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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Cruz Unloads on Trump; Indiana Voting Underway. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 03, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

Breaking news on primary day in Indiana. And if it wasn't already clear how much the Hoosier state meant to Ted Cruz, you need to hear the Texas senator and the struggling presidential hopeful unloading on GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, whose nomination may be all but sealed if he wins Indiana. Listen to what Ted Cruz told reporters just moments ago in Evansville.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in assassinating JFK. Now, let's be clear, this is nuts. This is not a reasonable position. This is just kooky. And while I'm at it, I guess I should go ahead and admit, yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard.

I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook. His response is to accuse everybody else of lying. He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying. And it's simply a mindless yell. Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.

The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist. A narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen. Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes, dude, what's your problem?

Everything in Donald's world is about Donald. And he combines being a pathological liar -- and I say pathological because I actually think Donald, if you hooked him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening, all contradictory and he'd pass the lie detector test each time. Whatever lie he's telling at that minute, he believes it. But the man is utterly amoral.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: "Utterly amoral." "Narcissist." I can't even sum up all of the things that Ted Cruz just unloaded on Donald Trump on primary day in Indiana. This is one of those days you can certainly talk until the polls close, especially with this panel.

From CNN Politics, I'm joined by executive editor Mark Preston, CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic," Ron Brownstein, joins me live from L.A., and then CNN politics reporter MJ Lee in here in New York.

And as the reporter, MJ, I want to start with you. Correct me if I'm wrong, I felt like I have been following much of what Ted Cruz has done all the way along on the campaign trail and I have never heard anything at this level coming from him.

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, look, Ted Cruz is starting to sound like a candidate who is very well aware that he has reached the very end of the road. And this road, remember, was supposed to be the road that was going to stop Donald Trump from getting the nomination outright. I think Cruz and his campaign are well aware heading into tonight that there's a good chance Donald Trump is going to win the state and pick up the most delegates.

And what a contrast from even a couple of months ago. Remember when reporters would ask Ted Cruz to comment on Donald Trump. This was the candidate that used to say, look, I'm not going to play this game. I'm not going to get into a mud-slinging match with Donald Trump. I'm just not going to get personal. And now we're hearing him call him a pathological liar and a narcissist.

Look, I think Ted Cruz is very, very frustrated that things have not gone as well for him since he really won Wisconsin. He lost New York very badly. Obviously, he didn't pick up a single candidate -- a single delegate, rather, in the state of New York. And Trump really blew it out of the water last week in the five contests. And I think Cruz knows that at this point he has to resort to anything he can think of to try to put a dent in what happens last night -- what happens tonight, rather, and how many delegates Donald Trump can really pick up.

BANFIELD: Ron Brownstein, I want you to jump in on some of the polemics that we just -- that we just heard and witnesses.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BANFIELD: I literally froze -- I froze at my desk watching the monitor, hearing him call him a serial philanderer, hearing him outline a -- a Howard Stern interview in which Donald Trump talked about his battle with venereal disease being, you know, his own personal Vietnam and it made me wonder, is this the kind of last ditch effort that ever works, especially on primary day?

BROWNSTEIN: You know, it's interesting, I'm not sure. I -- you know, on the one hand, it is the last ditch effort because everyone understands that Donald Trump wins Indiana tonight by the magnitude that seems possible. This race will seem over in the morning. So in that sense, it is a last ditch effort. [12:05:07] I think it heard -- it rang to me more like someone who was

going to get his last say, who kind of recognized that he was beyond a last ditch effort and was really going to kind of unload and get -- get this off of his chest before the race -- before he was basically pushed off to the margins of the race. It was more like, let me tell you what I really think about Donald Trump. I think that was the key. Maybe less strategy here than venting and making sure that his voters and the Republican Party knows exactly what he thinks they are now entering into with Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee for the next six months.

BANFIELD: Mark Preston, we have been monitoring the Twitter-sphere (ph) to see what the response from Donald Trump would be. And, amazingly, just nothing as of yet, but -- but, I mean, honestly, it will be any moment. We know how he responds so quickly on Twitter to anything that irks him. And certainly there will be things that will bother Donald Trump about what Ted Cruz just did.

In the meantime, his senior campaign advisor did make some comments, Barry Bennett. I want to play for you what he had to say. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY BENNETT, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: You know, Kate, I've been in politics my whole life. This is what I do. And I've been a part of a lot of campaigns that have come to an end that we didn't expect or want. But this was a truly sad display what just happened.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, "AT THIS HOUR": Why is this sad?

BENNETT: Because, you know, he knows -- he knows -- his people know he's going to lose tonight. Yet to go out and do this, I know he's tired. I feel for he and his family. But that was reprehensible. You should -- I mean no one should do this. I don't know who thought this was a great idea. But, you know, we're watching his campaign implode. We're watching his reputation just being torn to shreds.

Obviously, he's a very angry man right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, Mark Preston, what's confusing to me is I'm hearing this from a man who's part of a campaign that has repeatedly called his competitors lyin' Ted, little Marco, crooked Hillary, and the list goes on and on. What's the difference?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, well played by Barry Bennett, right? You know, immediately afterwards, he goes out there and said that he's very sad that Ted Cruz would have to come to this moment. Listen, in many ways, Donald Trump has been Teflon when it comes to his insults and certainly his declarations. In many ways it's because of who he has become over the past 30 years or so. Donald Trump, whenever he talks and says something, he never backs down. Whenever Donald Trump is critical of somebody, even when he's wrong, he never backs down. This has been appealing to primary voters, certainly a segment of primary voters that has vaulted him to the top of the Republican primary at this point.

To Ron's point right there too, you've got to wonder why Ted Cruz waited this long to actually unload. Does Ted Cruz see the end of the road or does Ted Cruz thinks that by planting the seed right now, even if he loses Indiana, does he still have a shot at stopping Donald Trump in the upcoming nine primaries and caucuses, specifically when it comes to California? I mean, we'll have to wait and see. But Ted Cruz not only went after Donald Trump there, Ashleigh, he also went after Fox News very, very hard. At the same time, he doesn't have a whole lot of friends in Washington.

BANFIELD: Yes.

PRESTON: So you've got to wonder, as Ted Cruz is standing there and he's talking to those cameras, who was standing by his side other than his wife?

BANFIELD: He named -- he named Fox News and its executives, but he said "media executives," sort of brushing everyone with the same stroke as being on the side of Donald Trump. And if that were the case, I think we would all be fired. I think we've been pretty tough on this guy. We've aired a lot of his material and we've been equally as critical in time after that material airs.

MJ Lee, I just want to talk about one of the reporters in the gaggle. When Ted Cruz finished, I think it was Hallie Jackson from MSNBC, was pressing him on, why won't you -- if you feel this way, if you honestly feel this way, and it looks pretty clear that you do, why won't you just answer the question, Ted Cruz? Will you support Donald Trump if he becomes the nominee? And I want to show you a poll of Republicans who were asked about the unity in the party. When they were asked, 7 percent of them favored being united, 41 percent said they're divided but they will unite, and the majority said they're divided and they won't unite. So that question, which Ted Cruz chose to completely ignore, and very publicly dismiss that reporter. It happens to be one of the most important questions that needs answering. How often are you seeing this happen with Ted Cruz, that he is being pushed on that question from Dana Bash and every other reporter and is refusing to answer it because it's just too uncomfortable?

[12:10:02] LEE: Well, uncomfortable and, frankly, it doesn't work with his new strategy, right? If his new strategy is really to hit Donald Trump hard on personal issues, calling him a pathological liar, a narcissist, what have you, then it doesn't really work to then in the next breadth say, yes, but even if he -- if he does becomes the, you know, eventual Republican nominee, then he has my support. I think that just doesn't work.

And I think Ted Cruz, I mean, remember, he has been running as the candidate in the field who thought that he could just run as the most conservative person in the field and eventually the support would come to him. And I think it has just, frankly, taken him too long to realize that in this campaign and in this election it is very difficult to stop Donald Trump, to, you know, put a dent in his momentum unless you're playing Donald Trump's game. And that game, of course, is as Mark was saying, you know, calling Ted Cruz lyin' Ted, calling Marco Rubio little Marco. He has come up with all these kinds of different nicknames for his rivals. And I think Ted Cruz thought that he could get away with not playing that game, but the voters just don't care that Trump uses that kind of rhetoric. And, in fact, they love it. So if Ted Cruz has decided that that's a strategy that he can use now, then he might learn tonight that it's already too late.

BANFIELD: I mean why not just say, no, I won't. That's how strongly I feel. I mean I think I'm being clear by saying these things, but why not just -- guys, if you could stay put for -- I -- I have other questions I want to ask you and it has to do a lot with what Ted Cruz is going for here. He knows -- he knows he has a big part of this state and it's the evangelicals of Indiana, but that this whole other part of the state, the manufacturing belt, that does not like him and does like Donald Trump. So it's a battle within Indiana. Is a lot of what he said about God and country and the morals of Donald Trump an effort to chip away at the manufacturing or just lock in those evangelicals and throw the Hail Mary? We're going to talk about that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:48] BANFIELD: Of all the super Tuesdays that have come and gone in the past two months, this one may not be the biggest and it won't put either party's frontrunner over the top in delegates, but it may be the last best chance for the challengers to keep the nominations in play. So no pressure, Indiana. As we speak, the Hoosier voters by the millions are weighing in on Trump versus Cruz versus Kasich, Clinton versus Sanders. And there are 83 Democratic delegates and 57 Republican delegates at stake in today's contest.

And, boy, did we just ever hear a last-ditch effort to get all of them. My CNN colleague Jason Carroll sort of cleaning out his ears from what was coming through his IFB with that last Cruz sound bite. He's watching the voting right there in Terre Haute. So it looks busy. This is a big -- this is a big turnout issues because they've had early voting that has shown the Hoosiers are really keen.

JASON CARROLL, CNN ANCHOR: They are. And what we've seen here at this polling place, we also checked out, Ashleigh, another polling place not far from here, lines like this one. You can see right now, out the door here at this particular location. The folks here in Vigo County anxious to get out, patiently waiting to cast their votes. There's actually not enough polling stations left for everyone here for all of those who are here in line.

You know, I've been speaking to some of those people here about who they're supporting, what sort of issues mean most to them. What most of them are talking about right now is what you just heard, those comments -- those controversial comments that -- that we heard from Trump about Ted Cruz's father dealing with the Kennedy assassination. It seems as if some of the voters that we spoke to who support Trump still supporting him despite not liking what he had to say about Cruz and Kennedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MELVIN BATES, INDIANA VOTER: I just want to say, people say stupid things at the inappropriate time.

CARROLL: Do you still support him?

BATES: Yes, because he has -- he doesn't care about political correctness.

ANGELA GRANT, INDIANA VOTER: Very upsetting. You know, when I heard that, I was just -- it was upsetting. You know, why would -- why would you do that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: That woman that you heard there wouldn't say who she would end up voting for. But I'll tell you what she did say. She did, at the conclusion of that interview, she started to say, point by point, everything she liked about Donald Trump. So it seems as if despite what he said, and we both know he has said controversial things in the past, whether it be about, you know, Clinton playing the woman card, making fun of a reporter with a disability, whatever the case may be, people are so wanting someone who is an outsider, not someone who is seen as a political insider, at least with some of the electorate, seemed as if no matter what Donald Trump says with his diehard supporters, they will continue to support him.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Jason, I like seeing that big line of people behind you early in the day. It means people are getting out and voting and that's what we like to see in this democracy.

Jason Carroll, thank you, in Terra Haute, appreciate it.

Back now to my panel. From CNN Politics I'm joined by executive editor Mark Preston, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic," Ron Brownstein, live from L.A.

And, gentlemen, no sooner did I say we didn't have a reaction from the Trump camp, we got a reaction from the Trump camp. it is not the big Trump, it's the little Trump. It's Donald J. Trump. And this is the tweet he just sent out. "That was an impressive meltdown, dot, dot, dot, desperate but impressive. Reminded me of my three-year-old coming off a sugar high."

I am not surprised. I think that that's -- you know, a lot of people will say, if you're going to go for it, you're going to have to be prepared to get some of it. And we haven't even heard from Donald Trump yet.

Mark Preston, is this going to be the narrative that the voters after 12 noon are going to take into the ballot boxes there?

PRESTON: Well, if they hear about it. In many ways, voters are at work right now. They might not be turned into TV. They might not be listening to their radio. Again, as we were talking just before the break there, you have to

wonder why Ted Cruz waited until now to unleash this barrage of insults and criticism against Donald Trump. Had he done it a week ago, could some of it maybe have stuck? Perhaps. Could it have helped him in this primary? Maybe. But I do think certainly we'll be talking about it all day because this is certainly a moment in the campaign that we're all going to remember going forward and it's certainly a moment in the campaign for the Cruz campaign and the Trump campaign that will dictate what happens over the next, you know, certainly month or two.

[12:20:13] BANFIELD: Yes.

Ron Brownstein, I'm just looking at some of the quick notes that we were all taking as Ted Cruz was sort of unexpectedly doing this. So I'm not going to be able to do perfect quotes, but I'm going to give you the nuts and bolts here. You know, he talked about the pathological lying. You heard that. He talked about Donald Trump being proud of his infidelity, about the issue about the venereal disease being his biggest battle, like his own personal Vietnam with Howard Stern. He asked if we want to spend the next five years with bragging about infidelity. He said also, we are staring at the abyss. Do you want your children coming home saying, mommy, I don't have to ask God for forgiveness for anything. I'm going to play a little bit more of what Ted Cruz had to say just a moment ago. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The man cannot tell the truth, but he combine it with being a narcissist. A narcissist at a level I don't think this country has ever seen. Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes, dude, what's your problem?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It's hard stuff. But, Ron, I think the bigger question is, what is he trying to do here? Is this just a desperate attempt to get any voters or is this that attempt to solidify the evangelical vote in Indiana -- because there is a big evangelical vote in northeast Indiana -- and hopefully, just hopefully preserve them for the next eight hours, or is it something more than that?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, a couple of thoughts. As I said before, this feels less to me like strategy than catharsis. I mean I think, you know, understanding he's kind of right with his back against the wall with the added kind of instigation of Donald Trump raising these accusations against his father, which seems remarkable for a candidate on the brink of the nomination to be trafficking in those kinds of waters. And, again, a reminder to Republicans of what they are strapped in for, for the next six months. A candidate who may say or do anything at any moment.

Look, but for Ted Cruz, Indiana is a microcosm of the twin failures that have ultimately doomed his campaign. The first thing is that he has struggled to compete among voters who are not evangelicals. In every state with an exit poll, he's won them only in one, in Wisconsin. Every other state, even Texas, he did not win voters who are not evangelicals. And then even among evangelicals, Ashleigh, he has struggled to maintain support from those who are also blue collar or working class. Donald Trump has beaten him among blue collar evangelicals in a number of the states. That was the key to his victory in the south and that will be another key to his victory if he wins again tonight in Indiana. Those working class evangelicals voting more on the issues that draw them to Donald Trump, things like trade, immigration, his outsider persona than on the social issues that Ted Cruz was hoping to highlight again today.

BANFIELD: Well, you know, Ted Cruz got the endorsement of the governor, of Mike Pence of Indiana, but the sports, you know, heroes were backing Trump. And this morning on "New Day," his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, talked about others who heretofore had not been big fans of Donald Trump falling into line. Have a look at what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COREY LEWANDOWSKI: People who weeks ago would say, I can never support you, are now calling in saying, for the good of the party, we're going to get behind Donald Trump. We're going to make sure that when you are the nominee, and you will be the nominee, we have a united front to go after the Democrats. That's happening every day. We are growing this party. We're bringing more people in who've never been involved. And that's what's going to allow us to be successful come November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Mark Preston, is Ted Cruz's tirade going to help that or hurt that?

PRESTON: If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, if he, you know, continues on this trajectory, he goes into Cleveland, becomes the nominee, there are certainly going to be Republicans that are going to fall in line. They look at it as their party loyalty. They have to keep the Republican Party together for better or worse, whether they like the nominee personally or not.

Having said that, there is such distaste for Donald Trump among many in the Republican Party, specifically those in the establishment class, that they're never going to support Donald Trump. Are they going to go out and vote for Hillary Clinton? Maybe a few of them will. But I think that those establishment Republicans, those who find Donald Trump disdainful as their nominee, are just not going to vote in November. But having said that too, you know, Corey Lewandowski's correct, they have brought more people into the party that were not in the party before. The question is, is it enough to win in November?

BANFIELD: Yes, that's a good question.

BROWNSTEIN: Ashleigh, real quick.

BANFIELD: Yes. Yes, real quick, Ron, real quick. BROWNSTEIN: Real quick. Your question, though, I think is absolutely right, which is that Ted Cruz's words about Donald Trump today have created a new challenge for Republicans up and down the ballot.

BANFIELD: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: Because you're talking about a person who, you know, welcomed Donald Trump into the party, who has run against him longer than anybody else. This is now his conclusion, obviously fueled by animosity and frustration, but this is his conclusion about his character. And you can be sure there are lots of Republican candidates up and down the ballot who are going to be asked if Donald Trump is the nominee, do you agree with Ted Cruz's assessment of the person who is leading your ticket into November?

[12:25:13] BANFIELD: And they're going to be watching the news today. If some of those voters are not going to catch it while they go to the ballots, all those people who are backing Trump were thinking of it, are sure as heck going to see those sound bites play over and over.

Mark Preston, thank you. Ron Brownstein, thank you both I appreciate it. We're certainly going to continue covering the Indiana primaries all day on CNN. Don't miss our special coverage from Washington starting at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:04] BANFIELD: Breaking news into CNN. A United States Navy SEAL has been killed in a firefight with ISIS in Iraq.