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Leaked Audio From 1990s May Pose New Problem For Trump Campaign; Trump Still Has Not Released Tax Returns; Federal Transgender Bathroom Guidelines Extended To School Locker Rooms, Have Many State Officials Outraged; ISIS Declares State Of Emergency Of Sorts In Raqqa; Does Bernie Sanders Have A Mathematical And Realistic Chance? Aired 3-4p ET

Aired May 14, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00] ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN news, thanks so much for joining us. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Poppy Harlow.

And we began with new and potential problems surfacing for Donald Trump's campaign. This is just after their Republican leadership. They'll recall agree to work with him on party unity. Now, the first possible issue for the presumptive GOP nominee is this leaked audio recording from the 1990s that some claim reveals Trump posing as his own P.R. rep during a phone interview with a reporter. Trump denies it's his voice on the tape. Here's a portion of the interview.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd showed up the plan here to handle because I've never seen anybody get so many calls from the press.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where did you come from?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we work for different firms. I work for a couple of different firms. And then somebody that knows. And I think somebody that he trusts didn't liked it so. I'm going to do just a little part-time and, you know, with my life too.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CABRERA: All right. We'll dig into that in just a moment, but first, another issue catching fire, Trump refusing to releases his tax returns until an audit is complete. And now the Clinton campaign is jumping all over that alleging he has something to hide.

Let's go to CNN Scott McLean for that part of the story. Scott?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey Ana. Well, just as Trump is working to unify the party and starting to gain more support from Republican donors and congressmen. He's taking direct fire from the Clinton campaign. Democrats are seizing on Trump's latest refusal to release his tax returns with this web video out today. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: May be I'm going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) U.S. PRESIDENT: The State of Hawaii released my official long form birth certificate.

TRUMP: If I decided to run for office, I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely.

I'm officially running for president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's getting any closer to releasing your tax returns?

TRUMP: Well, I'm thinking about it. I can't do it until the audit is finished.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The audit is no excuse. The IRS made it very clear that an audit is not bar to public release. It is entirely your choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: And so at that point Donald Trump says he will not make his tax returns public until an IRS audit is complete, and we don't know when that might be.

Trump said yesterday that he hopes it's before the election. Now, Clinton first started hitting Trump on the issue Wednesday, then on Friday was asked about his tax rate in an interview, his response was, "None of your business." Trump says we won't learn much from his returns anyway is they wont list his net worth but we would find out about his donations to charity, any debt he may have and his effective tax rate which he says he works to keep very low.

Now, legally he's also under no obligation to release his returns, but if he doesn't he would be the first presidential nominee not to since the 1970s.

Now, Hillary Clinton, she likes this issue, because her returns, they are already out there. For its part, though, the Trump campaign has hit Clinton on the transparency issue pointing out her pointing to I should say, her use of a private e-mail server and her refusal to release the transcripts of high price speech that she gave Goldman Sachs, Ana.

CABRERA: All right, really ran through a lot there for us, Scott. Scott McLean, thanks for that report.

I also want to talk more about this bizarre audio tape that had the political world a buzz. Trump denies it's his voice on a 1991 recording between a people magazine reporter and a mysterious P.R. man calling himself John Miller who's found an awful lot like Donald Trump. Here's the side by side comparison, listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can tell you this. TRUMP: I can tell you this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's probably doing as well as anybody ...

TRUMP: I know politics as well as anybody. I hold up the bible as well as anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you understand that.

TRUMP: You understand that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you talking to do tremendously well?

TRUMP: She did tremendously well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he pay his wife a great deal of money.

TRUMP: You will see a great deal of cooperation.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN's Senior Investigative Correspondent, Drew Griffin took that tape from the 1990s to a forensic audio expert. And take a look at what he found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Morning.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The real amazing story of Donald Trump's old spokesman as The Washington Post headlines rights may be that it's been such an open secret for so long it's hard to believe that anyone is still questioning it.

CARSWELL: What's your name again?

MILLER: John Miller.

CARSWELL: And you work with Donald Trump?

MILLER: Yes, that's correct.

GRIFFIN: It was back in the 1980s when the flashy New York Real Estate Mogul needed to get a bit of news out. The newspaper reports it was common knowledge among New York reporters that Trump just assumed a different name and handled the media calls himself. Like this call from reporter Sue Carswell at "People" magazine concerning Trump's breakup with girlfriend Marla Maples.

CARSWELL: What kind of comment is -- which is coming from, you know, your agency or from Donald?

MILLER: Well, it's just that he really decided that he wasn't, you know, that he didn't want to make any commitment. He didn't want to make a commitment he really thought it was just soon. That he's coming out of a, you know, a marriage that - and he's starting to do tremendously well financially.

[15:05:00] GRIFFIN: If that John Miller sounds like Trump, it's because audio forensic expert Tom Owen says, in his opinion, it is.

TOM OWEN, AUDIO EXPERT: I can conclude with a fair degree of scientific certainty that it is Donald Trump's voice.

GRIFFIN: This afternoon, Owen compared that John Miller on that phone call with "People" magazine ...

MILLER: He did want to make a demand that you really do it with yourself.

GRIFFIN: ... to the real Donald Trump interviewed on CNN's "Larry King Live" in the 1990's.

TRUMP: I don't talk about relationships I don't talk about the personal aspects of it.

GRIFFIN: Due to the quality of the old recordings, he couldn't use his biometric analysis that he says would be absolutely certain. But based on pitch, tone, cadence, and his expertise, John Miller and Donald Trump are one and the same.

OWEN: I'm confident that its Donald Trump based on my analysis of the critical listening, listening to the two recordings. And make drawing a conclusion based on various factors, pitch, mannerisms, syllable coupling.

GRIFFIN: Trump even tacitly admitted under oath to using one of his false P.R. names in a 1990 court testimony, when he said, "I believe on occasion I used that name."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. I want to thank you ...

GRIFFIN: Trump was confronted with the taped phone call and "The Washington Post" story on Friday's "Today" show.

TRUMP: No, I don't think it -- I don't know anything about it. You'd tell me about it for first time and it doesn't sound like my voice at all.

I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice and you can imagine that, and this sounds like one of the scams. One of the many scams it doesn't sound like me.

GRIFFIN: Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now this is a week that could have been transformative for the campaign but these controversies had been dominating the headlines and I want to bring in our political panel to discus this.

Boris Sanchez is the Republican Strategies and Trump supporter also with the CNN Political Commentator, Ben Ferguson who was a Cruz backer now, but gradually coming on the Trump Train, Gentlemen.

(OFF-MIC)

CABRERA: I know you've talked the party unity always Ben?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right.

CABRERA: Now, before we get to our discussion, we did here this morning from the People Magazine reporter who is on the other end of this phone call, she spoke with Michael Smerconish and she's cloning a very interesting theory. Listen to this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Did you release this tape?

CARSWELL: No.

SMERCONISH: Did you have the tape? I mean, how did it get into play?

CARSWELL: All right. Two people had the tape. I had a tape and Trump had a tape. And I don't have the tape.

SMERCONISH: How do you think it got into play?

CARSWELL: Well, it didn't get to "The Washington Post" through me.

SMERCONISH: So?

CARSWELL: Trump.

SMERCONISH: You think Trump dropped this tape?

CARSWELL: Yeah.

SMERCONISH: Why would he do that?

CARSWELL: Look what's gone on this week, taxes, Paul Ryan, the butler. The butler did it. Now, Trump seems to like to pull "People" magazine type stories into the array.

SMERCONISH: So in other words ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: All right I want to go to you Boris first. Who link this tape was it Trump?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I have no idea, and I'm not going to speculate. I don't know ...

CABRERA: Would it have been Trump I mean would there be reason for him to?

SANCHEZ: Not a reason that I see but you had to ask him I don't, you know, I can't speak for what he chooses to do or not to do. Honestly it's on the whole tape issue is completely overblown 25 years ago. Hillary Clinton is under indictment or making -- could be under that another investigation by the FBI right now, we should be talking about that.

CABRERA: Although she has brought up issues that happened in the '90s for the Clinton's when Bill Clinton was president. That was over about 20 years ago as well.

SANCHEZ: He stood impeachment, right? This was an issue, didn't went to phone call, there's nothing in the phone call even that is -- it will initially take a fully innocuous things, so he or may not oppose his own publicist, what's the big deal?

CABRERA: Well, Ben, is it a big deal? Is this an issue of trustworthiness?

FERGUSON: Look, I don't think any of the supporters are going to care about this. They're going to -- you say that this is the media trying to tear him down. It's going to make him more defiant and -- but if you're trying to get people in the middle or people that may be weren't on Donald Trump's team early on, on the Trump train, these are little things that matter. It's called trustworthiness and its called honesty. That's Donald Trump's voice.

I'm not an idiot. Anyone that heard it is pretty clear it's Donald Trump's voice. I don't know why you don't just say, "Yeah, that was my voice. I used to mess with reporters and people would laugh at it." I do think that the theory that was put out there is pretty interesting because it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Donald Trump is a very smart guy. Would you rather have out there in the media, the story of him being his own publicist and saying it's not his voice or would you rather have a story up to this week about your taxes not being the first president who can't release them or the story about as butler and comments about the president that United States of America, Barack Obama.

I'll take the People Magazine story any day over those two and Donald Trump is a very smart man, I would say he's an Ivy Leaguer when it comes to media, media relations, and understanding how to control the stories that are out there, so if you put this out there on purpose to take away from those two conversations, well done sir, because you obviously won the day.

[15:10:01] CABRERA: Well, let me ask you Boris, if it is his voice and now he has already come out publicly and denied that it's his voice why do you think he would use the terminology and say, "Well, it doesn't sound like me." If there was a John Miller that existed why wouldn't he have said that sounds like John Miller the guy who used to work for me?

SANCHEZ: Well, Let's go back to how this came out, right. It was on the Today's Show, he was calling in for interview, wasn't in -- into his ear piece. And he was not expecting the question, got the question, I think it was played into his ear for the first time, and there was this initial reaction, so I have no idea, again, why he reacted the way that he did or whether that it is him or not him.

I have to take him at his word and that's all we should do. Again, we should be talking about policy here. We should be talking about real issues, the policy that Trump is putting out there, policy to Clinton, the fail policies, that Clinton has been standing for in her 30 years and that ...

(OFF-MIC)

SANCHEZ: Now, let me finish, I'll let you finish. So we should be talking about that whether it's him or not on that tape from 25 years ago to reporter to this People Magazine matters absolutely zero, and as far as the national electorate goes, they're going to know that, they're going to be concentrating again on Hillary Clinton's failed proposals and fact that Donald Trump got more votes than anybody in the history of the Republican primary is by far to this candidate for presidency in this country.

CABRERA: Ben, I'll get your response but then, I want to switch to taxes go ahead.

FERGUSON: I agree with you Boris that all those other issues are important right now. But Donald Trump decided that this conversation was going to continue when he said it wasn't his voice. You can't blame the media for this. This is something that Donald Trump has ...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: ... this isn't an issue we shouldn't be talking about it.

FERGUSON: Hold on. All right, and you're finish and let me finish. You can't have it both ways here and I think this is where ...

SANCHEZ: And I don't sound like a supporter Ben.

FERGUSON: Let me finish. I'm not an idiot. There's a difference. I don't blindly support the people when they lie and tell me that it's not their voice on a tape when it's blatantly their voice on a tape. I'm not going to be -- sit here and blindly follow someone when they lie to me. And I'm not going to try to sell those lies to the public. These are the trust issues that matter in a campaign and election. It's insulting to my intelligence and to everyone else when you sit there and you tell me somehow, that there's other issues that are more important ...

SANCHEZ: Ben, do you care whether it's his voice or not? It doesn't matter to you, I mean your smart guy. It shouldn't matter to you whether it's his voice or not. It's inaccurate phone call from 25 years ago.

FERGUSON: Honesty it does matter. I'm a smart guy, and smart people understand that honesty and integrity matter. And when you're running for the president of the United States of America ...

SANCHEZ: And that's why we shouldn't be voting for Hillary Clinton and should be voting for Trump. FERGUSON: I want you to tell the truths. That matters.

CABRERA: So, there is that issue about trustworthiness that both sides have been struggling with of course, as you mentioned, Hillary Clinton is also struggled with the perception among voters. But she's now attacking Trump on the issue of taxes. She is really using his own words in this new web video to show the timeline of the decision to not release his tax returns.

And as you know presidential candidates for the past 40 years have released their tax returns, so why would he be digging in his heels here? Let's listen to this web video.

Oh, I guess we don't have the sound by now, you probably both have seen the web video I'm talking about.

FERGUSON: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: Right.

CABRERA: I'll ask you the question, Boris. Why isn't he releasing his taxes? Why be so firm against doing so?

SANCHEZ: He's been firm on this for months now, that once the audit is done, he'll release the tax returns.

CABRERA: But he also keeps on saying, "Oh, I'll release them -- what here, I'll release them here -- there," which we showed in Scott McLean.

SANCHEZ: Since he has become candidate for president, almost nine months ago now, he has said that once his audit is complete, he'll release the tax returns. There's no federal obligation, there's no legal obligation to release tax returns, as you mentioned yourself. Well, since 1970 the candidates have done it. But before then, they did not and so it's up to the candidate to decide whether he does or does not what do so.

He has released the very detailed financial statement, which does detail his net worth. But people seemed to glaze over that and keep focused on with tax returns.

Now again, Hillary Clinton should worry about her own issues that's the e-mail prog. that's an investigation by the FBI, she said it was an inquiry. It's an investigation. The head of the FBI confirmed it.

Now, she's got her own speeches to Goldman Sachs that she doesn't want to release why not? That's her problem. So she should be focusing on her own issues, not Donald Trump's.

CABRERA: Do you think Ben that Donald Trump should release his taxes or should he be held to a different standard than other presidential nominees?

FERGUSON: Look, I think this is a calculated decision by Donald Trump. And at this point he does not see the an advantage in releasing his tax returns, probably because there are going to be some things in it. That either going to show one of two things.

One, that Hillary Clinton will be able to say, "He didn't pay his fair share because he has a lower tax bracket and other people would expect" or two, there's donations going to non-profits and things that are not conservative.

I think Donald Trump though is actually playing this pretty well because he realizes that his supporters really don't care what's in those tax returns, and they haven't cared and they didn't care during the primary.

So at this point, I mean stick to your guns until it becomes an issue. Hillary Clinton is going to have to spend an off a lot of political capital. Day after day after day focusing on this if it really is going to become a wedge issue.

[15:15:05] I don't know that she's going to have -- if that's a smart political play for her to do that and may be Donald Trump is trying to get her to get off message and off her points and come after him that way.

CABRERA: All right Boris. That sign in Ben Ferguson and I know you have more to add.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: I actually bring up -- it's a good point from Hillary's perspective, it opens her up to attack again on the issue of e-mails as well as on Goldman Sachs and all the other transparency issues with the Clinton initiative and the foundation. So it's not a smart play by her.

CABRERA: We got to go and of course you guys are going to agree to some extent. You're both Republicans, so that makes sense. Thanks folks for being on with us.

Coming up, Texas Republicans coming out swinging in the battle over transgender bathroom use in schools.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will not be blackmailed by the president's 30 pieces of silver we will not selling our children to the federal government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: The new federal guidelines that have lawmakers in the state facing off against the White House now.

Plus ISIS declaring a state of emergency, the new evidence, the terrorists are preparing for a possible siege in Syria, and students lining up for Trump 101, the new college course that's being offered to those who have been baffled, curious, and just wanting to talk about the rise of the billionaire businessman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: It might not be a law, but the debate is heating up over the Obama administrations transgender bathroom guidelines, now these guidelines say, schools should allow transgender students to use the restrooms or locker rooms based on the gender with which they identify and that has school leaders and politicians in several states outraged.

CNN's Nick Valencia is joining me now. Nick, these aren't laws per se just guidelines. But we have heard the government threaten to withhold title nine funding for schools that don't follow them. An opponent say, "This is government going too far."

[15:20:04] NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Obama administration, Ana, calls them guidelines, but they really read more like a warning to public schools across the country, do this or else. And several governors across many states here in the south are already telling their school districts to not follow the rules of course, if the school districts disobey this new guidelines, they risk losing federal money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN PATRICK, TEXAS LT. GOVERNOR: We will not yield to blackmail from the president of the United States.

VALENCIA: The federal government calls them guidelines. But several states, including Texas, see them more as a threat.

PATRICK: This goes against the values of so many people. It has nothing to do with anyone being against a transgender child.

VALENCIA: At a Friday morning press conference, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick says a line has been crossed by the federal government after the Department of Justice sent a letter on transgender bathroom use in public schools across the United States.

PATRICK: I'm telling all the superintendents of Texas right now, you have about three weeks left of the school year. Do not enact this policy.

VALENCIA: In the letter, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, "There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex."

Under the guidelines, public schools that receive federal money are obligated to treat students consistent with their gender identity, even if their records indicated a different sex, access sex-segregated facilities consistent with a student's gender identity and protect a student's privacy related to their transgender status.

The action sets the stage for a legal battle that's been in the making since March. House Bill 2 in North Carolina began the recent controversy. The law requires trans people to use the public restroom related to the gender on their birth certificate, not how they identify.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, you're cute, you look ...

VALENCIA: Candice Cox has been one of the most outspoken against the law. She's a transgender woman and has met with a North Carolina Governor.

CANDICE COX, TRANSGENDER WOMAN: The facts that we are not talking about transgender people and who they are, but rather we don't want someone who looks like a man or looks like a woman but identifies as the opposite gender. It lets me know we're still discriminating on esthetics.

VALENCIA: North Carolina and the Fed's have traded accusations and lawsuits. Some states including Arkansas and Texas insist there's been a government overreach. The feds say, civil rights have been violated.

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Because this is not just a North Carolina issue. This is now a national issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: It is a national issue, and earlier today, the head of the civil rights division for the Department of Justice. Vanita Gupta seemed to double down on the fed's guidelines. She gave a commencement speech to the University of Minnesota Law School and in part said "Efforts like House bill 2 in North Carolina not only violate the laws that govern our nation but also the values that define us as people."

To very adamant sides here they're insisting that they're right on one side is a feeling that this is a moral issue that really the morality of the country's under attack transgender people in this community in this country, all they seem to be very outraged by this or saying people are focusing on how they look not who they are as people. Ana.

CABRERA: This issue is not put to bed yet. Nick Valencia, thank you.

VALENCIA: You got it.

[15:23:24] CABRERA: Coming up, taking the fight to the terrorists, why the pentagon believes an ISIS stronghold in Syria is now under a state of emergency readying defenses for a siege.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: It appears ISIS has declared a state of emergency. The Pentagon says they have seen new evidence. The terror group is scrambling fighters inside its self-declared capital of Raqqa Syria possibly, preparing for a siege.

Now, this is after U.S. backed forces started to surround the ISIS stronghold helping to cut off supply lines in recent months. U.S. officials are closely monitoring the situation there.

And CNN Pentagon Correspondent, Barbara Starr reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: U.S. military officials have been closely monitoring social media and other reports that ISIS has declared a state of emergency in Raqqa, its self-declared capital inside Syria. That's a city that ISIS holds very dear. They've been in control of it for some time. So what is the state of emergency really mean? U.S. officials saying they have some evidence showing ISIS fighters are moving around in the city, some of them trying to leave the city, that they're putting up covers, shades, trying to cover sidewalks, areas where they may be all to try and stay hidden from potential air strikes or ground action.

ISIS may, in fact, be getting nervous in Raqqa. They have seen militia movements' move closer and closer. Some of the areas surrounding Raqqa now not necessarily under ISIS control. All of this making the group may be for the first time, very nervous about being able to hold on to the city that they consider their capital.

Barbara Starr, CNN, Pentagon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Coming up, back to politics, but this time we're talking Democrats. Bernie Sanders, still fighting for every last delegate or the rules that kept him in this race this long, now working against him?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:29:07] BERNIE SANDERS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Any person here thinks that I'm coming to you as some kind of savior, that I'm going to do it all myself. You're wrong.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Senator Bernie Sanders is fighting for every vote in Kentucky today with a rally for supporters this evening. Both the Kentucky and Oregon Democratic primaries are just three days away, and going in, Hillary Clinton is very close to having the number of delegates she needs to wrap up the Democratic nomination. But as Bernie Sanders likes to remind her, she is not there yet, and he says, even more importantly, he's the one hitting his stride right now as this campaign hits the home stretch. So which means more in this race, math or momentum?

CNN's John King breaks it down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is there anybody who really six months ago, eight months ago thought Bernie Sanders was going to be giving Hillary Clinton this kind of a run for her money? I think not, except for may be Bernie Sanders and his top campaign team. But the very rules that have kept Bernie Sanders in the race so far, the Democratic proportional rules, no winner take all states. They don't exist. That has kept Bernie Sanders in the race. Now, it keeps Secretary Clinton with her lead.

SANDERS: It's an uphill struggle. We have a chance to end up with a majority of the pledged delegates, and if we do that, I think you are looking at the Democratic nominee for president.

KING: This is the problem. You see what's left on the map, right? You see what's left on the map? Does Bernie Sanders have a mathematical chance? Yes. But is that realistic math? There's 897 pledged delegates left. He needs to win 67 percent of them. He has not been winning anywhere near 67 percent of the delegates so far.

So is it possible? Sure, it's possible. That's mathematically possible. Would you place a bet on Bernie Sanders winning California with 67 percent of the vote? I think not.

Look at that, all Bernie Sanders, every county in West Virginia. That's pretty impressive.

SANDERS: It seems a little bit dumb to me if I might say so that last night, where Secretary Clinton ended up with 35, 36 percent of the votes, she is going to get six out of seven super delegates.

KING: In the end, she's still ahead, even if he wins everything left on the board by 10 points, she's still ahead by delegates.

Now, A, the Clinton's campaign says this isn't going to happen. B, if this happens, unless they panic, Hillary Clinton still has in her back pocket the secret weapon.

If Senator Sanders could run the board, some of these people would defect. The math is not impossible for Bernie Sanders, but it's pretty damn hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:35:00] CABRERA: So the odds are against Sanders, but some believe he can pull it off and snatch the Democratic nomination from Clinton. Let's talk it over with Bernie Sanders' supporter Omar Zar (ph), an Arab-American author and social commentator. Omar, thank you so much for joining us.

President Obama said this last week, saying "Everybody knows what the math is. Essentially suggesting it's time to rally around Clinton." We just saw John King lay out the realities there. How do you think Sanders could pull off the win?

OMAR ZAR, BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTER: Well, Bernie can pull it off.

First, I want to ask, does anyone else at CNN allow to touch that board? I feel like John King is only one ever playing with that board over there.

CABRERA: He's the master. Don't mess with his stuff.

ZAR: Well, look, Bernie has all the momentum. He could win every state from here on out, which means that he could, with big performances, still come out with more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton. But the question I think Democratic Party and super delegates need to ask themselves is which candidate is better suited to beat Donald Trump?

Bernie is the only candidate left in the race who is not insulting whole groups of people, under criminal investigation by the FBI, or impersonating publicists on telephone calls. He's honest. He's been saying the same thing for 30 years. He has a whole new movement of people behind him. And so we really feel he's the best candidate. He's outperforming Secretary Clinton in all the polls against Donald Trump. He represents a new generation of Americans coming forward to reform the system and to really, you know, bring America to what it should be.

CABRERA: He definitely has ignited a passion among his supporters. We have seen his giant campaign rallies in the thousands. But campaign manager of Sanders sent a very sharply worded fundraising appeal this week. And I want to ask you about it because he said that Democrats "court disaster" if Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee because Clinton, he and his words would lose to Trump in a general election, yet Clinton is still ahead of Trump in the latest CNN national poll.

I hear what you're saying in that Bernie Sanders, when you look at those polls, still out performs her against Trump at this stage in the game, but do you think a Clinton nomination would be a disaster?

ZAR: I think that she's the only candidate left in the race who could possibly lose to Donald Trump. I mean Donald Trump has historic unfavorables, right? Well, the only person who is even close to him is Hillary Clinton, and so we're going to be heading into a race where people are basically voting on negatives. And that everything is up in the air, right? When Bernie Sanders comes with a positive message that is really igniting not only people in the middle who might be going between Bernie and Donald, but also people on the other side of the spectrum or otherwise wouldn't be involved in a presidential election, then he's the one who can beat Donald Trump.

You know, it's funny, we hear a lot of this discourse coming from the Hillary Clinton camp that those of us who do support Bernie Sanders, who haven't been involved in presidential politics or may be even Democratic politics forever, that somehow we should fall in line if Bernie doesn't win the nomination and just support Secretary Clinton.

Well, that would be to really misunderstand our movement and misunderstand what we're about. But the reason that they're asking for all our supporters, I think even they know deep down that she's very vulnerable against Donald Trump in the general election. Bernie isn't. Bernie is simply the better candidate.

CABRERA: Omar, very quickly as we are almost out of time for this segment.

ZAR: Sure.

CABRERA: What you've just said may ring true with Sanders' supporters. But there are millions of more people who have voted for Hillary Clinton up to this point in the election process. So, what do you tell them about their votes?

ZAR: Obviously, all those votes are important. But in a system where Hillary Clinton has been the presumptive Democratic nominee for eight years, basically, and Bernie Sanders is bringing in this whole new movement, the fact that he's performed as well against all those odds as he has is something that should not be forgotten. Even in a place like New York, where she was a senator for two terms and was a closed primary system, and he won 43 percent of the vote. That is a big deal.

And so I think Democratic super delegates and Democratic Party should take note of that and really decide who's going to perform better. And I think that people who voted for Hillary Clinton so far look at that. They will come to the same conclusion that Bernie is the better candidate.

CABRERA: All right, Omar Zar, we'll see what happens as the process plays out. Thank you.

The fight continues as Clinton and Sanders battle for delegates in two more states. You can watch all of our all day coverage from the Kentucky and Oregon primaries again coming up this Tuesday.

[15:39:29] Still ahead here travelers furious over super long lines at the airport that have them running now to catch their flights, is there any fix before the busier summer travel season? We'll have a live report.

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CABRERA: Have you traveled lately? Long lines at airports are hurting a lot of travelers. And Homeland Security says, it will intervene to try to help ease what are becoming increasingly longer lines at a lot of airport security check points.

Take a look at these pictures. Passengers complain of waiting in line now more than three hours longer than that in some of their flights, travelers calling these lines insane, they're taking their protest to social media, they're using the #IHateTheWait.

And CNN's Rachel Crane is at New York LaGuardia airport, one of the airports under scrutiny. Rachel, it looks like the lines there aren't at their worst right now, but we are seeing lots of problems around the country. What is the TSA planning to do?

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the TSA certainly getting a lot of criticism, and it's not all coming from just the disgruntled passengers. The port authority here in New York City issued a letter to the TSA threatening them that if they didn't get the lines and these wait times under control, that they would consider privatizing airport security.

Now, the TSA, they have heard the please from the passengers. They've heard the threat from the port authority, so they've allocated $8 million to bring in additional 750 and addition over 750 new agents to the TSA. That the problem is on though, they don't come on board until mid-June. So these waits are -- these lines are not going to disappear overnight. They really are a problem, too. I mean, just yesterday, we saw in Dallas that American Airlines, they had to delay five flights because 77 passengers weren't able to getting through the security lines in time to make it to their planes.

[15:45:02] And, you know, this is a problem that is not solving itself immediately, and especially with summer right around the corner, airport tickets dropping, and fuel cost dropping, probably going to get worse before it gets better.

CABRERA: I'm taking a big deep breath because I guess this is one of those instances where we have to practice patience, which is very difficult, especially when traveling.

Rachel Crane, thanks to you.

Still ahead here, teaching the Trump factor. Hear from the professor who designed an entire college course around the billionaire's historic rise to the top of the Republican ticket.

But first, it's one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S., San Diego, California, but less than an hour away, just across the border on the outskirts of Tijuana Mexico, many families are living in desperate poverty that's for this week CNN Hero comes in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's important to remember that these families that we're helping in Mexico are our neighbors. They are just right across the border.

It's night and day, the difference. We are helping the communities come together, and we are teaching them that there is love in the world that other people do care about them.

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[15:50:12] CABRERA: How did Donald Trump turn a career focused on real state and reality T.V. into a political force? But now makes him the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president?

Well, students at Georgia's Savannah State University can study his dramatic political rise for credit this summer and the course is called "The Trump Factor in American Politics," the brains behind it? Professor Robert Smith, joining me now, professor, how did the course come to be?

ROBERT SMITH, GEORGIA'S SAVANNAH STATE PROFESSOR: Ana, thank you. I think there were really very much two threads that drove my interest in wanting to offer a course thinking it was time to just study the subject. First, was actually interest from my American government class, I teach a series of classes of course, in political science American Government is one of those, and obviously; with this very interesting campaign season in terms of both Republican and Democratic primaries, that the topic of Donald Trump was a heated topic for discussion, and then also sort of the broader role of Donald Trump as being a candidate sort of the business mogul entertainer turned politician was just a phenomena that I think it was time for a class to examine a little bit more closely, the overall impact of a Trump candidacy on electoral politics here in America.

CABRERA: I imagine you had to throw out the old rule book or your old guide of refurbishing weapons, perhaps. I want to ask what is the trickiest part of all of these for you creating a syllabus around a candidate as unusual as Donald Trump?

SMITH: Sure. I think what the challenge is to try to attach to those tenants and those principles that we try to advance in the study of political science and to try to somehow make that fit in terms of examining any one particular candidate, in this case, Donald Trump. But once again, there' is some difficulty in that in the sense that Donald Trump has defied conventional wisdom in terms of political party mechanics, in terms of navigating -- that the primary process on the Republican side and again has also, perhaps, set a new tone in terms of successfully using social media to advance his candidacy. And of course, though it has been very good at segmenting his message to various parts of the general electorate in particular, the Republican in a Republican primary context, to really tailor a message.

So there's some traditional political science that we can turn to for explanations, but also in some respects, we have to throw out the play book a little bit in terms of trying to better understand how Donald Trump is been able to get to this point in the primary process and presumably, you know, of course, into the general election.

CABRERA: I've noticed on your objectives from syllabus number five on that list, the popular and media reaction to the Trump candidacy.

From an academic view, what is your opinion of how us, the media handled the Trump candidacy?

SMITH: Once again, you know, I have to may be -- to answer that question, I have to start with this premise that, you know, I think Donald Trump, because of his business background, I think equally because of his television show, "The Apprentice," may be some of my students don't really -- are not old enough, may be they don't quite remember the show.

But what's certainly Donald Trump in many respects he's been a household name, and so he didn't have to do some of the heavy lifting let's say in terms of name recognition. And so that I think, was a distinctive advantage.

And then, of course, in terms of just the coverage of politics today, we have a 24-hour news cycle with there's an adage in politics which is that, you know, any coverage is good coverage. And again if you love him or hate him, you know, Donald Trump has given us all reasons to want to pay attention to what's happening in political circles and in the primary season.

And so I think that's just elevated him to the forefront in terms of media coverage, and that's doing your job in the coverage by covering all these nuances of the Trump candidacy. But equally, people seemed to be very interested in hearing more and more about Donald Trump and, again, another reason, perhaps for offering this class.

CABRERA: Exactly. Well, we'll talk to you on the backside and see how it all goes. Professor Robert, Smith thanks so much for joining us.

SMITH: Oh, thank you very much.

[15:54:24]CABRERA: Coming up, Jeanne Moos, on a new dating site for those who sworn they'll move to Canada if Trump becomes president.

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CABRERA: Finally this hour, anti-Trump Americans looking for love may be able to find it in Canada.

Jeanne Moos has this one.

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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You may not think of Donald Trump as a match maker but he could inspire cross border romance between Americans and Canadians if maple match ever gets off the ground with its catchy slogan ...

JOE GOLDMAN, AUSTIN RESIDENT: Make dating great again.

MOOS: The web site's mission, maple match makes it easy for Americans to find the ideal Canadian partner to save them from the unfathomable horror of a Trump presidency.

Austin, Texas resident and Hillary supporter, Joe Goldman, dreamed up maple match.

GOLDMAN: I've always like maple syrup. I have about 12 leaders of maple syrup at home. I'm a real fan of the flavor.

MOOS: Joe says maple match started as a fun experiment. But within days 20,000 Americans had signed the wait list and 5,000 Canadians. Every day the number grows. Sure, people have been joking about moving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will Donald Trump be our next president?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If that -- becomes president I will move my black -- to South Africa.

MOOS: Miley Cyrus Instagramed. Going to vom, as is vomit move out the country. Hash tag is not going to party in the USA anymore.

Cher tweeted, "If Trump would be elected I'm moving to Jupiter." But some like Lena Dunham sound serious.

LEENA DUNHAM, ACTRESS: I am 100 percent moving to Canada. I love Canada.

TRUMP: Well, she is a B actor and has no, you know, mojo.

MOOS: Maple match has mojo, in terms of generating interest. But don't expect immediate results. It looks like maple match will be as slow as well, maple syrup.

[16:00:00] Question is about when the site might work got vague answers. Joe, I'm sorry it's like talking to Donald Trump. It's ever going to be really like a dating site?

GOLDMAN: At this time, I really can't say for sure.