanding answers following CNN's report on the missing schoolgirls. We're going to go to Abuja in Nigeria right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF: CNN's exclusive reporting of Nigeria's missing school girls is prompting action in the country's senate yesterday. We showed you the video being used in negotiations between Boko Haram and the government that shows some of the girls. Two years ago, they were snatched from their beds in a dormitory in the town of Chibok, leading to international please to bring back our girls.

Our senior correspondent, Nima Elbagir, is joining us now. Nima, what is the latest as far as the negotiations are concerned?

NIMA ELBAGIR, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Well, we understand, Wolf, that as recently as last week, from sources close to the negotiations, Boko Haram made another demand. They want $1 million.

That figure, of course, is one that's being debated furiously. But $1 million for just 10 of those 15 girls that we saw in that video, so clearly intent on getting as much out of those 219 desperate girls as they can.

This comes as Nigeria's senate has tabled a bill, passed unanimously, prompted by CNN's broadcast of that video, to summon the country's security chiefs. They want an accounting of the search so far.

And they really want the security agencies to explain why it has taken so far and whether the emphasis on a military solution has come at the cost of pursuing with some seriousness those negotiations. Because the terror group also wants the release of many of their numbers that are being held in Nigerian cells, which some of those we're speaking to in the security agencies here feel would send a really bad precedent.

We're getting a lot of international reaction, Wolf, from the U.K., but also from the U.S. Unfortunately, in terms of the hopes of the families, the U.S. have has made very clear that although they stand as willing today to provide as much support as they can, as they were two years ago, but similarly to two years ago, they remain constrained by Nigeria's lead on how much help they feel they need, Wolf.

WOLF: And you have been doing amazing reporting, Nima, for two years plus.

Very quickly, how powerful has the impact of this been on you?

ELBAGIR: It was -- it was heartbreaking. I don't think there's any other word for it. But at the same type, to just see a little bit of hope re-ignited, I think we all felt very privileged to be able to witness that.

WOLF: And you and your team have been doing an amazing job for all of us, all our viewers in the United States --

ELBAGIR: Thank you.

WOLF: -- and around the world. Thanks very much for doing this great, great reporting.

That's it for me. The news continues right now on CNN.