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Clinton Confronted by Coal Miners in West Virginia; Cruz Calls Trump Narcissist, Pathological Liar; Has Talk Radio Dumped Ted Cruz; Jim Gilmore Talks GOP Race. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired May 03, 2016 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:32:15] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just past bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, yes, locked in a tight race in Indiana. But as voters head to the polls today Hillary Clinton is skipping Indiana. She is on the trail in West Virginia where her words are coming back to haunt her.
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HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country, because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.
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BALDWIN: That promise at a town hall in March, to put coal workers out of business, leading to this emotional confrontation.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to know how you can say you're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us how you're going to be our friend, because those people out there don't see you as a friend.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Just short time ago, in an interview, she said this.
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CLINTON: I'm not writing off any part of America, any people in our country, and that includes here in West Virginia in coal country. So I wanted to be here. I want to lift the visibility of the issues, create a political understanding of what we must do as a nation to support people who literally have supported us for generations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Joining me now, Van Jones, CNN political commentator and former special adviser to President Obama.
Van, you know, Secretary Clinton said her comments in March were a misstatement. She said she was sorry. What do you make of all of this?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's really unfortunate because all of us who are part of the clean energy revolution have been especially concerned about the impact on the workforce, talking not just the coal miners. You have oil workers, you have people risking their lives every day. Coal miners, in particular, risk their lives, their lungs, limbs every day to help us keep the lights turned on. The reality is any transition out of one sector to another you can have winners and losers and if you don't care of those losers, you throw American heroes overboard. They're heroes. I don't like the coal companies but the miners are heroes. So you have to speak from that place at and made a mistake. I know her heart and cares at all Americans. It was a mistake and I think hurts her.
The reality is, of course, West Virginia in particular has not voted for a Democrat since they voted for her husband. But they haven't gone for a Democrat for a long time. And so she had an opportunity and I think she's very -- you have to give her the credit that she went in there knowing --
BALDWIN: Sitting around that table, why.
JONES: -- that she was going to get it. She showed up. It shows courage and character and it was a big mistake.
BALDWIN: She -- drug issues. I lived and worked in West Virginia for a number of years. It is an issue. We know West Virginia Senator, former governor, Joe Manchin, you know, his plan to tax opioid manufacturers at a penny per milligram produced. And Secretary Clinton said she has had losses within --her own family friends have been affected. Here she was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Bill and I now have five family friends who lost their adult children to opioid overdose. We knew two of those young people, in their 20s and early 30s, quite well. They had everything to live for. They had no intention of ending their lives. But they also did not know the risks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: This is a problem, keeps coming up on the trail, Republicans and Democrats all talking about it.
JONES: Yeah. You know, it's funny. It's bittersweet for me because I think people are starting to learn. We have 90 percent of all the opioids sold on planet earth are sold to people in the United States. We're only 5 percent of the world's population. We don't have 90 percent of the world's pain. What we have got is pharmaceutical company, industries, they're flooding the market with this stuff and killing people. And it's on the one hand and then when you try to take people off that stuff, sometimes they turn to heroin. You have an epidemic.
I love to see the comparison, both parties not demagoguing this but trying, and breaks my heart because when you had a similar drug problem with crack cocaine 20 years ago, it was treated completely differently. A lot of this stuff you hear about illegal drug use, I don't see SWAT teams in the rural America like going into suburbs like into urban America. I hope that the compassion is starting to develop around heroin, let's also look at the other issues of addiction and stop criminalizing addiction. There are people sitting in prison right now not because they're a threat but they had an addiction. We treated it totally differently. A huge opportunity not just to show in a political season sympathy for votes but to show the country we are a wiser country now about addiction. Let's decriminalize the stuff and help people instead of hurting them.
BALDWIN: Before I let you go, I have to just ask you, you know, this whole Ted Cruz, the narcissistic -- what else did he say -- amoral, pathological liar, on and on and on, railing against Donald Trump. What do you think that's about, really?
JONES: I think it's about breaking up is hard to do. That's what I think it is. They were best friends. You know?
BALDWIN: Come on. Were they really? Were they really?
JONES: While Donald Trump knocking off everybody else, Ted Cruz hugging him so hard that --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Bro-mance.
JONES: It was. Chris Christie was jealous. So, my big problem, though, is that this is a fire that Ted Cruz set. Ted Cruz, with the shutdown, irrational shutdown, calling his own Senate colleague a liar, all this stuff Ted Cruz was doing seeing that it could be a pathway to him. Sometimes setting a house fire, you get trapped in the fire. That's what's happening. He set the house on fire. He threw reason out and decorum. He did the stuff to benefit him. Now someone crazier than he is and getting the benefit and he is crying. I have very little sympathy for Ted Cruz.
BALDWIN: Telling it like you feel it.
Van Jones, great to have you on. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Next, Ted Cruz, he is waging an uphill battle in Indiana today and, this time, an influential voice that's helped him in past races is conspicuously absent here. Is conservative radio giving Cruz the silent treatment? We'll talk about that.
Also ahead, a former Republican presidential candidate from this cycle, Jim Gilmore, former Virginian as well, about what Ted Cruz had to say about Donald Trump today, what the governor makes of the state of the race now. A lot for him. A lot to talk about on this Indiana primary Tuesday. We'll be right back.
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[14:33:42] BALDWIN: Just a little context as we're talking Indiana today. Remember Ted Cruz won Wisconsin with the help of conservative talk radio. Not, though, getting the same support in Indiana. Senator Cruz discovering that this once-reliable ally is surprisingly silent. Perhaps just as telling and troubling for the Texas Senator, there is not an organized anti-Trump movement on the airwaves in Indiana either.
So here's to discuss, John Krull, director of the Journalist School at Franklin College in Indiana. He also hosts "No Limits" in Indianapolis.
John, wonderful to see you today.
JOHN KRULL, DIRECTOR, JOURNALIST SCHOOL, FRANKLIN COLLEGE & INDIANA TALK RADIO SHOW HOST, "NO LIMITS": Same here.
BALDWIN: So, first up, where many would look for the conservative voice, you know, at least among Hoosiers in your state, you don't really have that and I'm curious as to why.
KRULL: Well, that's a complicated story. We did have a pretty strident voice about 20, 25 years ago. Stan Solomon did attract big numbers but advertisers tended to flee from his show because he wasn't real predictable in what he was saying. Since then, the conservative radio talk show hosts we have had have been guys like our current Governor Mike Pence, who did a stent of conservative talk radio and did well at it, but his brand of conservatism at the time over the air was much more sort of the "awe shucks" Ronald Reagan, I'm-just-a-nice- good-old-boy approach. For whatever reason, it hasn't played well here on the air in Indiana. And probably a lot of reasons for that. Some of it is that in general in politics here in Indiana, stridency doesn't play all that well.
[14:45:] BALDWIN: So that said, with what Ted Cruz has said today, against his, you know, opponent Donald Trump and Donald Trump quickly responding, you know, without that conservative radio voice in radio today and nonpartisan show.
KRULL: Yes.
BALDWIN: How's that sitting among Hoosiers?
KRULL: Well, I mean, I have not seen Senator Cruz's rant I guess would be the mildest term for it yet but I have heard about it. I was getting a lot of -- a lot of e-mail and Facebook tweet messages over Twitter messages while I was on the air. And, you know, predictably Democrats in Indiana seem to be thrilled because, you know, you have got the two leading candidates for the other party's nomination taking shots at each other and Republicans here who some tough challenges in terms of holding on to the governor's office and possibly U.S. Senate seat are kind of shaking their heads and saying, what are we going to stop eating our own?
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Shaking their heads. Are they paying close attention? Would this sway them or are their minds made up?
KRULL: I think by and large they're reconciled. Most of the polls, except for one outlier, has Donald Trump significantly ahead of Senator Cruz and at least most of the Republican leaders and, you know, the voices who are behind the leadership in the party are sort of making their peace with the idea that Donald Trump is going to be the party's nominee.
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BALDWIN: Interesting the way you say that, making the peace.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: You'll have a lot to talk about tomorrow, John Krull. We have to go.
"No Limits" is his radio show, WFYI, there in Indiana. Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.
KRULL: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Coming up next here, we get to talk again to former Republican presidential candidate, Jim Gilmore, joining me live. What does he think about the war of words between Cruz and Trump? Does it complicate efforts to bring the Republican Party together? We'll talk to him. You're watching CNN.
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[14:51:52] BALDWIN: At one point in this election cycle, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore was a contender for the nomination for president and he dropped out this past February so he figured he would go out for another party position, state party delegate to the convention in July. But, guess what, he was shut out there, too, blaming back-room politics.
Governor Jim Gilmore is back on the show.
Nice to see you, sir. Welcome back.
JIM GILMORE, (R), FORMER WEST VIRGINIA GOVERNOR & FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, thanks very much.
I guess blame is strong but that's what happened anyway.
BALDWIN: You tell me. Is it blame? How are you feeling? I was reading, you called it strong-arm tactics that kept you locked out. How would you explain what happened?
GILMORE: That's what it was. Look, traditionally, you have statewide elects officials trying to draw the party together for unity to go against Hillary Clinton. Than just being pushed out. That is probably not a very unifying thing to do. But don't worry about me. I'm going to be fine. The key question here is, what can we do to pull the party together to defeat Hillary Clinton?
BALDWIN: Hang on. I think the real question is, who's doing the pushing?
GILMORE: I don't understand. You mean --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: How do you feel you were pushed out?
GILMORE: Well, it's perfectly obvious what happened. Ted Cruz came in, took the convention over with his leadership there with Ken Cuccinelli, and then just homogenized the ticket and cut off all the potential leadership that would go the other way. I think that's OK. But at the end of the day, I think there's a lot of wreckage left behind in order to try to get to a divisive convention. I think after today, we will have our candidate, and the time has come to move forward and defeat Hillary Clinton. That's what is the most important thing for the United States.
BALDWIN: Reading between the tea leaves, we will have a candidate, meaning who is that candidate, Governor?
GILMORE: I think it's pretty obvious in primary after primary after primary Donald Trump has won. So take a look at the Virginia situation. Trump won the Virginia delegates but yet in this past convention in Harrisonburg, the Cruz people manipulated things to got 80 percent of the votes if there's a second ballot. I think it's really not a unifying type of thing, it's not a unifying of the party. And, you know, my job, I've been asked to get the vote out and do the registration drives to carry Virginia back into the Republican column. And I think that that's where our focus has to be now in unifying the party against Hillary Clinton.
BALDWIN: I want the move on but I want to say I understand your frustration and the rules are rules, and Trump folks could have been a tad more creative, as well.
Let's leave that to the side. Have you seen what Senator Cruz said today, Governor? You know, I don't know, went on for 10 or so minutes, calling Donald Trump a narcissist, amoral, pathological liar, on and on and on. Donald Trump responding, calling it ridiculous, saying he doesn't have the temperament to be the next president of the United States. When's happening between these two grown men?
GILMORE: I think we are getting near the end of the campaign and I think Senator Cruz's comments are not constructive and not helpful. I think we take on people on policy. I, myself, have taken on the candidates on policy because I was trying to run a campaign that was based on the future of the country and I think that's where we should end up to beat the Democrats in November. BALDWIN: You know, the last time, Governor Gilmore, we had you on you
used this analogy of a bridge to the presidency and you talked about alligators. Here you were.
(LAUGHTER)
[14:55:18] GILMORE: That's right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GILMORE: The bridge to the presidency has been burned down. But on the other hand, Hillary Clinton is so bad and, you know, if you talk about a bridge being burned down across the river, there's something down in the river, and that's an alligator, and it's called Hillary Clinton. And we have to figure out --
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BALDWIN: Hillary Clinton is the alligator in this metaphor?
GILMORE: Yeah. She's the alligator. We have to figure out how to get across the river even though the bridge is burned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: So, depending on how, you know, Trump does tonight, may be the one crossing the bridge. Can he rebuild the bridge, Governor Gilmore, or are you putting on your swimsuit?
(LAUGHTER)
GILMORE: That's the point, Brooke, of the comments I've made, now's the time to pull the party together. These crass remarks being made today by Senator Cruz are inappropriate, it continues to divide things. That's the kind of wreckage that we left in Virginia. That's the potential going forward here now. The time has come to recognize the reality of where these votes are going and get behind a real positive program for the people of the United States, particularly on the issues on the economy and national security. And I was there for the Trump national security speech. You know what, it was pretty good. So I think that the time has come to really address those issues.
BALDWIN: Jim Gilmore, thank you, sir. Talk again.
GILMORE: Thank you, Brooke.
BALDWIN: Coming up next, more on the comments from Ted Cruz today, including what he said on how Trump treats women and more.
You're watching CNN's special live coverage. Don't go anywhere.
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