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Donald Trump Sweeps Nebraska and West Virginia Primaries; Bernie Sanders Wins West Virginia But Gains Little. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 11, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:02] JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Pretty much the same way they do in "Mission Impossible." Just hope that if you ever use second skin, you don't get this reaction when removing it.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, a clean sweep for Donald Trump, but winning over the establishment, not so easy.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: We shouldn't just pretend that our party is unified when we know it is not.

COSTELLO: And Bernie Sanders keeps the momentum going.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It appears that we've won a big, big victory in West Virginia.

COSTELLO: Can he stop Clinton or will math get in the way?

Plus drug enforcement agents back at Prince's home. A new doctor now under the microscope.

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.

Things are happening in Washington, D.C. We have dueling -- I guess we could say news conferences that are about to happen at any minute now. On the left the Democratic side is set up, Democratic leadership is going to meet and speak out against Donald Trump. We expect to hear from them, I don't know, in 10 minutes or so. On the right, you see that's the Republican podium that's being set up. The GOP leadership is meeting right now to talk about party unity. We expect the House Speaker Paul Ryan to say a few remarks. When he does of course we'll bring you back to Washington live. Let's talk about last night and how the votes went down, shall we?

Varying state of success. Donald Trump closing in on the nomination with his primary victories. Bernie Sanders also winning but he barely moved the needle. Trump, the last Republican still standing cruises to victory both in the Nebraska primary and yesterday's vote in West Virginia. His clean sweep means he now only needs about 100 delegates.

Bernie Sanders also a winner in West Virginia but he rakes in only a handful more delegates than Hillary Clinton, barely denting the huge delegate lead she commands. But the Republicans seized on Clinton's stumble. Trump tweeting, quote, "I want to hit Crazy Bernie Sanders too hard yet because I love watching what he is doing to Crooked Hillary. His time will come."

For Republicans all eyes turn to tomorrow, though, in a much anticipated meeting between Mr. Trump and the House Speaker Paul Ryan. Tensions spiked between the two when Ryan refused to endorse the presumptive nominee and Trump fired back. Ryan says both men go into tomorrow's meeting with a shared goal -- Republican unity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: We can't just pretend to be unified when we know we're not. If we fake it, then we're going to go into the fall at half strength. And when there's an election where everything is at stake, the Supreme Court, the executive, the legislature, and really just the future of the country for a long time, we can't fake that we're unified. We need to truly become unified and to truly become unified I think we have to have a good conversation with one another about the principles and the policies that come from conservatism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is following the Republicans. She joins us with more from Washington. Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. Well, Donald Trump certainly is facing such a big and important moment for his campaign going forward. When he comes here to Washington tomorrow he'll meet with House and Senate Republican leaders and of course that big meeting with speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Now as he's reaching out and going for party unity, put simply, there still is a lot of convincing that he needs to do on Capitol Hill.

Still a lot of reluctance from those on Capitol Hill to fully support his candidacy. Notably, his former rival, Marco Rubio, yesterday, he came out and almost seemed to avoid doing a formal endorsement of Donald Trump. Really tried to avoid even saying his name at times, even though he told CNN's Jake Tapper that yes, he would support the Republican nominee because he says he made a promise during the primary fight. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Are you going to vote for him?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: Well, as I said, I'm going to support the Republican nominee.

TAPPER: No. You're going to abide by your pledge.

RUBIO: Yes.

TAPPER: But are you -- when you go into the privacy of the voting booth, are you going to pull the trigger?

RUBIO: I intend to support the Republican nominee. And I think that -- you know.

TAPPER: Including --

RUBIO: The entire process.

TAPPER: Including --

RUBIO: Well, I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton.

TAPPER: OK.

RUBIO: I'm not throwing away my vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And one of Donald Trump's other rivals, Senator Ted Cruz, returned back to Capitol Hill yesterday and he too would not endorse at all Donald Trump, says he still has time to make up his mind. And interestingly he did not rule out the potential if there's a path forward to jump back in the race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have suspended the campaign. We've suspended the campaign because I can see no viable path to victory. Of course, if that changed, we would reconsider things.

[10:05:02] But let's be clear, we're not going to win Nebraska today. There should be no mystery, no excitement in that. We've withdrawn from the campaign. And it is in the hands of the voters. If circumstances change we will always assess and change circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now, as Trump hits Capitol Hill tomorrow, we know from sources that Paul Ryan this morning gave sort of a rallying of the troops it seems to the House Republican Conference this morning. He says that the party will be united going forward. That is just a process they have to go through and that process starts tomorrow.

Donald Trump, Carol, speaking in more conciliatory, softer tones speaking about Paul Ryan heading into that meeting tomorrow -- Carol. COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen Serfaty reporting live from Washington.

Thank you.

While Marco Rubio hedges his support for Donald Trump, London, England's newly elected mayor had some harsh words for the GOP frontrunner. Sadiq Khan who was voted into office last weekend is the first Muslim mayor to lead a major Western city. He is crossing his fingers that Trump loses.

Here's what he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR SADIQ KHAN, LONDON: My message to Donald Trump and his team is that, you know, your views of Islam are ignorant. And it's possible to be a Muslim and to live in the West. And it's possible to be a Muslim and to love America. You've got a choice of -- you've got a choice of unity over division, you've got to choice of somebody who's trying to divide not just your communities in America, but divide America from the rest of the world. And I think that's, you know, not the America that I know and love.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So let's bring in national spokesperson for the Trump campaign, Katrina Pierson. I'm also joined by CNN political commentator and senior writer for "The Federalist" Mary Katharine Ham.

Welcome to both of you.

MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Katrina, you've heard London's mayor, Sadiq Khan. He says Mr. Trump's take on Islam is ignorant. Will Mr. Trump reconsider his views on this temporary Muslim ban?

PIERSON: Well, absolutely not because this is not a ban on all Muslims as many in the media have been reporting. This was a ban on immigration of Muslims. We need to reform our visa program. We have got to find out who's coming into our country and that's exactly what Mr. Trump said. We have to know who's coming into this country. This -- to not do that is going against our own national security interest and the leaders in those communities who say we don't know who's coming into this country and there is no process to know why they are coming here and if they have good intentions. We need to figure out that process.

COSTELLO: Right. Well, here's the thing, Katrina. The -- Mr. Trump's Muslim ban would apply to Muslims looking to visit the United States as tourist. So would he reconsider that part?

PIERSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: Because he said reconsider that part. PIERSON: Well, he -- what he said was it's something that he would

look at simply because we have to have a system in place. We do know that one of the 9/11 hijackers were here on a tourist visa. If we don't know who they are, where they are coming from, for example, the mayor is somebody that we would be able to know where they are coming from.

Mr. Trump is talking about those individuals that don't have a background, they don't have a history, we don't know where they are coming from, and their intentions for that matter. For those people, yes, there is an expedited process. But other than that, we cannot just allow particularly that we know ISIS has been infiltrating a lot of these refugees, we cannot just continue to allow this influx of immigrants coming into this country without knowing what their intentions are.

COSTELLO: So Mr. Trump's exceptions might be sitting mayors of major Western countries and he also said something about athletes. Would he allow Muslim athletes into the country to compete?

PIERSON: Well, again, it all depends on if we know their intentions, Carol. I'm not quite sure why --

COSTELLO: Well, hoe --

PIERSON: -- people don't understand this concept.

COSTELLO: I'm just trying to figure out --

PIERSON: If we know who they are --

COSTELLO: -- how will you know their intentions.

PIERSON: -- where they're coming from, if they have documents, then yes, those are individuals that could come to this country. Mr. Trump is specifically talking about those that we don't know anything about, where they are coming from. The individuals that came in from -- that committed the San Bernardino crime, the woman that came in on the fiancee visa, they didn't even know what country she came from originally. And that's a problem.

COSTELLO: Mary Katherine, does that make sense to you?

HAM: Well, a couple of things. I don't think it hurts an American candidate often to have somebody from another country chime in about how he's not great for America because American voters say well, we're making this decision. So -- and I don't think it will hurt Trump with his core audience for sure.

Katrina is right that there are some risks with immigration. You need to be evaluating those things. For all of us in this segment, Katrina, Carol and myself, it is hard to understand what his policies are because Trump has not actually thought through his policies. He says what is on his gut at that moment, what's on his mind at that moment and then we have to fill in the blanks after the fact. This is a very serious matter and what concerns me about Trump on many, many issues is he does not think through these things thoroughly and come up with an actual policy.

On the other side you have the mayor of London saying that one of the perfect example of how Western values and Islam are compatible.

[10:10:03] Of course he is correct that you can be a Muslim and love America and be a Muslim and love Western values, but there's polling of the British Muslim community that shows just from April, that there are great gaps between the Muslim community and the rest of Britain when it comes to Western values and what they believe. Ignoring that also does not help.

COSTELLO: OK. So and I think --

(CROSSTALK)

PIERSON: There also polls in the United States that show that there are about 300,000 Muslims in the United States that disagree with Western values and that's a problem.

HAM: Well, what are we going to do with them, Katrina?

COSTELLO: Well, I think --

HAM: Do you have a plan for that or has Trump thought through that plan? What we do with American citizens who disagree with us? I mean, this is the problem. There's not a plan.

PIERSON: But the point is we have to start screening the immigrants coming in from Muslim nations so that we know who they are, where are they coming from, what their intentions are. That's the point here.

COSTELLO: OK. Let's talk -- I think Nancy Pelosi is now speaking. I told our viewers at the top of the show that the Democratic leadership was going to hold this news conference and they were going to blast Mr. Trump. Should we listen in for just a bit?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: But year after year, Republicans have enthusiastically turned their intolerance and discrimination into legislation. As our video shows that you'll see in a moment, whether it's insulting President Obama, women, immigrants, Muslims, LGBT Americans, there's not a dime's worth of difference between what Donald Trump says and what the House Republicans have been saying all along.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe we need to go back to surveillance of mosques and certain Muslim groups?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You testified in 1999 and 2000 that he thought he -- that 87 mosques in this country will be (INAUDIBLE) right back by radical Islam and searching for -- that's not a theme that seems accurate. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we are talking about is a bill that with

withhold crimes from Planned Parenthood for a period of a year while we have the investigation. Now I know they called this a smear campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK. So Mary Katherine, I know what the Democratic leadership is trying to do, is trying to tie the Republicans already holding office to Donald Trump's comments and say they are one in the same. Are they?

HAM: Well, I think that's what some of the Republicans running for office this time around are going to be concerned about, right? This is their big question. Do I hitch my wagon to this when I have no idea what this guy is going to say on the trail from day to day and then have to answer for it? And I think that's a real concern in this election.

And I think the Democrats are going to happily put the two together and put whatever candidate it is in a purple state next to Donald Trump and make him answer for all of his comments. And we don't know what those comments will be or what those beliefs will be from day to day. If there's an Excel document that you guys have at the campaign where you update this and you can let us know, that would be awesome.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Katrina, very soon Paul Ryan and Donald Trump will meet. They're going to -- they're scheduled to meet tomorrow morning and I would think that this is one of Paul Ryan's concerns, that he's not quite sure what Donald Trump's policies or principles are.

PIERSON: Well, look, if a candidate doesn't want to run on pro- American values, putting Americans and their children first, taking control of the border, securing the border, having comments since trade deals, then that's a decision that they're going to have to make.

What's happening with the Democrats is they are trying to run against Donald Trump as if he is a politician. Donald Trump is a brand. He is an individual that resonates success. He resonates competition, he resonates love for his country. His entire empire is built right here. He's the only candidate that's personally invested in the success or failure of the United States.

That is the candidate that we have today. Millions of Americans support Donald Trump and we're seeing that unfold in recent polling in many swing states.

COSTELLO: All right, I believe that Nancy Pelosi is now slamming Donald Trump for what he said about women right now. And of course, that is to be expected.

Going back to that meeting between Paul Ryan and Mr. Trump, Mary Katharine, you heard Katrina say Mr. Trump is a brand. He cares deeply about America in a way that most sitting politicians don't. Is that fair? HAM: I don't know that I would be casting aspersions on the

patriotism of the other candidates in the race. Look, there are problems with all of them. And I think that's what many Americans are faced with right now. I do think that when they go into this meeting, Paul Ryan, who has been committed to things like entitlement reform in the past, is looking at a candidate who is not committed to that, who is saying that he's going to maybe solve the debt in eight years, but wait, let me back that up, maybe I can't do that.

[10:15:04] Maybe I'll renegotiate when it comes to our debt, who again does not think through his positions, has given no indication that he's a committed conservative of any kind on pretty much anything other than saying, I love America, which I applaud him for. We're all in the same boat on that one.

But I think it's reasonable for conservatives to say, hey, I don't have any indication that you consistently believe these things or that you will hold to a position on these things. Let's have a talk about that before you earn my vote. Many conservatives will ask that question. There are many who claim to believe things that conservatives believe like entitlement reform and all these things in the past who are now on the Trump train who don't -- who seem to think that he believes those things. I think he has a lot of convincing to do.

(CROSSTALK)

PIERSON: It's not even about patriotism. This is about priorities. Paul Ryan and the Republicans have been talking about limited government, conservative values for a very long time. And Republicans haven't governed conservatives since the '80s and Republicans have been in charge for quite some time now. We funded executive amnesty, we funded Planned Parenthood, we have government.

We've given more money to the export/import banks. Those are not conservative values. This heritage action scorecards is at 61 percent, which is lower than the average Republican in the Congress today. So we really --

COSTELLO: Katrina --

PIERSON: -- need to define what is conservative.

COSTELLO: Katrina, I just -- well, I want to ask you, in light of what you've just said, bottom line, does Mr. Trump really care about party unity?

PIERSON: Of course he does. I mean, he has been committed to that long before he became the presumptive nominee, he's been having these meetings in Washington for about three months now because he does want to unite the party. However, if that means giving up his core platform of pro-American values --

HAM: What is his core platform?

PIERSON: His core platform is -- (CROSSTALK)

HAM: In being pro-America.

PIERSON: -- trade, immigration and border security. That is his core platform. Go back and check out his speech. It is there and that's why people are voting for him.

COSTELLO: All right.

HAM: He's a candidate who has happily and proudly spurned the entire idea of limits on his power as an executive and doesn't have any interest in the Constitution and what it allows him to do and what it does not allow him to do. That is concerning for people who are interested in limited government, though I will totally concede along with Katrina that looking at how things have been governed in the past, it's not a conservative government. But moving in that direction requires that you not hire a casual authoritarian to do it.

COSTELLO: All right. I've got to leave it there. Mary Katharine Ham, Katrina Pierson, thanks to both of you.

We're going to keep an eye on the GOP news conference that's about to begin. We're expecting to hear from the House Speaker Paul Ryan. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Off there to the left, you can't him right now. Susan Brooks is now talking. The GOP leadership just met, as you know, Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are expected to have a meeting tomorrow morning, just around 9:00 Eastern Time. So let's listen in and maybe the GOP leadership will share with us what they talked about earlier this morning.

REP. SUSAN BROOKS (R), INDIANA: 78 Americans, that's almost 15 people on a regular basis every hour lose their lives. I'm going to talk to you about one of those lives today. Because she drives me. She's part of the reason why myself and so many members in the House are focused on this horrible epidemic facing the country.

Justine Phillips, a mom in Indianapolis, lost her son to an opioid overdose.

[10:20:05] He had been a high school senior, 18 years old, football player, great young guy. He got hooked on heroin. By age 20 he had lost his life. This is after he had been in treatment, recovery. She stood by him. She worked with him. But he lost his life to a heroin overdose at age 20.

So she started an organization called Overdose Lifeline because she said she needed to do it until the dying stops. And the dying is happening every hour, every day, all across this country. So she's starting an organization, Overdose Lifeline, that focuses on providing -- raising funds from the Lock Zone Treatment for First Responders. It's police week later this week and our first responders day in and

day out are saving lives in our neighborhoods and our communities and at our family's homes.

I'm really pleased that the House is taking up more than a dozen bills focused because so many members of Congress feel so strongly about this. I'm proud to be leading a bill HR 4641 which talks about trying to change the culture in this country of the prescribing practices. Because 80 percent of those dying of heroin started with a pain prescription addiction.

And so my bill is about a task force bringing together patients, treatment providers, prescribers and the federal agencies involved with the prescription problem facing the country. And to bring to Congress the best practices, how do we change the culture of the prescribers in this country? We've got to get people off of the pain meds so then those people will not turn to heroin and that will eventually save lives.

Everyone has had a lot of great ideas, we're going to bring a lot of proposals to the House floor from members all across the country. These are very bipartisan bills. This is something that affects so many lives. We're doing it for Justine. We're doing it for her young son Erinson and with that I'd like to turn it over to Representative Dold from Illinois.