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Sanders, Bloomberg Clash Over Business and Wealth; Warren Attacks Bloomberg for Past Comments. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired February 20, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: This money that you raised, your campaign in the first hour sent out a note saying you'd already raised $425,000, your single best hour or day in fundraising?
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This debate tonight is about democracy. I have no doubt that coming off that debate stage Michael Bloomberg is reaching in his pocket and dropping another $100,000 in advertising across this country just to try to erase the memory of what happened on that debate stage.
The only way to keep the memory alive is to be able to get out there and talk about it and push it in front of people and push it in front of Michael Bloomberg so I ask everybody to go to ElizabethWarren.com, pitch in 5 bucks, 25 bucks, but make this about how a billionaire does not get to buy our nomination, especially one who was so vulnerable on these issues.
BURNETT: When you talk about these issues -- and Chris just played a brief part of it -- but you took him on, on the issue of women and nondisclosure agreements and you then did all the followup questions, this became you, the questioner. And I want to play part of this moment.
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MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In my company, lots and lots of women have big responsibilities, they are paid exactly the same as men. And in my -- in city hall, a person that is the top person, my deputy mayor was a woman and 40 percent of our commissioners were women.
I'm very proud of the fact that, about two weeks ago, we were awarded -- we were voted the most -- the best place to work, second best place in America. If that doesn't say something about our employees and how happy they are, I don't know what does.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator Warren, you've been critical of Mayor Bloomberg on this issue.
WARREN: Yes, I have. And I hope you heard what his defense was. I have been nice to some women.
(APPLAUSE)
WARREN: That just doesn't cut it, the mayor has to stand on his record. And what we need to know is exactly what is lurking out there. He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements, both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace.
So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements, so we can hear their side of the story?
(APPLAUSE)
BLOOMBERG: We have a very few nondisclosure agreements.
WARREN: How many is that?
BLOOMBERG: Let me finish.
WARREN: How many is that?
BLOOMBERG: None of them accused me of doing anything other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So what happens from here?
WARREN: Well, I hope that Michael Bloomberg, decides to live by what he says, he just wants to see the Democrats beat Donald Trump. So that's great.
Mike Bloomberg, drop out of the race, keep putting your money in, to help Democrats beat Donald Trump. And just take your ego out of this.
BURNETT: Did you expect him to do differently tonight?
Or better than he did?
WARREN: What shocked me is he seemed so unprepared for the question, about the nondisclosure agreements. Think about what that says about Mike Bloomberg, that all these years, he has been sued evidently multiple times for discrimination against women and for harassment against women.
The details we don't know because each time it happens, he puts a chunk of money on the table and then forces the woman to agree to wear a muzzle for the rest of her life over this issue.
He walked into this debate, thinking nobody was going to ask him about that?
Listen, this is serious, we are about to pick a nominee for president and someone who can't answer that question about the nondisclosure agreements does not deserve to be our nominee.
BURNETT: Do you wonder, what's the reaction will be -- and I say this in the context of, the Republican debates, last cycle, Donald Trump stood that stage and had performances that were widely panned, people thought were going to go anywhere but yet here he is, he wants. And voters did not have a problem with it.
Do you think that that could be the case this time around?
WARREN: I have to say, I just cannot imagine that it is OK with the Democratic Party, to say the person we want to put out there, in front, has a few, a dozen, 50, I don't know how many there are, non disclosure agreements about what he has done with women. and been forced to pay money to keep them silent forever.
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WARREN: Think about what he said on that stage.
He said, oh, well, I never said anything; that was just a joke. That's all I was ever accused of.
If that's the case and why won't you let the women come forward and tell their side?
Why would you let him say that it was just a joke?
Can't believe he gave me money for that.
You know, if he won't let these women talk, then you have to assume that this is a man who not once, not twice but repeatedly, engaged in harassment, engaged in discrimination.
I have to tell you, I don't think that women are not going to put up with that anymore, we have done it for decades. And those days are over and we are not going to nominate a candidate for president who does this.
BURNETT: And yet when it came to policy, there were areas in which you and he agreed. For example, you are both capitalists. You might say that's a small thing. But it's a big thing on the stage right now.
So are you a socialist or Democratic socialist or are you a capitalist?
WARREN: I am a capitalist but, remember, I'm a capitalist who believes in rules and enforcing those rules. So for example while Mike Bloomberg was blaming African Americans and Latinos for causing the housing crash, I was on the other side of him, talking about how bank regulation had failed and how the banks have been allowed to run wild and target African Americans and Latinos for the worst of the worst mortgages.
And by the way, that's a factual question. Ultimately the banks got sued, the data came out and that was exactly what the banks had been doing, they targeted communities of color, to strip wealth out of them. And Michael Bloomberg defended those banks.
BURNETT: So you were aggressive tonight not just with Michael Bloomberg but across the board. So that's why people watched and were paying attention. So Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg were also on the receiving end and in this case it was health care.
His health care plan, likening it to a PowerPoint presentation that was put together for him and in her case one that you thought would fit on a Post-it note. It was pretty aggressive.
Do you think it worked?
WARREN: Here is the thing, health care matters. And we have a crisis in this country. Year by year by year, the cost keeps going up for families, the copays, the deductibles, the things that aren't covered, so they have their talking points about why they don't like Medicare for all.
And they keep claiming to have these wonderful plans. My view is, look, we're getting down to the short strokes here, let's look at the plans and see what they actually provide.
Pete's plan, of those four kinds of costs, says he's going to put a cap on one, which is great, so you cap the premiums but everything else continues to go up and families can't afford all of the uncovered expenses, the deductibles, the copays,
Amy's plan, I looked at her website, it is a couple of paragraphs. If they want to come to the stage and be treated seriously on the question of health care, and I assume they do, then they have to be there with a real plan.
I put a plan out, I show exactly how it's paid for and, more importantly, I show how we can get the most help to the most people, the quickest possible. I want to do this and if we can't get it all at once, let's take the win and then let's come back the next day to fight for more. For me it's about values and about getting something done.
BURNETT: When you look at Nevada and South Carolina, how well do you think you need to do?
WARREN: I appreciate the question but from the day I got into this race, I said what I'm really doing every day, is doing pretty much what I've done all my life, fight for working families.
I am the politician who has been in politics the shortest amount of time of all the people on that stage, regardless of their ages. I came to this after a lifetime of fighting for working families, of trying to warn people about the financial crash that's coming and the rising student loan debt, trying to warn people about what's happening with the retirement crisis in America and having real ideas of how we could fix it.
Running for president is an honor because I get to talk about those things and actually begin to build some coalitions behind them. That is how we are going to make real change.
BURNETT: All right, I appreciate your time, thank you.
WARREN: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
BURNETT: And we will be back our coverage continues, of course, from Las Vegas and from New York Chris Cuomo will be back.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a New Yorker. I know how to take on an arrogant con man like Donald Trump that comes from New York. I'm a mayor. I was a mayor. I know how to run a complicated city, the biggest, most diverse city in this country.
I'm a manager. I knew what to do after 9/11 and brought the city back stronger than ever. And I'm a philanthropist who didn't inherit money but made money and I'm spending that money to get rid of Donald Trump, the worst president we have ever had. And if I can get that done, it will be a great contribution to America and to my kids.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: There was Mike Bloomberg, arguably one of his few strong moments of the night.
So he was introducing himself to people. This is why I'm running. That message is salability.
DANA BASH, CNN SR. U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's incredibly so. That's the kind of message he's been paying hundreds of millions of dollars across the country to sell. The issue was not what he wanted to say. It's what he didn't want to say.
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BASH: And he had no ability to pivot or to answer those questions. Now again, as we have been saying, whether or not that is going to matter if he finds a way to do it. Or campaign finds a way to do it. We don't know.
What is clear is that Sanders had a very good night. Because he really didn't get very many hits. People were so focused on Bloomberg. And Sanders is still the favorite on a national level. We're going into a set of races, where national polls matter. They are national elections. Especially Super Tuesday.
CUOMO: We were trying to figure out what's the best way to measure what the impact of a night is. Not surprisingly Andrew Yang, said I'll tell you what will matter. Bloomberg asset is money. You're saying that's what matters after the debate.
What has to happen for someone to know it worked for them?
ANDREW YANG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I thought warren had a tremendous night. They announced they raised $425,000 in the first hour of the debate. That means that she's going to raise probably $3-4 million in the days after the debate. She needs to raise $20-40, million to contend in the Super Tuesday states that have expensive media markets.
That's why Bloomberg has so much power in the race. He can put ads up in states that every other candidate is not going to be able to afford.
CUOMO: So her counter tactic was, I'll make the most of this free media. She threw and landed very precise blows, especially at Bloomberg.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: She did. She took aim at Bloomberg and succeeded, particularly on the NDA issue and started out the debate by talking about that issue, by talking about the names that Bloomberg had called women.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Comparing him to Trump.
BORGER: And comparing him to Trump, which goes to his electability argument, which is how can you allow this guy to go up against that guy? One has problems with women. The other guy has problems with women. So she was right on the on the arguments.
The question is, will it matter?
This is late. You have Nevada on Saturday. South Carolina coming up. People don't have any money. You're shaking your head. You know the story.
And who has the money to compete other than Sanders right now and Michael Bloomberg?
YANG: That's the great question is could Elizabeth or Joe or Amy or Pete have a breakout night that leads to donations from people and also donors on the sidelines. Frankly getting phone calls from Bloomberg, saying, sit this out, I got this. If you're a donor not donating is a pretty appealing pitch.
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BASH: Bloomberg is calling donors saying don't give to my opponents?
YANG: Bloomberg is calling donors, saying sit this out, I have this, I'll bankroll the whole thing. Just don't donate to anybody.
CUOMO: You hear this or know this?
YANG: I heard it from a major donor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your donor?
YANG: Yes. A donor said -- a person who donates to a number of candidates ordinarily, says these are the phone calls.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: -- rule changes in the game now, when you say something, we don't just say, are you sure?
Where'd you hear it?
On the analysis side we have to put something out to verify.
Andrew is, of course, correct. You have to manifest your success in money. Everybody complains about it. But it's all we talk about in the campaigns.
If Elizabeth Warren doesn't get the kind of push that Andrew is saying, what does that mean for her?
Even though probably the best athlete on the stage.
JESS MCINTOSH, 2016 HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN: It's a challenge she's talked about as part of her candidacy since day one and a lot of the Democratic field agrees. We don't want to be -- progressives don't want to be in this position. We happen to be this cycle.
If we got somebody in the White House able to change the rules so we didn't have the giant money in politics, we wouldn't have to have the debate next time and would have a democratic, fair election based on a representative sample of who wanted the nominee to be our nominee. Let's hope we get there.
VAN JONES, CNN HOST: It's ironic tonight. Elizabeth Warren really needed Bloomberg. Having a foil -- that's how she became a household name, making bankers cry.
CUOMO: The way a lion needs an antelope.
JONES: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: She was right next, for her, the embodiment of the corruption and disrespected women. She came to life in a way that I thought was extraordinary. But she was doing something else I think she hasn't gotten credit for tonight. She was denting his electability argument. He's saying I have the money, the machinery.
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JONES: I can run over Donald Trump. I can crush him because I have all this money.
You also have a record. I want to talk about that. It's not a good one.
And she was able to make it effective.
Is it too little too late?
You have to begin to wonder, when you have this kind of dynamic going on, it could be a bubble. You could have a Bloomberg bubble. I know he is hiring everybody or whatever. But you could have a Bloomberg bubble where the air comes out very quickly if she can be effective in landing blows.
MCINTOSH: It wasn't just her attacks, it was the rope she gave him to hang himself. His answer on the question of the sexual harassment lawsuits was identical to Trump's answer when he was asked about the same thing.
Trump would say, I promoted women, my deputy is a woman. Women who work for the Trump Organization, my daughter is a woman.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I made jokes slash locker room talk.
MCINTOSH: Right, exactly. So listening to Bloomberg give an answer that sounded very eerily familiar I think speaks to Gloria's original point that she was smart to tie up his rhetoric with something we're used to --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: First of all, two things. One, the gloves are really off. To compare Bloomberg with what we know at this point, to what we absolutely know about Donald Trump, is a really heavy and ugly allegation.
MCINTOSH: I think we can't underestimate -- women are the driving force of the elections we have had since Trump was elected and they will be again. Women are the ones who --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: It could be potentially disqualifying for him?
MCINTOSH: Some of the things he has said are truly -- there's going to have to be a real apology, not I guess some people didn't get my joke about some of those really, really awful things. Women are so used to hearing --
CUOMO: Can't apologize for an NDA. You can only say they no longer apply.
MCINTOSH: Yes, but there are so many -- the quotes that she brought I think came from -- CUOMO: So you can apologize for what you said. But the NDA doesn't go away.
MCINTOSH: And the question about it doesn't go away, either. It will certainly be disqualifying for a lot of women watching this debate. They really want to know somebody in the White House who cares about them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So what's the best answer?
TERRY MCAULIFFE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Whatever came out about this debate, I go back to my point. We're going into 14 big states with a tremendous amount of money. A week later, you have Michigan, Missouri --
(CROSSTALK)
MCAULIFFE: A week after that you have Florida, Illinois, Ohio. So we are going to a basket of states. We may be sitting here in eight months and say it wasn't a great calendar.
I've long advocated we should end in Iowa and New Hampshire. They're all white states. It's not representative. That has set where we are today. The problem may be they cluster too many of these states together, where 68 percent of the delegates will be chosen in three weeks. It precludes Elizabeth Warren, who had a great debate, from been able to translate that into putting money --
CUOMO: It's still very early. Maybe Andrew's right. Maybe the best decision they could have made was to skip it.
Let's take a break here. And when we come back, let's talk about the obvious dichotomy. You have a really progressive wing and you have a really scared/moderate wing.
Is there a middle?
Next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLOOMBERG: I can't think of a way that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get elected than listening to this conversation.
We're not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism and it just didn't work.
SANDERS: We have a grotesque and immoral distribution of wealth and income. Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. That's wrong, that's immoral. That should not be the case when we have a half a million people sleeping out on the streets.
BLOOMBERG: I can't speak for all billionaires. All I know is I have been very lucky. Made a lot of money and I'm giving it all away to make this country better. And a good chunk goes to the Democratic Party as well.
CHUCK TODD, NBC HOST (voice-over): Is it too much?
Have you earned too much -- ?
Has it been an obscene amount of --
Should you have earned that much money?
BLOOMBERG: Yes. I worked very hard for it. And I'm giving it away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Now that was one of the key exchanges in term of understanding these two houses within the Democratic Party right now. This Bernie Sanders party about billionaires should go. And obviously Mike Bloomberg giving a different perspective.
Andrew, how did it play for you?
YANG: To me it's a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party. And it mirrors what happened to the Republican Party in the last cycle. You had Trump, the outsider, running roughshod over all the traditional candidates who were putting up Republican talking points and it turned out their ideas just weren't that powerful anymore.
This time you have Bernie, the outsider, the front-runner now, poised to run the table. And the establishment has been looking around for a white knight and Bloomberg has showed up with his money and wealth and TV ads.
To me, this was a great night for Bernie because he emerges as the front-runner. He's really hard to touch. I have been on the debate stage with him seven times. And he's just like a stoic messenger. It doesn't matter what you say to him. He pivots right back to one of his Bernie ask talking points. And then the minute passes.
[00:30:06]
BORGER: Well, and people know what they're going to get with Bernie Sanders. They -- they have known him for the last 40 years, and they knew it from 2016 and they know it again now. And he hasn't changed.
CUOMO: That's a plus and a minus. You know, he has a movement. From 2016 and I know it now, and he hasn't changed.
That is a plus at a minus. You know, he has a movement. He's the only one, I think it's fair to say. I think the campaigns are going to complain about this, but look, when you look at the rallies, nobody has got the people behind them the way Bernie Sanders does.
Now, what's the flip point. The flip point was about 24 percent of the Democratic Party. That's the plus/minus. We talk about the ceiling all the time. But I said two houses for a reason, Van. I didn't have you have one house divided into two. You have two different houses in your party right now. I just don't see where it goes.
JONES: Well, look, it's tough. It's going to take real leadership. I mean, you've got, basically, a moderate Republican in Bloomberg and a socialist in Sanders. And we're in the same party.
Now, Trump, facing a similar situation, they will actually unify his party, which is actually pretty shocking. Usually, when you have an insurgency like that, you just destroy the party. You might win the nomination, but the party's in the ditch. That happened in '64 for the Republicans with Goldwater.
But Trump avoided that fate by doing two smart things. He said, Look, you don't like me. I'm the insurgent. But I'm going to make sure that the religious conservatives stay with me by giving you a judge that you like. I'm going to make sure that the kind of racial right is a little bit of red meat. I'm also going to make sure that the business community gets some tax cuts and some regulation relief. And guess what? I can hold this party together even though I took it over.
Hillary Clinton had no strategy to hold the Democrats together, even though she won. That left us where we are right now. We are now still trying to figure out how to put this thing back together. Now, if you're a Bernie Sanders person, you have to imagine that Bernie Sanders is going to be able to figure out a way to hold onto his movement, as Trump did, but also to pull in these other factions. And I have not yet seen Bernie make the case he can do that.
MCINTOSH: That's what I'm waiting to see. His consistently has certainly been a strength for him in these debates, but I think at this point when he -- like, let's say he does really well in Nevada, and South Carolina, and he emerges a frontrunner, the frontrunner.
We need to see him move beyond the same message that he has been giving, because he's been giving that message, and he has the supporters that he has. So I want to see him reach out to people who are -- whose focus are issues that may not be his focus. I want to see him own the supporter issue a little bit more, the idea that, you know, people really do get harassed by either -- you might be right -- Bernie supporters, or people who look like Bernie supporters online, whether that's Russia or bots or what.
BASH: Let me be the "yes, but" in this conversation. Look at the ABC News poll that was out today, about electability.
When Bernie Sanders, when the campaign kind of started, back in -- I think it was July, it was -- it was Joe Biden, who was like 40- something percent on ability to beat Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders was in the teens.
Now it's flipped. JONES: Wow.
BASH: Bernie Sanders isn't that high. He's about 30 percent, but he's really high. And Joe Biden is down in the teens.
And so I don't know what that means, but it could be a signal that maybe the whole Democratic Party isn't going to come behind him, it's not going to be a, you know -- a mirror of what Trump did in the Republican Party, and you know, we're not there yet. But it shows that there is movement in that direction that I don't think anybody saw coming.
MCAULIFFE: But and I can tell you, listen, we're -- we don't know where it's going to go. But listen, Bernie is moving ahead. And I agree the biggest -- what he has to do is show he can bring 51 percent of Americans. So he's got to begin to change his pitch.
And I thought Pete Buttigieg had a very good point. You know, you're not the only one with good answers out here. I thought Pete was very good, making that point.
Bernie has to open up to other parts of the party as he moves forward, but as we move toward the nomination general election, don't forget, most voters it's about beating Donald Trump.
JONES: Yes.
MCAULIFFE: And a couple things scare the daylights out of them. No. 1, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is, what, 87 years old. Stephen Breyer is 81 years old. You make the point that the control of the United States Supreme Court for the next generation is going to be determined in this election. That will bring a lot of wayward Democrats back into the fold to say we are going to unify behind our nominee.
And remember: we only lost -- the Democrats who are watching this rubbing their hands -- we lost three states by 77,000 votes, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. And in those three states 360,000 people voted for a third party which will not be in play this time. And 92 million people did not vote in 2016.
MCINTOSH: And turnout is looking --
MCAULIFFE: We can push this.
MCINTOSH: -- really good. Iowa was low, but New Hampshire broke records. Nevada already has 7,000 people voting early vote. They've never done that before. It's hard to say what that does to actual turnout on election day. But it's very unlikely that they don't break records in Nevada, too.
BORGER: What about the Democrats who are saying that there's going to be carnage down ballot if it's Bernie Sanders, and that's a real issue for someone like Nancy Pelosi.
[00:35:08]
JONES: They said that about Trump. I mean, listen --
BORGER: Well, this could be an issue.
JONES: We're all -- we all still have PTSD --
MCINTOSH: Yes. We're very frightened.
JONES: -- from 2016. But don't forget: all the things -- listen, if Trump gets the nomination, then the Republican Party will be destroyed. It's going to be a blood bath. We're going to have the House and the Senate. We're going to have to look for a generation of hope (ph). It didn't happen. Because --
CUOMO: It didn't happen? You have never seen a galvanized party the way we see with the GOP. Now, I've never seen it.
We've got to get in a quick break. When we come back, let's start talking about what you'll see, as you have more results. Remember, it's all talk until the polls come in, and the story is changed with each state. And the biggest ones are coming all within a number of a few weeks ahead. Stay with us.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd like to talk about who are running against: a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians. And no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump, I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg.
Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist policies like red lining, and Stop and Frisk.
Look, I'll support whoever the Democratic nominee is, but understand this. Democrats take a huge risk, if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: So Elizabeth Warren, that was a taste of what she did, basically, to everybody on that stage, once again proving that she is arguably the best political athlete that the party may have.
But the question becomes, is what you just saw enough to make her money in a position where she can be competitive?
Let's take it to the bigger minds. Now Andrew, you've been giving us the practicality of this. A little bit of update on what we understand.
The Bernie Sanders campaign posted the best fundraising night of any campaign yet, 2.7 million, they say, from 150,000 donations. That's according to spokesperson Casca. The Elizabeth Warren campaign had its best fundraising day ever, according to a tweet from Caitlin Mitchell, Warren's chief mobilization officer, more than a million dollars during the debate.
YANG: Yes, those are really impressive sums. The question is, whether she's going to get another million in the hours after the debate, and then another million, and then another million, and then another million. Because the advertising buys you would need to make in some of the big markets on Super Tuesday are really expensive. Like California and Texas.
And I was just sharing an anecdote about how the Bloomberg campaign has just been Hoovering up staff from every campaign, including mine, paying way above market rate. They're almost like -- like a big company that's doing roll-ups or acquisitions.
But the acquisitions are actually political staff. And you know what? I wouldn't be surprised if many of the candidates on the stage tonight were losing staff to Bloomberg, because he's offering 150 to 200 percent of what the market rate is, essentially at every level.
JONES: So it's not just -- it's not just the advertising. I think people think about him --
MCINTOSH: Talent.
JONES: They're talking about -- yes, he's buying up all the ads. He's buying up all the talent in the Democratic Party. I've heard that that's actually causing some problems, people trying to run for state senate and stuff like that, they can't actually --
MCINTOSH: Yes, it's really hurting down-ballot candidates is what I've heard.
JONES: Yes, can't even --
CUOMO: But they have to want to work for him, right? Or is the money enough, where they're just going to work for him just so that they get through the cycle?
YANG: If you're a political operative, and you work for a lot of candidates. Yes. Really.
BORGER: Wow.
MCINTOSH: What did you say?
CUOMO: to that point, he was playing on the Obama line, you're like a ball (ph) I know.
Listen to what Elizabeth Warren just said, and again, she gets full points for coming out ready and focused and delivering, with pretty much every attack she leveled against anybody. But at the end of it she says, Look, I just called you a racist, a sexist, but I'll be with you.
MCINTOSH: I'll be with you.
CUOMO: You know. I mean, it's one of the reasons. MCINTOSH: I think that's a little bit of what this primary is right
now. There are very serious differences between these candidates onstage. And there are things that I genuinely can't stand about some of them, things that I love about other ones.
But I'm going to vote for any -- I'm going to put on the shirt and knock on all the doors, and make all the phone calls the second we have a nominee, regardless of who it is.
CUOMO: Even if you think he's harassing machine and a bigot?
MCINTOSH: I know that the president has been credibly accused of rape by multiple women.
CUOMO: So --
MCINTOSH: I know that. I believe that anybody standing on that stage would not behave that way in the White House, would not talk about women like that from the White House. Would probably have a cabinet that was decently representative for women. I think we're talking about apples and oranges regardless of who on the stage makes it.
BORGER: Without -- without the outreach that Bernie Sanders has yet to do, the question that I have is who's going to -- are these, you know, are -- if it's not Bernie Sanders if it were to be Bloomberg. Or the Warren people, even if it's Bloomberg. Would they -- would they come out and vote?
I mean, what's the incentive for people who have supported Bernie Sanders for years and years and years, and he's not opening up his arms to other factions in the party --
MCINTOSH: The incentive is Donald Trump.
BORGER: Well, is that incentive enough, or do they just stay home and say, You know what? I'm sick of it all.
JONES: But that goes both directions, though, I think in this party. I think people have to ask the question, the people who right now are infatuated with Bloomberg, and want to see a moderate, you know, come and save the party, would they be willing to walk behind a Bernie Sanders, and give him the opportunity?
And would the Sanders people would be willing to reach across the other way?
That's the big question. It's a leadership -- that is the leadership challenge for whoever gets the nomination of this party.
But I want to say one thing. You know, something that Bloomberg, I think, got really wrong. He was really tone deaf on some of these questions around class, around income. Like he said -- when he said, I worked really hard, and that's why I have all this money.
You know what, buddy? There's a lot of people --
YANG: People who work really hard.
JONES: -- who are working really hard.
YANG: -- and make less than $60 million.
JONES: -- who don't have all that money. But when he did the little thing around, you know, Well, I can't possibly figure out a way to, you know, count all my money. I can't use Turbotax.
[00:45:12]
Listen he could very easily said, look, I want to get this right. The American people deserve accuracy. I'm going to make sure it's accurate. No, he goes, I've got so much money you can't imagine. How can I possibly --
That kind of stuff, had he been in those living rooms, and looking at people's eyes when we made those kind of comments, not his staff, but real people, that stuff is offensive. And why Bernie Sanders has the power he has is he knows it's offensive. And he understands the cut and the rub of some people, being so wealthy and well-connected. They don't even know when they're offending people.
CUOMO: Except --
(CROSSTALK)
MCAULIFFE: It's early in the process. Bernie is trying to win a nomination. So at this point, everybody is trying to go to their base. As they move along and they collect more delegates, and the frontrunner status, that's when they'll, let's say, try to reach out more.
But I understand at this point we've only had two contests. They are trying to dig down to their supporters.
(CROSSTALK)
YANG: It's not early Terry. It's getting late early.
CUOMO: It is late/early, but hold on. It's late/early for us also, so let's get in one more break here. When we come back, we're going to have --
MCAULIFFE: You should have stayed in.
CUOMO: Maybe Yang's going to get back in the race. Stay tuned for the answer to that question right after this.
MCAULIFFE: Some of that Cuomo money.
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CUOMO: Something very important to remember. Everybody hates talking about many in politics, but there's a great example of why it matters so much.
Terry, you've been talking about the realities of all these delegates coming up and how you get them. Money is a big part.
MCAULIFFE: And this may have been baked into the calendar that we have. Most of the candidates should have raised the money and sort of spread it out as we move forward.
The problem is this calendar is so condensed. The problem that every candidate, except for Bernie and Mayor Bloomberg is going to have right now is they've got 14 contests coming up, you know, three days after South Carolina. Then in the next two weeks, six more gigantic states. You're talking $100 to 125 million media buy, paying for your staff, doing your digital. Nobody can do that. And you know, so --
CUOMO: That means you're not in states. You're not in -- you're not on as often. Your commercials or not there, and how big a difference is that?
MCAULIFFE: Chris, you're not going to win if you are not on TV at all.
I think Bernie and probably Bloomberg will be the only two on TV in California and Texas. Bloomberg has been on in Virginia now for three months. Nobody else has been on it, and North Carolina.
MCINTOSH: What about earned media, meaning -- meaning --
MCAULIFFE: So Elizabeth will get a great run, this clip they'll show over and over. But she can't compete with this constant. And that's the problem with the calendar we have. It is so short, fast. Even if you do well in South Carolina, the next day's Sunday. You can't really raise money. You can't deposit till Monday. You can't be on TV for Tuesday. It's impossible.
YANG: Yes, you have to shoot ads. You have to make the media buy. You need some lead time.
You know, to me, a lot of the problem is that you have several moderates who are congesting the lane, where Bernie had capped out at around, let's call it 25 to 30 percent. But then, because you have Joe and Amy and Pete all in there, and Mike now, you need to consolidate that group of four candidates.
But then who gets out for who. Like, it's a collective action problem. And each of them has, obviously, a team that has zero interest in saying, like, we're going to get out for another candidate. But if they all stay, then you can see Bernie running away with this.
MCAULIFFE: Having shared presidential debt retirement committees, that is what will drive you out. There is nothing worse -- because you're got to find new donors after you're out of the race.
MCINTOSH: You remember what you did in 2008.
MCAULIFFE: That is one thing that will drive these candidates out.
BORGER: And what's the collective action.
MCAULIFFE: There's nothing worse.
BORGER: And can you imagine sitting around the table with some kind of collection action people, sitting and saying, OK, who gets out? Do you get out, Elizabeth. Or -- I mean, not Elizabeth. Do you get out, Amy? Or do you get out, Pete? Or do you get out Joe? Or -- well, Bloomberg doesn't have to sit at that table.
BASH: It's never going to happen.
BORGER: It's never going to happen, right?
BASH: Never going to happen.
MCINTOSH: This way they're all equally plausible candidates. There is --
CUOMO: But they're also kind of equally cash -strapped. Right?
YANG: I'll tell you that these conversations are going to start heating up over the next one to two weeks, because they're seeing the same calendar. It's like -- almost like this wall, and they have this wave that's about to crash into it.
So they're having much more serious conversations. You could tell from tonight that they were all told, Look, this could be make-or-break for your campaign. And if you're in that mode, then honestly I think we're going to see some of these candidates having very, very tough conversations, hopefully even with other campaigns.
BASH: You were part of that club until recently.
YANG: Yes, I was.
BASH: Do you see what Gloria just suggested, I mean, which is very logical, ever happening, that the people who are there remaining in the congested lane that you discussed, having a meeting and saying, Let's talk about it. OK, I'll get out. Who's going to stay in?
YANG: No, I don't see it. You know, I know the people involved. You know, like they don't have those kinds of relationships with each other.
And again, they each have a team of dozens, hundreds of people that have interests that are very much the opposite direction, because they're all trying to think, OK, if my person becomes the president or veep, then you know, we're going to have this job, that job, that job. Like this is still the hope and the dream.
So it's going to be tough to get them all together, but if they don't come together in some way, then I think the timing is going to end up working out for Bernie.
JONES: This is exactly what happened in 2016 with the Republican Party. You know, Mario, Rubio, everybody has their dreams and stuff. And Trump, it was a very long time before Trump was winning majorities. He was just getting that 25, 30, 35 percent every single time.
And we sit here saying, well, clearly, it's not going to be Donald Trump. There's no way it's going to be Donald Trump. So we came up with all these different lanes and theories and stuff like that. At the end of the day, the guy was getting 25, 30.
CUOMO: We slept on -- we slept on the movement.
JONES: Yes, yes.
[00:55:04]
CUOMO: Bernie Sanders is the only one has that right now, and that's why you've got to give it some respect.
JONES: And I think that that again, for him, this electability argument -- and I didn't know those numbers that you had raised before, that his numbers are going up. It makes sense to me that the idea that he's electable goes up, because I think to be electable, you've got to electrify.
If you don't have the money, which is, you know, Bloomberg's thing, you've got to have the energy. You've got to have the people.
And those Bernie Sanders rallies, which we don't show often, they -- those things are really, really fired up. And that energy can sometimes get a candidate across the finish line.
CUOMO: Well, we're going to be seeing soon enough what it means. The money totals are going to start to come in. Polls are going to be released. And then, before you know it, it's going to be one state on top of the other, hitting you on the head. And you know who's going to be there every step of the way? CNN will.
To all of you, thank you, as always.
MCAULIFFE: And tomorrow, Chris, FEC reports come out.
CUOMO: Thank you very much, Terry McAuliffe.
MCAULIFFE: They'll come out public tomorrow.
CUOMO: I was a bit more right than I knew.
Andrew Yang, my favorite group. Tribe Called Quest has a line, you're a box of positives. You're a big plus, love.
YANG: That's good to hear.
CUOMO: Thank you very much for joining the team. You are value added.
All right. Thank you for watching. The news is going to continue, of course, here on CNN.
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