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Trump Wins in West Virginia and Nebraska; Sanders Wins in West Virginia; Rubio Reaffirms Support for GOP Candidate; Trump to Visit GOP Leaders on Thursday. Aired Midnight-1a ET
Aired May 11, 2016 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:25] DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: That's right; wake up sleepy heads. It's midnight on the East Coast. This is a special "CNN Tonight"; I'm Don Lemon. Our breaking news: Donald Trump, the GOP's presumptive nominee, notches two more wins in Nebraska and West Virginia. Plus, a shot in the arm for Bernie Sanders. The Senator surging past Hillary Clinton in West Virginia and vowing to fight on for every last vote. What's next in the race that has been full of surprises. on a big night, on a big night for Senator of Vermont?
I want to begin with Sanders surrogate, Nina Turner, a former Ohio State Senator. I should say good evening, but it's good morning. How are you?
NINA TURNER, SANDERS SUPPORTER and FORMER SENATOR, STATE OF OHIO: Good morning, Don. I'm wonderful; how are you?
LEMON: I'm great; congratulations to your candidate, Bernie Sanders. What's the campaign think tonight after this win?
TURNER: Thank you. Powerful; I mean, we are really delighted that the Senator won in West Virginia. Thank you, West Virginia. This makes it 19 wins, and if we add Democrats abroad, 20. So Senator Sanders has been consistent. We know he won Indiana and we are going to keep on going to the convention. We're going all the way.
LEMON: All right, going all the way. There are some Hillary Clinton supporters on the panel, coming up, who are shaking their head right now saying no way, but --
TURNER: I don't know why. They shouldn't shake their head.
LEMON: And you know which one I'm talking about.
TURNER: I sure do, my dear best friend.
LEMON: Rhymes with Mabrary Sellers.
TURNER: Mm-hmm.
LEMON: So, Hillary Clinton is solidly still though in first place, Nina. She's losing a lot of primaries. What's the goal for the Sanders camp here?
TURNER: Well, Don, we - we -- first of all, the Senator has been very clear that everybody should have the opportunity to have choice. So he is going to stay in this race all the way until D.C. votes, I believe, that is in the latter -- middle part of June; but the goal is to continue to galvanize voters, to continue to energize. That is exactly what he is doing, especially among the millennials. So his goal is to win. That goal has not changed. The Senator has talked about how narrow the path is. He will not deny that. We will not deny that --
LEMON: He said it tonight.
TURNER: -- but there is still yet a path.
LEMON: Or last night, he did say it. He said it's an uphill climb.
TURNER: Yes.
LEMON: But he's saying I'm staying until June 14th. What happens June 15?
TURNER: Well hopefully, he is going in with the delegate math, him and the Secretary, neither one will make it all the way. I know that, Don, you guys keep showing that she only needs a few more. We need to tease out those super delegates. He has a little over 1400. She has a little over 1700. We know that those super delegates do not vote until the convention.
If the super delegates want to win, if they want democrats to win, it's very clear that Senator Bernie Sanders is the strongest candidate to go head to head with Mr. Donald Trump, bar none. He has been consistent. Even the polling that came out tonight shows the same thing, especially in the battleground states, in my great state of Ohio where the Secretary loses to Mr. Trump.
LEMON: She's winning without super delegates.
TURNER: Well, but you know, there's less than 300 delegates, pledged delegates, between them. We will continue to eat into that. Neither one of them will go to the convention with the necessary pledged delegates and we're going to duke it out.
LEMON: Let's listen to what Senator Sanders said earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With our victory tonight in West Virginia, we have now won primaries and caucuses in 19 states.
[Cheering and Applause]
SANDERS: And let me be as clear as I can be, we are in this campaign to win the Democratic nomination!
[Cheering and Applause]
(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: He sounds pretty confident. Should the Clinton campaign be concerned?
TURNER: Absolute. Oh, they should; and they are, Don. You know, so arrogantly they decided they weren't going to do commercials or they were going to try to just ignore the primary contest coming up and just jump all the way to the general, but then they have to pivot and backtrack on that. So, yes, they should be nervous. Senator Sanders is hot on the Secretary's trail, make no doubt about it.
LEMON: The head of the Republican Party is -- at least the Chairman of the Party, Reince Priebus tweeting out, "It's nothing short of embarrassing that Hillary Clinton has now been defeated 20 times by a 74-year-old socialist from Vermont." What's your response to that, Nina?
TURNER: I'm not - well, you know, listen, he need not get in this fight. This is a family fight. He needs to stay out of this and deal with the [00:05:02] problem he has over there with the Republican side. That's what I say to the Chairman of the Republican Party.
LEMON: He's got -- it's a backhanded compliment, I think, to your, you know, if you want to read it that way.
TURNER: We don't want his backhanded compliment, Don. We really don't. The bottom line is that Senator Sanders is the strongest candidate to win against Mr. Trump in November, bar none. He is the candidate that we need to win. We don't need the backhanded compliment, rather, from the Chairman of the Republican Party.
LEMON: All right; I want to bring in the rest of my panel now: Mark Preston, Kevin Madden, Kayleigh McEnany, Margaret Hoover, Bakari Sellers and Mr. Bill Press. Go ahead, Bakari.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I think that Senator Turner has a legitimate point. I think that Bernie Sanders has a lot of energy; he has a message resonating with voters and I have been one person who supports Hillary Clinton but since Day One has said that Bernie Sanders has earned the right, legitimately, to stay in this race as long as he wants, as long as he so chooses. Hillary Clinton and her supporters and everyone who supports her have no right, it's hypocritical to say, that he has to get out before June 7, because that's when she got out. So I think this is good for the party. Every exit poll that we see, Bill, me and you have been on these shows a lot, every exit poll that we see says it's very good for the party.
BILL PRESS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTER: It's good for the party. It's good for Hillary and it's good for Bernie. By the way, I think Bernie was red hot tonight, the best I have ever heard him. He hit all the buttons tonight. Went after Donald Trump. Took a couple swipes at Hillary Clinton, but he also said, we are in this all the way. I hope people heard that, right; fighting for every single vote.
He also said something very important, the energy and the enthusiasm are with Bernie Sanders in this campaign, there's no doubt about it. Every time I'm on with Bakari I hear all the math, how many delegates she has, how many votes she has.
SELLERS: You hear the facts.
PRESSD: But you know what? The math doesn't win elections alone. You need the energy and enthusiasm. Bernie has got it.
TURNER: Amen. Amen.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR EDITOR: So a couple things: one is, this is why the Clinton campaign is very much concerned when they hear Senator Turner say, listen, we're in this -- we're going to fight it all the way to the convention. When they hear that kind of tone, I'm just telling you, this is what concerns them. You know, where it becomes a confrontational battle heading into July, that is a concern.
As far as the math goes, the bottom line is, she is -- has over 500 super delegates, whether or not their vote is going to take place at the convention or whether that he will eventually cede it to her remains to be seen. He can take it to the convention, but --
PRESS: You don't expect any candidate to say, I'm not really in this to win it. I'm just -- I'm having a good time.
PRESTON: Bill, I didn't say -
PRESS: Come on, nobody says that.
PRESTON: But I didn't say it was Senator Sanders. I said it was Senator Turner who said the tone of we're going to take this all the way to the convention is going to be a battle, that is what concerns the Clinton campaign.
PRESS: Bernie said that though.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESTON: It's also a red herring.
TURNER: We are going to take it to the convention. Why --
PRESTON: I have no question -
SELLERS: It's also a red herring when the Sanders campaign, my friends from the Sanders campaign say that - and Jeff Weaver says this consistently, no one is going to have the majority of the pledged delegates going into the convention. Well, that's a fact. However, super delegates - super delegates have never overturned the will of the people. Barack Obama did not have enough pledged delegates going into the convention but the super delegates put him over the top. Mondale did not have enough pledged delegates but super delegates put him over the top. Clinton and Kerry - Clinton and Kerry, their opponents dropped out of the race when their opponents were in the same position as John Kerry. So that's -
PRESS: So what's that mean?
SELLERS: -- a red herring.
PRESS: What's that mean, that's a red herring?
TURNER: I mean, the super delegates should adhere to the will of the people, state by state and if the super delegates did do that, the unfortunate fact is that Senator Sanders has almost 46-percent of the pledged delegates but less than seven-percent of the super delegates. So let's talk about the will of the people. I mean, they need to take a page out of what they're doing in Maine, that super delegates should follow the will of the people in their respective states. If that was happening, they wouldn't be -- Senator Sanders would not be so far behind the Secretary right now in those super delegates.
PRESTON: Margaret, we heard this on the Republican side; it's fixed, it's rigged.
MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Why don't we - I mean, look, the democrats, you guys -- you are stuck with your system. This is how it works. Super delegates exist for a reason; right? One word for you guys: George McGovern. This is why super delegates exist, so you don't nominate somebody so far to the left that you get killed in a national landslide. This is the problem. I mean, Bernie Sanders, whatever these Quinnipiac polls say today in Ohio, actually is probably not representative of what would happen in November.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Here is Bernie Sanders hitting on Donald Trump tonight; listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: Donald Trump is not going to become president for a number of reasons.
[Applause]
SANDERS: And the major reason is that the American people understand that [00:10:02] we cannot have a president who has insulted Latinos and
Mexicans -
[Cheering and Applause]
SANDERS: -- who has insulted Muslims --
[Cheering and Applause]
SANDERS: -- who every day is insulting women in one way or another.
[Cheering and Applause]
SANDERS: Who has insulted African-Americans in a very profound way. People sometimes forget that before Mr. Trump was running for president, he was one of the leaders of the so-called "birther movement" -- [Booing]
SANDERS: -- and that movement was a very ugly effort to de- legitimatize the presidency of the first African-American president in our history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So it has been sort of a wonder on this campaign and also on social media and I guess out in the Twitter-verse or what have you, is, Nina, is he doing Hillary Clinton's dirty work by pointing that out, by talking about Donald Trump in that manner?
TURNER: Well Senator Sanders has been talking about Mr. Trump in that manner ever since, you know, this race started. So he is not doing anything out of the ordinary; as a matter of fact, he was the first one to point out the "birther movement" stuff on the stump and how Mr. Trump tried to de-legitimatize -- to take away the legitimacy of President Barack Obama. So I don't think that he is doing anything necessarily for the Secretary, he's just pointing out the facts and that demographics do not play in the favor of Mr. Trump -
LEMON: Okay, Nina -
TURNER: -- when it comes to November. But this is really about turnout though. Turnout is going to be a big factor in November.
LEMON: Okay, so I want to ask them because she didn't bring up the birther thing. Maybe she was afraid of that. She won't bring up women; she'll say the women card if he talks about it, but she won't do that. Bernie Sanders will; what is going on here?
PRESTON: Bernie Sanders will and it's the kind of message that electrifies the Bernie Sanders audience. You're talking about --
LEMON: You don't think it electrifies democrats though to hear that?
PRESTON: I think that for Bernie Sanders it is a good card for him to play. I think for Hillary Clinton, she's playing with fire and she's trying now to look presidential. She's trying.
KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Bill press made a good argument earlier --
PRESS: Well, thank you.
MADDEN: -- in that -
LEMON: A lot of compliments tonight, by the way.
PRESS: I know; seriously.
MADDEN: But process and math is not a necessarily winning message. No one is going to put process and math for Hillary on their bumper sticker on their ar.
LEMON: Right.
MADDEN: One of the things that Hillary Clinton, if she's going to try to be successful in the general election, has to take a lesson from Bernie Sanders' campaign is that very rarely during this campaign has he been on the defense. He has constantly been on offense, whether it's been against Hillary Clinton or, as we saw in that clip, against Donald Trump. I think that's what so many of the Democrat's supporters, that's why they find his candidacy somewhat alluring, and I think that's what they want to see him provide to Hillary Clinton.
LEMON: So he's saying it resonates with Bernie Sanders supporters, but doesn't he resonate with Democrats in general?
PRESS: No, I think it's a winning message. I think if you listen to Bernie Sanders tonight, that combination of the economic populism, which he repeated again. I've heard him give that speech I don't know how many times, plus this direct attack on Donald Trump, you add those together, that is a winning message.
Something else I think Bernie has going for him, which, again we've all lost sight of, is this a year for the outsider. This is a year that the political established, politics as usual, is not cutting it. So the Republicans, for better or worse, they have come up with their ultimate outsider. If Republicans - if we Democrats come up, and I'll vote for her, but if we come up with an establishment candidate, we are running the risk of running against the will of the American people or the mood of the people right now.
SELLERS: Agreed.
HOOVER: Agreed.
LEMON: Stand by - oh, my gosh. Everyone is in agreement.
PRESS: I don't think Bakari was.
LEMON: It doesn't matter.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Nina? Nina, thank you.
TURNER: Thank you.
LEMON: We'll see you soon. We will try not to have Bakari on next time. We'll be right back; don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:18:18] LEMON: Here is our breaking news tonight: Donald Trump wins the GOP primaries in West Virginia and Nebraska. Back with me now, my political dream team (inaudible) of Kayleigh McEnany; Bill Press, the author of - oh my goodness, now I've got to do the books - "Buyer's Remorse: How Obama Let Progressive's Down"; Kevin Madden; Mark Preston; Bakari Sellers; and, Margaret Hoover. That wasn't so bad. You know how some people, the name of the books are so long you think how does it fit on the title?
HOOVER: I don't know anything about that.
[Laughter]
LEMON: Let's talk about fundraising because Margaret Hoover has been dying to talk about fundraising but my first question, unfortunately, is going to go to Mark Preston. "New York Times" is reporting he is close to reaching a deal with the RNC to get their help but there's no real fundraising apparatus, no bundlers to call on. Six months ago there was, but is it too late now?
PRESTON: Listen, Donald Trump has got a lot of money. So, is it too late for him to raise the necessary money from donors to equal the amount that Hillary Clinton has already built up? Yes, it's probably too late to get to that number. But, guess what? When you can write your own check, Don, it's never really too late.
LEMON: So what's going to happen now, Margaret, with the moniker, oh, I'm self-funding because now he moves into a different phase?
HOOVER: Well, it's interesting. I think it doesn't hurt him because the people who got him to this nominating process, he can change his position 100 times; they still like him. So I don't think they will feel like he is disingenuous by changing tact's in the general election.
I mean, Mark is right. It takes a lot of time to build a really sophisticated fundraising apparatus, to identify individuals who will go to their network and get the $2,500 or $2,700, sorry; it goes up every cycle. It's hard to keep up, and that's my background.
[00:20:01] My background is political fundraising. I have done this on presidential campaigns, two of them. It takes a long time to build up that apparatus. He is starting very, very late, especially compared to Hillary Clinton, who started two years ago. I mean, -- by the way, she - no, she started eight years ago. She has all of her people have been bundling for almost a decade now for her. So there's just no way she can go toe to toe with Donald Trump; and, I don't know that Donald Trump is willing to write the checks for the delta.
LEMON: But are people going to want to - I mean, he's boasted, I'm a multi-billionaire. Are people wanting going to want to give -- you already have money. Why would I give money to a billionaire?
HOOVER: He's raised almost $20 million in small donations already. People are giving him money, but if you are really going to harness energy, you have got to organize.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESTON: Bill Press had said this, just very quickly, he did say, earn media. He has got an incredible amount of earned media that he doesn't need money in order to buy commercials.
HOOVER: That is not going to continue. PRESS: Just one thing that I find surprising, and you know more about this than I do, is that he's not talking about the Bernie Sanders approach. I mean, Bernie Sanders for several months, out raised Hillary Clinton just small donors. Why isn't "Mr. Grassroots" Donald Trump doing at least trying or talking about that approach?
HOOVER: Well one person on the Republican side who actually did it very well was Ben Carson. I mean, Ben Carson had this book tour that went through the south a year before this all started. But he took the time; he had runway; he had the lead time, where he went around to these communities and cultivated that --
PRESS: Start with that list.
HOOVER: Yes, you can start but, p.s., it's May. The election is in November.
MADDEN: I just want to underscore Margaret's point. Around this time in 2012, the presidential campaign and the joint fundraising committee with the RNC was raising about $2 million a day. Donald Trump, just last week, named his finance chairman. That just underscores, I think, the gap right now that there are between the two campaigns, and it's a significant one.
I think this can be made up, to some extent with media. Donald Trump is not a guy who needs to run ads when you have 40-minute blocks coverage of your campaign rallies.
PRESS: When you can phone in --
MADDEN: Right, when you can phone in somewhere; but, at a certain point the other infrastructure, which is the volunteers, the door knocking, a lot of that, that's going to be crucial when you get down to these close states. Kayleigh pointed out the battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, if they are close. It's a four-point difference if you have a better ground game than -- if one campaign has a better ground game it can be the difference of four points.
LEMON: Kayleigh, how does this work?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: The RNC is such a sophisticated apparatus. Today I heard them come out and say they're profiling voters in the key states. The map looks very different from republicans in the past. They're realizing this isn't the traditional republican that we're mobilizing. This is the Donald Trump supporter that we're mobilizing, which, of course, includes republicans but they are taking a nuanced approach. I think they learned the hard way, with Barack Obama who had an excellent digital apparatus on Facebook, on social media. I think that the RNC is not going to make the same mistake twice.
SELLERS: But one of the things - one of the things - and just to underscore what Kevin said earlier, because I agree, is that Hillary Clinton and the DNC and the Hillary Victory Fund, are just light years ahead of where Donald Trump is. We just talked about Donald Trump's getting a finance chairperson last week. Well Hillary Clinton already has staff in Ohio, Virginia, Florida.
Priorities USA, her Super PAC, has already allocated $125 million worth of buys. They're already going up on the radio on June 7, on Hispanic and Black radios. So, these things are already happening. Donald Trump is just getting started. The thing that we haven't talked about yet, which is -- which separated -- no offense, Kevin, but which separated Barack Obama from Mitt Romney was data, and that access to data. The fact that the democrats had big data and the Republican had ORCA. ORCA means failure now in politics. Right now, the person who had the supreme data game on the Republican side is Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz took his ball and went home.
LEMON: Do you agree with that?
MADDEN: Well, no. It clearly was an advantage that they had. That's one of the advantages of an incumbent. What happened was, the Obama campaign took $100 million operation during the first four years of the presidency, with the advantages that they had, coordinating at the DNC, and then they loaded on a billion dollars in perfecting it. If you remember, during the summer of 2012, the Romney campaign, we were essentially out of money because we had spent so much money during the primary that the Obama campaign moved in, into all these battleground states that Kayleigh was mentioning earlier, and pounded us with millions of dollars of ads. They weigh that -- we sort of never really recovered from it. That goes to my last point, which is, there are very few ads -- Bill probably knows this, too. There are very few ads after Labor Day that make a difference. This is a crucial time, from here all the way through to Labor Day, in defining the contours of this debate and the electorate.
LEMON: With that said, though, what happens, because there are some big donors who are say they will stick to the sidelines. They're going to stay out of this. They're concerned about his rhetoric --
MADDEN: Yes, the donors -- it's a $250 million gap, that's a significant gap.
HOOVER: Especially because the -- we see the DNC, we see Priorities USA, we see all the Democrats buying this air time. This is precisely as Kevin said, that sweet spot where Mitt Romney, the republican challenger was incredibly [00:25:02] vulnerable. Donald Trump will be, too. He's going to get pummeled.
By the way, I don't think we're going to continue to see all this earned media that's so positive for Donald Trump moving into the general election. I think in the Republican primary you had $2 billion of earned media that was positive -
MCENANY: No.
HOOVER: -- in a way because he sucked up all the energy.
MCENANY: Trust me, it wasn't positive.
{Cross Talk]
MCENANY: It wasn't positive.
HOOVER: Parts of it -- it wasn't a holistically negative. I think the tone is really going to change in the general election. I don't think it's going to get as a free ride as -
LEMON: Hold it; was it positive?
MCENANY: No way. No, it was not.
LEMON: She aged 20 years.
MCENANY: I did.
LEMON: She's only 8 years old.
HOOVER: You've got to be able to hit back. I mean, you have to be able to buy air time to hit back on all these attacks that are going to come at him, and they're going to come from a surround sound system. Donald Trump is not in a position to be able to fight back with, sort of, a full arsenal at his hands.
PRESTON: Right; so, look, I think Kevin - I'm going to lob a comment back at you and you can record this as this being a historical moment. The bottom line is, we're talking about money with Donald Trump. If Donald Trump thinks that he can win, I do believe he will write the check. I don't think it will come down to the idea of will he -- will he have a billion-dollar campaign. Will he have a $10 million campaign in Florida? Will he have a $25 million campaign in Ohio or what have you because it's going to come down to a few states.
We sit here and pretend like, okay, like, this state might be in play or -- it's not. We're boiling it down into a couple states, that's one. Two is the RNC. There was a lot made of the autopsy report and how it was a failure. But what came out of that report is that Reince Priebus and the RNC did put in a 24-hour, seven days a week operation nationwide which did not exist before. And to Kayleigh's point, I do think this is a problem. The RNC doesn't know the Trump voters. Nobody knows the Trump voters. You need to identify those Trump voters. That is going to cost the RNC money.
MCENANY: Very fair point.
LEMON: Here's the question: does Donald Trump have a billion dollars' cash on hand to be able to write a check -
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Don't answer now. And, what Marco Rubio says now about Donald Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:30:29] LEMON: Senator Marco Rubio has been keeping a low profile since dropping out of the presidential race in March, but now he is talking about Donald Trump's rise to become the GOP's presumptive nominee. Rubio sat down today with our CNN colleague, Jake tapper. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": There's a claim from the Trump campaign that advisers of yours have been pitching you, hard, to the Trump campaign to be his running mate, that you really want the job, according to these Trump campaign officials talking about these advisers. What's your position on that?
RUBIO: Well that would be impossible because I don't really have very many advisors. Our campaign is no longer running; and unless they have been talking to my wife, which is my critical advisor these days -
TAPPER: Does she want you to be --
RUBIO: Like I said yesterday, look, I think Donald has won the - he's won - he's the presumptive nominee at this point. But he would be best served by having someone, by the way, not just a vice presidential nominee, but active surrogates, who agree with him on issues. My differences with Donald, both my reservations about his campaign and my policy differences with him are well documented and they remain, and I think he would be best served by having people close to him in his campaign that are enthusiastic about the things he stands for.
TAPPER: You have raised concerns throughout the campaign, ones you are standing by, about his temperament and about his views on foreign policy, on trade policy and other things. Would those reservations keep you -- do they right now preclude you from endorsing him?
RUBIO: Well I have said -- I have signed a pledge that said I would support the republican nominee and I intend to continue to do that, but where -- look, here is the situation that we're in. On the one hand -- I don't want Hillary Clinton to be the President of the United States. I don't want her to win the election. On the other hand, as I've said, I have well defined differences with the current -- the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. And like millions of Republicans you try to reconcile those two things. I intend to live up the pledge we made but that said, these concerns that have I about policy, they remain. They are there, but that doesn't mean that Donald needs to change his positions in order to get my support or what have you.
As I said earlier today, he should be true to what he believes in and continue to campaign on those things and make his case to the American people.
TAPPER: It's not just concerns that you've had about him. You once said that you didn't think it -- you had concerns about the fact - about the nuclear codes being in the hands of an erratic conman. That was what you said.
RUBIO: Well here's not what I'm not going not going to do over the next six months is sit there and just be taking shots at him. He obviously wasn't my first choice, because I was running for president. He has won the nomination and now he deserves the opportunity to go out and make his case to the American people, and that's what he's going to do. I don't view my role over the next six months to just sit here and level charges against him.
I know what I said during the campaign. I enunciated those things repeatedly. The voters chose a different direction. I stand by the things I said, but I'm not going to sit here now and become his chief critic over the next six months because he deserves the opportunity to go forward and make his argument and try to win.
TRAPPER: Mr. Trump is going to meet with republican leaders, including Paul Ryan, on Thursday. What is he going to need to do to get more republicans onboard, more specifically what is he going to need to do to get you to say, I support Donald Trump to be president, because you are not saying that? You're saying I signed a pledge and I will honor the pledge. You are not saying the words I support Donald Trump.
RUBIO: Let's begin with the premise that this has been a very unusual election cycle, unlike anything we've ever seen before. So I don't know if there's a well-established road map forward in terms of how to do that. I think significant public policy differences will remain between now and the election. I do think it's smart that he's coming to D.C., that he's meeting with the leaders of our party and I think that's part of that process. We'll see where we are in two months, in three months, in four months. I'm not asking him to change his position. I would like him to change his position on some issues, but I think he has won the primary based on a given set of things that he has stood for. My sense is he will continue to stand for those things.
TAPPER: It's being put out there by the Cruz campaign they tried to get you to be his running mate earlier in the process, in March. They reached out and they polled and it seemed like a Cruz-Rubio ticket, with him at the top of the ticket, would have been able to stop Donald Trump, and they fault you for not taking that opportunity.
RUBIO: Well, look, I don't know who put that out there. I talked to Ted the day after the Florida primary when I dropped out. He didn't say a word about VP or anything of that nature. I also, quite frankly, think it's an unfortunate story, given Carly Fiorina worked hard for his campaign. She did a lot of hard work. The story kind of implies that she wasn't their first choice. I think that's unfair to her. Whoever put that out really was a classless move when it comes to Carly, but I think that story is largely inaccurate, in terms of any outreach to me.
[00:35:02] TAPPER: Okay; I mean, the people who told me the story - I'm the one who wrote the story, said that they had reached out through emissaries and it came back to them that you were not interested.
RUBIO: Well there may be people out there that were talking about it, but I spoke to Ted personally the day after the election and that topic never came up.
TAPPER: Would it have worked?
RUBIO: I don't believe it would have. I don't think you win by doing those sorts of things. The bottom line is, whether we like it or not, Donald has been able to tap into a sense in this country, of millions of Americans, that they are being left behind by massive transitions in our economy, compounded by an economic meltdown in 2008, compounded by eight years of Barack Obama's policies that have left Americans feeling that America is weaker in the world. He was able to tap into that successfully to become the nominee. That's the reality of what we face. I'm not sure that after a certain point in this campaign, anything would have stopped that.
TAPPER: Are you saying definitively you would never serve as his vice president if he asked?
RUBIO: Who is that?
TAPPER: Donald Trump. I'm sorry, Donald Trump.
RUBIO: We just -
TAPPER: Right. Right; sorry.
RUBIO: No. He needs to appoint someone to be his vice presidential nominee that more fully embraces the things he stands for.
TAPPER: You mean, no, you are not interested?
RUBIO: Absolutely; and, again, to be frank, I've never had those conversations with anyone in the campaign so I'm not saying that anyone has offered it to me or it has been suggested to me. I'm just saying to you that I believe he would be best served by someone who more fully embraces the things he stands for, and that's certainly not me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: If you believe he doesn't want to be president -- vice president, show of hands.
SELLERS: Doesn't want to be?
LEMON: Doesn't want to be, show of hands?
PRESTON: I don't believe him.
LEMON: We will discuss after the break; don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right; back with me now, my political dream team. So, his first national interview with my colleague, Jake Tapper; we're talking about Marco Rubio. Several of you raised your hands when you said you do believe that he doesn't want to be vice president. Who didn't believe it? Why don't you believe it?
PRESS: Because, first of all, he is a politician, I guess. That's a cheap shot, I know, but [00:40:02] I don't take everything these guys say -- maybe anything these guys say for granted. Look, vice president is a damned good job and you could do a lot with it, and if you want to be president, it's a good place to be. I think he could very well - I think he may be playing a game right now. He wants people to come to him and say, to save the party, to unify the party, to bring everybody together, Little Marco, you have to do this.
LEMON: Oh. Wow.
MADDEN: I mean, I think Marco Rubio is 45 years old. He still sees himself as import -- many people inside the party do see him as the future of the party. He wants to be president one day.
LEMON: Yes.
MADDEN: And I think he would worry that the profile that Donald Trump has right now, with key constituencies that are growing in the electorate, would be toxic.
The other thing too is, he has been around politics long enough to know that the (inaudible) approach which, he alluded to this in the interview. which people apply to being VP, which is you try to get a demographic, or you try to appeal to a regional balance on the ticket. That -- usually when they try that, it doesn't work as well. You need to have somebody that you know and that you trust. He doesn't know and they don't have a level of trust --
PRESS: I thought you said you do believe him?
LEMON: You do believe him?
MADDEN: I do believe that he doesn't want to be, yes.
LEMON: He doesn't, okay.
PRESS: I'm the only one --
MADDEN: Did I raise my hand at the wrong time?
LEMON: Yes, you did.
MCENANY: I was halfway there. I was halfway there.
[Laughter]
LEMON: So who would he pick?
MADDEN: I think he would pick somebody he is close to. I think maybe that short list with Chris Christie or we saw Jan Brewer's name start to bubble up. Something like that, I think, that he knows, maybe a little better.
LEMON: I had Amy Holmes last night say -
MADDEN: Chris Christie; Newt Gingrich.
LEMON: -- a lot of Republicans are mad at him still for the hug and for Sandy.
MADDEN: Sure; yes. There's a very limited universe here.
PRESS: I was going to say, who is he close to? Think about it.
PRESTON: Well, look, think that in addition to the five or six -
MADDEN: Kasich.
PRESTON: Donald Trump says he is looking at five or six people. I think he can be looking at 25 people; we don't know. I think he said that number today. I've been saying this, and I will say it until it doesn't happen, and then I'll pretend I didn't say it; but the bottom line is I think he could pick a general -- a retired general that will help him with national security, that understands a chain of command and that understands loyalty. Those are all three things that -
MADDEN: Gene Webb was (inaudible) as a possible name too.
SELLERS: I think one of the things you saw that was interesting is you saw the future of the Republican Party, or who many people see as the future of the Republican Party: Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley; these people come out and say, no, I don't want to be a part of this. I'm not going to be a part of this. Donald Trump says although the people that are saying it, they weren't asked. But the future is -- the future of the Republican Party, all your Tim Scott's, all your Nikki Haley's, all your Marco Rubio's and what you're going to see them do is sprint away from Donald Trump.
PRESTON: For their own political opportunistic reasons.
HOOVER: Which is -- to your point, it would be much more refreshing for somebody who actually wants to see a Republican Party win a national election for more than one time in six years.
Forget about unifying the party. I want to make a point about standing on principle rather than political opportunism. This is why, we were talking about this earlier, you know, Ben Sass is very refreshing for people in the party, because he's a senator from Nebraska and he has said, I will never vote for Donald Trump. He doesn't represent me. He does not represent conservative principles. He does not represent the future of the Party. Where you saw Marco Rubio, on the flip side saying, well, I pledged that I would vote for the nominee regardless who it is, but I still don't think he should have the nuclear codes.
MCENANY: That's because he's a man of his word and I have immense respect for Marco Rubio --
HOOVER: And not a man of principle.
MCENANY: - not only to be a man -
(CROSSTALK)
HOOVER: And that, for me, for many people means that can't be the future of the Republican Party if you are not willing to stand by what you believe.
MCENANY: No, Marco Rubio was -
LEMON: If you say horrible things to each other and about someone and then you are going to say, well, I support him. It wasn't a full thrown endorsement. It sounds like he is coming around.
MCENANY: No, it wasn't; but he gave his word and he stuck by him. Not only that, but a lot of people take the opposite side of Margaret and think you are standing on principle when you are opposing Hillary Clinton and four more years of Obama values and policies. A lot of people think what Marco Rubio did today is he sucked up his pride and said, you know what; I understand this was a hard election, but I don't want to see Hillary Clinton in White House. I'm a man of my word. I have so much respect for him for Rick Perry, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, for the true leaders in our party who said it's time to unite.
LEMON: This is why I don't understand, -- quite honestly, I'm an outlier. I don't understand political parties because if there was someone who truly disgusts me or I don't like or is not -- doesn't have my principles or my best issues at heart, I'm not going to vote for them. I don't care what party they, what gender they are, who color they are, I don't really care.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: That's why this election is rare because what Donald Trump did was, there's certain lines that candidates usually do not cross. What you see with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is they're going at each other full throttle but it's on policy issues. Donald Trump literally said that another opponent's father was on the grassy knoll with Lee Harvey Oswald. Do you [00:45:01] know how bizarre and crazy that is?
HOOVER: Right. Right.
PRESTON: Has not been disproven, just say. Hasn't been disproven.
[Laughter]
SELLERS: You are 44, please.
LEMON: Quiet down.
SELLERS: So when you make these type of attacks on people's wives on people's fathers, on their very being, I mean, those are beyond -
LEMON: Okay; answer my question then, please, someone. Why then do you vote for someone just because they happen to be of the same party?
PRESTON: It's a republican problem.
LEMON: What is that?
(CROSSTALK) MADDEN: I don't think it's a republican problem; I think it's an individual problem.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Why do it then?
MADDEN: Look, I am a lot like Margaret in this sense. I firmly believe that when -- particularly when you run for president, that it's a test of character. If you don't meet that test of character, then I won't support you. Choosing not to support my party nominee is a choice in itself.
LEMON: Right.
MADDEN: I think a lot of people feel like that. At the same time, this is where the party -- this is where party unity does make sense to me and maybe not you, which is, that doesn't mean that I want to demonize those that are supporters. I don't personally attack Kayleigh.
HOOVER: Exactly.
MADDEN: I disagree with Kayleigh, but there are folks that he did earn a lot of votes. He may not have earned everybody's but he has earned a lot. So I think one of the things that we have to understand as a party is, understand some of that energy that is moving away from certain candidates towards Donald Trump.
LEMON: I have to get to a break, but -
PRESS: Okay.
LEMON: -- but I'm not just talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about anyone running -
MADDEN: Yes, I agree.
LEMON: -- for any office.
MADDEN: I agree.
LEMON: Why vote for someone just because they're of the same particular party? I don't get that. So stay with me everyone. I want to know what you think will come out of this Trump's big meeting with the GOP brass coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:50:21] LEMON: So, Bernie Sanders with the momentum tonight, winning and also talking about it; listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: The reason that our campaign is the strongest campaign against Trump is not just the polls. It is that our campaign is generating the energy and the enthusiasm that we need to have a large voter turnout in November.
[Applause]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So energy, maybe some momentum; but that's not math. So what's the reality here?
PRESTON: Say again, the press -
SELLERS: He has a unique theory about math.
LEMON: Is he right to turn to voter turnout?
PRESS: Absolutely he is right. Look, tonight Bernie won among women; he won among independents; he won among millennials again; he won among average, white, working-class Americans in West Virginia. He has been winning state after state. He is going to win Oregon. He could win Kentucky. As a former California Democratic Chair, I think he's going to win California.
So take Bernie out of the picture and the other candidate has all the math? That doesn't -- that's not necessarily a winning formula. You need the math and you need that energy; and Hillary is not generating that energy. that's a problem.
PRESTON: So a couple of things, just teeing off of what Bakari said, about how Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been going at it. They have been going at it. it has been eclipsed by this fight in the Republican Party, with Donald Trump at the top. Remove that and we would all be focused on the division within Democratic Party; having said that, I do think at some point Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are going to come to the table.
LEMON: I agree.
PRESTON: They will negotiate a deal and he'll get what he needs in the platform. He will be able to bring and excite those kids to go support her.
LEMON: This is a longer process; could it turn --
SELLERS: This is the process. It is what it is. I mean, the rules were set out at the beginning; and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have had their ups and downs. From the beginning, I've said this race has not been about momentum. This race has been about demographics, and we've seen that. Where it's more diverse demographics, Hillary Clinton has tended to do better in this race, and that has remained. One of Bernie Sanders issues was he could not expand his electorate.
But, with that being said, one of the names that we have not mentioned tonight is the person sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a 53- percent approval rating, who happens to be the most popular Democrat in America right now, which is Barack Obama. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. Barack is going to have two roles. He's not only going to be the
unifier-in-chief, but he's going to be the pit bull, along with Elizabeth Warren, along with Bernie Sanders, that goes straight at Donald Trump's chin. What we're going to see is something we haven't been able to see, which is whether or not Donald Trump has a glass jaw or not. So I think the Repub -- the Democratic Party has an advantage, in that we, as a collective, we, the first time we have probably said this, Bernie Sanders supporters, like Bill Press, myself, Hillary Clinton supporters, we have a lot of energy and we have a lot of energy because of our messaging; and we have a lot of energy because we want to beat back on the bigotry known as Donald Trump.
LEMON: Margaret, you made a point earlier; you said it's going to be Elizabeth Warren and other prominent democrats, who are rallying around whoever the nominee is, and probably Bernie Sanders rallying around Hillary Clinton, if she becomes the nominee. That includes the president and the current first lady. That's very powerful.
HOOVER: For me an incredibly unified front. By the way, you are right about this enthusiasm gap. I mean, the enthusiasm is on Bernie Sanders' side but if Bernie Sanders stands by, Barack Obama stands by and Elizabeth Warren, they all say, look you all might not love Hillary Clinton but you all hate Donald Trump. That is probably the cohesive element in the stew that really riles the juices of all these specific groups that make up that coalition that was so historic for Barack Obama, that Hillary Clinton needs to get over the line.
LEMON: But is this is an -
PRESS: It's kind of an unusual election we're; that the Republican are going to run, you may not like Donald Trump, but you hate Hillary Clinton. You are saying, now Democrats are saying, it may not get as ill run and say, you may not be in love with Hillary, but you hate Donald Trump. I mean, what the hell?
MADDEN: Presidential elections are unique in that what you are asking your voters and your volunteers to do is invest in you, the candidate, for the candidate and when the message is, we want to stop the other guy, it's just not as mobilizing a message. But here, on both sides, everybody sees the other side as the mobilizing force; or the common opposition is what they expect is going to energize each other's base.
LEMON: So united front, as Margaret said, and everyone is looking, wondering if there is going to be a united front come Thursday. What does this mean for the Trump campaign? You're going to have the united front on that side. [00:55:02] Is this more imp - does that make this meeting more important?
MCENANY: It is an important meeting. There will be a united front. I think we've already seen them both extend olive branches to one another: Paul Ryan saying I won't be the chair if you don't want me to; Donald Trump saying he thinks it's going to be a great meeting. There will be a meeting of the minds and they will come together.
Bakari's right, that Barack Obama's going to be a very powerful advocate for Hillary Clinton, as will Bernie Sanders but at the end of the day, it's not Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump and the debate state; it's not
Barack Obama versus Donald Trump. It's Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton who is immensely unlikable and she's not good on her feet, and that's going to be a disaster.
SELLERS: Not good on her feet?
(CROSSTALK)
MADDEN: Let me lower expectations on her.
LEMON: Hurry, hurry.
MADDEN: I don't think it's going to happen in one meeting. There are very serious differences there. I expect it will be a longer process than any one meeting.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Okay; we're going to go for another hour. Are you guys ready?
[Laughter]
LEMON: So, what do you guys think, real quickly, the meeting between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan?
MCENANY: Unity.
LEMON: Unity?
MCENANY: Here's what I'll say --
PRESTON: Important first step. I think Kevin's right, nothing gets resolved but an important first step.
HOOVER: I think it's going to be -
SELLERS: Paul Ryan will fold.
HOOVER: It's going to be more about -- the conversation will be not about taxes, not about running, not about policy, not about philosophy, but tone and tenor of the campaign.
LEMON: Our coverage of the West Virginia and Nebraska primaries and the 2016 presidential race continues now with John Vause and Isha Sesay in Los Angeles.
