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Ted Cruz Announces Carly Fiorina as Vice Presidential Running Mate; Sanders Campaign Lays Off 200+ Staffers; Biden Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired April 28, 2016 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:01] PEREIRA: We're going to throw it to Carol Costello in the "NEWSROOM."
Everybody say, good morning, Carol. One, two, three.
GROUP: Good morning, Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning kids. And remember, Ashleigh Banfield, I am not baby-sitting while you're on the air.
PEREIRA: Ashleigh isn't going to babysit.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Everybody, let's go to Carol's set right now.
PEREIRA: Yes. Let's go upstairs. Let's go upstairs. Let's go find her.
COSTELLO: No, no.
PEREIRA: Go run up there.
COSTELLO: The NEWSROOM starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Cruz and Fiorina team up.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am pleased to introduce to you the next vice-president of the United States, Carly Fiorina.
COSTELLO: And Trump smacks down.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Cruz can't win. What is he doing picking vice-presidents? He can't win. He can't win.
COSTELLO: Tell that to Carly.
CARLY FIORINA, TED CRUZ RUNNING MATE: I think the soul of our party is at stake. I think the future of our nation is at stake.
COSTELLO: Plus, Bernie Sanders says he is in it until the end, but hundreds of his staff members are not. The Democratic candidate's campaign overhaul.
And the investigation into Prince's death. Authorities now say they found opiate medication on him when he died.
Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
Donald Trump and his dueling images. First his foreign policy views, by the script and off the teleprompter, then hours later off the cuff and back on the attack. His target, Ted Cruz, and his announcement of a vice presidential running mate. Cruz and Carly Fiorina, about to blitz Indiana this morning. Trump mocking the move and the desperation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He is the first presidential candidate in the history of this country whose mathematically eliminated from becoming president, who chose a vice presidential candidate, OK. It's a record.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: And feeling the Bern of reality. The Sanders campaign laying off hundreds of workers just hours after Hillary Clinton surges closer to clinching the Democratic nomination. More on that in just a minute. But let's begin with the Republicans. CNN's Phil Mattingly is in Washington.
Good morning.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, goods morning, Carol. There is right now two battles playing out in the Republican primary. There is the battle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Trump, the frontrunner. Cruz trying to upend the race with his decision yesterday to choose Carly Fiorina as his running mate. But there's also the battle between Donald Trump and himself.
Who does he want to be, what type of candidate does he want to be? Is he the candidate that has been drawing thousands to his rallies with heated rhetoric? Was he the guy we saw yesterday, talking about foreign, trying to get detailed policy speeches? Even Trump doesn't appear to have the answer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): A tale of two Donald Trumps.
TRUMP: We're just about ready to put it away, folks.
MATTINGLY: Fresh off a resounding five-state victory.
TRUMP: Now we're down to two stragglers. Let's be nice. Two stragglers.
MATTINGLY: Mocking Ted Cruz's last ditch effort to blunt his march forward by announcing his running mate, Carly Fiorina.
TRUMP: Cruz can't win. What is he doing picking vice presidents?
MATTINGLY: And ridiculing his alliance with Republican John Kasich.
TRUMP: This little marriage of the two of them, boy, did that backfire, right? I call them the colluders, right, the colluders. I love talking about it because what stupid decisions.
MATTINGLY: A far cry from the serious, scripted GOP frontrunner on display during a foreign policy speech just a few hours earlier.
TRUMP: America first will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.
MATTINGLY: Reading from a teleprompter, Trump offered few specifics, instead repeating campaign pledges on ISIS and NATO. Threatening to up-end decades old alliances.
TRUMP: The U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves.
MATTINGLY: And forged new ones, which countries traditionally seen as threats.
TRUMP: Some say the Russians won't be reasonable. I intend to find out.
MATTINGLY: The speech, prompting former rival Lindsey Graham to declare, "Ronald Reagan must be rolling over in his grave."
Could Cruz's gamble with Fiorina deliver a win in Indiana? Many political insiders say it is do or die for him.
CRUZ: Some might ask why now. It is unusual to make the announcement as early as we're doing so now. Well, I think all would acknowledge this race, if anything, it is unusual.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: And Carol, Ted Cruz has really been pushing over the last couple of weeks to get the Republican Party on the whole, the anti- Trump movement to coalesce behind his candidacy, but there are still people, particularly those with close ties to Capitol Hill, who had major problems with him, obviously you think about the government shutdown, you think about some of his roles in the Senate.
[09:05:03] One person who still is not a huge fan, John Boehner. Just coming out in the "Stanford Daily" that John Boehner in a public appearance calling Ted Cruz, quote, "Lucifer in the flesh." And obviously Ted Cruz Kind of underscoring the fact that while Ted Cruz is trying to get the entire Republican Party to coalesce behind him, Donald Trump has a huge lead and Cruz still hasn't been able to get those Republicans all to line up on his side -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Phil Mattingly, reporting live from Washington. Thank you.
So as Senator Cruz throws a Hail Mary, Donald Trump vows to deal Cruz a fatal below in Indiana. If history holds, Trump may prevail. He has more Republican votes cast for him than Mitt Romney did in 2012, and he's on track to best George W. Bush who got 10.8 million votes in 2000, a fact that appears lost on Carly Fiorina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FIORINA: The majority of Republicans don't want Donald Trump as their nominee. Neither I do. I think we need a conservative. See, for some of us, principles matter. Policies matter. Values matter. Character matters. I know that matters to Hoosiers. And so we're going to go fight for principles and policies and values and character that represent our party and that will make the future of this nation bright, instead of dim.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: All right, let's talk about this. I'm joined by Boris Epstein, Republican strategist and Donald Trump supporter. Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation and a Ted Cruz surrogate, and Mary Katharine Ham, CNN political commentator and conservative commentator.
Welcome to all of you.
BORIS EPSTEIN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: Good morning. So, Judson, naming a VP is highly unusual, or some might say amazingly presumptuous. The Democrat, Barbara Boxer, who beat Fiorina for Senate in 2010, is not impressed. She offered a mock campaign slogan, "mean and meaner." Could Cruz's action backfire, Judson?
JUDSON PHILLIPS, TED CRUZ SUPPORTER: No, I don't think so. I think it's a great move and it contrasts strongly with Donald Trump. You know, 70 percent of women in America don't like Donald Trump. A lot of women think Donald Trump is a misogynist pig, and those are the women who like him. This is a great contrast because it plays well in Indiana, which is Cruz territory, and as Barbara Boxer just pointed out, Carly Fiorina ran against her in 2010 and she's got a lot of Republican support in California, and California is going to be where this campaign ends.
COSTELLO: OK, so you heard what Judson said, Boris. Trump called Cruz's action a waste of time, but interestingly, you know, to Judson's point, Trump did not knock Fiorina in any tweet yesterday or this morning. Was that on purpose?
EPSTEIN: Well, what he did do is he tweeted the Fiorina video, where she said that Cruz is just like any other politician and said, agree. So Fiorina out there is talking about her principles. Well, where are her principles just a few months ago when she was knocking Ted Cruz very publicly on national TV?
So Judson's point, he -- you know, he is making it very clear what Cruz is trying to do, he's pandering to women. Cruz doesn't have a shot and he's taking a Hail Mary, just as you said, Carol, and it's not going work. By the end of Tuesday, Trump will be up by over three million voters over Cruz. Cruz doesn't have a shot left. It's a desperate move. Last time this was done was by Reagan in '76. Reagan was only 15 delegates short when he picked Schweiker in '76 and it backfired because it was seen as a desperate move and then Ford went on to beat Reagan.
COSTELLO: OK.
EPSTEIN: So Judson is wrong. Reagan made a mistake in '76. Cruz is doing it again. Trump is going to be the nominee.
COSTELLO: OK. So, we'll see. Mary Katharine, Trump did hold a rally in Indiana last night and the featured guest was Bobby Knight. Cruz threw a press conference and picked a VP. Which will resonate more with Indiana voters do you think?
MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think Bobby Knight is a big deal in Indiana and he's also has the perfect temperament to be the press secretary in a Donald Trump administration if it should come to that. A lot of chair throwing. But when it comes to Carly and Cruz, look, I think this is the time for Hail Marys, and they had to do something.
And they won the day yesterday by putting her out there. She is not a pander. She is an extremely qualified candidate and was the first person on a debate stage to hand Trump's ego to him on a platter when he made the comment about her face then she shouted back at him. That's one of the reasons he is being remarkably restrained and not attacking her. And that's not a bad move for Cruz.
COSTELLO: Interesting. So Judson, I know what you said about California, but people in Indiana are not all that familiar with Fiorina and on the subject of California, Fiorina lost a bid for both governor and senator. So again, how exactly does this help Cruz?
PHILLIPS: All right, Fiorina is well established within the Republican Party of California. And let's remember here. These Republican voters are selecting the nominee. You know, liberal Lyin' Donny likes to keep saying, well, I've got more votes.
[09:10:01] Well guess what? That's not how a Republican nominee is picked. It's done by delegates and if he wants to talk about somebody who's mathematically eliminated, it's liberal lying Donny because he can't get to 1237 and if he can't win 1237 on the first ballot he hasn't being playing the delegate game and Cruz will win on the second ballot.
EPSTEIN: Why is -- why is Judson saying going back to names? What's the point, Judson? Why do you need to do that? If you disagree with Donald Trump, be respectful.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: Boris.
HAM: The irony is so thick, I can't even --
EPSTEIN: As far as Carly goes, you can have Carly's one delegate. And if she was such a successful candidate, why is one of the first to bow out? She barely made it to the main debate stage. She's not going to make any difference. She's lost two elections in California.
Listen, she's a smart woman and has been somewhat successful in business, not if you ask the stockholders of HP, but she is not going to make any difference for Cruz. He's going to lose and he should think about 2024 if he ever wants to be president.
COSTELLO: OK. Mary Katherine, last word. What do you think will happen in Indiana?
HAM: Look, I think it's going to be a very tight race. And I think here is the question. Whether the margins from New York and the Acela primaries where Donald Trump did extremely well turn into momentum in Indiana. It can be a good state for Cruz, but if people look at those margins and they go I don't know, this is the guy who is winning, Cruz is trying to disrupt that momentum. I think he did a pretty good job yesterday. He has a good ground game. He's going to have to make it count for the next week.
COSTELLO: All right. Mary Katherine Ham, Judson Phillips, Boris Epstein, thanks to all of you.
PHILLIPS: Thanks.
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM -- you're welcome.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM. Bernie Sanders promises a future you can believe in. But 200 staffers learn they're history.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:15:51] COSTELLO: For the Democrats, the road to the White House narrows, and Bernie Sanders campaign feels the squeeze, more than 200 staffers being laid off after Hillary Clinton racks up more victories and pulls closer to clinching the nomination.
CNN's Athena Jones live in Washington with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
Pink slips on the way for a sizable chunk of the Sanders team. They're laying off more than 200 staffers out of 550. This is coming after Sanders lost four out of the five states that voted on Tuesday night.
Now, Sanders team says this part of the normal natural progression of every campaign. You move people around as the states vote. They say so many states have already voted in the primary process, now we're going to move some workers. Workers in the states that just voted will be affected. But so will some workers in other states and some members of the national staff.
And so, while the Sanders folks saying nothing to see here, this is totally normal, these are not generally, these are not generally the moves you make if you think you're going to be nominee and have to mount a national 50-state campaign in what's really just a matter of weeks.
Now, Sanders is still vowing to stay in the race until the convention, but he's also said, he's acknowledged if he doesn't win enough delegates to get to the nomination, he hopes to win every delegate he can so that in Philadelphia, he can use his influence to put together what he is calling the most progressive agenda that any political party has ever seen.
So, a bit of a mixed message there. Him saying he's in it to win it, but if he doesn't, this is what he'll do. Meanwhile, Clinton is pivoting to the general election, with her eyes squarely focused on the presumptive GOP nominee, Donald Trump -- Carol.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones, thanks so much.
She wasn't on stage but Hillary Clinton was front and center during Donald Trump foreign policy speech. Trump, who offered few specifics, slammed Clinton and President Obama, blasting their policies as a total disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our goal is peace and prosperity. Not war and destruction. The best way to achieve those goals is through a disciplined deliberate and consistent foreign policy.
With President Obama and Secretary Clinton, we've had the exact opposite -- a reckless, rudderless and aimless foreign policy. One that is blazed a path of destruction in its wake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: But "The New York Times" Mark Landler who's written a book on Clinton's foreign policy says President Obama and Hillary Clinton have different views of America's role in the world. President Obama's vision is, quote, "restrained and inward", while Clinton is, quote, "hard-edged, pragmatic, and unabashedly old-fashioned."
Mark Landler's book is called "Alter Egos". He's now a White House correspondent for "The New York Times."
Thanks, Mark, for being here. I appreciate it.
MARK LANDLER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thank you for having me, Carol.
COSTELLO: First of all, I just would like to hear about your impressions of Trump's foreign policy speech.
LANDLER: Well, I mean, this was an effort as some of your other people have said earlier for him to look serious, to look sober, to look presidential. And there were a lot of really interesting ideas in that speech.
The passage about Russia, I'm going to see if they're reasonable can do a deal with them. I think that's fascinating.
I think, you know, we've heard before this idea that he won't get anything away how he plans to destroy ISIS, aside from saying he'll do it quickly.
A lot of people pointed out the inconsistencies in the speech. He talked about needing to reassure our allies, and then in the next breath said we need to be utterly unpredictable, unpredictable starting now.
There were all kinds of inconsistencies in the speech and it actually cues him up to be a fascinating contrast with Hillary Clinton, and not the kind of contrast we have typically seen between a Democratic and Republican candidate.
COSTELLO: Interesting. So tell me about what would be an interesting contrast between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, when it comes to foreign policy.
LANDLER: Well, if you look at Russia for example, Hillary Clinton, I think would be much tougher and much more inclined to go into the presidency skeptical about Putin.
[09:20:00] I don't think she's interested in seeing if he wants to make a deal. In fact, she was much more skeptical of Putin during the Obama administration. I felt in a way Donald Trump, there was an echo of reset policy that President Obama laid out with the Russians at the beginning of his term.
Hillary Clinton was more skeptical of this. While she was secretary of state, she wrote a memo that she gave to Obama when she left his cabinet in which she warned him that Putin was going to be a big threat in the future. So I think on Russia, on Ukraine, that would be one place they would lineup differently.
Obviously, Trump will try to latch her to the intervention in Libya, and he'll say that led to the raise of ISIS, and she'll try to fight back. In doing so, she'll probably show daylight how she views the fight against ISIS and how the president does.
COSTELLO: Let's talk about Libya for a second. Donald Trump a failed intervention in Libya and she did not take charge that night. He said instead, she went home and went to sleep. Was Clinton responsible for what happened in Libya? LANDLER: Well, I think what the -- there is two issues always worth
separating. One is what the intervention led to, and whether that could have been prevented. The other is the security situation in the Benghazi outpost.
She has acknowledged the state department dropped the ball on security in Benghazi that terrible night. On the broader question of the intervention, it will be a tough issue for her in the campaign, because she is as closely identified with that intervention as anyone in the administration. She was really the person who made the case to President Obama who was reluctant to back the NATO bombing campaign.
And I think you saw in that speech yesterday that Donald Trump will lose no time in connecting her to that policy at the time when things look like they might look out well in Libya, her aides were seeing it could be the cornerstone of a Hillary Clinton doctrine.
So, I think you'll have -- you'll see a lot of her on the trail defending that policy. I think the argument she is likely to use is, look, Libya is a work in progress. I don't think we can't determine what the final outcome is.
On the Benghazi campaign, those are issues rehashed repeatedly. He'll no doubt do it again in the summer. My own view on the Benghazi issue per se, is there isn't a great deal more to say. It is a very resonant issue, particularly with Republicans.
So, we'll hear a lot more about it.
COSTELLO: Right. It's become so politicized.
And the final question, because I think many Democrats wonder about this, because many Democrats are upset that Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war. We know she apologized for that vote. But many suspect she is quite the hawk. Is she?
LANDLER: I have written that she is. And I think that she has always had a very strong inclination, culturally toward the military and also a belief that military force and the threat of military force has to be one of the country's tools in defending its national interests.
So I do think there is a clear contrast with Obama. And interestingly enough, if you listen carefully to what Donald Trump said yesterday, he said at one point that unlike other candidates, he wasn't going to be quite as aggressive in foreign affairs.
I think his primary implicit target there was Ted Cruz, but I think one could also ask whether that's an argument he'll layout in the summer against Hillary Clinton.
COSTELLO: Interesting. Mark Landler, thank you for being here. Fascinating conversation. I appreciate it.
LANDLER: Thanks, Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, I want to talk about one bad ass soldier before we head to break. Army Captain Kristen Griest. She's one of the first women to graduate from elite army school and about to make history again. Today, Griest is expected to be the first female infantry officer. The news was first reported by "The Amy Times".
The captain is expected to graduate from the Maneuver Captain's Career Course at Fort Benning later today. We should all be proud, but especially women. Captain Griest is a pioneer and she is paving the way for so many women who want a career in the military, that includes all opportunities.
So, I salute you, Ma'am, Captain. You are amazing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:28:25] COSTELLO: Vice President Joe Biden making a surprise visit to Iraq to talk about ISIS. He landed in Baghdad last hour to meet with Iraq's political leaders and also to deliver and in-person plea.
Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon with more on this.
Good morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
The vice-president's visit was not announced, because security is always paramount for U.S. officials visiting Baghdad. Right now, Baghdad is unsettled perhaps more than usual. There had been major protests, as many as 100,000 people protesting the Abadi administration in Iraq, many of them coming out into the streets at the behest of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. So, security a concern, a very sensitive time in Iraq.
But Biden is also there to discuss the U.S. plan in the coming weeks. It was just yesterday that Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced somewhat unexpectedly that the U.S. was hoping the Iraqis could get all the troops ready in position to begin that assault on Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, it is a top priority to get it out of ISIS's hand.
What Carter said was that they would try and begin to assemble the troops to be able to do that, assemble them in the next five weeks, before the holy month of Ramadan begins. The assault wouldn't begin perhaps for many more weeks after that, but basically talking about trying to get people in place to do that.
That would be a very heavy lift. That would be a very significant effort. And it would have to be backed up by the U.S. military.
