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Trump Meets Ryan. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 12, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:30]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin on this Thursday. Great to be with you.

Huge, huge news out of our nation's capital potentially here. Today's plan for Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan to finally reach some common ground, you know, one headline could be no endorsement yet. But it's a process. It takes time, so says the speaker.

Mr. Trump and Speaker Ryan met today for a highly anticipated conversation about how they can come together, airing out some of their differences, ultimately how the Republican Party can come together for the one objective they can all agree on, defeat the Democratic nominee this fall.

Speaker Ryan did not reveal exactly what if anything was resolved, but he did say they need more time to talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The process of unifying the Republican Party, which just finished a primary about a week ago, perhaps one of the most divisive primaries, in memory takes some time.

Look, there are people who are for Donald Trump, who are for Ted Cruz, who are for John Kasich, who are for Marco Rubio and everybody else. And it's very important that we don't fake unifying, we don't pretend unification, that we truly and actually unify so that we're full strength in the fall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go straight to Washington to CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash.

Dana Bash, you have been all over the place this morning. Loved your interview with RNC chair Priebus, which we will get to in a minute.

Your question about, are you like a couples counselor? But first...

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BALDWIN: But, first, the meeting this morning was quick, 45 minutes. What are your sources telling you? What happened? BASH: Well, you know, it is funny, because Paul Ryan, we should say,

did not endorse still, which is not a surprise, given the fact that he went pretty far out there last week with Jake Tapper, saying that he was going to withhold his endorsement.

I think it would have been politically pretty hard for him to just after, as he says, a 45-minute meeting with Trump, to do a 180 or at least move towards a place where he's comfortable doing that. But, you know, the fact is that Paul Ryan clearly feels that he is the one who can and should kind of hold fast on conservative principles and the one who should remind Donald Trump that he certainly is bringing new people into the party. He did get millions of voters.

He got more voters than the other 16 Republicans running in the primary. But the fact is, there are a lot of people who voted against him. So my understanding is that that was part of the discussion behind closed doors. What are the conservative principles that Ryan speaking for those who are skeptical of Trump expect him to adhere to?

Talked a little bit about some of the underlying core issues, even, for example, something that the House has nothing to do with, technically, which is judges. That's a Senate issue, but it is something that's very important to the conservative grassroots, that they feel comfortable that Donald Trump is going to put somebody up that's acceptable to them, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Onto your conversation with Reince Priebus. Here's how that happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Unifying the party should be no surprise to anyone, that that's one of the jobs of being chairman of the Republican Party, and it's important to be unified.

It important to remember that...

BASH: But it's not usually this hard.

PRIEBUS: Well, you know what? This was not a usual election. It was a very contentious, tough primary. And, obviously, no one can deny that. It's something that a lot of us haven't been through.

BASH: Do you feel like a couples therapist?

PRIEBUS: No. You know what? You wouldn't say that if you were in the room. It was very -- it was great. And I think we had very good chemistry between the two of them.

And it was -- like I said before, I don't want to be repetitive, but it can only...

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Because I can't imagine two more different people, kinds of people than Donald Trump and Paul Ryan. They had good chemistry?

PRIEBUS: Look, it was positive. It was give and take and it was also something that I think, if anyone was a fly on the wall, would agree with everything that I'm saying.

BASH: But you are the fly on the wall. So, what else you tell us?

PRIEBUS: I can't say a whole lot. Look, I have got to honor confidentiality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And, Brooke, you know, that was just the first meeting that Paul -- or first set of meetings, forgive me, that Donald Trump had with the RNC chair and then House leaders.

[15:05:10]

He then went over to the Senate and we have had our stellar team here running around these halls talking to senators. One interesting nugget that I can give to you from our Ted Barrett was from John Cornyn, who is number two Republican in the Senate, who said that he specifically told Trump that he, Cornyn, won a majority of Hispanics in his state of Texas, and that he thinks it's important to be careful with his tone and tenor vis-a-vis Hispanics and that perhaps he can help Trump with that.

But, all in all, I'm told that it was a very -- it was very personable and more importantly senators and House members found Trump very personable and even charming.

BALDWIN: So, on the Republican senators, you and I, Dana Bash, were just talking last week out of your interview with Senator Lindsey Graham. This is a man who has been around those halls for a while who was telling you, you know what? I'm not voting for a president come November, which was huge news for a sitting senator.

Flash-forward to today.

BASH: Yes.

BALDWIN: He apparently met with Mr. Trump and was impressed. Will that change his mind?

BASH: That's right. They spoke on the phone. This again according to our...

BALDWIN: On the phone?

BASH: Right, to our intrepid producer here Ted Barrett.

They spoke on the phone yesterday, because Graham heard through a mutual friend that Trump wanted to talk to him. He is not going to change his mind. Apparently, he said to Trump, I'm still not going to endorse you or vote for you. But this is no question a key example of what I'm calling the Trump

thaw. I actually happened to talk to Graham yesterday at an event here in Washington and he was saying that he actually believes that there are parts of Trump's populist message that could help the Republicans. And I went, what?

So, there's no question that you are seeing even his most ardent opponents trying to find a silver lining in the Trump nomination.

BALDWIN: An opponent who went out of his way to make a hysterical video where he's burning and cooking and killing his cell phone after Donald Trump gave away his cell phone number.

BASH: Yes.

BALDWIN: We're just -- we're playing that video right now just to remind everyone sort of how ludicrous...

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: But, by the way, it had been time for him to get rid of that cell phone.

BALDWIN: Yes. It was over with the flip phone days. Welcome to 2016, Mr. Senator.

Dana Bash, thank you so much, Dana Bash on Capitol Hill for us.

So, the question remains, will Trump get Ryan's endorsement eventually, and, if not, what does that mean for the state of the Republican Party?

We will talk about that now with Healy Baumgardner. She's a senior press representative with the Trump campaign. Also with me, Kevin Sheridan, the former senior adviser for Mitt Romney. He was also the chief communications person for the now speaker, Speaker Ryan, and a former spokesman for the RNC. And Genevieve Wood, she's a former spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

All right, so welcome all of you.

And, Healy, you know, we have heard publicly from Speaker Ryan here out of the meeting this morning. What did Mr. Trump think?

HEALY BAUMGARDNER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR REPRESENTATIVE: Well, I mean, I think that this is symbolic; it's symbolic of a unification moving forward, developing open lines of communication and carving out a path to victory in November.

BALDWIN: You know, when you hear from Speaker Ryan, looking down from my notes, when he was saying you can't fake unity, this is a process, this will take time, how OK, how on the same page is Mr. Trump with that?

BAUMGARDNER: Well, I think that it does take time. You know, it takes time to carve out, you know, policy matters in depth, but the fact of the matter is, is they do share very common values, such as cutting taxes for the middle class, reducing the deficit and balancing the budget. And those are key things to be on the same page about.

BALDWIN: Well, Kevin Sheridan, you know that Speaker Ryan knows a thing or two about balancing a budget.

And I'm curious as far as sort of how he functions, the fact that he had mentioned he had only really met Mr. Trump. I think he said 2012 for 30 seconds and here they are face to face for 45 minutes.

He seems to me kind of numbers, meticulous, measured sort of man. So I imagine you're not surprised that he didn't come out of here saying, OK, OK, I endorse him. How do you see Speaker Ryan handling this moving forward?

KEVIN SHERIDAN, FORMER ROMNEY ADVISER: Well, I think, given the options that he had, he decided that it would be best to try to steer the party in a different direction or, you know, a better direction, so that we don't, you know, split apart into feuding wings.

And he's trying to do his best to provide the space that each of his members can run their own races and allow the presumptive nominee of our party to run his race and to try and do it with some mutual respect and some communication.

That has now started. And I think that conversation will go on and we will see where it goes into the summer and hopefully into the fall. But this is the first step in that. And I think today was probably a pretty good start.

[15:10:05]

BALDWIN: Genevieve, who needs who more who more here, Trump or Ryan?

GENEVIEVE WOOD, THE DAILY SIGNAL: Well, I honestly think, Brooke, that they need each other and the party needs both of them and everybody else to come together on this. You were talking about kind of the couples counseling at the top, but the truth is...

BALDWIN: Yes.

WOOD: ... just about every relationship is stronger after you have been through a disagreement, you have been through a fight, you have worked things out. You usually end up on the stronger side of that, not always, but you certainly can.

And I hope that is what the beginning of what we are seeing here, because, as Healy pointed out, look, in this country right now, you have almost 40 percent of the people of working age not working. So, President Obama talks about unemployment rates being down. That's because many people have dropped out.

Donald Trump has ignited a fire among many of those people who are concerned about the economy. And I think that Paul Ryan, nobody more than he would like to turn this economy around. That's a top priority of his. So if they can come together with their desires and passions to do the right thing and find some common ground on policy, I think you are going to see this being much -- a much stronger relationship than many people may have -- actually think.

BALDWIN: And it sounds like it's on policy. That's sort of where Speaker Ryan was alluding. That's where they're heading next and whenever the next meeting may be scheduled on their calendars.

Healy, let me just play you some sound from the speaker's news conference this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: Look, there are just things we really believe in as conservatives. We believe in limited government. We believe in the Constitution. We believe in the proper role of the differences and the separations of powers.

We believe in things like life. I know we -- not everyone is pro- choice in our party, and we accept all comers, but we are a majority pro-life party. And these are things that are important to us, so we just had a good exchange of views on these kinds of issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Healy, you know, those core principles, obviously, so, so important to the speaker of the House. I'm curious with Donald Trump how much, to your knowledge, he struggles with the values that define conservatism?

BAUMGARDNER: Well, I don't think he struggles with those values at all. I think it's very clear based off of the historic support that he's gained from American voters.

I think that, you know, he's not only reenergized conservatism, but he's reaching across party lines and bringing people...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Where would he disagree with Speaker Ryan?

BAUMGARDNER: Historically -- I don't think he would disagree with those being key values at all.

BALDWIN: Kevin, would you agree with that?

SHERIDAN: Well, they have got real policy differences on trade. They have got differences in policy apparently on maybe raising taxes, and, you know, the minimum wage and some other things, but, honestly, Donald Trump's positions have changed frequently, so we're not really sure exactly where he is going to land on any given day.

BALDWIN: He moves a lot.

SHERIDAN: But if he ends up with some consistent positions, and they end up being in agreement on those things that they can agree on, then we may have, you know, a unified-ish ticket going forward, where the House can run their races, the Senate can run their races, and Donald Trump can run his race.

And, you know, that remains to be seen. We still need some work to do here, and this is the first step in that.

BALDWIN: Ish. We will take that.

Genevieve, I want to talk to you about Reince Priebus, back to the so- called couples counselor here.

WOOD: Yes.

BALDWIN: This all happened in his office this morning. He was there. Apparently, Dana Bash was saying that he has been on the phone quite a bit in the last few weeks with Mr. Trump, in fact, occasionally multiple times a day. What is Reince Priebus's role here?

WOOD: Well, he's a power broker to a great extent working out I think whether you want to call them relationships or deals between all the folks involved.

I mean, there's a lot of things that make up a party apparatus. You have the Republican National Committee, but you have the Senate leadership, you have the House leadership. You now have the presidential candidate, but then you have all these folks across the country at the state level, county levels that have to be brought in and that's a big part of what his job is about.

But, look, I think at the end of the day what unifies many -- pretty much everybody on the right, whether you're just right of center or you're far over on the right side, is they look at Hillary Clinton and they look at the fact she's not going to change probably any policy that Barack Obama has had in play.

And I think for people who want change, they're eager to see this all kind of come together and find places of agreement first. Then you can start working out the areas where maybe trade policy, there's going to be more of a disagreement, but I think there are areas where people can truly go, hey, we agree on that.

I mean, last I heard, Donald Trump and Speaker Ryan both want to repeal Obamacare. That would be a nice place to start, but you're going to need both the presidency and a Republican Congress to make that happen, which is why they actually need each other.

BALDWIN: Let me just button this by saying if you check Hillary Clinton's Twitter page, I think lost in today's discussions are sort of the Democratic perspective, and they jumped all over this, the sort of lack of endorsement thus far, even though Mr. Trump is the presumptive nominee, and essentially put together an entire mash-up video of this not quite there yet from Speaker Ryan on an endorsement.

[15:15:05]

And she tweeted essentially good luck with that.

So, that's also a narrative from the other side of things. Kevin Sheridan, Healy Baumgardner, and Genevieve Wood, thank you so

much. Great discussion.

Coming up next here, Donald Trump softening his stance on yet another issue, the Muslim ban. Hear who he has said in the past he wants to put in charge of his -- quote, unquote -- "radical Islam commission" and the timing of his softening of the stance here ahead of this meeting today.

Plus, Hillary Clinton not ignoring today's meeting. Hear what she says about Ryan and Trump's come-together. This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

[15:20:00]

Remember Donald Trump's proposal of a -- and I'm quoting him now -- "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States"?

It was a statement that definitely sent shockwaves across the country and really around the world, infuriating his critics and invigorating his supporters. Well, guess what. Apparently, it was merely a suggestion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Sure, I would back off of it. I would like to back off as soon as possible, because, frankly, I would like to see something happen. But we have to be vigilant.

We have a serious problem. It's a temporary ban. It hasn't been called for yet. Nobody's done it. This is just a suggestion until we find out what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: A significant backpedal with curious timing. Within 24 hours of those statements, Donald Trump met this morning with the most powerful elected Republican, Paul Ryan, a man who vehemently condemned that plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and more importantly it's not what this country stands for. Not only are there many Muslims serving in our armed forces dying for this country.

There are Muslims serving right here in the House working every day to uphold and to defend the Constitution.

Joining me now, Kellyanne Conway, Republican pollster and president and CEO of The Polling Company, and also Susan Del Percio, Republican strategist and former Rudy Giuliani administration official.

Ladies, nice to have you both on.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And, Kellyanne, just first to you, on Donald Trump and this Muslim ban here the night before this hugely important meeting in Washington, it cannot be a coincidence. Why do you think he did it?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESIDENT & CEO, THE POLLING COMPANY: Well, he is a general election candidate now. I think he's being asked about some of the things he said in the primary.

And he just made very clear what his current position is. I will make a point that was something that we discovered at the Ted Cruz super PAC through our polling which I think is relevant to your question, Brooke. And it's this.

Politicians are held to account for their actions right this second. Non-politicians will be held to account for their statements and actions at a time to be determined in the future.

And I think that did benefit Mr. Trump over the course of the primary season, where people heard things, they made a judgment based on that statement or based on the revelation of fact or the scandal from long ago, but if he's out there basically saying to his voters, it's us vs. them, and the them are terrorists or the them is rigged system or the them is Washington politicians, he locked arms with people early on where they felt like when he was being attacked on something, including this ban, that they were being attacked.

It's quite remarkable to see.

BALDWIN: But let me go back to your point about being held accountable.

This is a perfect example, Susan, of -- depending on where you fall on the spectrum of Donald Trump, it could be seen as an evolution, it could be seen as he's moving, it could be a flip-flop, you know, in what he's talked about with regard to the Muslim ban and many other issues.

And this is what -- I was just talking to a panel of political analysts, calling him out on a flip-flop again.

SUSAN DEL PERCIO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: But here's what we have seen all along with Donald Trump, whether it's the positions he had before he was even a candidate a year ago or five years ago and how they changed, evolved, or flip-flopped, whatever word you want to use.

People are used to that narrative. It's built into the cake, if you will, on Donald Trump. He changes his positions. He adapts. He does what's politically expedient.

What is interesting on this, though, is that he mentioned bringing in former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to kind of head up a commission, which says that he will look to people, in this particular case, who know the law, know security, and maybe he will just throw out that this was a suggestion and that, you know, as president...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Can I stop you there? How's that supposed to work? I know you're an adviser, you know, with the former New York mayor and how he was saying he would chair a commission on handling radical Islam.

What are your thoughts on that?

DEL PERCIO: On is the issue being looked at? I think it does need to be looked at, because when Mr. Trump brought that up, that issue up back in December, the first thing Rudy Giuliani said was that it's against the Constitution, it won't work that way.

So, if you want a -- and it's a legitimate concern that people have. And whether you agree with it or not, people are all overly concerned about who's coming into this country. Maybe you do need someone with the background to say, no, you can't do it as a ban, but this is what we need to start doing. We have to look at people from certain countries.

We need to make sure that visas are being checked and that there are other things we can do. And that's going to work in the Trump world because he hasn't necessarily been 100 percent anything I think for more than a couple of years.

BALDWIN: Let me move off that.

And, Kellyanne, let come back to you here on, first of all, the meeting this morning in Washington, the optics of two seemingly polar opposite individuals, a Donald Trump and a Paul Ryan.

I'm wondering, since you're a former Ted Cruz supporter, recent Ted Cruz supporter, do you think we could possibly see a Ted Cruz and Donald Trump sort of melding of minds, smoothing things over and dare I even ask an endorsement?

[15:25:05]

CONWAY: I certainly hope that they will get together at some point, Brooke.

But I have to say, I respect Senator Cruz enormously, was so honored to serve as the head of his super PAC. And -- but I -- but the timeline decision is really up to him. There were some personal insults there against wife and father that are very difficult to swallow, I'm sure.

But I think Ted Cruz needs to be given his due also. Against tremendous headwinds, he won 10 states and he came in second in a very serious field of 17. And since we keep talking about unity, unity, unity, one, Hillary Clinton...

(CROSSTALK) BALDWIN: Hang on. Hang on. But I have to hold you to that question.

CONWAY: Yes.

BALDWIN: Just politely, do you think he would endorse him? Do you think he should endorse him?

CONWAY: I don't know.

I think that he will do what he can to help keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. And if you're Ted Cruz, there are many things that you can do formally and informally. And I expect he will.

He was the second top vote-getter against tremendous headwinds. Just like with Mr. Trump, Senator Cruz was told from the beginning, don't run. What a ridiculous idea. You can't win. And they came in first and second.

I think the Trump-Cruz one-two punch against the establishment left it flat on its back, completely purged this silly word of electability. Let's go with who can win. Jeb can win. Walker can win. All these people can win. And then they lost.

And I think the electricity that replaced electability really was owned by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. So, I certainly hope that their supporters and that those two men get their due in terms of moving forward and stopping Hillary.

And I just wanted to finish with this. This whole idea that it's on Donald Trump's shoulders almost only to unify the Republican Party, if the Republican Party were unified, he wouldn't be the nominee, and if the Republican Party were unified, 17 people would not have run for president.

BALDWIN: Hmm. There you go. We will end it on that. We will marinate.

Kellyanne and Susan Del Percio, thank you very much.

CONWAY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thanks, ladies.

DEL PERCIO: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, Donald Trump vs. the Republican Party on the issues. We will break down how the presumptive nominee's positions compare with the party he hopes to lead.

Plus, I will be joined live by former presidential candidate Jim Gilmore, who also served as the chair of the RNC. We will have him put his RNC chair hat on. Hear what he thinks about the state of the Republican Party and how this will go next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)