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Buttigieg Emerges on Top of Delegate Count in Iowa Caucuses; Interview with Representative Cedric Richmond (D-LA) on the Iowa Caucus Results; Bernie Sanders Campaign Reacts to Iowa Caucus Results; New Hampshire Voters Cast Nation's First Primary Ballots Tuesday. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired February 09, 2020 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:00]

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, COMPOSER AND ACTOR: 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 got a higher bar to clear. With we help you have a fantastic night. Thanks so much. So as you

could see, the stars are here on the red carpet. Ana, back to you.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 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.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: All right, Stephanie Elam, in Hollywood tonight. Thank you.

You're life in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN HOST: And I'm Ryan Nobles in Manchester, New Hampshire.

CABRERA: And we have some breaking news here on CNN on this Sunday evening. Finally days overdue, concrete results from the state of Iowa that held the nation's first caucuses last week. Only now has the state's Democratic Party finalized who wins the most delegates and that is former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, Pete Buttigieg. 14 delegates in the state delegate equivalent count. In second place Senator Bernie Sanders with 12 delegates.

Let's get out to CNN's Dianne Gallagher in Des Moines, Iowa, right now for us. And Dianne, is this now etched in stone? What about the deadline

candidates have to request a recanvass still tomorrow?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This isn't etched in stone at this point, Ana. We're going to make this go just a little bit longer so we can get to that full one week mark since the Iowa caucuses actually happened here. There is a deadline at noon Central, 1:00 p.m. Eastern that the campaigns have to request a full recanvass or recount. And so at this point these delegates we're talking they are projections barring any of that happening right now.

Look, we went through exactly what happened with some party officials and you may remember that they allowed the campaigns to present inaccuracies, discrepancies, things that they thought maybe were inconsistent about the results. They said they received 95 different precincts to go ahead and look at from three different campaigns. The Warren campaign, the Sanders campaign and the Buttigieg campaign, as well as some county chairs.

Of those 95, the party says that they have revised 55 precinct results. That's 3 percent of the total results from all of the caucuses, Ana. And at this point they say that there were four of them that were simply just duplicates. And then there was 36 that they said the math matched the worksheet. And that is important here because what that means is that there may be some funky numbers there, maybe there are fewer people who were in the first round of caucusing than there were in the second round.

And they said that part of this has to do with the fact that if the precinct chair and the secretary who were both elected just before the caucusing happened signed off on that math worksheet that that is in effect what they have to go by. They said that that's an Iowa -- essentially an Iowa standard that they must go by at that point. So they're counting it as something that just matched up.

Now, again, you talked about those projected national delegates. There is the popular vote that we've heard the candidates talking about and then there's also the SDEs, the state delegate equivalence. There is not much change there, whatsoever. It's those national delegates that we're finally getting those projections for, Ana. And again nothing set in stone of course until that deadline passes.

We're hoping at that point we can report to you that the Iowa caucuses will finally be complete.

CABRERA: OK. Dianne Gallagher, thank you very much for that update.

I'm joined now by Congressman Cedric Richmond, he is the national co- chair of the Joe Biden campaign.

Congressman, great to have you here with us. First, let me get your reaction to this breaking news. What's happening in Iowa right now. Biden finished fourth officially behind Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren with less than half the delegates that Buttigieg received. What's your action? REP. CEDRIC RICHMOND (D-LA): Well, yes. Look, we're down eight

delegates but the good news is that between Nevada and South Carolina, we have more than enough delegates to catch up and take a commanding lead. And by the way, if you look at the first four states, super Tuesday comes in and hands out an enormous amount of delegates for the convention. So I think that Iowa's done. We're happy that it's finally been concluded. But it is just the first quarter in a --

CABRERA: Sure.

RICHMOND: In the first four contests. And so Nevada --

CABRERA: And I hear that. I hear that. But as you know, nobody has gone on to win the party's nomination without winning Iowa since 1992.

RICHMOND: Well, yes, but, you know, that's 1992. And we have to figure out how many terms that people had two terms. But look, let's be clear about this. And I want everybody listening to understand, that Iowa and New Hampshire are great states, great people. But they're 90 plus percent white. Joe Biden's base is a large percent of African- Americans.

[19:05:03]

We can't look at Iowa and New Hampshire and say what the Democratic caucus preference is because that means we have ignored African- American voters' wishes. African-American voters don't have a substantial say in this matter until Nevada or South Carolina. And so I don't want us or the media to say and influence Nevada and South Carolina and African-American voters saying that this race is over.

They have yet to speak. And you cannot win -- you can mot win the general election against Donald Trump without having African-American voters. So that's why it's important to see who has that base, would can attract African-American voters and who can win Michigan, who can win Pennsylvania, who can win Wisconsin, who can win Florida, who can win Ohio. So we have to look at it in the big picture. That is why I call it four quarters in the first four states.

CABRERA: OK.

RICHMOND: Just because you win halftime doesn't mean you're going to win the game.

CABRERA: OK. But Biden did tell a voter today that the reason he performed so poorly in Iowa is because Sanders and Buttigieg were better organized. As the co-chair of his campaign, why wasn't he better organized?

RICHMOND: Well, look, a lot of it has to do with just the demographics of it. I was in Iowa. I went to a caucus. And, look, we do better with older voters. And the caucus I went to was on a college campus, 600 people, probably two or 300 plus were young college campus voters. And so if it was a primary, we would have done much better because seniors would have come out and voted and then they would have went home. People who work would have went to vote and then resumed their daily

schedule. So I don't have anything bad to say about the people of Iowa or New Hampshire. Great states. Great people and they play an important part in the process, but what I don't want is that to influence the voters in Nevada and South Carolina in terms of --

CABRERA: And I understand that. I understand that. But let me just jump in real fast because as you know this isn't Biden's first rodeo and you have to play the hand that you're dealt. So even if the demographics you don't think are in your, you know, favor, you have to play the hand you're dealt. I just wonder, is lack of organization, which is what he points to, really his biggest problem?

RICHMOND: Well, I think it is demographics in the fact that there was a lot of money on the ground in Iowa and he didn't have it. But, look, you are absolutely right. So the question becomes let's see how, for example, Mayor Pete who is polling at 1 percent or 2 percent with African-American voters, let's he how he does in Iowa where African- Americans make up a majority of the Democratic electorate.

Look, this is a long, long process and that's why I think it's important to let it play out. We do not choose a winner after just a few primaries and I think in order to bring this party back together and I'll even take off my Vice President Joe Biden hat. In order to bring this party together, in order to beat Donald Trump, who is the biggest threat to the country, we have to have a candidate that can unite the entire base.

And so when I look at that, I think it's Vice President Joe Biden. And so that's why I think you have to look at it in the entire atmosphere of what is going on.

CABRERA: Let's talk about strategy moving forward because one Biden donor told CNN this weekend --

RICHMOND: Sure.

CABRERA: Quote, "Many think Joe has to be more aggressive." Do you agree with that? Does Biden need to get more aggressive?

RICHMOND: I think he has to show the vulnerabilities in the other candidates when they get to the general election. For example, Bernie Sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist. When he get to the general election, the question becomes how does a self-proclaimed socialist play out in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Florida and the southern states? And if you get to Mayor Pete who has demonstrated that he can't get more than 2 percent or 3 percent of African-American voters, in a general election, how does that play out in the southern states and those swing states.

So I think that the vice president should focus on the fact that in order to win the presidency of the United States there are some places you have to win. Look, most of these candidates may win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3,000 votes.

CABRERA: Yes. RICHMOND: I mean, three million votes but she lost. So the key is to

make sure that we do not lose this election and let this guy have another four years because we can't recover. So when we think about what is at stake, I hope the vice president will get more pointed in making sure that people understand, one, that it's for keeps, and two that the other candidates have very big vulnerabilities in a general election.

CABRERA: Well, he has been going after Pete Buttigieg on his experience. And our Jeff Zeleny made the point that, you know, what Biden is doing to Buttigieg is similar to what Hillary Clinton did to Barack Obama in 2008 when it came to questioning his experience.

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I want you to listen to Biden this weekend followed by the response from Buttigieg.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Is this a act of desperation on your campaign to be making this --

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Come on, man. You think?

ZELENY: -- assertion right now of Mayor Buttigieg?

BIDEN: This guy is not Barack Obama.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, he's right. I'm not. And neither is he. Neither is any of us running for president. And this isn't 2008, it's 2020. And we are in a new moment calling for a different kind of leadership. Look, we are facing the most disruptive president in modern times and I don't think the same playbook that helped us get here is going to work against him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: What is your response to that?

RICHMOND: Ana, let me just say this. That's offensive to me the fact that the media would equate Pete Buttigieg with Barack Obama, and the fact that whether Hillary Clinton called Barack Obama inexperienced, Barack was a United States senator. Barack Obama was an organizer, Barack Obama was a state senator. Barack Obama's time in the Senate means he dealt with foreign affairs. So the fact that Vice President Biden, who put together the Paris climate accord in terms of bringing all the world together to deal with climate change, he brought the entire world together to deal with Iran, with the Iran nuclear deal, the fact that he saved the auto industry, and he's questioning the bona fide of a mayor.

And, look, I don't discount what mayors do. But it has nothing to do with bringing the national stage together. So I think it's very appropriate for Vice President Biden to talk about the fact that Mayor Buttigieg has never been on the world stage and right now we're at the brink of war, we have manufacturing that's disappearing and we have a president that is very, very sinister to say the least, if not racist, if not a bigot.

So what I want to be very clear about is the vice president drawing contrast between a vice president of the United States dealing with world leaders and a mayor dealing with making sure that his constituents get what they need, which is very important, it's still big, big differences and that is not Hillary Clinton talking about Barack Obama.

CABRERA: OK, Congressman Cedric Richmond, thank you very much for being here.

RICHMOND: Thank you.

CABRERA: We also have Bernie Sanders campaign manager standing by with his take on the breaking results out of Iowa. We'll bring that to you next.

Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:16:45]

NOBLES: All right. These are live pictures right now from Keene, New Hampshire, and that's where Senator Bernie Sanders is set to hold a rally there this hour. This is the opening act there, warming up the crowd.

This comes after breaking news out of Iowa after a nearly a week-long delay, Pete Buttigieg is getting the most delegates and Sanders comes in second. This is a report just out from the Iowa Democratic Party.

Let's get right now -- get some reaction on this from Faiz Shakir. He's the campaign manager for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign.

Faiz, thank you so much for joining us especially on short notice. The first question I have for you, Faiz, is -

FAIZ SHAKIR, CAMPAIGN MANAGER, BERNIE 2020: Yes. Thank you, Ryan.

NOBLES: We're in a situation now where your campaign still has the ability to ask for a canvass of even specific precincts as I understand it by 1:00 Eastern tomorrow. Do you plan on doing that given the results that we saw here tonight?

SHAKIR: Yes, Ryan. You can expect us to be asking the Iowa Democratic Party for a recanvass of the discrepancies that we have identified and found for them. We will be searching for and identifying even more. It's been handled incompetently from our perspective and we will be asking them to take a look at some of these obvious discrepancies that have affected our count and I think after it's all said and done it should be the case that we have the same number of national delegates as Pete Buttigieg. So we'll see how this plays out, Ryan. But you could expect some

action from the Sanders campaign tomorrow.

NOBLES: All right. I wonder, Faiz, and that is an important piece of news that you shared with us that you do plan to do some sort of challenge to the results. But do you think that this matters to New Hampshire voters? I mean, you're at a rally right now. How many New Hampshire voters are asking Senator Sanders or any of their campaign members about, you know, the results in Iowa? Does it matter at this point?

SHAKIR: Yes. Not many. There's 2,000 people in that room. They don't really care. They think -- they know that we won with 6,000 plus votes in Iowa but you're asking me the question about what is going on with the Iowa results so I'm telling you an honest answer and the truth of the matter is, Ryan, that we want to fight for every delegate that this campaign has earned and if we feel like we have been wrongly stopped from earning those delegates we're going to fight for them, and that's our job.

NOBLES: All right, so tell me a little bit now about the state of the campaign right now as it currently exists. We've seen a sharp turn from Senator Sanders who for the most part had not really engaged Mayor Buttigieg at all but over the past couple of days has made a specific note to mention the donor base of Mayor Pete Buttigieg. What is the goal there of drawing that distinction for your campaign?

SHAKIR: Well, that is right. It has to be a distinction. We have to make the choices clear to voters. They're all fine people on the Democratic stage but there are obvious differences between them. And one of the most obvious is that Pete Buttigieg is a corporate-funded Democrat who's going into closed-door rooms seeking money from billionaires, and while he has been doing that, he's walking away from Medicare for All. He's now touting that he'll cut the deficit, something that a lot of corporate-funded donors want to see happen.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, you have a 100 percent grassroots funded candidate in Bernie Sanders who now has over seven million donations from over 1.5 million people.

[19:20:07]

So the choice that we have for voters is clear. Do you want a grassroots-funded candidate who is going to fight for the working class in the Oval Office or do you want a corporate-funded Democrat who will do as the wealthy donors want him to do?

NOBLES: So the argument and the response that the Buttigieg campaign has given us this week, Faiz, is that basically the plans and the revolution essentially that Senator Sanders is calling for is unrealistic and that he has a much more pragmatic approach. It's a progressive one, one that is offering change but one that's more realistic. How would you respond to Mayor Buttigieg's arguments about your candidate's campaign?

SHAKIR: I'd say, Mayor Pete, you used to love Bernie Sanders and one of the reasons you used to love him and you wrote about him and you talked about him was that you appreciated that he was a politician of conviction, somebody who argued for an ambitious agenda for the American public and quite frankly when people are now trying to minimize that agenda know that in 2016 when Bernie Sanders first ran it was also called a very ambitious agenda and in that time frame we have fought for $15 an hour minimum wage.

We have advanced the Medicare for All agenda. We have pushed for free tuition of public colleges and universities, something that is graining traction. And I promise you that if you have Bernie Sanders in the White House all of that success that we've had in a period of time when Trump has been president, and you've had a Republican Congress, you're going to have even more success with Bernie Sanders in the White House and a Democratic Congress fighting with him.

NOBLES: All right. Faiz Shakir, the campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, there live at an event in Keene, New Hampshire.

We apologize to our viewers for a little bit of technical difficulty there but the key piece of news there that was given to us just a few minutes ago directly from the campaign itself, the campaign manager, is that Bernie Sanders and his campaign do plan to file some challenges essentially to the results that were revealed here today in Iowa, some specific discrepancies in some specific precincts. Not a full recanvass but they still believe that there's a chance that Bernie Sanders is at least going to leave Iowa with the same number of delegates to the national convention as Pete Buttigieg.

So New Hampshire. That is the next contest. That of course comes up next. That's where we are now. Just two days away and a new poll has Senator Sanders in the lead. We'll talk more about that when we come back. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:27:01]

CABRERA: Welcome back. We are just two days out now from the first in the nation primary in New Hampshire. And Democrats there are on a campaign blitz crisscrossing through all the small towns and cities this weekend.

CNN's Jessica Dean is in Hudson, New Hampshire, following the Joe Biden campaign.

Jessica, how are they planning to turn things around after that disappointing finish in Iowa?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Ana, it's been interesting because Joe Biden himself has been lowering expectations here in New Hampshire. The campaign always said all along that they didn't need to win Iowa and New Hampshire to get to the nomination, that they had a different path. The caveat to that is they didn't expect for Joe Biden to come in fourth in Iowa and they certainly didn't expect him to run behind Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire. So those are some kind of shifting dynamics that we've seen play out

over the last week. They really want Joe Biden to get to Nevada, to South Carolina, the argument that they make time and time again is that he is the nominee that can build this broad coalition because of his high support among black voters, among Latino voters, and they argue that that is much more representative of the Democratic Party than the demographics for them in Iowa or New Hampshire.

So it's a little bit of a different scenario than they imagined even though they didn't -- they said they didn't need Iowa and New Hampshire. We certainly have seen a shift in tone from Joe Biden in the last week when he got here to New Hampshire. He was not afraid to call out his rivals by name. His campaign releasing that video yesterday going right after Pete Buttigieg's experience and comparing it to the vice president's.

Interestingly, though, today Sunday, he had a couple of events including one here in the gym where we are and we didn't hear as much of that. We didn't hear those direct attacks. We just heard this. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I congratulate. 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've viewed from the beginning that you have to take the first four as one. We 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. OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And of course the implication there is that he does have overwhelming support from black voters. That is what the polling has shown. The question, Ana, is, can he -- you know, how does that -- does it stay as firm as it has been as we get closer to South Carolina. What kind of impact will New Hampshire have on Nevada, Nevada on South Carolina. So and on so forth. So we will see what happens on Tuesday. But the Biden campaign certainly lowering expectations here in New Hampshire. Hoping for a solid finish here and they can get to the part of this race that they really have their eye on.

CABRERA: Jessica Dean, for us, thank you very much.

[19:30:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Jessica Dean for us. Thank you very much.

With us now is former presidential adviser to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, David Gergen, and CNN political analyst Sarah Isgur. David, no candidate has ever finished worse than second in New

Hampshire and gone on to win the nomination. But this is truly an unprecedented Democratic race right now.

For example, no candidate has ever skipped the first four contests and then gone on to win, which is what Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to do.

And we also have more major candidates than ever in the race. At this point, 11 candidates right now, so are all bets out the window.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Some is, some isn't. Look, I think the question where the Bloomberg can jump in or not does heavily depend in his success in doing that, how big a lane he has.

He is heavily dependent on what does happen in these first four primaries. If it's a split, if you know, if Buttigieg wins Iowa and Sanders wins New Hampshire and he is, I would call him the favorite right now, and Biden comes back and wins South Carolina, and who knows who wins Nevada.

But that'll be a muddle, and that does open the door for Bloomberg in a very significant way.

But at the moment, I think the real question is, yes, it's true that you can lose both Iowa and New Hampshire and go ahead and be the Democratic nominee, but it hasn't happened in 28 years. The last time it happened was 1992.

And when we went into this, and I think, you know, had Biden come in second in Iowa and then came in second in New Hampshire, he would be a very viable candidate, but it's a very different proposition to come in fourth in Iowa and perhaps fourth in New Hampshire. That would be very damaging.

And the smart money in places like New York are just going to get turned off. I'm already hearing a lot of rumblings from places like that, of big donors who are saying we just don't think he can make it. We think he's a terrific guy, but this isn't working.

Just a little thing, Ana, just to show you, little things matter.

The clip you to show today of Biden in a campaign setting, the whole picture of him, the whole video of him was with his back to the camera. It was like -- it totally undercut the point.

Those are small little things to be sure, but they add up to be big deals in campaigns. Knowing how to run your campaign in a really competent, interesting, arresting, and inspiring way is not easy stuff. You've got to work at it.

CABRERA: Well, in all fairness, he was I think addressing a voter in the room and the camera just happened to be on the other side.

GERGEN: Well, true. CABRERA: I hear what you said though, in terms of, you know, being

polished and figuring out the best way to present yourself so that you have the broadest appeal and reach as many people as possible.

Joe Biden has been, you know, changing his tone slightly in the last couple of days showing more urgency, more passion. He's been ratcheting up his attacks as well on Pete Buttigieg in particular, playing down his experience as a small town mayor.

Sarah, is that smart strategy or could it backfire on Biden?

SARAH ISGUR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They released an ad over the weekend for digital like online ad that was very harsh, sarcastic arguably contrast between their two records.

For some people, that will be effective, for other people, it will look desperate coming forth out of Iowa.

I think a big problem for the Biden campaign, though, is that Iowa and New Hampshire are states that benefit from organization and field staffers on the ground. It's why Biden even said, we got out organized in Iowa.

Here's the problem going into the General Election, the D.N.C. doesn't have money compared to the R.N.C., you need a candidate who's very good at putting together field staff and a nationwide organization.

To fail in those first two contests that are largely organization based contest is a huge problem for the Biden campaign and a big plus for the Sanders campaign and the Buttigieg campaign who have shown that they do have that organization built and functioning going into these races.

CABRERA: Let me ask about a different candidate, Elizabeth Warren. She is also from a neighboring state just like Sanders when it comes to the New Hampshire primary. Here's what she is telling voters this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've been winning unwinnable fights, pretty much all my life.

There are a lot of people who talk about what races aren't winnable, or what kind of people can't win. The way I see it, they're going to keep saying that right up until we get in the fight. We persist, and we win.

[APPLAUSE]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Again, in just the last 40 years, at least, one person has gone on to win the presidency after losing both Iowa and New Hampshire and that was Bill Clinton. David, Warren has lost significant support in the latest polls, and

one thing that really stood out to me is that among those who identify as Liberal Democratic voters, Sanders support has gone up 20 points since October while Warren support has dropped 15 points with that slice of voters in New Hampshire. What would be your advice to Warren right now?

[19:35:07]

GERGEN: Well, it's a hard one. She has a tough time, and she is you know, she is the best policy person there on the stage, but she has had a hard time connecting, especially since the Medicare-for-All fracas that she got herself into.

Right now, her best hope is if Bernie loses in New Hampshire. If Bernie loses and he is hurt, and it's not clear where he's going to go. You could see people going back to Elizabeth Warren, saying, well, we want somebody from that progressive lane who is really tough and big and wants big structural changes, and she's the best we've got.

But I do think it's going to take something perhaps out of her control right now, to get her back into this in a way she wants.

CABRERA: David Gergen and Sarah Isgur, we've got to leave it there tonight this evening. Thank you both.

GERGEN: Okay.

CABRERA: It's always good to have you.

GERGEN: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Coming up. Breaking news. Iowa results are out, showing Bernie Sanders second and the delegate count behind Pete Buttigieg.

The Sanders campaign not happy about it. We will get a live report coming up

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And we are staying on this breaking news in the race for 2020. The Iowa Democratic Party tonight announcing that Pete Buttigieg will walk away with the most delegates from Iowa at 14, that's to the national convention. Bernie Sanders is at 12.

But in just the last hour, we heard from his campaign manager, Faiz Shakir that they will indeed ask for at least a partial recanvass of some of the results.

Let's bring in Jeff Zeleny. He's at an event tonight for Senator Amy Klobuchar in Salem, New Hampshire. Of course, Jeff spent more than -- more time in Iowa than he expected, but he's now here with us in New Hampshire.

Jeff, based on what Faiz Shakir just told me not too long ago, it seems like even though the Iowa Democratic Party would like this to be over, it's not quite over yet.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It's not Ryan and the reality is, there is still that deadline tomorrow at one o'clock Eastern, noon Central for any campaign to request a recanvass.

So it could be a full recanvass or it could be a partial recanvass. And as the Bernie Sanders campaign manager told you just a little bit earlier, they do indeed plan to do that.

Now the Iowa Democratic Party officials I've been speaking with, they've been expecting this. They didn't know if the campaigns were going to because the candidates themselves both Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders have said quite publicly that they want to move on, that they want to sort of leave Iowa behind.

But the reality is, these delegates matter. If this is going to be a protracted Democratic nominating fight, which it almost certainly is, every delegate is going to matter.

So this is a very complicated process here in terms of national delegates. You may wonder, why do two delegates matter? Well, if it's going to be a fight to Milwaukee, these do matter.

So it will be interesting though to find out and we do not know yet if the Buttigieg campaign will also file a request to recanvass some, they certainly could. Other campaigns could as well. Frankly, all of them including the Biden campaign, most specifically just want Iowa be over with after essentially finishing fourth there.

So we'll see how long this sort of extends this, but now almost certainly, there will not be an official Iowa winner until after this New Hampshire primary -- Ryan.

NOBLES: Yes, that's the way it seems. All right, Jeff Zeleny giving us an update there from an Amy Klobuchar event in Salem, New Hampshire. Thanks so much, Jeff. We appreciate it.

Let's bring back in Ron Brownstein, senior editor for "The Atlantic" and Natasha Korecki, who is a national correspondent for Politico.

Interesting, getting Jeff's take on this, Ron, and you and I were talking about this during the break. Could this be and we don't, you know, we assume that the Sanders campaign definitely wants the accurate results as possible.

But this does serve to a certain extent as kind of playing the clock -- running the clock out to a certain extent.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Natasha was saying that as well. I mean, yes. I mean, it allows them to have a cloud over Iowa all the way through New Hampshire, you know, and that's the way it is.

I mean, one thing Iowa did have -- it did have its effect here. Buttigieg did move up, Biden did move down. Bernie Sanders has not really moved that much, at least in the tracking poll by "The Boston Globe," which is unusual for someone who has either won or finished a close second in Iowa.

So Iowa somewhat muted, but it wasn't completely inconsequential in terms of shaping the New Hampshire battlefield.

NATASHA KORECKI, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: This allows Bernie Sanders to, you know, not quite give it to Buttigieg.

So Buttigieg can quite say, I won Iowa. I mean, he can, but there's going to be this question mark. All right, and that's effective in the narrative standpoint, which is what Iowa is known for.

NOBLES: And Jeff raises a good point as well, Natasha, that you know, we don't know how this delegate fight is going to play out. You know, we assume there are more than a thousand delegates, more than 1,500 delegates, that all seems like a lot.

But if there are a number of candidates that are fighting it out towards the end, as we head towards Milwaukee, two delegates might matter here or there.

KORECKI: Right. Absolutely. And, you know, what have we learned from Iowa? The other thing we've learned is that, you know, we have five people who have won delegates.

So we're going to see the debate stage for the foreseeable future. Amy Klobuchar is going to be on there, where all these people are going to be in front of a national audience making their case to a national audience. So we could very much be in Super Tuesday, have a very muddled feel.

BROWNSTEIN: And that to me is the biggest point, right? I mean, because in the four races of the 21st Century -- 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2016, it clarified to a two-person race very quickly, if it didn't start that way to begin with.

This time, actually we had five candidates finishing double digits in the Iowa Caucus for the first time ever. As we talked about before, the lowest margin, lowest share of the total for the winner ever, possibly, we'll see something like that, again, here in New Hampshire.

And all of that says these candidates could be rolling on for a while. I mean, we could have more candidates winning states than we've seen, really since 1988. It was the last time we had a lot of candidates winning states well into the process.

And it would be more surprising -- you know, it would be less surprising to see that than not see that in the way this contest is beginning to develop.

NOBLES: And even though the Sanders campaign might like the idea of wrapping this up early, Natasha, if it's a protracted battle like Ron is talking about, that might play to their advantage as well, right? Because they have the most money, right?

KORECKI: Exactly, and then that's what a lot of these campaigns are running up against right now. I mean, frankly, the Biden campaign's back is up against the wall right now.

[19:45:10]

KORECKI: I mean, they have to do well in Nevada. I mean, there's just no question, because then it just keeps compounding upon itself. Can he -- yes, so right now, you know, can you do well in South Carolina? That may be one thing, but after New Hampshire, bad result; Nevada, bad result. Where are you then? And where is your fundraising?

I mean, if you look at Iowa, if it weren't for the Super PAC helping Joe Biden in Iowa, they spent more on ads -- pro-Biden ads than the Biden campaign was able to spend their selves.

So I think that speaks to it and then how much more money can they -- how can they convince their fundraisers, their donors to cough up more money right now?

NOBLES: Right, well, Natasha Korecki, Ron Brownstein, we appreciate guys staying around.

Ron moving his dinner plans for us because it is breaking news, so we apologize to Ron's dinner guests who are, I'm sure watching it the restaurant here in Manchester.

BROWNSTEIN: Let's hope they get at the table.

NOBLES: Let's hope. All right. We should also point out, President Trump, he is not on the ballot here but -- there's a Hampshire Republican primary. He's going to have his own rally on the eve of the primaries there making sure people don't forget that he is the President right now and that this race is a lot about him.

This, as the backlash continues over the firing of some of his key impeachment witnesses, and we're learning there may be some major cuts to the National Security Council as well. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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CABRERA: President Trump spending his weekend on the attack following his acquittal, Wednesday in his impeachment trial. He has gone after several senators who voted to convict him on the Articles of Impeachment.

This, just two days after he fired two key witnesses in his impeachment from their White House posts: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. He also recalled Ambassador Gordon Sondland.

And that brings us to your weekend presidential brief with CNN national security analyst, Sam Vinograd and this is a segment of course, we bring you every Sunday night with the most pressing national security issues the President will face this week.

And Sam, by the way helped prepare the presidential daily brief for President Obama. Sam, we've learned that major cuts to the National Security Council staff are coming. They're expected in the very, very near future according to sources. What kind of national security implications might this have?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, on these firings, Ana, first. You know, in my day, a failure to raise concerns through appropriate channels was a cause for scrutiny at the N.S.C. Now, seemingly it's a predicate for job security.

That's going to impact the quality of people who are willing to work at the National Security Council.

But as you just mentioned, the quality of N.S.C. staff is under pressure in other ways as well. The National Security adviser is reportedly cutting N.S.C. staff by a third. It did get very big under President Obama.

But he's also reportedly changing the makeup of N.S.C. staff and trying to get more political appointees versus career officials.

By getting rid of career officials, the President is going to lose people with years of expertise, long standing relationships, and is ostensibly trying to appoint more people to the N.S.C. who will be loyal to him down the road.

This will likely dilute the quality of policymaking with the N.S.C. while politicizing the policy process more generally.

CABRERA: Now, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has indicated that they are setting up a process at the D.O.J. to be able to receive information from the President's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, what do you make of that?

VINOGRAD: Well, Graham said the Russians are playing this like a fiddle. Trump anointed himself first fiddle when he allowed Rudy Giuliani to walk into the Oval Office and give him information that influenced his decision making and his public messages.

An intern at the F.B.I. would know that information from Giuliani, who by the way is under investigation has conflicts of interest in his no Intel or law enforcement experience that that information needs to be vetted.

Graham actually said on air this morning that Rudy's information and Intel needed to be vetted by professionals.

But Graham's comments raise more questions than answers. He did reference a special process, but he didn't say whether it involved directing Giuliani to the F.B.I., which would be appropriate or if Giuliani was getting some kind of special treatment by Attorney General Barr.

But the key point is we don't know that President Trump has stopped relying on Rudy unfiltered. If he is still directly engaging with Rudy and taking his information, this whole special process is really null and void. CABRERA: Meantime, we have some disturbing new developments in

Afghanistan this weekend. Two U.S. military members died in an attack in which somebody who was wearing an Afghan military uniform, you know, attacked them in a joint operation. What kind of impact could this have on U.S. policy there?

VINOGRAD: Well, we don't know the motive for this attack. We don't know if it was an insider attack or someone just took an Afghan security forces uniform, for example, and launched the attack itself.

While that's underway, the key questions are whether this will impact our joint operations with Afghan Security Forces going forward. And whether it'll in any way factor into President Trump's decision making on any troop drawdown.

Our troop presence is really our bargaining chip with the Taliban. We have been engaged in political negotiations with them. They've stalled, but President Trump still seems focused on drawing down troops in Afghanistan.

If he becomes more convinced that the risks to U.S. forces outweigh the rewards of our ongoing troop presence, we could see an expedited troop drawdown process.

CABRERA: Sam Vinograd, thank you very much.

VINOGRAD: Thanks.

CABRERA: Good to have you here. Back to our breaking news. The Iowa Democratic Party revealing their official delegate count from the caucuses, days overdue. Pete Buttigieg is on top with 14 delegates. We're already hearing that other campaigns may not accept those results at face value. We are live in Iowa next.

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[19:59:43]

CABRERA: Hello again, you are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

NOBLES: And I'm Ryan Nobles in Manchester, New Hampshire.

CABRERA: And we are continuing to follow breaking news here on CNN. Results from the Iowa caucuses finally, and the Democratic candidate who will very likely claim the most delegates in that state.

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