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Democratic Candidates Shake Off Iowa, Focus On New Hampshire; Trump Slams Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) Over Impeachment Vote; Top Questions On Impeachment For The Week; Coronavirus Death Toll Rises To 904; Pete Buttigieg Gets The Most Delegates In Iowa Caucus, Sanders Second; Interview With Lin-Manuel Miranda On Academy Awards. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired February 09, 2020 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I meant for your closing statements.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
And the hours now ticking away to what officials hope will be the first problem-free vote of this presidential election, can't say that about Iowa caucuses. They were such a mess that one of the top finishers called the contest embarrassing and a disgrace.
But on Tuesday, it is the 2020 New Hampshire primary, and the Democratic candidates are trying to reach every voter they can this weekend, finding every camera, every microphone they can today. One thing the Iowa caucuses did provide, apart from lots of migraines, is a shuffling of the frontrunners. Senator Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg left Iowa splitting the biggest share of the popular vote and the delegates.
One-time frontrunner Joe Biden says he's not concerned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I congratulate Pete. I congratulate Bernie. They did a great job, and they were really well organized, better organized than we were in Iowa. But I don't think that that -- I've viewed from the beginning -- and I really mean this -- I viewed from the beginning that you have to take the first four as one. You've got two primaries and two caucuses back-to-back, basically.
Not a single person has won without overwhelming support from the black community, overwhelming, overwhelming, okay?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CABRERA: CNN's Ryan Nobles is in Manchester, New Hampshire, for us. Ryan, just one more full day until the first primary vote of this election. How confident are Democrats that this won't be a repeat of the Iowa fiasco?
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Ana, I think they're pretty confident. This is a much different situation here in New Hampshire than it is in Iowa. First of all, this isn't a caucus. This is just a straight vote. New Hampshire has done this for many years. They're just going to repeat that process again. So it's highly unlikely that we'll see the confusion and the chaos that we saw in Iowa a week ago.
But I do want to talk more about the campaign with Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia. I believe, Congressman, correct me if I'm wrong, you were the first member of Congress to endorse the campaign of former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, right?
FMR. REP. DON BEYER (D-VA): I was, almost a year ago. But we're up to seven now and growing.
NOBLES: Yes, yes. You're here on behalf of the former mayor, and I appreciate you being here. And so just -- I mean, first, before we get into the nuts and bolts of the campaign, let me ask you that question. Do you feel confident that New Hampshire is going to be able to get through this process a little bit easier than Iowa was?
BEYER: Oh, much easier, just because it's a primary. It won't have the chaos of people trying to line up in a room. So I think we'll get votes on time, and they'll be reliable tomorrow night.
NOBLES: All right. So tell me about your candidate. Where do you think Mayor Buttigieg stands right now? I mean, the polls show us that there's a bit of momentum behind his campaign, especially after a strong showing in Iowa.
BEYER: I feel really good about it. I mean, we'll let the voters decide tomorrow. But he had 1,800 people show up in Nashua this morning, which is the largest number ever on a Sunday, period, a thousand people at Keene State College last night. I knocked on about 100 doors today, in New London and in Wilmot and in Lebanon, and everybody we talked to, one or two Trump people, but most of the people were really excited about him.
NOBLES: Okay. So you're someone who has a great deal of experience, right? You've been in Congress for five years. You've served as an ambassador to two different countries in different administrations, so you kind of understand how important it is for a president of the United States to have experience. That's been the knock on the mayor's campaign, particularly a knock coming from someone with a great lot of experience in Vice President Biden. How would you respond to those charges?
BEYER: Well, there's different kinds of experience. One thing I just discovered a long time ago is that people will vote for talent over specific experience anyway, but he's run a city of 100,000 with 1,000 employees. That's a lot of people. And when you're mayor, you can't dodge responsibility. Sometimes, you remember in Congress, you can blame it on the other 434, but you can't when you're mayor.
He's been in Afghanistan. He was an intelligence officer. And he is beautifully educated. He's got to be the best read probably of any of the candidates with his five languages, his Rhodes Scholar. You see it in the debates. He is the most articulate, the calmest, the greatest equanimity, and I've also seen, as we saw defending Joe Biden the other night, he's the most gracious.
NOBLES: And so, explain to me -- actually, let's play a little bit of sound now as we talk about this kind of back-and-forth between the Vice President and the mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. Actually, we don't have it, so I'm just going to ask you this.
BEYER: Okay.
NOBLES: I mean, are you surprised that the vice president has taken this tact now? I mean, he's, for a long time kind of been above the fray, not really gone on the attack at all. Were you surprised to see that turn?
BEYER: I really was surprised and I was disappointed. I don't think it will hurt Pete. And Pete is going to expect much worse coming from Donald Trump in the general election so, it will toughen him up, but I don't think it helped Joe Biden. Because one of Joe's big deals is that he's likable, but going after Pete like that didn't help his likability.
NOBLES: Okay. Let's talk about the other end of the spectrum, and that's Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who also has decided now to engage with Mayor Pete on a variety of issues.
[18:05:02]
He's been very critical of his donor base, particularly the wealthy donors that have funded his campaign and the way he's going about raising the money with private fundraisers and the like. How would you respond to this?
BEYER: I think it's incredibly hypocritical. First of all, Pete has more than 2 million individual gifts, 8 800,000 givers. The average gift is $40. If somebody -- a millionaire maxes out to them, that's $2,800. No one changes their philosophy or their opinion for $2,800 in a campaign that's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
NOBLES: But there're ways. I mean, one individual donor could bundle a bunch of those donors $,2800 together, so there is a way to have outside influence in that process, right?
BEYER: Yes, but I've never seen anybody do that. I've been raising money for candidates for 38 years, and only twice has somebody asked me to do something that was unethical, illegitimate. Of course I told them to go to hell both times.
NOBLES: Yes.
BEYER: Yes.
NOBLES: So getting back to this conversation though about Sanders versus Buttigieg, and you see the mayor trying to kind of thread a needle here between promising a level of change but not going all the way to a revolution. How do you feel that resonates with voters?
BEYER: Well, I think there's a great editorial -- I don't know if it was The Washington Post or The New York Times yesterday -- saying, this is not the moderates versus the progressives. All of the leading candidates are progressive. You just have Bernie and Elizabeth who tend to be doing things that most people don't think are actually possible. As Bernie says, when we get a revolution, we'll do these things.
So I think the way Pete is approaching it, you have Medicare-for-all who want it, college for those who can't afford it, is really practical and can happen in the next administration.
NOBLES: Okay. Congressman Beyer, we appreciate you so much. Maybe I'll see you around Virginia, North Virginia in the next few weeks.
BEYER: Thank you, Ryan, so much.
NOBLES: Thank you. I appreciate it.
And speaking of Senator Bernie Sanders, we're going to talk a little bit more about what he's focused on now. Let's actually just -- Senator Bernie Sanders, he is on not actually holding anything back in his opinion of the mess in Iowa that we've talked about quite a bit. In fact, Jake Tapper asked the senator this morning if he felt that party officials were purposely going after him. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think the Democratic Party is trying to openly hurt your campaign?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, all I can say about Iowa is it was an embarrassment, it was a disgrace to the good people of Iowa who take their responsibilities in the caucuses very seriously. They screwed is up badly, is that the Iowa Democratic Party did.
But at the end of the day, to me, what is most important -- I don't know how anybody can debate it -- we ended up on the first ballot, 6,000 votes ahead of anybody else.
TAPPER: Do you think that the Democratic Party, whether the Iowa Democratic Party or the DNC, was trying to hurt you though?
SANDERS: I have no idea, and that's -- you know, we're going to monitor the situation closely, but that's not my impression at this point. We are taking on the entire establishment. We're taking on corporate America. We're taking on Trump and the Republican establishment, and there are a lot of people in the Democratic establishment who are not, to say the least, enthusiastic about Bernie Sanders. But I'm not casting any aspersions on -- you know, political aspersions. The incompetence there in Iowa was just extraordinary.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NOBLES: All right, let's talk more about the primary process as it relates to what happened in Iowa. Ray Buckley joins me. He is the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
Extraordinary independence, that's what Senator Bernie Sanders had to say about the handling of the Iowa caucus. I know you probably don't want to cast ill will towards your friends in Iowa, who had an enormously difficult job there, but tell me what's happening here in New Hampshire. Are you guys prepared for this primary Tuesday night?
RAY BUCKLEY, CHAIRMAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: We are totally prepared. The difference between a caucus and a primary is apples and oranges. The people here in New Hampshire will be going to the same voting location, you know, meeting the same ballot inspectors and the clerks and the moderators. Everything's going to be done exactly the same as if you're running for town election office or state or federal office. So there's no chance of that.
But just, as we say, to use belt and suspenders, we have had multiple meetings with the Governor's Office, the attorney general, secretary of state, Homeland Security, DOJ, state police, even the Republican State Party.
NOBLES: Yes. So let's talk a little bit about turnout. You know, we expected a big turnout in Iowa, and it was solid, but it was certainly not historic levels. What do you think we should expect from turnout here? I mean, I have to imagine that turnout is going to be big, just because there are so many options and so many candidates in the race.
BUCKLEY: I think that might be causing the opposite, though.
NOBLES: Really?
BUCKLEY: That there are polls all over the map, of course, but anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of the voters still haven't made a definitive, final decision. And some people might just wake up on Tuesday going, look it, I just want whoever's running against Donald Trump, I'm there, I'm with them. I can't decide between both of these folks or all three of these folks are terrific. Whoever the folks decide, I'm ready to go.
NOBLES: So you actually think the turnout could be lower as a result of that?
BUCKLEY: You know, it could be. The secretary of state is suggesting that it might not be as large as we initially thought it would be, but we'll wait to see. You know, the people of New Hampshire always love to surprise us.
[18:10:02]
NOBLES: Yes, yes, Paralyzed by choice, if you will.
So just talk to me about -- a little bit about what you see from these candidates. We -- in past years, I think when we get to this stage of the New Hampshire primary, even though we are now starting to see the candidates kind of sharpen their elbows a little bit, it's usually a lot more difficult Than the words flying between these campaigns tend to be a little bit harsher. This has been a kind primary, hasn't it?
BUCKLEY: Kindest of my lifetime except, of course, when President Clinton and President Obama were running unopposed.
NOBLES: Right, right, right.
BUCKLEY: But this is not a typical New Hampshire primary and it has been really wonderful. And the fact is, is that folks don't want to say a dirty thing -- they understand the stakes. They understand the Supreme Court, you know, is on the line, all those federal judgeships that will be up in the next four years. It could be some serious damage to women's reproductive rights and civil rights and so much that we so passionately care about.
So, I think people just are putting that ahead of anything. And you know, that poll the other day that showed that 69 percent of New Hampshire Democrats would rather a meteor hit the globe than Donald Trump be re-elected, I think that kind of tells you where they're at.
NOBLES: Well, you know, President Trump does have a pretty special connection here to New Hampshire and he's going to be here tomorrow night. I know that I've been to several events here in New Hampshire, and there's almost always a contingent of Trump supporters out there making sure their presence is known. I mean, what do you make of President Trump's appeal here in New Hampshire? Because he certainly -- maybe it's not overwhelming as you've alluded to, but he certainly does have a passionate base of support in this state.
BUCKLEY: Well, he has a passionate base in the northeast, because that's really where they're coming from. There are a couple hundred intense followers here in New Hampshire, but every time he shows up or any of these sorts of protests, you ask them where they're from, they're driving in from all over. So, look, I don't know if they're some sort of an internet buddy system or something, but they come in.
And, you know, I can tell you, when he was here in September, I knew that none of the thousands that were standing in line to get into the arena, no one was from New Hampshire because I walked right by them and nobody yelled at me.
NOBLES: So you're saying New Hampshire Republicans know who you are is what you're saying.
BUCKLEY: Oh, yes.
NOBLES: Well, then getting -- tracking back then to that bigger point that you alluded to earlier about kind of a unifying force of opposition to Donald Trump within the Democratic Party. You know, there have been some -- there are some candidates in this Democratic field might be thought of as polarizing, that not necessarily can attract all factions of the Democratic Party.
Do you think that any of the folks that are on the ballot right now, should they become the nominee, have the opportunity to do that, to unify the party against President Trump?
BUCKLEY: I think all of them do. You look at what's happening here among the establishment in the Republican Party, you have two very recent Republican State Party chairs. They're actively out campaigning against Donald Trump. Former U.S. Senator Gordon Humphrey, longtime conservative Republican senator, absolutely not willing to support Donald Trump. There is a long list of individuals that are very prominent Republicans in the state that just say that they can't lend their name to be supportive of him. And you're not going to see that on the Democratic side at all.
NOBLES: So, finally, before we let you go, any advice for voters, right? You go out tomorrow. I mean, do they need to have certain things in line before they go? Is there some rules having to do with when they get in line, before the polls close? What's your best piece of advice for a Democratic voter as they're heading to the polls tomorrow?
BUCKLEY: One, if you're in line, and even when it hits 7:00, as long as you're in line, you can vote. In fact, as long as you're in your car in the parking lot, you can vote. Number two, if you forget your I.D., if you forget any of that stuff, you can sign a form and you can get back to them. You can still vote. Everyone can vote in New Hampshire.
NOBLES: Okay. And I believe, right, you don't necessarily have to be a Democrat to vote tomorrow, right?
BUCKLEY: You can be a Democrat, anyone who is unregistered voter can register that afternoon and cast a ballot, and anyone who is undeclared or independent, the 42 percent of the registered voters, they can go in and take a Democratic ballot and it'd be okay if they stayed with the Democratic party.
NOBLES: And they're a pretty powerful force in New Hampshire.
BUCKLEY: They are the powerful force.
NOBLES: Yes. All right, Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, thank you so much for being here, sir. And good luck tomorrow. Hopefully, you promised no chaos.
BUCKLEY: No chaos.
NOBLES: So I'm holding you to that, all right?
All right, let's go back now New York and Ana Cabrera. Ana?
CABRERA: Yes, tomorrow and the next day is they have to get through the because the primary is on Tuesday. Ryan Nobles, thank you very much for that.
Meantime, another person is going to heading to New Hampshire that's hoping to get lots of attention from voters there, and that is President Trump. Who will be in New Hampshire tomorrow to host his own rally on the eve of the primaries, this as he goes on the attack on Twitter against senators who voted against him on impeachment. Hear how they're responding.
Plus, CNN has learned that a group of Republican senators asked the president not to fire impeachment witness Gordon Sondland. Details on those behind-the-scenes discussions, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:15:00]
CABRERA: Welcome back.
Following his acquittal on both articles of impeachment, President Trump is on the attack. Among tweets and re-tweets he has sent today, slamming impeachment and peddling conspiracy theories, he also reverted back to one of his favorite tactics, name-calling, this time against Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, tweeting, they are really mad at Senator Joe Munchkin in West Virginia. He couldn't understand the transcripts. Romney could, but didn't want to.
Manchin is seen as a vulnerable Democratic senator and he was publicly on the fence leading up to this impeachment vote but ultimately voted to convict Trump on both charges.
Mitt Romney is another senator the president continues to attack, as we just showed. He blocked the president from being able to say impeachment was only partisan. Romney voted to convict Trump on one of the articles, on abuse of power.
CNN's Kristen Holmes is with us now. And, Kristen, what are you learning about the president's mindset tonight?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the president's mindset has really been in the same place, we saw it on display, starting Wednesday when he gave that lengthy acquittal speech, and it became clear that the impeachment was not going to be water under the bridge. President Trump spent a lot of time attacking Democrats, attacking the senators who didn't vote for him, and it really has continued since then.
[18:20:06]
And you should really look at who exactly it is that he's attacking, when he talks about Romney, a Republican, the only Republican that crossed party lines to vote against an acquittal. You saw Joe Manchin, a Democrat, but a moderate who has voted time and time again with Republicans, including on Kavanaugh, a big vote there, and Democrat Doug Jones from Alabama, who won in a red state, and is running again this year. So, clearly, he thought that there might be a chance that he would vote against the impeachment as well.
And so it's really interesting to see how this is playing out, and it should be very clear that these messages are intended for his base. He wants to rile up his supporters, and it's likely what we're going it see as he moves on to the campaign trail. We know that tomorrow, he's going to be in New Hampshire. He has a rally on the eve of the primary. And we're expecting more attacks like this. And to be clear, President Trump won the primary. He totally shocked political establishment when he won in New Hampshire in 2016, and he won using this rhetoric. But this time around, it's a bit different, because campaign advisers have even acknowledged that President Trump, in order to win in 2020, is going to have to get some of those moderate voters, so how they're going to actually marry this Trump that we see giving these rallies, being aggressive on Twitter and somebody that the moderates want. Remember, they don't like that kind of attacking, name-calling. It's going to be interesting as we head into his re-election bid.
CABRERA: Kristen, Friday, the president fired two key impeachment witnesses from their White House posts. Obviously, he's appearing to be very emboldened right now, but you're learning more about a group of Republicans that tried to stop President Trump?
HOLMES: That's right. So, essentially, a small group of Republicans wanted President Trump not to fire Gordon Sondland. Sondland had already been in touch with senior officials after his impeachment testimony, saying that he was likely going to be stepping down soon, and these Republicans went to President Trump saying, this will look bad if you fire him. The most important thing that you can do now is let him kind of go out gracefully. He's going to end his term soon. But President Trump didn't want to do that. He wanted to fire him.
And I think this is really interesting and goes to what we saw with the Vindman twins as well. Instead of just asking them to leave, saying their duty was over, he had them escorted out and fired across the street with all of their stuff. I mean, it's making it a bigger spectacle, essentially saying, a warning sign to people who he believed cross him.
CABRERA: Okay. Kristen Holmes, thank you for that reporting.
We are just two days away now from the next critical vote in the 2020 race. In a new poll, Senator Bernie Sanders is in the lead. We'll break down the primary that the nation will be watching, next.
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[18:25:00]
CABRERA: With the vote to acquit President Trump on both articles, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the chapter has now closed on the president's impeachment. But with new information continually coming to light and with elected officials indicating their investigations and subpoenas will continue, it's clear this book is far from over.
That brings us to Cross-Exam with CNN's Legal Analyst, Elie Honig. He is here to answer your questions on impeachment.
And so, Elie, on Friday, we know Trump fired a couple of witnesses in this impeachment trial, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, as well as Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union. One person wants to know, aren't officials allowed to come forward without fear of retaliation and retribution?
ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, they are allowed and they should be. So federal law prohibits witness retaliation. It is a crime for anyone to take harmful action with intent to retaliate against someone for testimony that they gave. And, in fact, the law gives a specific example of harmful action as interference with lawful employment, meaning firing somebody, reassigning somebody, demoting somebody.
So to give an example, if you had a private company and the CEO was unhappy with testimony that certain employees gave and he or she demoted or fired them, that would be textbook witness retaliation.
Now, it's a little different here. We're talking about the president. We know the Justice Department has this longstanding policy against indicting a president. And, of course, William Barr, the attorney general, has really shown little courage or independence to stand up, even to make a statement about this kind of thing.
And I think the big question is, are we seeing the start of a wider campaign of retribution? Are we going to see Donald Trump use the power of the presidency and the government to go after and punish his perceived political enemies? And if so, is there anyone in the administration who's going to stand up and say, this is wrong, this is dangerous, this is everything that our democracy is not about?
CABRERA: Throughout this process, we heard over and over again from Democrats, no one is above the law. One viewer asks, does Trump's acquittal mean he actually is above the law?
HONIG: Yes, a very common question from our viewers. I think that was the number one most asked question this week. No, it doesn't mean the president is entirely above the law, but, look, things have fundamentally changed now in terms of balance of powers. First of all, the Constitution sets the bar very high for impeachment and removal. We've only had 20 impeachments. Only eight officials federally have been convicted and removed from office. So it's supposed to be rare.
But I think the long-term effect of what we've seen here is the bar has been raised on abuse of power. Remember, the president's defenders argued, if there's no crime alleged, then he can essentially do whatever he wants in order to get elected and it's not an abuse of power.
The other thing is, I think we are seeing an expansion of presidential powers. Remember, Congress served dozens of subpoenas in this case. The president defied all of them and essentially did it without consequence. So, unless and until Congress and the courts fight back, this really has increased the power of the presidency in relation to the Congress.
[18:30:01]
CABRERA: And while the Senate did not allow new witnesses or more evidence, documents to come forward during the impeachment trial, we are still getting little drips and drabs of new information throughout this process. And another viewer asks, is there double jeopardy in an impeachment? Can Trump be impeached again?
HONIG: So, there is no double jeopardy. He can be impeached again, but it's very, very unlikely. So, first of all, double jeopardy protects someone against being charged criminally twice. The Constitution uses the phrase penalty of life or limb, which means criminal penalties, not removal from office. So, double jeopardy does not apply to impeachment. That said, there is real political obstacles out there. No federal official has ever been impeached twice.
You would really have to see a groundswell of political support. There's a limited political and public appetite I think for impeachment. So, unless something completely unforeseen happens, I would not expect to see another impeachment of this president.
CABRERA: And now what are your top questions?
HONIG: Still have plenty of questions. Still much out there moving forward. First of all, will the House continue with its investigations? Will they subpoena John Bolton? They've given mixed messages about whether they're willing to do that.
Second of all, what happens on these emoluments clause cases that are out there? One federal court threw out one of these cases. This is about the president making profits off his hotels while he's in office, but there are still two other cases alive in the federal courts.
Those could end up in the Supreme Court. And finally, will President Trump continue to use his official power to seek retribution not just against Vindman and Sondland, but against others as well? And it could get really troubling and really dangerous depending where this goes.
CABRERA: All right. We will of course be watching all of it. Thank you so much, Elie Honig.
HONIG: Thanks, Ana.
CABRERA: Good to see you.
HONIG: All right.
CABRERA: Don't forget, you can submit your own questions at CNN.com/opinion. Just look for Elie's "Cross Exam" column.
The deadly fast-moving coronavirus is spiking yet again. Another 91 people died in mainland China, Sunday, bringing the worldwide death toll to at least 904. And CNN's chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, says the global outbreak is expected to take a toll on the markets this week. Christine has your "Before the Bell" report.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ana. Wall Street is gearing up for another heavy week of corporate earnings amid a backdrop of a global health crisis. Last week, investors chose to focus on the positive and stocks rallied, posting some huge gains and putting the three major averages back near record territory. Solid earnings from big-name companies like Apple and Coca-Cola overshadowed growing concerns about the coronavirus. And strong economic reports also helped boost stocks.
This week, investors will be keeping a close eye on how the virus may be affecting corporate profits in the near future. Two names to watch, Mattel and Hasbro. The toy makers are heavily reliant upon manufacturing in China and both stocks have recently struggled. Other notable reports include Under Armour, Lyft, CVS, Cisco and Pepsi.
In New York, I'm Christine Romans.
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[18:37:02]
NOBLES: We have some breaking news now on the race for 2020. The Iowa Democratic Party has just released the official state delegate count for each of the Democratic presidential contenders. These are the numbers that everyone expected on caucus night, and they show that Pete Buttigieg is getting the most delegates with 14 to the Democratic National Convention, with Bernie Sanders coming in a close second with 12. These are the important numbers. These are the numbers that decide who the Democratic nominee will ultimately be.
Let's get straight now to Dianne Gallagher, who is in Des Moines tracking this story.
I know, Dianne, that the Iowa Democratic Party just held a conference call with reporters trying to offer some clarity. I'm not necessarily sure if they accomplished that goal, but tell us what we know at this point.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wouldn't exactly call the situation clear here in Iowa, to be very honest, Ryan. What I can tell you is exactly that, the projection of those delegates. Now, we still have a deadline tomorrow at noon Central Time, so 1:00 Eastern, that these parties -- these campaigns are able to request a full recanvassing or recount, if they would like, at that point.
So, right now according to the Iowa Democratic Party, what they did was you can remember they requested, if campaigns saw any sort of inaccuracies, any sort of discrepancies within the precinct reporting, they were allowed to report those, and the party said they would investigate. There were a total of 95 that came from three campaigns, the Sanders campaign, the Buttigieg campaign, and the Warren campaign, as well as county chairs.
According to the Iowa Democratic Party, 55 of those -- so that's 3 percent of all of the total precincts -- had to be revised. They said that there were four that were simply duplicates and that there were 36 that the math matched the worksheet.
And that's important here, Ryan, because we are learning about essentially these cases where maybe there was not enough people the first round, and the second round caucusing of voting there at the precinct, they had more people. The numbers just didn't add up.
According to the party, because it was signed by the precinct chair and the precinct secretary, who were both elected just before the caucus went into effect, that that is now, according to the Iowa code, that's it, that they can't -- because it matches, even if it doesn't seem to make sense, that's what they have to go off of.
So, those revisions, we saw some of them that said the numbers were different, the wrong numbers had been entered. They were going back and checking with the papers to make sure on that paper trail, that paper record they have, that everything matched up with what had been put into the system. But again, 55 of those precincts, 3 percent of the total, had to be revised, and these are the projections of those delegates when it comes to.
Now, the state delegate equivalent that former mayor Buttigieg was leading to begin with, that appears to be unchanged, but those national projected delegates, that's what really is going to matter here. And at this point, they have him leading Senator Bernie Sanders by two, with 14-12 there, Ryan.
[18:40:04]
NOBLES: All right, Dianne Gallagher live in Des Moines trying to unpack this very complicated situation.
GALLAGHER: Yes.
NOBLES: Dianne, we appreciate you doing that on such short notice.
But let's try to get more clarity now from CNN Political Director, David Chalian, who is on the phone now.
David, I guess the first question I have for you is, is this the end? Do we -- can we now declare a winner in Iowa, or is there still a layer of confusion here?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR (via phone): Well, not so much a layer of confusion, Ryan, but as Dianne mentioned, there is a deadline tomorrow at noon Central, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, by which any candidate who wants to request a recanvass or a recount can do so. We've got no indication thus far that any candidate is going to do so.
But this update of numbers from the Iowa Democratic Party it really hasn't changed all that much from where we are. Even though they adjusted numbers in some 55 precincts, you still see in the all- important state delegate equivalent percentages, as we've been saying all week long, this is the metric that determines the winner in the Iowa caucuses.
You see that Pete Buttigieg is still 0.1 percent, tenth of 1 percent, ahead of Bernie Sanders in that all-important metric. If there is no recount or recanvass requested tomorrow, then at that point, Pete Buttigieg will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses. Now, as you know, there is also for the first time a popular vote that was reported out by the Iowa Democratic Party, and in that popular vote, you see Bernie Sanders has roughly a 2500-vote lead. He's been touting that as a metric of success as well. Obviously, both candidates did very well in Iowa, but it is the state
delegate equivalent percentages that determine the winner of the Iowa caucuses. And that new piece of information that we have tonight shows you why that's so critical, because it is that that helps calculate what the national convention delegate picture begins to look like. Remember, we just started a long process for the first candidate to get to 1,991 delegates. That's how they secure the Democratic nomination.
This is the very beginning of the allocation of that, what the Iowa Democratic Party did here, with Buttigieg getting 14, Sanders getting 12, Warren 8, Biden 6, and Klobuchar 1. That, again, matches up with the edge that Buttigieg has in those all-important state delegate equivalent percentages. So, barring any changing between now and that deadline, when that deadline passes and no recanvass or recount takes place, if that is what occurs, then Pete Buttigieg will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses -- Ryan.
NOBLES: So, David, as you mentioned before, in terms of the number of delegates that are going to go to the DNC, that's a pretty small number in the context of the entire number that it requires to win the Democratic nomination. Really, Iowa in history has been more of a symbolic bit of motivation for these candidates and the impact that it has on the race going forward.
Do you think that this news as it comes out, and it looks as though we may have some clarity on it before voters go to the polls tomorrow in New Hampshire, if Pete Buttigieg is able to definitively declare victory, could that have an impact here in New Hampshire, or have New Hampshire voters already moved on?
CHALIAN: I'd be surprised if that had any appreciable impact, Ryan. I mean, both Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg had very strong nights out of Iowa. I think they've made that clear to the voters of New Hampshire this week. Even Joe Biden was making that clear today on the campaign trail in New Hampshire to voters that they both had really good nights.
So, being the actual sort of reported winner once the Iowa Democratic Party process comes to a conclusion tomorrow, it will be good bragging rights, but I would have a hard time imagining that that is really going to impact the vote on Tuesday.
NOBLES: All right, David Chalian with that update. We are almost a week since the Iowa caucus took place, and we are inching closer to maybe being able to declare a victor. We'll see if it happens before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
David Chalian, Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much for being here with that breaking news out of Iowa and what it means as we ramp up to the New Hampshire vote, which is now less than 48 hours from where we are right now.
Stand by.
[18:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBLES: And we're staying with this breaking news in the race for the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucus and the Democratic Party there just releasing the delegate count for each of the Democratic presidential contenders. Of course we've had to wait days for these results and they do show former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg coming out on top with 14 delegates to the national convention, Bernie Sanders, a close second with 12, Elizabeth Warren in 8, Joe Biden with six and Amy Klobuchar leaving Iowa with one delegate.
Here to talk more about this, I'm joined by Ron Brownstein, senior editor for the Atlantic and Natasha Korecki who is a national correspondent for Politico.
So, guys, we were all in Iowa a week ago. We thought we were gonna know these results then. We should point out, Natasha, we don't know if this is going to be the final, final word because the candidates still have another opportunity to put in some requests to have some canvassing looked at. Does this matter? Have we already moved on from Iowa?
NATASHA KORECKI, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think to a certain extent a lot of people have. Certainly I think that the first days coming out of Iowa when Pete Buttigieg came out and sort of claimed victory, I think it was very key. And as it turns out, it looks like he is leading.
[18:50:01]
And to people in New Hampshire, I mean, he has a very good organization here. He has a lot of money. He's had the crowds, now he has credibility and legitimacy coming out of Iowa.
NOBLES: Yes. So we don't have a final verdict, Ron, but certainly these results in Iowa are impacting what is happening here in New Hampshire, right?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And they already have. I mean, first of all, somewhere in Iowa there is a cornfield where there's a headstone that says "Iowa First in the Nation Caucus 1972 to 2020."
NOBLES: Rest in peace.
BROWNSTEIN: I think that -- you know, it was facing pressure already but after this debacle I mean, there's been a lot of push to move to a more diverse set of states and -- yes, I mean, look, Pete Buttigieg got a lift here from the Iowa result all week. We saw it in the tracking polls by the "Boston globe." And to me what's most striking about Iowa is that whether it's Buttigieg slightly beating Sanders or vice versa in the popular vote, either way, it's the smallest share of the total delegates won by the winner in any caucus since 1972.
NOBLES: Yes. BROWNSTEIN: I mean, to me, the kind of the muddle is the message. That
no one in the party really is putting together a coalition big enough at this point to pull away from anyone -- everyone else. And I think we're going to see the same thing here in New Hampshire.
The lowest winning margin for a Democrat in the modern history of New Hampshire primary was Jimmy Carter, got 29 percent in 1976. It's entirely possible that the winner will come in somewhere right around that. And what it really says is, as we go into the big prizes in March, we still have a lot of division and fractionation happening in the Democratic Party.
NOBLES: Yes. And to that point, Natasha, do you think that there's a chance that New Hampshire might not offer us the clarity that we're looking for? We always see these contests as maybe saying well, this is the guy that's going to go all the way but there is a chance that we may not get that on Tuesday night?
KORECKI: Well, there is a big chance of that. But it depends on what kind of clarity you're looking for.
NOBLES: Right.
KORECKI: You know, shifting to some of the lower tier, who is the top tier and who isn't,
NOBLES: Right. Right.
KORECKI: I mean, that shifted, right. You know, to the extent that you're looking for who is going to represent the different wings of the party, are we going to have more clarity on that coming out? I mean, it looks like maybe. Of course there is this argument of, is Iowa and New Hampshire really representative of the Democratic Party and once we move into the more diverse states, what's going to happen then?
NOBLES: Well, and that's what Joe Biden -- right, Ron Brownstein, that, you know, he may not do well in these two first states, but these two first states don't represent the Democratic Party. The question is, will he have enough fumes that his campaign is operating on to get him to South Carolina and have a shot of winning?
BROWNSTEIN: Money, credibility and everything.
NOBLES: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: I mean, look, normally you would say a candidate who came into Iowa and New Hampshire as the national frontrunner and finished no better than fourth in either and possibly fifth in New Hampshire would be gone.
NOBLES: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: All right, we don't have a winner who's finished fifth in New Hampshire because these states are so unrepresentative of what the coalition has become and because there is so much uncertainty about what would happen to African-American voters in South Carolina if Biden in fact implodes. I think he gets one more bite at the apple in South Carolina no matter what happens.
You know, in the four contested Democratic primaries in the 21st century, the total number of states won by candidates who didn't first win Iowa or New Hampshire is just five. Out of 200 states. So they have been severely and sharply winnowing in the field. This may be the exception, though. Where we have something more like we had in 1988 where all sorts of candidates winning races in all different parts of the country well into the process.
KORECKI: I think it's interesting that even today when you're seeing nothing but, you know, everybody is paying the Biden campaign is imploding, you have the Michigan Democratic black caucus coming out for him and that goes right back to his whole electability, you know, argument here, that he can attract, you know, more of a diverse coalition and, you know, those in these battleground states.
NOBLES: Yes. All right. We got to go.
Ron, one of these days I'll ask you a question you won't have a stat for.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
NOBLES: Will that happen? All right. Ron Brownstein, Natasha Korecki, thank you so much for being here.
And we do want to remind our viewers, CNN will be the place to get special live coverage of the New Hampshire primary starting Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll be right back tonight, though, so don't go anywhere.
[18:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am Stephanie Elam live on the red carpet and the stars are making their way in for the Oscars. Right now we have Lin-Manuel Miranda and his beautiful wife Vanessa here with us.
All right, so, tonight.
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, COMPOSER AND ACTOR: Tonight.
ELAM: You're presenting. How do you feel about this?
MIRANDA: It is the most low pressure I've ever experienced in the Oscar. I'm not nominated. I'm not even giving anyone an award. I'm introducing a montage so I just get to sit with my theater friends. I'm like sitting between Billy Porter and Idina Menzel, (INAUDIBLE) in the third row.
ELAM: To be able to hear that conversation. Those conversations going on. MIRANDA: Yes. It's great. And then my wife looks gorgeous and we get
to hang. It's the best.
ELAM: Yes, she does. So do you ever, when you look at these nights, does it ever get old coming, being a part of all of the pomp and circumstance here in Hollywood?
MIRANDA: If it gets old we should quit because honestly it's so special I watch the Oscars every year. I used to memorize Billy Crystal's musical monologues. So I love this night and I am just -- I'm thrilled that I get invited to the party.
ELAM: I mean, it kind of does fit into your wheelhouse because you're kind of like the ultimate theater geek. I mean, you made musicals cool again for everyone to go see them. And I feel like a lot of people respond to you and now people are doing more of that but you probably don't think of it that same way, do you?
MIRANDA: Yes. Well, when were musicals not cool?
ELAM: You see what I mean? Yes, but more people are into them now. I think even a younger generation thanks to you.
MIRANDA: Well, I think I write -- I think -- I'm not being modest here, I think I write good gateway musicals for people who don't really like musicals because my wife doesn't really like that many musicals. So I've got to entertain her. I've got a higher bar to clear.
ELAM: She's the hardest -
MIRANDA: It's got to be so good that my wife likes it and so that's the secret.
ELAM: Well, we hope you have a fantastic night. Thank you so much for stopping to speak to us.
MIRANDA: Thank you.
ELAM: All right. So as you can see the stars are here on the red carpet.
Ana, we'll send it back to you.
