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Cruz Picks Fiorina As Vice Presidential Pick; Trump To Speak At Rally; Setting The Trump Foreign Policy Agenda; Trump Says America First Is His Foreign Policy; Peter King On Presidential Election; Jane Sanders Live Next; Jane Sanders Interview. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 28, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Any moment now, we expect the Republican presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump, to take the stage in Indiana. There, you're looking at live pictures. Trump delivered his major foreign policy speech on Wednesday. He's promised to go into greater detail on other topics, including immigration, as we get closer and closer to Republican convention in July in Cleveland.

Our Sara Murray is on the campaign trail covering Trump in Evansville right now. Sara, about an hour ago, we heard this from Senator Ted Cruz, talking about Donald Trump and the criticism of Cruz's vice presidential pick, Carly Fiorina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It surprises precisely nobody that Donald Trump's response to my announcing Carly was to engage in insults. Listen, Donald does one of four things. He yells, he screams, he curses or insults.

I suppose you could start a drinking game on which one of the four Donald is going to respond to any given stimulus that might occur. But the one he does most frequently is he insults. He insults everybody and anybody he encounters. So, of course, he would scream desperate. That is Donald Trump. It's the only way he knows how to operate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, Sara, should we anticipate that Trump will fire back in his upcoming remarks?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Wolf, Trump certainly went off last night in Indiana about the fact that Cruz was even picking a running mate. So, I think it's fair to say that we will hear him talk a little bit more about Ted Cruz here today.

Look, this is a pivotally important state for Donald Trump and for Ted Cruz. Both of them are competing hard here. And we're not seeing, you know, the same kind of reserve Donald Trump that we saw in Washington yesterday out on that campaign trail. He sort of gives the audiences what he wants when he's out here in places like Indiana. And that's a lot of red meat -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Indiana clearly shaping up as a huge battle ground next Tuesday. Sara, the -- Trump, he's trying to break that so-called Cruz-Kasich alliance and the so-called never Trump movement. What's the latest that you're hearing?

MURRAY: Well, I can tell you, Wolf, that on the ground, here in Indiana, it does not feel the same that it did in Wisconsin, a state that Ted Cruz was able to win and defeat Donald Trump. It feels like Donald Trump has much more momentum here in this state.

I am in a packed auditorium right now. I can tell you, there was a line around the block when we came in of people waiting to get in. And I think that other campaigns are realizing and never Trump movement is realizing that if Cruz is not able to defeat Trump here in Indiana, it becomes next to impossible to prevent him from getting to 1,237 delegates. And so, I think it's kind of impossible to overstate the stakes in this state for Ted Cruz -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Sara, we'll stand by to hear from Donald Trump. Thank you very much.

Trump's foreign policy speech was also seen as this opportunity for Republican presidential front runner to act presidential, as they say. After all, we're talking about a career of a businessman, a very successful billionaire, with no real experience in government or foreign policy per say.

I want to bring in CNN's Kyra Phillips who went behind the scenes. Kyra, you had a chance to speak with one of Trump's top national security advisers. How did that go?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's what's interesting. You just heard what Ted Cruz said, typical Trump insults, cursing. That didn't happen yesterday. When we walked in the room and we saw a teleprompter, we knew things were going to be different. And his tone was totally different.

And in the front row were a number of key advisers, one of whom I've known for a long time from Iraq, Wolf, Rear Admiral Chuck Kubic. And this guy has seen the world, 90 countries in his career, dealing with defense ministers, covering numerous battles from Vietnam to the fall of Baghdad. He knows what it means to be unpredictable.

And as you know, Trump describes himself as unpredictable, his policies as unpredictable. So, whether it's torture, defending our allies or going to war, Kubic says an unpredictable Trump is not a bad thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, he's made it clear that he's not afraid to go to war, but he is only going to do it if indeed --

REAR ADM. CHARLES KUBIC (retired), TRUMP ADVISOR: Yes, I think he was stronger than that, Kyra. I think what he said was that war will always be an -- be the last resort, that he will try economic power, diplomatic power, all of these things before he goes to war. But he was, basically, reassuring our military that if he decides to fight, we fight to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: We talked about a number of fights, North Korea, ISIS, Iran. And Trump is getting educated on all of that. Interesting comparison, Kubic said, you know what? He said he makes me think of Ronald Reagan when I worked under Reagan as a White House fellow because you remember Reagan took a lot of heat from America. What is this movie star doing saying that he wants to run the country?

And Reagan, according to Kubic, listened. He digested things quickly. He liked to learn about complex issues and make educated decisions. He says Trump does the exact same thing in these private meetings.

BLITZER: Interesting that he's brought him into his national security team.

Kyra, thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit more about Donald Trump's foreign policy agenda and one other headlines right now, including Vice President Joe Biden's unannounced stop in Baghdad, Iraq.

[13:05:00] Today, joining us from Capitol Hill, the New York Republican Congressman, Peter King. He's a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, a subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence as well.

Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. I know you listened carefully to Donald Trump's speech yesterday, his national security speech. Was there anything you particularly liked about that speech?

REP. PETER KING (R), CHAIR, HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE: Yes, there were several things. One is the fact that he said we should not be telegraphing to the enemy what we're going to do militarily. And that's been a mistake, I think, President Obama has made since the start, going back to 2009 when he ordered the surge in Afghanistan and told exactly how many troops were going and told the exact date they'd be pulling out. That's, to me, the worst type of signal to give to the enemy because they can adapt to what you're doing.

Similarly, when he decided to go in against ISIS. He made a point of saying we wouldn't use ground troops. And whether or not he intends to use them, you don't tell the enemy that.

I also agree with Donald Trump when he said that if you draw a red line, you have an obligation to maintain that and to live up to it. Otherwise, the enemy is not going to fear you and your allies are not going to trust you. So, the president made a serious mistake in Syria when he did that. On the other hand, there's things I disagreed with or certainly questioned. He says how we should use our leverage against China and have China then use this leverage against North Korea which makes sense.

But at the same time, the -- Donald Trump seems to be saying we shouldn't be keeping our troops in South Korea. We shouldn't be keeping our troops in Japan. And if we do that, then we lose much of the leverage that we have in the Pacific. And he also doesn't seem to realize that a large amount of those costs right now are born by the Japanese and Korean governments.

BLITZER: But he -- it makes the point, and I think you'll agree with him, that China, clearly, has a lot more leverage over North Korea than the U.S. does.

KING: Well, they do. No, they do have a leverage over North Korea. But I'm saying, we also have a leverage of China. You know, why should China do it on their own? The only way China is going to do it is if we use our leverage against China.

And if we pull out of the Pacific and we, you know, take our troops out of Korea and take our troops out of Japan, then we lose much of the leverage. It certainly -- you know, it weakens the leverage we have against China and it, in effect, makes China more a Pacific power than we are right now.

BLITZER: I think what he is saying, though, is not necessarily pull those 28,000 U.S. troops out of Korea or the 50,000 or 60,000 troops the U.S. still has in Japan. He just wants South Korea and Japan to pick up more of the cost, pick up more of the expense and ease the burden on U.S. taxpayers. That's the point he keeps making. I assume you will agree with him on that.

KING: Well, except that, right now, they are picking up a large percentage of it. And it is cheaper for us to keep troops in Japan and Korea than it is to have them back here in the United States. So, it is saving the U.S. money by having troops in Japan and Korea.

But if we want to negotiate a slightly higher amount, if we want -- that's one thing. But the fact is that amount has gone up in the past. And right now, again, it saves the U.S. money by having our troops stationed in those two countries.

BLITZER: As you know, the vice president, Joe Biden, he made a surprise visit to Baghdad, to Iraq today. He's only going to be there for a few hours. They never announce when a U.S. official goes into Iraq, even though it's 13 years after the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein's rule.

And Ash Carter, the Defense Secretary, was just there. He goes in for a few hours, gets out. The secretary of state, John Kerry, goes in for a few hours. It's too dangerous, apparently, to even acknowledge or let a top U.S. official spend a night there in Baghdad. What does that say to you about the situation in Iraq right now all these years later? The thousands of U.S. lives lost, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent.

KING: Well, I think President Obama made a serious mistake in withdrawing our troops in 2011. Of course, I mean, I was in Iraq a number of times in 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2010. And, you know, the last time I was there, I mean, Iraq was as probably as stable as it could be.

And then, once our troops came out in 2011, and it felt, in effect, that Iraq lost the adult supervision that it needed. And that's when the situation started to deteriorate again and that's when ISIS began to really emerge as a power.

So, no, I think that the policy in Iraq, you know, whatever went wrong between 2003 and 2007. In fact, I think the surge corrected much of that by the time 2009 and 2010 were there. Iraq was a basically stable country. But, again, it needed a U.S. presence for a military purpose, for intelligences purposes and also to have diplomatic leverage over the Baghdad government. And that's what allowed, I believe, ISIS to really emerge.

BLITZER: I want to move on and talk a little bit of politics with you, Congressman.

KING: All right.

BLITZER: I'll just make the point that the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, that was negotiated during the Bush administration. They had that timeline. The Iraqi government refused to provide the guarantees that U.S. troops wouldn't be prosecuted, if you will. And one of the reasons why the U.S. -- we don't have to get into that debate.

KING: Right, but, again, the Obama administration --

BLITZER: I want to get to some politics.

KING: -- did not push that. They should've kept that and they could've. And the intention was to allow them to --

[13:10:00] BLITZER: But the government, Nouri Al Maliki's government, was no -- they were so close to the Iranians by then. They were really not anxious to keep U.S. troops in Iraq.

KING: Yes, they --

BLITZER: But that's a debate we can have on another occasion.

KING: Well, yes, I have a different story on that. Yes, we can debate that another time.

BLITZER: All right, we can talk about that on another.

KING: Right.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the former House speaker, John Boehner, raising some serious eyebrows today with comments about Senator Ted Cruz, calling him Lucifer in the flesh, adding that he never worked with a more miserable SOB in his life. He didn't say SOB he said the actual words. Here is how Senator Cruz responded. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: I've never worked with John Boehner. The truth of the matter is I don't know the man. I've met John Boehner two or three times in my life. When John Boehner calls me Lucifer, he's not directing that at me. He's directing that at you. What Boehner is angry with me for is not anything I've ever said. I haven't said much of anything. What Boehner is angry with me for is standing with the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, your take on this latest dispute. You know both of these men.

KING: I fully agree with John Boehner. And maybe he gives Lucifer a bad name by comparing him to Ted Cruz. Listen, what John Boehner was most concerned about was Ted Cruz perpetrated a fraud and a hoax when he brought about the shutdown of the government on some kind of a vague promise that he was going to be able to take Obamacare out of the budget or to end Obamacare.

Ted Cruz knew it would never work -- that it was never going to work but he went ahead and did it anyway. He shut down the government. It cost the government money. It served no purpose whatsoever other than to boost his name identification. So, I agree with John Boehner on that.

BLITZER: How bad do you think the Republican Party will be fractured if, let's say, Donald Trump gets close to that magic number of 1,237 but is just shy and it goes to contested convention?

KING: Yes, again, I am -- I have not endorsed Donald Trump. But if he gets that's close to the top number, to 1,237, then I think it would be a mistake to block him for the sake of blocking him. And it would have a very bad effect because there's no credible alternative, at that stage.

I want -- so, let me just say one thing about Ted Cruz though. One good decision, I have a great regard for Carly Fiorina so his selection of Carly Fiorina actually was a very good move. I have great regard for her. I think she would be an outstanding vice president under anyone. She would've been a great president.

BLITZER: But, at this point, are you coming closer and closer to the realization that Donald Trump will be your party's nominee? And will you be able to support him, work for him to try to get him elected?

KING: Well, it's almost certain he's going to be the nominee. I will support the nominee of the party. The extent to which I campaign for him, well, that will depend on how he flushes out his policy, how he fills in the gaps. Because right now, there's still a lot of unanswered questions. But I will support him as the nominee of the party.

BLITZER: Peter King, thanks very much for joining us.

KING: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: We're still awaiting Donald Trump. He's in Indiana right now. You're looking at the crowd over there. He's set to come out any moment at this rally there. Indiana has its primary next Tuesday.

But up next, Bernie Sanders' wife, Jane Sanders, is standing by. There she -- you see her. She's actually sitting right now. She's sitting by, I should say. She says her husband is in this contest to win it. We're going to talk about that and more, right after this.

[13:13:18]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:27] BLITZER: Super Tuesday anything but nice to Senator Bernie Sanders and losing four out of five states this week, it seems as if the senator now acknowledging that his nomination chances are slim. His campaign has announced its laying off hundreds of staffers. And while Sanders is in no way waving a white flag, he does admit the math's against him right now and he started talking, quote, "what ifs."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMORATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am very good in arithmetic, and I can count delegates, and we are behind today. But you know what, unusual things happen in politics. We are in this campaign to win. But, if we do not win, we intend to win every delegate that we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: With me now Senator Bernie Sanders' wife, Jane Sanders.

Jane, thanks very much for joining us.

So explain what's going on. Is Senator Sanders in it to actually still believing he might be able to win the Democratic presidential nomination, or is his main goal right now to influence the party, the platform, move it to a more progressive stance?

JANE SANDERS, WIFE OF BERNIE SANDERS: Well, he's always had a two prong approach right from the beginning, which was, in it to win it and build a political revolution. He's still doing that. He's not doing it just to influence things. So we, you know, back in mid-March he had lost five states and everybody was writing his political obituary. And then we came back to win eight in a row. So we knew going in with this particular set of elections that five of the six of them were closed primaries where independents couldn't vote. We won the one that was open. We knew we were going to have a tough time in the others, although we came pretty close in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. So the next states look much better and we hope to do really well

there. At the same time, we're not foolish. We think -- we think ahead and we're trying to think, OK, how do we -- how do we make sure -- one of the reasons to stay in, even if the math looks worse going down the -- down the line is to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice and to express their opinion about the agenda that they want the country to move forward with. And we're -- we're doing that.

BLITZER: So he will -- even if the math isn't there, if she has the pledged delegates, the so-called super delegates, if it looks like it's all locked up for her, your husband's still going to stay through California and go all the way to Philadelphia, the Democratic Convention, in July?

[13:20:08] SANDERS: Yes. Absolutely. And, you know, I mean, it's -- there has never been a time in this election where the media said he could do it. We've felt that way and we still feel that way. Anything can happen in politics, and especially this year, Wolf. I mean it's been a really strange year politically.

I think that if we keep hearing national polls, which I hope your station and other stations will do, keeping Bernie in, although there were many years -- many months that he wasn't even in the national polls, asking who's better against the Republicans. You're going to find out that Bernie's much better because he gets the independents two to one and he gets a lot of Republicans, too, that -- especially those that are not wild about Trump.

BLITZER: Yes, and I think you make a fair point, if those Democratic contests, those Democratic primaries were so-called open primaries as opposed to closed, only registered Democrats could vote, independents couldn't vote, he probably would be doing better right now. But those are the rules that the democratic Party has.

SANDERS: Yes.

BLITZER: You can't -- you can change them maybe four years from now. You can't change those rules now.

I want to get your reaction to --

SANDERS: But that's what we do want to do. We want to change those rules going forward, definitely.

BLITZER: So that's one of your goals going into the convention in Philadelphia.

SANDERS: Absolutely.

BLITZER: All right, let's talk about President Obama. He recently addressing your husband's calls for economic reform, breaking up the big Wall Street banks, and he said this. I'll put it up on the screen. There you see it. "It is true that we have not dismantled the financial system and in that sense Bernie Sanders' critique is correct, but one of the thing that I've tried to consistently remind myself during the course of my presidency is that the economy is not an abstraction. It's not something that you can just redesign and break up and put back together again without consequences."

Here's the question, what do you say to critics who think your husband's plans are either not concrete, not big enough or too big, if you will, and not realistic?

SANDERS: Well, I think -- first, I want to say that we both respect President Obama and he's done an incredible job dealing with what he inherited. And that took a lot of his time. So we're not faulting him for what he has or has not done. But going forward, we do believe that the banks that are -- five of them are still -- are bigger than they were when they were rescued by a taxpayer bailout because they were too big to fail. We need to address that. And different studies, Federal Reserve just came out and said we really need to deal with it. His ideas are very specific. We don't go into them -- they're specific and they're complicated, but they're very clear. He has legislation in.

In terms of, his opponent says often that they're unrealistic. When you run for president, it's not the time to say, oh, let's go for incremental change, at least in our opinion. We know that right now this country is hurting. There's a number of people -- there are a number of things that people are having to deal with and Bernie has big, bold plans to address the issues of national health care, affordable and accessible higher education, a livable wage instead of letting people work for 40 hours a week and live in poverty. So he's not -- he's being very realistic. He's dealing with the reality of people's lives and he has answers and solutions and we're going to -- we're going to fight for them. We're going to fight for them on the way to the presidency and if -- if for some reason he is not the nominee, then we're going to fight for them outside.

BLITZER: And you'll -- and he'll stay in the United States Senate and fight for those ideas as a United States senator?

SANDERS: Absolutely. I'll fight for them outside.

BLITZER: You'll -- you'll --

SANDERS: And so will the millions of people that are with us.

BLITZER: Will he fight for them as a United States senator as an independent senator from Vermont or as the Democratic senator from Vermont?

SANDERS: Well, I think right now he was elected to the Senate as an independent. So I think he -- it stays that until he runs again. I don't know. You know, I don't know whether that matters, whether they change it now or not. I -- we haven't discussed that. We're focused on the White House and to be the democratic president.

BLITZER: Let me get a quick -- yes, let me get your reaction to Trump for a second. He accused Hillary Clinton of playing what he called the woman card. I want to play for you something that he said this morning. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): That is the only thing she's got going is the fact that she's a woman. She has done a terrible job in so many different ways. You look at Libya and you look at some of the things that she's done are just absolutely disastrous. No, I would say the primary thing that she has going is that she's a woman and she is playing that card like I have never seen anybody play it before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:25:00] BLITZER: All right, let me get your reaction to that. Go ahead.

SANDERS: I think -- you know, Donald Trump talking about Hillary Clinton playing the woman card, I mean it certainly doesn't square with his comment that nobody cherishes women more than I do. My husband cherishes women more than he does. And he respects women, as well. And it seems that that's a real problem with Donald Trump. I mean she is a fordable woman. She's brilliant. She's hard working. We just differ on ideas and solutions for the future. But to demean her that way is -- it's just not acceptable. And I think it's going to hurt him. Hopefully it's going to hurt him.

BLITZER: Jane Sanders, thanks very much for joining us.

SANDERS: Thank you, Wolf. Good to be here.

BLITZER: Jane Sanders is the wife of Senator Bernie Sanders.

All right, we're going to take a quick break. Bobby Knight, by the way, the Indiana basketball legend, is introducing Donald Trump at an event in Evansville, Indiana right now. We'll take a quick break. We'll hear what Donald Trump has to say momentarily. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)