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Speculation Grows Over Clinton, Trump VP Picks; Secret Conservative Group Conflicted on Trump; Baghdad Terror Attacks, Signs of ISIS Desperation; Aides to Trump, Ryan to Meet On Policy Shaping; Secretive Conservatives "Slow Walk" Trump Support; Woman Would be Youngest Elected to Congress; 25-Year-OLd Aims To Take Millennial View To Congress; Is ISIS Shifting Tactics in Iraq? Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired May 17, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:00:01] CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: But do I think that she could go all out and win the election as long as she can keep the server business behind her with Gates? Yes.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: What about -- so that's one idea. I hadn't heard that one.

BERNSTEIN: It's not being bandied about. I'm just throwing it out there --

BALDWIN: No, it's not. What about, though --

BERNSTEIN: See if it sticks on the wall.

BALDWIN: The darling of the left being Senator Elizabeth Warren. Do you think that's a possibility?

BERNSTEIN: I don't think it's very likely because I don't know what it buys Hillary Clinton. If she is going to move towards Sanders already has on the issues, she's going to want to deal with Donald Trump and I'm not sure that just another democratic fire brand even though she does come from that liberal wing of the party is going to help her.

Look. Hillary Clinton is not going to choose who her running mate is going to be until very close to the convention, until she sees the landscape. She has to know what kind of shape Trump is in which is very unclear now. If trump remains ascendant the way he is now, it's probably a different choice than she would make if he were falling apart. If he is falling apart she's got many more options.

BALDWIN: Final question, just, you know, on your -- the theme of originality, Carl Bernstein. Who do you think Trump could choose?

BERNSTEIN: I think the ideal choice is Kasich.

BALDWIN: John Kasich.

BERNSTEIN: As I said on the air and talked to people who know Kasich very well, I think if Trump were to give himself a bit of head transplant, maybe a partial head transplant and he might be able to convince Kasich. Look, Kasich wants to be the President of the United States. Second job -- best job in the world he said is Ohio. He still wants the best job in the world. How would he get there? Only one shot to be the Vice President of the United States and he could be effective. If Trump were to let him g and really run a lot of the elements of government.

Two very strong guys, they both pop off. You know, that Kasich can really pop off, we haven't seen too much of it, but he's well-known for it, he can be unpredictable. But the odds again there of it happening, I think, are very long because Kasich is very genuine what he said about his family. He's got to be able to get this --

BALDWIN: Sleep in at night and be with his daughters and his wife who aren't so sure about Donald Trump. Carl Bernstein, thank you so much.

BERNSTEIN: Good to be here.

BALDWIN: Coming up, Trump says that he is totally flexible when it comes to his policy positions (INAUDIBLE) a group of core conservatives is struggling to balance their beliefs with whether to support the Republican's presumptive nominee. Jake Tapper has that report and Tapper will join me live.

Also tensions rising amid a wave of deadly terror attacks. Is ISIS now taking its fight from the battlefields to the streets of Baghdad? We have a live report coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: As many of the Republican establishments continue to try to, you know, figure out a way to ultimately support the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, the candidate is hitting the books this week. CNN has just learned presumptive nominee is due to meet tomorrow with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger presumably to develop his foreign policy agenda.

Meantime, top aides to Mr. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are due to meet this week to hash out the party platform.

But where does Donald Trump stand on issue like abortion, immigration, guns, especially in comparison with the Republican Party platform? For that, Tomorrow Foreman is going to walk us through it. Hi, Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke. It's kind of hard to sometimes pin down where Donald Trump is between the conservative orthodoxy and liberal orthodoxy. But look at several issues here and let's consider.

On taxes he seems to fit pretty firmly up here into the conservative side. For a period of time, you might have put him more down here because he was talking about more taxes on the wealthy. Now, though, he seems to have cheated more up this way to say firmly on the conservative views. Immigration, we know, he started way up here and he has stayed there. So far, into this area that even some conservatives are uncomfortable

with his views on that.

LGBT issues. This is a tricky one because in Donald Trump's life he has fit very neatly in some ways into the more liberal camp, he's been involved with numerous fund-raisers for AIDS Research. He has been very open in his relationships and friendships and welcomingness of gay and lesbian couples and all these rights. However, you got to move it up here and you have to recognize the concern of many LGBT people because even though he says the courts have ruled on same-sex marriage, he says he still thinks marriage is between a man and a woman, so we have to move it more toward the conservative side to be sure.

Abortion, also a little bit complicated here. He one time said he felt that abortion rights should be guaranteed across the board. Now he says, they should not be, and yet, he continues to say positive things now and things about planned parenthood which very much concerns conservatives. We have to put sort of in this area.

Entitlement programs. This also an interesting area because he has basically said he doesn't want to touch entitlements. That moves him out of the position of conservatives, more into the liberal side. However, he has allowed, once elected maybe, maybe there will be some fudging on that so we put that more in this category.

On gun control, yes, very much on the conservative side. He not only feels that gun rights, the Second Amendments rights should be completely protected. He believes things like concealed carry laws should apply across the country. So if you have a concealed carry law somewhere, you can go wherever you want with it. Not a perfect measurement, Brooke, but it gives you an idea of where he actually fits in his ever-changing stances between conservative and liberal views.

BALDWIN: Thank you for walking through the key issues. Tom Foreman, I appreciate that. In the meantime, its website bio says it brings together the country's most influential conservative leaders, but its membership has been a secret until now.

CNN has obtained a copy of the Council for National Policy's membership list and directory. This group is an umbrella in that work of conservative activists and our Chief Washington

Correspondent host of "THE LEAD" and "STATE OF THE UNION" Jake Tapper with me now with exclusive reporting on this secret group of conservatives slow walking.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": Yeah. Slow walking their way to Donald Trump support. Look, a lot of these grassroots conservatives had serious concerns about Donald Trump and how legitimately conservative he is. But they are slow walking in the words of one of them, Ken Blackwell, former secretary of state of Ohio, slow walking towards support for Donald Trump. And we got our hands on a copy of this membership directory which has been secret the holy grail for political reporters for years and years because nobody has known who the members of this group were, but we got our hands on a copy, I got my hands on a copy, and with us, Stephen Collinson, one of our great reporter at cnn.com.

We started calling some of them and there are some holdouts amongst this group who will never support Donald Trump, they just do not buy it. But, most of them are making peace with it. They supported Ted Cruz a vast majority of them during the primaries, but they dislike Hillary Clinton much, much more than they dislike Donald trump and they feel like Donald Trump and they feel like Donald Trump will likely support the kind of Supreme Court justices and at least -- be at least somewhat aligned more so than Hillary Clinton.

BALDWIN: But on some of the holdouts looks, I was reading a piece this morning talking about looking ahead to Cleveland and how, you know, they're looking into -- some conservatives looking into last- ditch efforts, changing the rules, discussion of unbinding delegates, you know, whatever they can do to stop this.

TAPPER: Yeah, that's where The Washington Post report in this morning and great report. We did not find the same level of discontent.

BALDWIN: You didn't?

TAPPER: We didn't find any people strategizing. Everybody, pretty much, accepted the fact that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee in terms of whom we spoke with. But, those who were against him will probably just vote third party or not vote at all, certainly not going to go through Hillary Clinton. These are very, very die hard conservative activists. But, the ones in The Washington Post story that I read about, they are still hoping upon hope that they will be able to prevent Donald Trump from getting the nomination.

BALDWIN: Tapper, what point are they going to say, okay, it's Trump?

TAPPER: Yeah. In some ways they're almost like those Japanese soldiers found on those islands a couple years after World War II who -- did not know, did not realize that the war was over and they have lost. That is the case.

The republican party is coalescing around Donald Trump. Speaking Paul Ryan is not there right now, but I suspect very strongly that he will be before he gravels in the convention in Cleveland and I do think that you're going to see the Republican Party come around him regardless of the dreams and aspirations of these boys and girls out there with dreams of stopping Donald Trump. I don't think it's going to happen.

BALDWIN: Jake Tapper, we'll see you, special coverage top of the hour on The Lead. Thank you.

TAPPER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Very much. What were you doing when you were 25? Maybe starting your first job, maybe living with mom and dad. What about running to be the youngest woman elected to Congress? My next guest is taking on that challenge, she will join me

live next here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This campaign season we've talked a lot about unconventional candidates. But I'm about talk to about -- no, not Bernie Sanders, and not Donald Trump, 25-year-old Erin Schrode she is running for Congress in her hometown of Marin County in California's 2nd district. If she wins, she would be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, first woman younger than 30.

ERIN SCHRODE (D-CA), CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS: I am running because I believe it's time to deliver on the promise of my generation and my peers are revolutionizing every vertical. Yet, politics remains left in the dark.

BALDWIN: She is joining me here. Erin Schrode, nice to have you back on the show.

SCHRODE: What a pleasure.

BALDWIN: You were sitting in that same seat when you had just gone over to Greece after watching the crisis with the refugees. Just a little bit about this young woman. When you were 13 you started the environmental nonprofit Turning Green. 18, after the earthquake happened in Haiti, you went to Haiti to help. And now at 24, you launched a Congressional Campaign.

First of all, I'm feeling like a wicked underachiever looking back at my 24 and 25 years. Secondly, I mean, with all due respect, how the heck do you think you're going to pull this off?

SCHRODE: I think this is the time. We are seeing the political cycle this time around being welcoming of outsiders, tapping into that energy around disenfranchised, ignored, excluded, abd we've seen the resonance in our messaging among representative democracy, a voice that is entirely unrepresented right now at the national level.

BALDWIN: What is your day like? Day-to-day on the campaign.

SCHRODE: It's wild. It's a lot of boots on the ground up and down the district. We stretch from the Golden Gate to the Oregon border. It's enormous. A third of the California coast and I love getting to meet people to engage and talk about the issues that matter, delve into policy and come up with common solutions for the common good.

BALDWIN: You have just turned 25. So Happy belated and then --

SCHRODE: Thank you.

BADLWIN: -- I think you official a bit to be able to do this. Let's talk about who you're running against an incumbent, Congressman Jared Huffman who has outraised and outspent you by hundreds of thousands of dollars. He's represented the North Bay Area for six years in the California Assembly before being elected to Congress in 2012. He says he has a record that is 100% pro-choice, 100% pro-equality, worked on countless measures affordable housing, protecting ranches, you know, water reform.

Why do you think you could beat someone who has many more years under his belt?

SCHRODE: I fundamentally believe that progressive female voices result in better policy and that young people are uniquely equipped to lead the future of our state.

Talk about learning and future of work, education and jobs, right? I graduated from college less than three years ago, feeling burden of student debt, knowing what it's like to enter the job landscape without the relevant or necessary skills training. I'm thinking about who is architecting the industries of the future, it's my peers. We're using that innovative spirit to revolutionize science, and media, and tech, bringing that into government and paying attention to investment now rather than paying the employment spiking -- paying the price for spiking unemployment.

BALDWIN: We're talking about how -- I mean, it's outstanding, you're 25, this is a goal of yours. You've also talked about how you're running against two middle aged men, your words, is it fair to target age?

SCHRODE: I do believe that that is something that makes me uniquely equipped to lead right now. I better understand these present circumstances and we are the leaders of the future. We are rising in positions of power in business, and now in government. And it's incumbent upon us to not avoid that political arena the way most of my most talented and capable peers are.

BALDWIN: You're a Democrat.

SCHRODE: Yes.

BALDWIN: And I understand, you know, yes recently you went to a Bernie Sanders

rally in the Bay Area. You met the senator's wife, Jane, she's been in that very seat on the show, called him inspiration, that he had a vision. But in your launch video, you quote Hillary Clinton who said, "Human Rights are women's rights and women's are human rights."

So, is it Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? Who are you supporting?

SCHRODE: I'm proud to be a Democrat right now where you have this -- these ideas coming head to head, people putting forth actual policy, talking about issues that matter as opposed to vitriol on the other of the aisle --

BALDWIN: So which is it?

SCHRODE: I'm inspired by Clinton, I respect her work, intelligence and leadership on an array of issues, but the energy of Sanders right now that he is tapping into with my generation is unlike anything I've seen. And being there at that rally, lit a fire inside of me.

BALDIWN: You were feeling the Bern? Erin Schrode, good luck --

SCHRODE: Thank you.

BADLWIN: -- good luck in California. Thanks for coming on.

Coming up next, ISIS. Is ISIS shifting tactics in Iraq, a wave of deadly attacks rips through Baghdad just as the terror group declares a state of emergency as it struggles to hold ground on the battlefield in Syria. We'll take you there live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BADLWIN: Four bombings ripping through three different Baghdad neighborhoods in just the past 24 hours that is what Iraqis are dealing with now as they're coping with the deadly spike in violence, much claimed of it by ISIS. I want you to just see what the country has endured in the last couple of days. You have attacks at gas plant, a coffee shop, a police station, and today, a market.

That bombing was a suicide blast that tore through neighborhood in southern Baghdad killing three people. Three other deadly explosions shook other parts of the capital. Let's get straight to our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, who's following all of this from Istanbul. And Arwa for talking about ISIS claiming most of these attacks, how do you interpret this? It might it be a sign of desperation?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's a bit short sighted to try to define the tactics that ISIS is using, given how well it has proven itself in the past, how its previous incarnations have been declared defeated and then managed to reemerge, even stronger than they were and I think the Iraqis are well aware of this. When I was just in Baghdad, a few weeks ago, many of those who we were speaking to were saying that what they're concerned about is the phase after ISIS, because even if this incarnation of terrorism is defeated in Iraq, what is the next phase going to bring, because Iraqis know and have seen the way that ISIS has morphed and reshaped itself over the years.

Some analysts would disagree, the U.S. military does characterize the violence that is taking place as being a by-product of the pressure that ISIS is under in other parts of the country where, yes, the Iraqi security forces are making territorial gains. Of course, those gains, by and large, due to the fact that they are very heavily backed by the coalition and its air power and others would say that, look, ISIS is shifting tactics slightly, it is perhaps trying to focus and concentrate its efforts in and around Baghdad to send a message to the Iraqi people to try to exploit the sectarian tensions that exist between the Sunni and Shia populations. The bulk of these attacks are happening in predominantly Shia areas and the country right now is in a state of political chaos that lends itself to a political vacuum that ISIS is very adept at exploiting and also could be attempt to draw the Iraqi security forces wet lines and force them to concentrate their efforts on trying to secure Baghdad.

The bottom line is that Iraq is a phenomenally complicated battlefield and ISIS is a very complex enemy, the likes of which the country has not faced in the past and how this all does play out. Brooke, it's going to end up defining Iraq going forward, but it's really difficult to try to define what ISIS is doing or what stage it might be at given everything that does exist in its history.

BALDWIN: No, you're absolutely right. It would be short sighted to try to even begin to understand. Arwa Damon, thank you so much.

And thanks for being with me. Jake Tapper starts now.