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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Speaking for First Time Since Wisconsin Loss; Clinton, Sanders Trade Barbs Ahead of CNN Democratic Debate; Awaiting First Trump Rally Since Wisconsin Loss; Cruz Win Boosts Odds of Contested Convention; Trump Speaking at First Rally Since Wisconsin Loss. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired April 06, 2016 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:10] ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Donald Trump live this hour. His first appearance since a bruising defeat in Wisconsin. Will he make any changes to his campaign? The last Trump insider Michael Cohen and the fight for the GOP nomination now likely headed to the convention floor. Tonight, delegates say they're worried things could turn violent. Our special reporter.
Plus, it's never been nastier between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, fighting for every vote in New York. Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news. Donald Trump about to speak at a massive rally on New York's long island. Nearly 20,000 people have requested tickets for tonight's rally in his home state. I'll show you some live pictures outside the rally. Protesters are gathering there. Inside the crowd. They're waiting an anticipation of Trump's first public appearance since being defeated last night by Ted Cruz in Wisconsin. Trump losing to Cruz by 13 points there at the end of the night. He's showing an angry statement saying said, quote, "Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet. He is a Trojan horse being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination."
The statement went on to claim that Cruz is illegally coordinating with his Super PAC without offering evidence to support that claim. Trump is hoping for a major comeback in his home state here in New York and a new poll shows him dominating 52 percent of likely Republican voters in New York Support Donald Trump. John Kasich is second at 25. Ted Cruz at 17. Of course, if you get over 50 percent, it's winner-take-all in New York. Cruz campaigning in New York as well doubling down on his comments about New York values at a restaurant in the Bronx saying, "Liberal politicians hammer New Yorkers with those values." At least one protester greeted Cruz with what might be called a Bronx cheer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted Cruz has no business being in the Bronx. (INAUDIBLE) And to receive this right wing bigot is an insult to the whole community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Cruz appeared a short time later claiming that race, the race is shifting in his favor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Wisconsin was a perfect state we were told for Donald Trump to win. And if you look at the election results last night, we won across the state. We won women. We won men. We won young people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Cruz victory increases the odds that Trump will not be able to win enough delegates to take the nomination outright before the convention floor raising the real possibility of a contested convention all the way in July.
Sara Murray is OUTFRONT tonight win the Trump rally in Bethpage, New York. Obviously a massive rally Sara. Twenty thousand people expected. And I know CNN has some new reporting on what's happening inside Trump's campaign.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erin. The Trump campaign is trying to turn the page on this tough night in Wisconsin, but there's some disagreement about how to do that. And we're seeing right now a power struggle playing out within the Trump campaign between campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski and another veteran strategist Paul Manafort.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY (voice-over): After Ted Cruz's big win in Wisconsin.
CRUZ: It was a turning point, I believe in this entire election.
MURRAY: The GOP primary fight appears to be veering towards a contested convention.
CRUZ: I'm more and more convinced that our campaign is going to earn the 1237 delegates needed to win the Republicans nomination, either before Cleveland or at the convention in Cleveland.
MURRAY: Donald Trump lashing out Tuesday night after his loss and accusing Cruz of illegally coordinating with the Super PACs that support him, adding Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet. He is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump. Today, Cruz shot back.
CRUZ: Now, you know, Donald can always be counted on to take the high road and the demonstrate class. If he wants to engage in insults, he's welcome to do so. He gets very angry when the voters reject him.
MURRAY: Now Trump's campaign is trying to regroup and work through an internal power struggle between campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and veteran GOP strategist Paul Manafort. Manafort recently joined the campaign to help with the delegate process. But he may be taking on a more prominent strategic role as he urges more discipline to ensure Trump wins enough delegates to become the nominee. To avoid a floor flight, Trump needs roughly 60 percent of the remaining delegates.
And as the race moves to New York, the billionaire businessman has a hometown advantage. A new Monmouth University poll shows 52 percent of GOP primary voters support Trump compared to 25 percent for John Kasich and 17 percent for Ted Cruz. But if Trump can't get the delegates he needs and appears poised to lose in a convention fight, Trump ally Roger Stone is already threatening retaliation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal. If you're from Pennsylvania, we'll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[19:05:19] MURRAY: Now the Trump campaign's hope is to lockdown those 1237 delegates before they get to Cleveland and to avoid a floor fight. And of course, New York would be key to that effort, but it could be a rough stretch up Erin up to the New York primary when you're dealing with stories like staff shake-ups.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Sara Murray. And of course Michael Cohen, Trump insiders can be with me in just a moment, but Sunlen Serfaty first to travelling with the Cruz campaign OUTFRONT in the Bronx tonight. And Sunlen, Cruz is celebrating, look, it was a big win last night for him. Now though, he is on Trump's home turf.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erin. And he touches down here in Donald Trump's home turf well behind in the polls here in New York. That primary coming up in just under two weeks. You know, Cruz campaigning here today, really trying to send a clear message though that he does not intend to secede New York to Donald Trump. The Cruz campaign really hoping that they can stand in a way of preventing Donald Trump from getting all of the states, you know, delegates reached trove of 95 delegates here at stake in New York. Given this state awards delegates on a Congressional district level.
So, right now what the Cruz campaign is doing is really micro targeting districts where they feel that they can pick up some wins, pick-up some delegates, especially focusing on rural parts of New York. And it was interesting as Ted Cruz campaign here in the Bronx, he, you know, trying to court New York voters, but really offering something of an explanation or a redefinition of that famous New York values hit that caused such a ruckus a few months ago. Cruz today saying that, you know, he meant to say that Liberal Democratic values. So, something of an explanation. Offering up the names Elliott Spitzer and Anthony Weiner, saying that people know exactly what Liberal Democratic values are -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Sunlen.
OUTFRONT now, a key member of Trump's center circle executive vice president, the Trump organization special counsel to Donald Trump Michael Cohen. Good to have you with me. Thank you so much. All right. Good to see you. So, let's start off here. Donald Trump's entire brand, right? You've worked with him for decade. It's about winning. It's about winning big. He has got a lot of bravado under intense fire over the past week of course and then he lost last night in Wisconsin. But even yesterday in Wisconsin he was promising people there could be some sort of an upside surprise, he said, like New Hampshire where, of course, he won big. How is he dealing with a loss like this?
MICHAEL COHEN, SPECIAL COUNSEL TO DONALD TRUMP: He is actually perfect. This hasn't changed his strategy. This hasn't shaken him at all. Donald Trump, as you know, is a New York real estate developer. They're really strong and they don't let these things get to them. And I would actually tell Ted Cruz I wouldn't be taking that victory lap so fast with all due respect in the delegate count. Trump is at 746, 236 points still ahead of Ted Cruz. More than 40 percent differential between the two. So, I really won't be taking that victory lap so soon. When you're talking about Wisconsin that has 42 delegates. You do know Donald Trump always wants to win. He's all about winning. So, he wanted to win it. And in all fairness, he probably should have. Wisconsin, they're manufacturing sector has really gotten hit hard.
BURNETT: The Democratic -- the state was seemed tailor made for him.
COHEN: Right. And what happened, you know, to all the negative ads? It's the millions and millions of dollars by the Super PACs coming against him. The Rickets family. You had Scott Walker. You had Paul Ryan. I mean, everybody now coalescing against Donald Trump. See, it's not about letting Donald Trump -- it's not about letting Donald Trump get to the 1237. The whole campaign of Cruz and especially Kasich is stopping Trump.
BURNETT: If you want to blame that on the stop Trump forces, and they did spend a lot of money -- but even if you did blame the loss on that, that's not going to stop. So, when you say he's perfect, nothing is going to change. Shouldn't something change?
COHEN: Well, I think they're going to button up quite a bit on the ground in each of the various states as opposed to what they didn't have to do in the past. Maybe that's why they brought in Manafort and a series of other people to the campaign, but the most important thing is that he stays on message. Donald Trump is all about making America great again. He's all about creating jobs -- creating trillions of dollars, building the infrastructure, national security. These are the issues that are most important to the American people. And if the American people want to see a real change, you need somebody who is a natural deal maker, which is Donald Trump.
BURNETT: You mention Paul Manafort, of course a longtime GOP operative. CNN reporting he could be taking a bigger role within the campaign. There could be some changes after last night's loss. Are you advising Donald Trump to make some changes in his campaign?
COHEN: No, no, I'm not involved with the campaign at all. What Mr. Trump does and what he, you know, discusses with Corey Lewandowski and others at the campaign, I don't sit in on those meetings. I do see Mr. Trump every day. I speak to him every day, but I'm talk to him about the Trump organization and other matters.
[19:10:18] BURNETT: So, do you think he should be making changes at all?
COHEN: Well, I think right now the campaign is growing. I mean, he's right now in a fight. He's in a real dog fight. And Trump likes these fights. See, that's where people think like Ted Cruz they're wrong. He's not opposed to a good fight. He actually enjoys it. And he enjoys winning them, which he does so often.
BURNETT: So, yes, and that's one of the things people like about him. It's one of the things they also loathe about him. And he's been criticized for not being presidential because of this sites. In fact, he said this week two of the most important people in his life have criticized him for not being very presidential. And here's how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My wife is always saying -- and Ivanka. You've heard of Ivanka, right? Right? She just had a baby. She's great. But they said, darling, be more presidential. Daddy, be more presidential during the debate. I said I will but I got to knock off the final two first if you don't mind. Now, let me be unpresidential just for a little while longer and maybe I'll be a little bit unpresidential as I beat Hillary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Do you agree with Ivanka and Melania? Do you tell him, look, you have to be more presidential?
COHEN: Look, Donald Trump is presidential. He looks presidential. He speaks presidential. I don't know if I would agree with Melania or Ivanka on that. I think he has to do what he needs to do to win. And in order to win which he wants desperately, he wants to be the president of the United States of America because --
BURNETT: Right.
COHEN: -- he knows that he can fix the country's problems. He knows he could really make a difference for so many people.
BURNETT: In order to win, he has to win certain groups of people. Right? You can't just win with white men. And when you look at the polls, you've been working with him on efforts for diversity. "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, non-Whites, 81 percent unfavorable rating. Among Hispanics, 85 percent unfavorable. As we know among women, two-thirds unfavorable. When are you going to turn those numbers around?
COHEN: First of all, I don't agree with those numbers.
(CROSSTALK)
Erin, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't agree with any of those polls and any of those numbers. The media, this liberal media, comes after Mr. Trump. No matter what he says, they're going to find something --
BURNETT: That's not the liberal media. That is just a poll.
COHEN: The poll is as far as I'm concerned manipulated in order to come up with these. Women do not have an issue with Mr. Trump. We started -- Pastor Darryl Scott and I were having a conversation. We came up with this notion of a coalition of diversity for Trump. And there's already, over 150,000 people combined. You have Muslim Americans, you have Hispanic Americans, women, you have Hispanic women, you have Sikhs (ph), you have Indians. I mean, this coalition is growing. And if you look even on Twitter and online, you'll see there are all these coalitions and groups that are turning around. And they're out there stumping for Mr. Trump. They always talk about African-Americans sound like Mr. Trump --
BURNETT: So, you think that the polls are going to be proven to be dead wrong?
COHEN: Absolutely. Dead wrong. And I'm seeing it, I see it every single day, with new people are calling and saying, how do we get involved in this coalition?
BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you very much, Michael Cohen.
COHEN: Always good to see you.
BURNETT: Good to see you. Thank you.
And OUTFRONT next, Cruz's Wisconsin win makes a contested convention ever more likely. Can either Trump or Cruz at the magic number of delegates before July? We're going to do the math.
Plus. Hillary Clinton questions whether Bernie Sanders is even a Democrat or her new attacks close the deal of backfire? That race is nasty tonight. And Ted Cruz says Republicans are getting behind him. We're going to talk to one who got a little too close behind him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:16:58] BURNETT: Tonight, Donald Trump holding a major campaign rally in New York, the next key state in the Republican race for president. You're looking at live pictures at Long Island. Huge crowds awaiting Trump to come out. Protests outside that rally. Ivanka Trump just moments ago appearing on that stage. Her father anticipated any moment. According to the Trump campaign close to 20,000 people are at this rally. Of course, the primary coming up on April 19th. And these are live pictures of protesters lining up outside the rally to protest the GOP frontrunner. New York is a crucial state. Ninety five delegates up for grabs. Ted Cruz though says, Wisconsin is just the beginning of the end of Trump's campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUZ: It culminated four states in a row in the last two weeks where we have beaten Donald Trump over and over and over again. And yesterday in Wisconsin, a state that he bragged the day before, the day before yesterday, Donald Trump promised a, quote, "Big victory in Wisconsin." And not only did he not get a bit victory. But the men and women of Wisconsin resoundingly rejected his campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: But the odds are increasingly likely that neither man will have the magic number of delegates to avoid a contested convention. Trump needs about 60 percent of the remaining delegates to get to 1237 before July. Ted Cruz needs close to 90 percent. And John Kasich can't get there -- before the convention.
OUTFRONT now, senior adviser to Donald Trump Ed Brookover, editor of "The Weekly Standard," Bill Kristol, Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway, the president of a pro-Ted Cruz Super PAC, and election law expert and former associate general counsel for the FEC Kenneth Gross.
Okay. Thanks to all of you. Ed, let me just start with you on the strategy side of this. You need about 60 percent of the remaining delegates to win this before the convention. How exactly do you get 60 percent when so far, Trump has won on average about 46 percent of the delegates at stake.
ED BROOKOVER, SENIOR ADVISER, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Well, part of it is that the rule changes in each state for each delegate selection process. So, we're coming to New York next where if Mr. Trump gets more than 50 percent in a state and every Congressional district, he'll end up with 85 or 95 of the delegates of New York. You head to New Jersey, 51 delegates, winner take all. Head to Pennsylvania, 17 delegates winner take all with most of the delegates there saying they'll support the winner of their districts. And California, a winner take most area. Those four states along propel Trump a long way for the first ballot victory.
BURNETT: All right. So, you're betting on specific states at this point, Ed. Barry Bennett though works with you as a senior adviser on the campaign. I was talking to him earlier this week. And he admitted to me that the campaign is, quote, in his words, "playing catch-up." A little bit of catch up to be exact at the game of winning over the individual delegates. Something of course Ted Cruz has spent a lot of time doing frankly over the past two years not just the past couple of months. How do you catch up when a lot of these folks who are unbound, allowed to vote for who they want or at least on the second round of voting at the convention would be allowed to vote for who they want, have already said that they're loyal to Ted Cruz? How do you possibly dig out of that hole?
BROOKOVER: Well, first of all, we'll win on the first ballot. But second of all, a lot of the other delegates are saying different things to us behind closed doors as well. We're doing well. We're catching up. We're catching up in places like Michigan this weekend or we think we'll have a great ground game with the Michigan convention. Catching up in places like Georgia delegates this weekend.
BURNETT: Right.
BROOKOVER: So, we think we're making the moves we need to make sure Mr. Trump is the nominee.
BURNETT: All right. Ed, I just have to preempt you for just a moment because Donald Trump has now started speaking. First speech since that big loss last night. Let's listen in at his rally here in Long Island.
TRUMP: We love New York and we are all together going to make America great again, folks.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
So I was driving over from Manhattan, and I passed queens. I love Queens. Do we have a lot of Queens? I grew up in Queens. I grew up in Queens. And I used to play, you know, I used to get here at like 2:00 in the morning to play a round of golf at Bethpage. You all know what I mean, right? But I love this city and I love this country, and we are going to start winning again with our country because we don't win. We never win. We never, ever win anymore. We don't win with our military. We don't win on trade. We don't win on health care. We don't win on anything. We are going to start winning again, folks.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
[19:21:30] So in coming up, I said to myself and I said some of the people when we were in the car -- I said, you know, I'm self-funding my campaign. I'm putting my own money in, right? And all these people that are running for office, they're like off the throat, they take money in from all the special interest where they can't make proper transactions for you and that's going to stop. It's going to stop. You look -- you look -- you look at what's happening -- I love you too. I love these people. These are my people.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(CROWD CHANTING TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP!)
I have so many family members here today. Look at that. Boy, oh, boy, my sons and my daughter. Did Ivanka do a good job? You know she had a baby like five days ago, so she did a good job. So I should not say, Ivanka, you're fired, right? I promise. I promise. I promise. So, I love this. You know, somebody else would say that's a tough crowd. It is for the heart. We love this crowd. We love you people. We love you people. We love. So, here's what we're doing. On June 16th, I came out and I said -- and it's not easy to do. It take guts. I came down the escalator with Melania. I said, come on, let's go. I took a deep breath. And it was all about trade. It was all about borders, it was all about all sorts of things. And today it's that, but it's also about our military. We can't beat ISIS. We're going to knock the hell out of ISIS. Believe me.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Can you imagine what our great generals, General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur, can you imagine what they'd be saying if they saw what's going on with what we're doing and the way we fight? We don't fight like people from Long Island. We don't fight like people from New York. So we're going to rebuild our military. It's totally depleted. You know it. We know it. They don't like talking about it. We are going to rebuild our military. It's going to be bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. And very, very important we're going to take care of our vets. Our vets are not taken care of.
So our country owes now $19 trillion.
(CROWD BOOING)
We owe trillions to China. We owe trillions to Japan. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. It's going to change around. It's going to change quickly. We are going to renegotiate our trade deals in China. The case of China, $500 billion trade deficit every single year. It's going to end. Mexico. I love the Mexican people. I love Hispanics. I love Hispanics. They're unbelievable people.
We have now $58 billion trade deficit with Mexico, and our businesses are sadly leaving our country going to other countries. They're leaving our jobs. In Long Island, you know it better than almost anybody. Our companies are being uprooted, taken out, they're moving to Mexico. They're moving to other countries. Everybody is looking for jobs. And you know what? We're going to end the practice. We're going to keep our companies here, and we're bringing companies back to the United States.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(CROWD CHANTING BUILD A WALL, BUILD A WALL, BUILD A WALL, BUILD A WALL, BUILD A WALL, BUILD A WALL!)
[19:26:24] We are going to have a strong border. We are going to build the wall. It will be a real wall, a real wall. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Who is going to pay for the wall?
CROWD: Mexico.
TRUMP: Who?
CROWD: Mexico.
TRUMP: By the way, 100 percent. When these politicians come up, they say you can't really get Mexico to pay. I just put out a plan three days ago so easy. When we're losing $58 billion a year in trade deficits and a wall is going to cost $10 billion, folks, how easy is that? It's going to happen, okay? It's going to happen. One hundred percent it's going to happen.
(CROWD CHANTING BUILD A WALL, BUILD A WALL!)
Go ahead.
(CROWD CHANTING)
It never changes. Hey, New York is called New York --
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
It never, ever will change. So what's happened and very strongly what's happened? We are going to have those strong borders just as you saw last week. The border patrol, 16,500 people in the border patrol endorsed -- and I didn't even ask -- endorsed Donald Trump for president.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
The first time they've ever done it. They have never endorsed anybody for president, but they want to have strong boarders. And you know what? I thought to myself has anybody heard the snake. Has anyone heard of it? Have you heard? Should we do it? Should we do it?
All right. The main thing -- can you hear me all the way in the back? Can you hear me? Can anybody not hear me clearly? All right. I want to thank my brother, my cousins, my nephews, my beautiful daughters- in-law, my son, wonderful Ivanka as you know. They all came to see this, I mean, they can't even believe it. You know, you know, lying Ted Cruz came today. He couldn't draw 100 people. A hundred people.
(CROWD BOOING)
I'm telling you. In fact, it was a big headline today in the New York post. He couldn't draw 100 people. Now, do you remember -- do you remember --
BURNETT: All right. Donald Trump at his rally out on Bethpage, Long Island. There are about 20,000 people there. And here with my panel, let me start with you Bill Kristol, I know you're no fan of Donald Trump, but there is absolutely no nod at all to his loss last night. Nothing. This is back to the same old Trump speech. You feel his performance tonight is, what, same as usual? Not?
BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Seems a little more incoherent than usual and that's saying something for Donald Trump.
[19:30:00] I think he's rattled. I mean, that statement they put out last night, you lose a primary. You go on to the next one. You graciously accept defeat. He didn't even show up in person to do that. You couldn't quite make yourself do that. Fine. You put out a paper statement.
He puts out a -- really a psychotic statement that accuses, Kellyanne here, people of breaking the law.
BURNETT: That Super PAC is coordinating with the Cruz campaign.
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: That's a serious legal charge. Kevin knows more about this than I do, right? I mean, to say coordination, it's a criminal charge basically, could be. And there's no evidence -- they ever even bother to back it up. They throw it out in their non-concession statement after losing Wisconsin. What kind of campaign is that?
BURNETT: So, Ed, what kind of campaign is that, Ed? You're part of it. Senior adviser, he uses the word psychotic. What do you say?
ED BROOKOVER, SENIOR ADVISER, DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I say that I just thought that our Democratic friends thought part of that statement was genius as we move toward the New York primary.
KRISTOL: Ed, what evidence is there that super PAC has coordinated -- do you think Kellyanne has broken the law? Where is the evidence? Do you think it's appropriate to charge people for breaking the law without evidence?
BROOKOVER: I think there's plenty of places we can look to see what happened.
KRISTOL: Would you like to cite one piece of evidence?
BROOKOVER: I don't -- not right now.
KRISTOL: Oh, that's great. That's great. So, you accused Kellyanne of breaking the law.
BROOKOVER: Bill, I didn't accuse -- we didn't accuse Kellyanne's PAC of anything.
KRISTOL: Well, you -- what did you mean you didn't? Did you read your other statement?
BURNETT: You know, what was the statement about then when you said Mr. Trump -- sorry, Cruz super PAC was coordinating with the campaign?
BROOKOVER: There are multiple super PACs for Mr. Cruz, as all of you know.
BURNETT: So, saying it's not yours.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESIDENT & CEO, THE POLLING COMPANY: Ours is the only pro-Cruz super PAC that's recognized by the Ted Cruz campaign as a super PAC. And I it's blatantly false and it's very hurtful. It's actually very disappointing because I think when you lose a primary, you say it is a bad day for the home team and you move on. You graciously say congratulation and you say, I'll see you on m home turf in New York.
But look, it's one thing to hurdle insults about someone's wife and that caused Mr. Trump dearly in Wisconsin and dearly among women voters all across this country. Read the polls. Mr. Trump loves the polls. You live by the polls, you die by the polls.
But it is quite another to accuse Ted Cruz himself and professionals who have been at this long as you have, Ed, practically of committing a felony and breaking a law. We could just brush it off, but it shows you the danger of just saying things that aren't true and getting people to believe it and getting 20,000 people at a rally today to just lap it up if it's true. BURNETT: So, Ed, I guess the question to you is, when statements like
that come out, I mean, you weren't the one who wrote that statement, but does anyone have any say on something like that? Or did you get a chance to give him advice on how he should say he lost or does he do that on his own?
BROOKOVER: That's not my part of the campaign. I'm chasing delegates and helping Mr. Trump with the RNC and in Washington. I think we've seen that Mr. Trump's instincts have been representing those who are upset with the Washington establishment, upset with the status quo, and that I think he's working his best to make sure those voices are heard and are heard across America.
BURNETT: So, Ken, on this issue of the delegates, I want to bring you in on this, because you heard Ed say that Donald Trump is not counting on four states specifically to get him to 1,237 before the convention so he doesn't have to go through multiple rounds, which is something Ed doesn't want to deal with, because that's where you start to have problems because he's catching up -- California, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
KENNETH GROSS, FMR. ASSOC. GENERAL COUNSEL, FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION: Yes.
BURNETT: Is that reasonable?
GROSS: It's a steep hill to climb. No question about it. It's possible, but it's going to be a very steep hill to climb.
I think the chances are we're going to go into a convention without -- with no candidate having 1,237.
BURNETT: And we're going to go round and round and round.
GROSS: These four days of TV time, it may not get resolved in that time. It could be quite a carnival.
BURNETT: A carnival.
CONWAY: Or it may not TV, only because you have all these folks now warming up to Ted Cruz. And part of it is because --
BURNETT: So, you actually think it is reasonable he's going to win 80 percent of the states from here --
CONWAY: No, no, if we get to the contested convention --
BURNETT: So, you're saying into the convention? OK.
CONWAY: Yes. If we get to the contested, I think Senator Cruz would have amassed enough delegates at that point and enough credibility in having coalesce the center right and the more mainstream Republicans around him that he will be the odds on favorite and the second and third ballots, we don't know what will happen.
But, you know, to Ed's point, and I think this is why Mr. Trump seems so rattled last night, it's just -- look at what happened this past weekend even before Wisconsin. The Cruz campaign went into North Dakota and won 18 of those 25 delegates, including people who are on paper --
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: North Dakota -- we should note for the viewers. Nobody in North Dakota actually got to vote. It's just the delegates. These are the state by state rules --
CONWAY: That's right.
BURNETT: -- are confounding.
(CROSSTALK)
CONWAY: The first six that were awarded.
Look, the thing is and Ed knows this -- you cannot, Ed is a very talented, Paul Manafort is a talented guy, you cannot create an infrastructure and a ground game in analytics overnight. It's been lacking for a year here and it's costly.
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: I think Kellyanne's right about this. I mean, look, if Donald Trump wins New Jersey, the bulk of California, the bulk of New York, does very well in other states, Indiana was key winner-take-all states, he'll be the nominee. This is not going to be resolved by chicanery.
[19:35:02] Right now, the problem for Donald Trump is he's winning an average of about 37 percent of the popular vote and he's got about 46 percent of the delegates. If he wins more of the popular vote, he'll win.
But he's not increasing his share of the popular vote. Here I think is Kellyanne's key point. Cruz has surprisingly been able to reach out and get an awful lot of apparently mainstream establishment suburban Republicans to vote for him.
BURNETT: OK. But hold on, can we just take a step back? Because you still don't have a lot of people in Congress supporting Ted Cruz. You have someone like Peter King in New York who hates Donald Trump, keeps saying never vote for Donald Trump. He's like, I don't want to vote for Ted Cruz either.
Let's not forget here that it's not as if everyone was in love, Kellyanne, with Ted Cruz to begin with. People -- the stop Trump team seemed to be getting on board with him because everybody else got out.
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: He's won a bunch of states, to be fair.
CONWAY: To be fair, he's won more than ten states. That's fine. We accept that. I'll tell you, as a head --
BURNETT: But in terms of endorsements, he's not getting that.
CONWAY: He's getting it from the voters. He won, but here's what I want to give the due to Trump and Cruz. The one-two Trump-Cruz punch has meant the establishment is flat on its back in this cycle. This is the election cycle like me dreamed of, where you take the fiction of electability and you replace it with voter electricity.
This whole nonsense of telling us who can win and who can't win, who's electable and who's not electable, how these things move to vote a year before the election is how we get these candidates who lose to Barack Obama twice and not in squeakers miserably. So, look, here's a thing going forward.
It's no longer establishment versus non-establishment. That's been settled. That's it. It's now Trump versus non-Trump. And not anti- Trump, non-Trump. That portion of the electorate in these places is a majority and it's where the growth opportunity.
Ted Cruz has been overperforming the public polls by nine points.
BURNETT: OK. So --
BROOKOVER: Erin --
BURNETT: Go ahead, Ed.
BROOKOVER: Erin, I would disagree with Kelly's premise about where this election is right now. I think it still is Trump versus the establishment. I think part of Senator Cruz's problem is just what I said. He's a senator. He's been part of Washington. He's been part of Washington and that's part of an administration.
CONWAY: For three years.
BROOKOVER: And so, he's been part of the establishment here. He wasn't able to change things. People were frustrated and they're flocking to Mr. Trump.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you all very much.
And next, we're watching Donald Trump live. He's speaking in New York, as I said, for the first time since his loss in Wisconsin.
Plus, the Clinton-Sanders battle for New York. Clinton questioning whether Sanders is even a Democrat. This one is getting a lot nastier than anyone ever thought possible.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:41:19] BURNETT: The Democratic race taking a nasty turn. We're hearing some of the harshest attacks yet. Hillary Clinton saying she's not even sure Bernie Sanders is a Democrat. Bernie Sanders' campaign manager warning Clinton not to tear the party apart.
Brianna Keilar is OUTFRONT with the Sanders' campaign in Philadelphia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, Bernie Sanders is equipped with more momentum and enthusiasm than ever before.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With our victory tonight in Wisconsin, we have now won seven out of eight of the last caucuses.
KEILAR: But after yet another defeat, Hillary Clinton is implementing a new strategy, trying to blunt that Sanders' momentum by going on the offensive.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every candidate asking for your vote owes it to you to be clear about how we are actually going to keep our promises.
KEILAR: Clinton is now pointing to an interview Sanders did with "The New York Daily News", where he struggled to identify how his administration would break up the big banks.
CLINTON: I was, I think, a little bit surprised that there didn't seem to be a lot of substance to what he was saying.
KEILAR: And Clinton is taking that new line of attack on the campaign trail, painting Sanders as ill-prepared to be president.
CLINTON: Well, in a number of important areas he doesn't have a plan at all.
KEILAR: While the Sanders' campaign is warning that Clinton's attacks have the potential of ripping the Democratic Party in two.
JEFF WEAVER, BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN MANAGER: There are sharp contrasts between the two, but let's not denigrate other people's supporters and tear the party apart.
KEILAR: Clinton today laughed off that notion as ludicrous, arguing that she has fought for the Democratic Party for nearly four decades.
CLINTON: Senator Sanders by his own admission has never even been a Democrat.
KEILAR: And making the case that Democrats want to see her as their nominee.
CLINTON: If you look at the numbers, I'm still considerably ahead in both the popular vote and most importantly the delegate count. So I'm feeling very good about where we are.
KEILAR: Even though Sanders has put together a string of victories, they haven't amounted to big gains in delegates. Sanders must start winning big in delegate-rich states like New York, which accounts for 247 pledged delegates. But recent polling showing Clinton with a double digit advantage.
State wins aside, Sanders is hoping by the Democratic Convention, Clinton's 433 super delegates will rethink their support.
SANDERS: I think that a lot of these superdelegates are going to be looking around them and that are going to be saying, which candidate has the momentum?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: Now, Bernie Sanders is getting ready to take the stage here at Temple University in Philadelphia. Obviously, a very big crowd here.
Democrats in Pennsylvania go to the polls, Erin, on April 26th after voters in New York go to the polls. Both of these states will be key for him to win if he is going to increase his chances of having a pathway to the White House -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you so much, Brianna.
And joining me now, California Congressman Adam Schiff. He endorsed Hillary Clinton. He's here with me in New York tonight.
And Jonathan Tasini, a Bernie Sanders supporter who ran against Clinton in her 2006 New York Senate campaign.
Congressman Schiff, let me start with you. I mean, the reality is no one expected this to be at this point. I mean, back when Bernie Sanders announced he was running, barely anyone covered it. So, nobody would ever have imagine that here we are with them in this race. He has now won seven of the past eight contests.
What do you think is happening?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), ENDORSED HILLAR CLINTON: I don't think the race has really changed. I think you see in different parts of the campaign when there are states that are more favorable to one candidate, when they are open primaries or close primaries. You can expect, I think, to see ebbs and flows in the political cycle.
So, I don't find it all that surprising. I don't think that we're going to see any surprise in New York.
[19:45:02] I think the secretary will do very well there. It is surprising certainly where we find ourselves overall where you have essentially --
BURNETT: Right. I mean, let's just be honest. You would have thought that this would have been locked up a long time ago, right?
SCHIFF: I would have thought that on the GOP side, it wouldn't be the chaos and mayhem that it is, and on the Democratic side, I would have never expected and I don't think anyone in the Senate would have expected that Bernie Sanders would be the heartthrob of young people. So, a lot of surprises here. But at the end of the day, I think the Democratic race is far more
predictable. I think Secretary Clinton will be the nominee. I think she'll be a very strong general election candidate. So, I don't think the end result on the Democratic side will be a surprise, but it has been a surprising campaign.
BURNETT: So, Jonathan, the thing is, it's now in New York -- and New York is a crucial state for both of them, right? Neither one of them really can afford to lose it. They both call it home in different ways, parts of their life. But neither one of them can afford to lose it.
Hillary Clinton has pounced on an interview that Bernie Sanders gave to a paper here, "The New York Daily News", in which he specifically said he didn't know exactly how he would break up the banks. Here he is -- here she is, sorry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: If you're concerned about income inequality and holding the banks accountable, you have to know how it works and what you have to do to make it work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So, does she have a point? I mean, this is central to his campaign.
JONATHAN TASINI, BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTER: No, absolutely not. First of all, I want to say that the one thing the congressman and I agree on is we like the chaos and mayhem among the Republican Party. And I'm embarrassed to actually as an American to watch someone like Donald Trump actually rise to the kind of level he has and the kinds of attacks against all sorts of people.
But on the point about the banks, Bernie was very clear in his record going back a number of years, he's been very clear that he wants to break up the big banks. The things he brought up in the interview are no different than what actually Neel Kashkari said, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who said, for example, ultimately, Congress has to decide whether -- how you put together the system, how you break up the big banks. And he said we're not quite clear how to do that.
BURNETT: Let's just be clear. There is no easy answer to the question, but if it is the core of your ethos and who you are. Shouldn't you have a better answer than I'll figure it out later?
TASINI: No, I think that what the presidential candidate is he sets the high bar, he sets the vision, and then he does get into the specifics. But if you look at the interview, nothing Bernie said was different from what he had said before and nothing was out of the realm of what the debate is around how do you break up the big banks.
BURNETT: Congressman, do you think he should have a better answer to that question when it's a core of his campaign? SCHIFF: Absolutely. I mean, this is not only, you know, the central
issue of his campaign. It is his entire campaign and you would think that given it's importance, he would have a very detailed plan for exactly what he would do with the banks.
More than that, I think it's a perfectly fair point for the secretary to raise. I don't think it threatens to tear apart the Democratic Party. That's exactly the kind of issue-based debate we should have.
But I'll tell you, Erin, the part of that interview that disturbed me more, frankly, was the discussion on the gun issue and the way that Senator Sanders belittled the effort by the Sandy Hook victims to get relief in court. I carried that bill, the bill to repeal PLCCA, the gun industry that unique immunity --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHIFF: I found disturbing.
TASINI: That's not the issue that we brought about tearing the Democratic Party apart. It's the lies and the attacks that the Clinton campaign has done going back to --
BURNETT: OK, can I play Jeff Weaver's sound bite. He used an interesting word. He blamed it on her ambitions. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WEAVER: This is what I would say to them which is, you know, don't destroy the Democratic party to satisfy the secretary's ambitions to become president of the United States, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Ambitions.
TASINI: It's about ambitions and it's about false --
BURNETT: Why are ambitions negative?
TASINI: It's about -- forget, it's about the false attacks that the Clinton campaign has leveled against Bernie Sanders about his health care plan, about a whole series of things that he's proposed. One of the things, for example, PolitiFact rated it's mostly false when both Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton were saying about Bernie's attempt to enact a single payer system. They said it was mostly false and that has come up repeatedly.
The whole allegation him being a Democrat. He supported the Democratic Party, not just in the Senate, but in the House. Without Bernie Sanders, key pieces of legislation would not have passed in the Senate.
BURNETT: Thanks very much to both of you. I appreciate it.
And next, just moments ago, Bernie Sanders demanding that Hillary Clinton apologize. We're going to tell you why next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:52:57] BURNETT: Things are getting very ugly here in New York. Hillary Clinton taking direct aim at Bernie Sanders for siding with gun makers instead of gun violence victims. She says like the families of the victims of Sandy Hook.
Moments ago, Bernie Sanders fought back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: What happened at Sandy Hook is a tragedy beyond comprehension. But maybe Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the families who lost their loved ones in Iraq, or Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the millions of workers in this country who lost their jobs because of the disastrous trade agreements that she supported.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Jeff Zeleny is OUTFRONT with the Sanders campaign in Brooklyn tonight.
Of course, she said he should apologize to Sandy Hook. He has been fighting back. You know, this is getting -- this is getting nastier. Was the lie word -- liar the other day and now this?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And a couple of reasons why. Any New York primary is designed to be rough and tumble. So, it's a tabloid culture that's feeding this.
This is not Iowa. This is not New Hampshire. This is New York, for one. For two, the tensions have been rising on both sides for so long.
Senator Sanders there saying she should apologize for the Iraq war vote, that's not quite the same as Sandy Hook. I bet we don't hear him say that again. That's not -- I don't think you can equate those two.
But moving on, I mean, both sides really have so much at stake here. Not only all the delegates at stake, but also, both of them actually have to win. We say that a lot. But in this case, Bernie Sanders not mathematically, he'll still keep going. But, boy, a New York win would be more than anything else that he's had --
BURNETT: And they both call the state home, right? I mean, you know, in a lot of sense, they really both have all their eggs in this basket. You can't justify it as the demographics weren't in my favor. You can't.
ZELENY: You can't. That's why Senator Sanders set up camp in Brooklyn, in the same borough that he was born 18 -- you know, and lived from zero to 18. We visited that headquarters today.
BURNETT: What are you going to say, 18 --
ZELENY: Right.
He lived there for 18 years. But we visited the headquarters today to get a first sense of how intense this is. The first interview with his new state director here in New York. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two weeks ago, we were being lectured by the Clinton campaign to change our tone.
[19:55:01] And now, it seems that the tone is definitely changing, where they're coming after us more. We're ready for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: So, he said that they're going to go after her on fracking in Upstate. He said they may even do TV ads on that and on income inequality here in New York City.
So, this campaign is going to be so much more engaged over the next two weeks, more than we've ever seen here.
The Clinton campaign is fighting back as well. They say they want to try to disqualify him here, show he's not qualified to be president, that she's better, and to defeat him here in New York.
BURNETT: You also have just this level of physical exhaustion. You have her sort of laughing multiple times, a bit strangely in an interview on CNN today, to be honest.
ZELENY: The laugh is back.
BURNETT: The laugh is back.
And then you had him lashing out with that Iraq war comment. It's when you are tired that you can make mistakes.
ZELENY: No doubt about it. You know, they've been campaigning for a long time. And they're both older. He's 74. She's slightly younger than that.
But I do believe they're both engaged in this campaign. This is a tough fight. And we are going to see them campaigning really every day here as though they're running for governor or something. So intense, Erin.
BURNETT: Incredible. Thank you very much, Jeff Zeleny.
And Clinton and Sanders will be facing off here in New York next week. The Brooklyn Democratic debate. I never thought I would say those words. New York matters. Thursday night, 9:00, only on CNN.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: And thank you so much for joining us. Be sure to set your DVR to record OUTFRONT. So you can watch the show any time.
I'll see you tomorrow nigh.
"AC360" starts right now.
