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McCarthy Quits Race; Carson Defends Tweet. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 08, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone, I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for my friend, Brooke Baldwin. Top of the hour. We begin with breaking news.

John Boehner's retirement may have to wait as chaos and shock erupt on Capitol Hill this afternoon. The man favored to become the next speaker of the House just announced he is dropping out of the race, pulling himself out of the race, and CNN was rolling just moments after California Congressman Kevin McCarthy stunned his fellow Republicans during what was supposed to be a close-door vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He just surprised everybody and said he is dropping out of the race.

I mean you were behind him. Are you stunned?

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Yes, I'm totally stunned. No idea it was coming. No one did. And no one was sure they actually heard what he said. It was really a total stun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't see how he had a path to 218 votes on the House floor. What he did was a very honorable thing today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Now the nominee for that job, the nominee race for that job, rather, that is just two heartbeats from the presidency, has been postponed indefinitely. We don't yet know when it will happen. Minutes ago McCarthy took to the podium. He explained why he pulled himself out, especially when just hours before that announcement, this morning as of 8:00 a.m. Eastern, he was trying to convince his fellow Republicans that he was the best choice for speaker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), CALIFORNIA: I think I shocked some of you, huh? Listen, we've been going through this campaign, talking to a lot of members. But the one thing I've always said to earn this majority, we're servants. We should put this conference first. And I think there's something to be said for us to unite. We probably need a fresh face. I'll stay on as majority leader, but the one thing I found in talking to everybody, if we're going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that.

So, nothing more than that. I feel good about the decision. I feel great to have my family here, my colleagues. I think we're only going to be stronger. We fought hard to win this majority and turn this country around. And this will be a best step foot - foot step - man, I messed that up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) that you were going to run for the speakership, why change it at noon? What happened in four hours?

MCCARTHY: You know, we had our conference and there's calls into the district. I don't want making voting for speaker a tough one. I don't want to go to the floor and win with 220 votes. I think the best thing for our party right now is that you have 247 votes on the floor. If we're going to be strong, we've got to be 100 percent united. And I think, you know what, let's put - let's put the conference first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's put the conference first. CNN political correspondent Dana Bash and senior political reporter Manu Raju join me now from Capitol Hill.

Dana, you were live as it all unfolded. We just saw a small clip of being in the thick of it when this happened. Where do we go from here?

BASH: Well, I'm going to try to answer that question, but before I do, Poppy, I just want to give you a little bit of a sense. The hallway where - that you just showed, now look at it, it's much more calm.

HARLOW: Yes, empty.

BASH: It's much more calm. This is where the vote took place, behind these doors. Actually the almost vote, I should say, took place. It was - we were hearing clapping just a couple of minutes after the meeting began, so we thought, you know, maybe somebody began to give a speech and so forth. And then people started filing out, as you just showed, saying that Kevin McCarthy actually dropped out of the race.

So I think the answer to your question is, we just don't know yet. Part of the reason why it's so calm here is because everybody has retreated back into their offices, huddling with staff, trying to figure out in their various factions what is going to happen next. Now John Boehner, the current House speaker, just released a statement saying he's going to remain as speaker as long as necessary.

What was supposed to happen today was the nomination inside the Republican Party was going to take place behind these doors, as I just mentioned.

HARLOW: Right.

BASH: And then the full House was supposed to vote October 29th. That seems to be in question now as the whole party is going to go through a process of trying to figure out how to deal with this because, look, at the end of the day, somebody has to be speaker of the House. Somebody has to get 218 vote, a majority of the House, to have this constitutional position. And right now it doesn't look like anybody has those votes to make that happen.

HARLOW: Also, Dana, we heard, obviously, from one of Kevin McCarthy's former rivals, I should say, Jason Chaffetz, he's still going after this spot. He just responded to the withdrawal. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: Absolutely stunned. Did not see that coming. Kevin McCarthy is a very good man and he has always been one that puts his country before everything else. And so he and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the same goal and desire, and that is to unite this party and take the fight to the president, to the Senate and to the American people.

[14:05:05] I really do believe it is time for a fresh start. That was the whole genesis of my campaign. But we need to have a lot more family discussion because we need to find somebody that our whole body can unite behind and do what we were elected to do. So I - I was absolutely stunned, surprised and shocked that this happened, but our conference is going to have to do a lot of deep soul searching and we'll see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You know, Manu, it was Jason Chaffetz who came out just a few days ago and said, look, the math doesn't work here. He's not going to get the 218 he needs, that's why I'm jumping in. Now he's - now Chaffetz is staying in the race. Does he have a better chance than Representative Daniel Webster?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Thank Webster for sure. Whether he can get 218 is a completely different question. We don't really know that yet because Chaffetz's support was very slim within the caucus because - largely because a lot of those supporters went to Kevin McCarthy. Kevin McCarthy was going to get probably roughly 200 votes today, which was what makes this decision so stunning. He probably could eventually get that 218 vote threshold, but he would really have to work for it. And the fact that he would have to work for it is what gave him pause.

And I should add, Poppy, what makes this such a stunning day is that Kevin McCarthy, this morning, was still campaigning for this job.

HARLOW: Right.

RAJU: He was at a Republican conference meeting behind closed doors at 8:00 a.m. fielding questions, acting like a candidate. Virtually no one had any idea this was coming. And suddenly he just dropped this bomb in the Republican meeting. This just after 10:00. It was a really stunning, stunning set of events. And it leads this question about what is next and who can fill this void. And right now the party is grappling with that person who doesn't seem to exist at this moment.

HARLOW: And just very quickly before I let you go, Dana, he did say when he was asked about whether his comments about the Benghazi panel and inquiry played any part in this, and he admitted that, yes, it did play a part and I could have said that better.

BASH: Absolute - I mean if he said any different, it just wouldn't be believable. I mean, look, he is a - he's a candid guy and there was no question that those comments that he made, meaning saying that Hillary Clinton's poll numbers have gone down because the Benghazi Select Committee has been doing its work, was a very, very, very bad move - move. He knows that. His - the people around him told him that.

One thing I want to add to what Manu was just saying about Chaffetz being surprised, and the fact that McCarthy was campaigning for the job this morning, the other candidate in this race, Daniel Webster, was just out here talking to reporters a short while ago. He was saying that, you know, he was standing next to McCarthy while he was trying to get people to vote for him and he was completely stunned and he, this is McCarthy's opponent just a few hours ago, Webster said that he was sure, 99 percent sure, that McCarthy would be the next House speaker.

HARLOW: Wow. A few hours have changed quite a lot there on Capitol Hill. Dana, Manu, thank you very much.

Let's talk more about this. CNN's Mark Preston is here with me.

Jeb Bush reacting just a few moments ago, Mark, to this. I want to play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't - look, I'm -- I'm surprised. I think Kevin McCarthy was a -- a - was a - was a good person, a good man. I'm surprised that he dropped out. I don't follow that that carefully. I'm not going to interject myself into a political vote inside the House caucus. Dan Webster is one of the - one of my closest friends in the political process. He is a principle centered guy. You will never meet someone with the integrity of Dan Webster. He served as president of - speaker of the house in the Florida house and was in the state senate. I worked with him. He's an incredible guy.

There will be others that might emerge as well. I just hope that they stay focused on making sure that people know they're trying to solve problems for people. It's - you know, Washington seems so removed to everyday like. It's just - they talk about things that - they talk in language with all the acronyms and stuff that doesn't make any sense. They just don't seem to be relevant to people right now. And I think the House and Republicans across the board in Washington need to be mindful of that. And there are a lot of good people that can serve in leadership in Congress for sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Mark Preston with me now.

Let's look at this big picture. Interesting choice of words, they. MARK PRESTON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, CNN POLITICS: Right.

HARLOW: They, in Washington, don't speak in words that we can understand. They're not doing what we need. Trying to put himself, Jeb Bush, as the outsider.

PRESTON: Right, and clearly trying to position himself as the outsider because as we look who is leading in the polls for the Republican primary, two gentlemen, both are legitimately outsiders. You have Donald Trump, a businessman, you have Ben Carson, who we just saw last hour here on CNN, who's a former doctor.

HARLOW: Right.

PRESTON: So, Jeb Bush, who has been dropping in the polls, is trying to not interject himself into what is a very nasty fight taking place in Washington. At the same time, trying to distance himself from having any connection to Washington.

[14:10:07] HARLOW: What does this do, 2016, big picture? Does this help a Donald - I mean Ben Carson sort of, you know, you know, didn't capitalize on it at all, by the way, in his interview with Wolf Blitzer just now.

PRESTON: Yes, because I think Ben Carson was legitimately surprised, as we all were. And to the point, I don't know if Ben Carson necessarily knew all the players, quite frankly, who are trying to run for the speaker.

Look, this is bad for the Republican Party. This is not good at all. We are talking about gridlock and chaos right now on Capitol Hill. Compromise is a dirty word. Democrats will then try to politicize this. So I would say for the next 15 months, we have certainly got some issues about governing here in Washington, D.C., at the same time -

HARLOW: Which hurts the American people with an inability to get things done.

PRESTON: Correct. And, look, in a presidential year, you tend to have gridlock anyway, but you also have presidential candidates now out on the stump who are going to have to answer questions about Washington, even though they're trying to distance themselves from Washington.

HARLOW: Yes, clearly. Mark Preston, thank you, as always. To Dana and Manu as well.

Also, more breaking news just into us. We're just getting word from two top U.S. officials that Russian missiles aimed for Syria have accidentally, it looks like, landed in Iran. What does this mean for the escalating faceoff there?

Also, moments ago, right here on CNN, Ben Carson responding to the backlash over his remarks about what to do in the face of a gunman, talking about what he did when he was held at gunpoint. And Carson responds to Rupert Murdoch's tweet that America needs a, quote, "real black president."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:43] HARLOW: He is polling near the top of the Republican pack running for president, but it's his stance on some controversial topics that has him grabbing headlines today. We're talking about Dr. Ben Carson, who is also out with a new book, "A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can do to Reclaim our Constitutional Liberties."

Just last hour, right here, he sat down with our very own Wolf Blitzer and he explained his position on a number of issues, some of them which have some of the public questioning whether he's the right man to be president. Carson has come under fire for remarks he made in the wake of last week's mass shooting in Oregon. First, here's what he said to Fox News, followed by his response to Wolf.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would - I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, hey, guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, you seemed to suggest the victims should have done more.

CARSON: No, not suggesting that at all. What the original question was, was, if you were there and someone was holding a gun to you and asking about your religion and they had shot other people, what would you do? And knowing that you were next to be killed and that they were going to continue to down the line killing people, I would much rather go down fighting. And if all of us attack the shooter, the chances are very strong that not all of us will be killed. To me, that doesn't seem like a very controversial thing. But when you take it out of context and you try to make it look like I'm criticizing the victims, that's when it becomes controversial.

And that's one of the things I'm hoping that the news media will stop doing because they - reading this book, you'll see that the press is the only business that's protected by our Constitution. The reason they are protected is because it was assumed that they would be honest and they would be on the side of the people and not have an agenda.

BLITZER: Well, the press says there's a lot of different parts to the press. We can get into that in a little bit. One of the victims, a guy by the name of Mathew Downing, he was offended by your comments. He told CNN, "I'm fairly upset he," meaning you, "he said that nobody could truly understand what actions they would take like that in a situation unless they lived it." You understand why he's worried, concerned about what you said?

CARSON: I suspect he probably has had it fed to him by somebody who misconstrued it. And I think if he heard the complete explanation such as I gave, he would know that I'm not complaining about any of the victims and he would know that I'm trying to plant the seed - because this may not be the last time that this occurs. And if it occurs again and there's a bunch of people, they might start thinking, you know what, we're not going to just take this. And that's one of the things that was learned from Flight 93 on 9/11.

BLITZER: Chris Mince (ph), one of the heroes, one of the survivors, he was shot seven times. He resisted. He's relatively OK right now. He's been released from the hospital. But he's a military veteran. Not everybody is a military veteran and has experience in dealing with a gunman like this.

CARSON: You don't have to be a military veteran. Do you remember the Virginia shooting on the college campus. Afterwards, I'm told that they came out with guidelines for the students to tell them what to do if a situation like that arises again. And it included throwing everything you could possibly throw at the shooter. You know, he's not going to be able to deal with all of it. In a sense they were saying, attack him.

BLITZER: You spoke about a personal incident in a Sirius XM Radio interview yesterday. When you were younger and you were confronted by a gunman - I'll play the little clip. This is from the radio interview.

CARSON: OK.

A guy comes in, puts the gun in my ribs. And I - I just said, I believe that you want the guy behind the counter. He thought I was - he thought I was -

HOST: That's what - that's what you said, in that calm way, just -

CARSON: In that calm way.

HOST: All right, in that calm way, OK.

CARSON: He said, oh, OK, over there.

HOST: Oh, so you just miss - redirected him to -

CARSON: I redirected him.

HOST: OK.

BLITZER: It - that sounds counter to what you're recommending right now.

CARSON: That's - that's a completely different situation. This is somebody who comes into a joint to rob it. Not somebody who's sequentially killing people. Look -

BLITZER: But you didn't know he was just going to rob the joint.

CARSON: I did know that.

BLITZER: He potentially could have killed you.

CARSON: I did know that. And the fact of the matter is, you know, maybe this is a level of sophistication that people learn from living on the streets. But I knew that that guy was not there to murder everybody.

[14:20:07] BLITZER: How could - how could you possibly know that? He had a gun.

CARSON: I knew he was not there to murder all the people. I knew he was there to rob the place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Next, Dr. Carson also weighed in with his interview with Wolf on Rupert Murdoch's tweet and suggestion that Carson would be, quote, "a real black president." How did he respond to that? We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Fox News media mogul Rupert Murdoch has struck a nerve. He posed a controversial tweet about Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson. It reads, quote, "Ben and Candy Carson, terrific. What about a real black president who can probably address the racial divide and much else?" The social media beat down began soon. Murdoch apologized, tweeting, "apologies, no offense meant. Personally find both men charming." Critics blasting Murdoch, saying he is hardly an authentic voice on the black community. The head of the National Urban League called the comment a, quote, "cheap shot."

[14:25:12] Well, our Wolf Blitzer asked Dr. Carson what he thought about that tweet. This is what he told Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Rupert Murdoch, switching gears, tweeted this, praising you and your wife, I'll put it up on the screen, clearly taking a swipe at President Obama. "Ben and Candy Carson, terrific. What about a real black president who can properly address the racial divide and much else." That - that's a pretty shocking statement. He's now apologized, in effect, but that was pretty ugly.

CARSON: Well, I know Rupert Murdoch. He's not a racist by any stretch of the imagination. He's just expressing his opinion. I think it's much to do about nothing.

BLITZER: But he's suggesting that President Obama is not a real black president. At least he did in that initial -

CARSON: Everybody's entitled to their opinion. I believe what he was making reference to was the fact that here was a man who is a black president that the black community was very excited about, who came in and whose policies have not really elevated the black community, has not been beneficial. There's more unemployment, more poverty. And I believe that's what he was really referring to.

BLITZER: You believe the president is a real black president, though, right? CARSON: I wouldn't even get into such a conversation.

BLITZER: Which is a simple question, is President Obama a real black president?

CARSON: Well, he's the president and he's black.

BLITZER: So he's a real black president?

CARSON: If - again, you know, we're dealing with semantics. As you know, I'm the last person who wants to play around with semantics and political correctness. You know, Rupert Murdoch said what he said. He apologized because a lot of people took it the wrong way. I think there's so many more important issues to deal with.

BLITZER: Because there's a whole history of these kinds of accusations, as you well know, with President Obama. Was he born - do you believe he was born in the United States?

CARSON: I do believe that.

BLITZER: Do you believe he's a Christian?

CARSON: He says he is.

BLITZER: But - I know he says he is, but do you believe he is?

CARSON: I have to take him at his word.

BLITZER: Why can't you just say he's a Christian if he goes to church, he believes in Christ, why can't you just simply say he's a Christian?

CARSON: I can simply say that I'll take him at his word.

BLITZER: OK.

I also want you to clarify the issue of a Muslim president in the United States, because there's been a lot of uproar about that. There should be no religious qualifications to becoming president of the United States.

CARSON: I agree. I have no disagreement with that if people - and the people who -

BLITZER: So explain why you said you don't think there should be a Muslim president.

CARSON: If you heard the whole conversation, I said previous to that that anybody from any background, religious or otherwise, who accepts the values of America and is willing to put our Constitution above their believes, it's fine with me. And then - and it continued in another vain bringing up somebody who perhaps did not fit into that category. Well, if they don't fit into that category because of their belief system, and in this case the assumption being that they are Islamic believes, part of the Islamic belief system, which is a lifestyle, not just a simple religion, includes sharia. Now, there are components of sharia that will place any religion that

is not the same as theirs in a category of people they call the cafer (ph). You can do anything you want to those people and you can put them into an inferior position. You can also put women into inferior position. You can also read all kinds of horrible things upon homosexuals, upon divorcees or people caught in adultery and a host of other things. These things are not compatible with our Constitution. If somebody can show me how they are compatible, I'll change my mind.

BLITZER: But if a Muslim-American citizen says he wants to honor the - he or she wants to honor the Constitution, obey the Constitution -

CARSON: Then they fit into the previous category where I said I'd have no problem with it.

BLITZER: So then - so then a Muslim could be president of the United States.

CARSON: Oh, of course they could.

BLITZER: All right, I just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page.

CARSON: All right.

BLITZER: Obviously, if you swear your - you're going to honor and obey the Constitution, whatever religion you are, or if you're an atheist for that matter -

CARSON: Sure.

BLITZER: You can become president of the United States.

CARSON: Of course.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right, let's bring in CNN senior political reporter, Nia- Malika Henderson.

Thank you for being with me.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Good to be here.

HARLOW: Your take on Murdoch's tweet, then his apology. I know that you've said his blackness makes him the perfect anti-Obama, talking about Dr. Ben Carson, that he's the GOP's great black hope.

[14:29:44] HENDERSON: Yes, at least of this cycle. And if you look back at previous cycles, Herman Cain, in some ways, played that role before somebody like Michael Steele, who, of course, was elevated to head the RNC, also played that role. In the Obama era, there had been a real desire on the part of Republicans to have their sort of version of Obama, conservative version of Obama, who was black like Obama, but, obviously, had very different politics.