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75 Million in Path of Monster Snowstorm; DC Mayor to Assure Public Ahead of Storm; Donald Trump Opens Up 20-Point Lead in New Hampshire; Ted Cruz, GOP Establishment Trade Jabs; Sanders Surge Puts Pressure on Clinton; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 21, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:01] GOV. KATE BROWN (D), OREGON: This spectacle of lawlessness must end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The governor says the occupation is costing the state about $100,000 per week. She wants the government, the federal government, to reimburse Oregon taxpayers.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Any minute now, Washington, D.C.'s mayor will be holding a press conference, trying to reassure people ahead of the snow-pocalypse. 75 million people are now in the path of that monster storm.

A little while ago, Virginia declared a state of emergency and any minute now Washington just may follow suit. The mayor, Muriel Bowser, will also try to convince her city that she is ready. It will be a tough sell, though, because it was chaos in D.C. last night. This is what less than two inches of snow did. Now imagine the two feet that could be dumped by this epic storm this weekend.

Washington, D.C., right in the bull's eye and yesterday's dusting left many of the roads impassable. The president had to ditch his helicopter and slip and slide his way to the White House. That's the presidential motorcade. You guessed it, the roads had not been treated. They were an icy mess. Some people were trapped inside their cars on the highway for more than six hours.

People are incensed, they're worried. Check out some of these angry tweets. Patrick Dillon says, quote, "the worst traffic I've ever seen in D.C. Less than one inch of snow. May God have mercy on our souls this weekend." And this tweet from Serial Gore, quote, "Stuck in traffic on icy roads. The city of D.C. is incompetent in preparing the roads. Tons of frozen ice. Are we in the backwoods or the nation's capital?"

Now the D.C. Mayor Bowser will have to answer why D.C. missed the forecast and why it will not this weekend.

Let's head to the Weather Center and check in with Chad Myers as we await the mayor to get behind that podium at the salt barn in Washington, D.C.

Good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There's always a live shot by a salt barn somewhere, isn't there, Carol?

COSTELLO: I know. Yes.

MYERS: From you and me, back in our days in Columbus, Ohio, to Detroit, it doesn't matter, there's always something going on in a salt barn.

Let me talk to you about the storm and what's going to happen and why we have blizzard watches in effect for New York City, Baltimore, and D.C. If you were in a line somewhere around right through this, this here to the south, this is going to be all rain. You are not really going to be in a snow event. Maybe a little bit of sleet but not that bad.

If you are somewhere in here, then you're going to be mixing in with snow, sleet, rain and ice and it's all going to be kind of a mess and it's going to pack down to maybe around five to 10 inches. If you're west to that line, you are all snow. And that's where it is going to started to pile up. It won't pile up when you're packing down sleet and freezing rain on top. But it will pile up where it's all snow. And some of that piling up may go to 30 inches deep.

It's going to be snowing in Memphis, in Knoxville and Nashville, in Lexington, and into Charleston, and even into parts of western Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and maybe even some snow all the way down here in Atlanta. We know what a half inch it did to Atlanta last time it tried to snow down here. Luckily, this will be on the weekend.

There's going to be an ice event, an ice storm, up to a half inch, maybe even three-quarters of an inch for Greenville and Charlotte. That will bring down power lines and also bring down the electricity grid for many people, there could be millions of people without power here because of this storm.

And then the snow comes in, starts in D.C. tomorrow night, starts in New York City on Saturday morning and it snows for hours. The problem is, Carol, if it snows at two inches an hour for five or six hours, all of a sudden that's a foot of snow. And if it does that twice, then we're all the way up to that two feet as we expect. This is the purple area from D.C., Charlottesville, Roanoke. That's the purple, that's the bull's eye. But don't take your eye off the prize in New York City. Still six and 10 inches there. And we saw what one inch did in D.C. yesterday.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: It was really, really bad.

MYERS: Yes. COSTELLO: Let's head out to D.C. right now, shall we? Back to that

salt barn because the salt trucks are already loading up with their cargo.

Chris Frates is in front of the salt barn, he's awaiting the mayor to speak. And she has a lot of explaining to do, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's absolutely right, Carol. We got sucker-punched here last night in D.C. It was a mess, gridlock all over the city. The ice walks -- the sidewalks were icy, it was slick. And I talked to the mayor's aide before this press conference. And I said, you know, what is the mayor going to say, and they said, she's going to take responsibility for last night.

They didn't put enough resources out on the road. And they say it's a bit of, you know, both not enough resources and rush hour traffic. That was a really tough combo for them to overcome. And right now they're in a briefing talking about when to issue the state of emergency for this Friday's storm that will get cars off the road, that will make emergency roads available and you can't park throughout the city. We expect that we might get a -- some timing on that as well. And the mayor sat down with the police chief, with the Department of Transportation, and all city officials here just a few moments ago.

[10:05:09] And I talked to the police chief and I said, Chief, you know, what are you expecting, and she said she was out last night, helping stranded motorists, that there were folks who had just left their cars on the road, helping identify those cars, get them off the road so emergency vehicles can pass.

And, Carol, she said she even expects that if we get this two feet of snow, that the humvees will be out patrolling these roads. So I think what we'll hear from the mayor is a plan for what we're going to see coming forward and taking some responsibility for the ice show that we saw last night.

COSTELLO: All right. Chris Frates, I've got to break away because New York Mayor, Mayor De Blasio, is approaching the microphone to talk about the big snowstorm that's expected to hit here. Let's listen.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: A lot of positive reviews. Even got a very favorable architecture review in "The New York Times," so this is -- sanitation gets credit for being both very, very effective at keeping this city running, but also aesthetically pleasing at the same time.

The men and women of the Sanitation Department and all our agencies are getting ready right now. We're bracing for the first big storm of the winter. And I want to let all my fellow New Yorkers know that we are prepared. That the agencies here are ready for what's coming up ahead.

I want to thank the commissioners who you'll hear from in a moment. I want to thank Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, for his leadership and his partnership and all we do to keep our streets clear and to keep our city clean.

At this moment, on Thursday morning, the forecast is still unclear, but there's an increasing potential for a major winter storm this weekend. The latest forecast shows snow beginning early Saturday morning and continuing through Sunday. Now I'll emphasis here, we've been through this together before. Forecasts can change. They can go higher. They can go lower, earlier, later. So we're going to constantly keep you updated. But right now the forecast for New York City, snow begins in earnest early Saturday morning, continues through Sunday.

Currently we're assuming eight to 12 inches of snow, plus strong winds and possible coastal flooding. The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard watch. We'll continue to closely monitor for the situation and we're conducting daily calls with the National Weather Service. And we're working very closely. All city agencies, all --

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to break away, but Mayor De Blasio talking about outfitting garbage trucks as snowplows. They did such a good job in the past, he's going to employ them again to remove snow and we're also waiting for the mayor of D.C. to come out and talk at that big salt barn we were showing you, there it is. And you can see the trucks are already loading up. And when Mayor Bowser approaches the microphone, we'll keep you posted.

On to politics now and with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz dominating the headlines, the rest of the Republican field is battling to be heard. Among them, Jeb Bush, who is taking his pitch to voters in New Hampshire.

These are live pictures from the town of Newport where Bush is now holding a town -- actually will hold a town hall a little later but they're all ready.

Bush and the rest of the Republican pack trailing far behind Donald Trump in the state where Trump now has a 20-point lead. For his part, Donald Trump is looking ahead to the next state on the 2016 calendar, which would be Nevada, where he'll hold a rally in Vegas this afternoon.

Trump is also brushing aside a gaffe from earlier in the week when he misspoke the name of one of the books in the bible. He told CNN's Don Lemon the mistake was no biggie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Frankly, Tony Perkins wrote that out for me because Tony thought it would be great. He knew I was going to Liberty. Has a great respect for Liberty and Tony Perkins is a very, very good guy. And he actually wrote out "two," he wrote out the number two Corinthians, which I could show you very nicely if you'd like. And I called Tony and he said, no, well, I meant second, but he wrote out the letter two and he was the one that actually was, you know, somebody I do respect a lot and like a lot. And he would -- he liked me to say this, he wanted me to talk about exactly what we're talking about, Corinthians. And so what I did is I took exactly what Tony said and I said, well, Tony has to know better than anybody.

I have to tell you, Don, I've heard it both ways. And it was a very small deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has more from New Hampshire this morning. Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. I can tell you out here on the campaign trail, the center of attention really does continue to be focused very squarely on Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. Her endorsement already largely successful in stealing a lot of the e energy, a lot of the excitement away from other candidates here in New Hampshire, over in Iowa, trying to get attention.

[10:10:03] But there was an interesting moment when the two hit the campaign trail yesterday in Oklahoma together. Sarah Palin alluded to her son's troubles. Her son, a 26-year-old Iraq war veteran, Track Palin, charged this week on domestic violence charges. She alluded that saying he's been suffering PTSD and basically went on to blame President Obama.

I want to play you first what Sarah Palin said and then hear how Donald Trump react to that in an interview with CNN's Don Lemon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: When my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate with other families who kind of feel these ramifications of some PTSD and some our woundedness that our soldiers do return with.

TRUMP: And I thought it would be appropriate. There was tremendous press and I think it's something that's very important to discuss, not even for her son but for so many other sons and daughters that are coming back from the Middle East where they have, you know, traumatic problems. They have tremendous problems. And I told her, I actually suggested it. I think -- I said, I think it would be a great forum.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now we are here in New Hampshire where Ted Cruz will -- he will have a series of campaign events later here today. The focus for him really right now is trying to refocus his message of campaign. He has really been knocked off his message. A series of hits this week over the last 48 hours. And it's really been interesting to watch Ted Cruz really start to hone his message, going right after Donald Trump. Even in the face of the Sarah Palin announcement and this endorsement.

Cruz really trying to pin that establishment label right on Donald Trump, really starting to go after him very succinctly on that argument -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That doesn't seem to be working so well in New Hampshire for Ted Cruz, though, right?

SERFATY: Well, that's right. The latest polls show him well behind Donald Trump here in the state. You know, Cruz this week has invested a significant amount of time, about five, six events a day. But the thing that has really been stalking him out here on the campaign trail is these one, two, three punch blows that he's gotten this week. So it will be interesting to see today how he tries to rework his message, try to reclaim a little bit of the momentum that he's really lost this week -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen Serfaty reporting live from New Hampshire.

Still to come, first Cruz lost out on Sarah Palin's endorsement. Now one former GOP presidential nominee says if Cruz would win the primary, he says it would be, quote, "cataclysmic." I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:51] COSTELLO: All right. We are awaiting the mayor of Washington, D.C. to get behind that microphone to explain what went down in the city last night. As you know, traffic came to a standstill after about an 1 1/2 inches of snow fell. Some people were trapped inside their car, on the highway for more than six hours.

The mayor is going to explain that and she's going to tell the residents of D.C. how she's preparing for the big blizzard headed toward D.C. over the weekend. And when the mayor begins speaking, of course, we'll take you back to northeast D.C.

In the world of politics, establishment Republicans are pushing back against Donald Trump. Bob Dole, though, was attacking Ted Cruz. The former senator says if Cruz wins the primary, the party would suffer cataclysmic losses and because, he says, everybody hates Cruz, he would rather see Donald Trump win.

With me now, Scottie Hughes, chief political correspondent for USA Radio Networks and a Trump surrogate, and Peter Beinart, contributor to Atlantic Media and CNN political commentator.

Welcome to both you.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. Peter, Bob Dole went on to say Trump would be a better president. The governor of Iowa saying Cruz would be bad for his state. A sitting senator dissed on two fronts. Why?

BEINART: Well, this is the problem for the Republican establishment. They're not planning to stop this one candidate but two, both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. And in a way, they despise Ted Cruz even more because they know him better. I happen to think that both Cruz or Trump would lead to a landslide victory for the Democrats and both of them would be very dangerous presidents. But I disagree with Dole. I think Trump would be the more dangerous because I think fundamentally he's an authoritarian. I don't think he has a basic respect for our constitutional process as reflected by his proposal for religious test on immigration into the United States and so I think he would be the more dangerous one.

COSTELLO: Scottie?

SCOTTIE HUGHES, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, USA RADIO NETWORKS: Well, it's funny there, you say that. But you have to realize the source on this. It's kind of a double-edged sword, as Bob Dole's comments. Because on one hand, he -- he did not like Ted Cruz. Part of Cruz's stump speech is that he criticizes Bob Dole in '96 for being such a moderate and weakling and that's why we lost that election.

On the other hand, Mr. Trump, well, I'm sure he welcomes every compliment. The last thing that a conservative wants to hear is somebody that's an establishment or a progressive or a Democrat complimenting anything that they say or any their policies. So while it sits there and looks like it might be a compliment, the idea of the fact that you've got establishment people and Democrats now saying that they like Donald Trump, you have to go, wait a minute. That just speaks to the idea that Mr. Trump can appeal to a broad base of voters, which scares the Democrats ultimately.

(CROSSTALK)

BEINART: You know, I don't think -- I think the idea the Democrats are worried that Donald Trump is going to take crossover voters is just nonsense. The kind of -- the kind of nativist, bigoted voters who are now voting for Donald Trump, they left the Democratic Party in the '70s. The Democratic Party is essentially a coalition of younger people, of minorities. Donald Trump is not going to cut into that at all. Marco Rubio maybe a little bit. Not Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: I want to --

HUGHES: That's great for you to say, but the polls aren't agreeing with you with that one.

COSTELLO: I want to --

HUGHES: The latest poll --

[10:20:02] COSTELLO: I know. I want to turn the page for just a second, Scottie, because I want to get this question in. There seems to be a lot of infighting going on among conservatives and some of it is quite vicious. For example, this morning's headline in "Red State," "Go Home, Sarah. You're Drunk." The author of this article is Susan Wright. She writes, in part, quote, "Sadly the mask of the Sarah Palin so many of us were drawn in by has slipped. Rather than a warrior for conservative principle we now see the oh, so shallow pool of her conservatism. In other words," this author says, "why embrace a candidate who once supported Democrats?" And they're talking about Ted Cruz. So, Scottie, I'd like you to respond to that.

HUGHES: Listen. Conservative online opinion journalists are split, you're right. And that's mainly because they've gotten to know most of these candidates and nobody has done a better job than Senator Ted Cruz. That being said, if you go to "Red State," you look at their front page, they are obviously anti-Mr. Trump, they are for Marco Rubio, they are for Ted Cruz, and they're not doing anything to hide their bias.

And that's OK. That's what their readers are looking for. But you have to realize the source and where are these journalists. To sit there and say that they are not opinionated, just stating facts would be false. And what I find to be kind of ironic in all of this is we sit there as conservatives and we claim that the mainstream media is bias but yet to fail to call out some of our own, and in this case it's an obvious bias against Mr. Trump and a lot of those things are false.

And now, if Sarah Palin would have endorsed Ted Cruz, that writer probably would have wrote one of the most beautifully, praising articles she's ever done before.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: OK. But, still, Peter, more than one person I know is looking forward to "Saturday Night Live" and chanting, Tina Fey, Tina Fey. I mean, in the long run, can this really be a great endorsement for Donald Trump?

BEINART: I don't think it makes a big difference but I do think that Donald Trump is really overperforming among evangelicals. I mean, given that this is a guy who doesn't have a history of being particularly culturally conservative, and his obvious, you know, knowledge and -- of Christianity is very, very thin, it is really remarkable that he's holding his own against a guy like Ted Cruz among -- among evangelicals. And I think Sarah Palin may help him a little bit with that, and that's part of why Donald Trump is doing so well.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Peter Beinart, Scottie Nell Hughes, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, an epic snowstorm with 75 million people in its path. We are moments away from hearing from D.C.'s mayor. We're on it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:40] COSTELLO: All right. Things are running a little late in Washington, D.C. We're still awaiting this press conference to begin. The D.C. mayor is supposed to be behind that microphone talking about the coming blizzard. And as you can see her people are assembling right now and hopefully she will begin to speak soon.

So, while we wait, I want to take you back out to Iowa where Jeff Zeleny is. He's going to talk about the Democratic side of things. And Bernie Sanders' surge and Hillary Clinton is kind of like losing steam.

Jeff Zeleny, take it away.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol, I mean, not as much snow on the ground here in Iowa as expected in Washington but I can tell you the level of optimism on the Bernie Sanders side of the campaign, it's really striking. Hillary Clinton is closing the campaign, stressing the urgency for experience. But Bernie Sanders is trying to have a bit of little lighter approach, a bit of an optimistic approach. Look at this new ad he's starting to run on television here.

So that, of course, is Simon and Garfunkel's "America," that classic 1968 anthem that Bernie Sanders is using as his closing argument here. Certainly one of the ideas for, you know, Iowa Democratic voters to believe in his policies.

Now it's a bit of a feel-good ad, Carol, but I can tell you, it reminds me of a Barack Obama ad. It looks like one and, in fact, some of his advertising people are from the Obama campaign. Some of his digital people are. So we'll see how this closes out here. But what an optimistic ad, tone from Bernie Sanders who of course is kind of an original hippy from Brooklyn but, you know, has lived in Burlington, Vermont, all these years.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I know. I was actually going to say it reminds me of that old Coke commercial actually. You know, I want to buy the world, right?

ZELENY: That's true.

COSTELLO: I know. It does.

ZELENY: It does. It does.

COSTELLO: How is Hillary Clinton's camp reacting to all of this? I mean, she's becoming much more negative in her campaigning.

ZELENY: She's trying to draw a contrast with Bernie Sanders and of course that always comes across as negative. She's trying to, you know, kind of shake voters, if you will, and say, look, I have more experience, I am the, you know, complete package. And her ads running this morning, I watched them all morning long here on television, Carol, and they are so serious about how she can do the job, how she's ready from day one to do the job.

But sometimes voters just, you know, don't necessarily follow the direction right away. I talked to one Iowa Democratic voter who said, look, I'll vote for Hillary Clinton eventually if she wins the nomination, but right now I like what Bernie Sanders is saying. So that is what she's up against. But it is far, far, far too early to write her off certainly. The Clinton campaign has so many advantages. A lot of the establishment is with her. That's why the final 11 or so days of this contest, Carol, are going to be so interesting and frankly so exciting for people like us who love campaigns.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: You are a political nerd, Jeff Zeleny. Thanks so much.

ZELENY: Oh, thank you, Carol. Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. You know you are.

We want to let you know about a big event that's coming next Monday night in Iowa. It will be seen only on CNN. Exactly one week before Iowa chooses, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley will go face-to-face with the voters in Iowa.

In a CNN Democratic presidential town hall live from Des Moines, Chris Cuomo will moderate. It is the final pitch for all the candidates before the first votes are cast. That's next Monday night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. A state of emergency now declared along the East Coast. Up to two feet of snow expected to wallop millions as a massive storm trudges in. An inch of snow, though, snarling traffic overnight in D.C. and you know, that's child's play compared to what's about to come.

Chad Myers is tracking the latest on this big old storm. He joins us live from Atlanta, while we await this press conference in D.C. from the mayor.

Hi, Chad.

MYERS: Hi, Carol. Fair enough, if the mayor shows up, just interrupt me. No problem there. We talked about the bull's eye over D.C. Waiting for the next storm. There is the bull's eye. I'll show you how that matches up to the numbers on the raw scale in a second.

I'll show you how there's not going to be a lot of precip up and down the East Coast other than rain, maybe some sleet mixing in. And then a light accumulation in New York City. This is the American model. Now let me get you to the European model. Slightly farther to the north --