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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
GOP Debate: Winners & Losers; Notre Dame Cracks Top 4 of Playoff Rankings. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired November 11, 2015 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Last night, it was a different kind of a Republican debate. The Fox Business Debate was light on personal attacks and on name-calling, mud slinging, and I would say stronger in substantive argument -- immigration, military intervention, tax policy.
[05:00:12] The debate was filled with heated moments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it 100 percent. And I can't understand how anybody would be against it. They blew up -- hold it. They blew up -- wait a minute. They blew up a Russian airplane.
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald -- Donald is wrong on this. He is absolutely wrong on this. We are not going to be the world's policemen, but we sure as heck better be the world's leader.
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: All I'm suggesting, we can't ship 11 million people out of this country. Children would be terrified, and it will not work.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: -- built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars. I don't have to hear from this man, believe me. I don't have to hear from him.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ronald Reagan was strong, but Ronald Reagan didn't --
CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- Ronald Reagan walked away at Reykjavik.
PAUL: -- send troops into the Middle East.
FIORINA: -- he walked away, he quit talking --
PAUL: Can I finish my time?
FIORINA: -- when it was time to quit talking.
PAUL: Can I finish my time? TRUMP: Why does she keep interrupting everybody?
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Terrible.
(BOOING)
PAUL: Yes, I would like to finish my response, basically.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why would you then bail out rich Wall Street banks, but not Main Street, not Mom and Pop, not Sabina Loving?
KASICH: I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
CRUZ: But you just said an executive --
KASICH: No. No, I didn't say that.
CRUZ: -- knows to step in and bail out a bank.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: I'd say Donald Trump's hand motions are so, it's an art in itself.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It needs their own podium.
ROMANS: It really is true, maybe a Twitter handle. Somebody probably already started that.
For the latest, let's go to the chief political correspondent, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash in Milwaukee.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, the moderators of this debate promised that it would be substantive and pristine on the issues that you talk about all the time, on jobs, the economy and fiscal policy, and they delivered on that.
But one of the issues that certainly has to do with this but is something that is of great interest in the Republican primary voters is immigration, and the differences between the Republican candidates on that.
And so, one of the most fascinating moments was when Donald Trump talked about his plan to get rid of all of the undocumented immigrants in this country and John Kasich came back at him and just, that's just not realistic.
KASICH: Come on, folks. We all know you can't pick them up and ship them across, back across the border. It's a silly argument. It is not an adult argument. It makes no sense.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: All I can say is, you're lucky in Ohio that you struck oil. That's for one thing.
(LAUGHTER)
Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower, good president, great president, people liked him. "I like Ike," right? The expression. "I like Ike."
Moved a 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border. They came back.
Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn't like it. Moved them way south. They never came back.
(LAUGHTER)
Dwight Eisenhower.
BASH: There were lots of other pointed exchanges between the candidates, for example, on foreign policy, Rand Paul who calls himself a form of isolationist. He went at it with Marco Rubio, giving Marco Rubio one of his best moments of the debate, giving him the opportunity to articulate why he thinks it's important for the United States to have a powerful role in the world.
But when it comes to Marco Rubio, one thing that was missing from this debate that we certainly saw in the last one was the drama between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. We didn't see them go after one another. They each stuck to what they wanted to talk, vis-a-vis policy, vis-a-vis their proposals, and their plans and actually pretended like the other wasn't even on the stage -- John and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: All right, Dana Bash in Milwaukee.
Let's talk about who came out on top. Who did what they needed to do? Joining us now, CNN politics reporter Jeremy Diamond live in our Washington bureau.
Jeremy, I want to start at the top of the polls. Ben Carson has been leading in the polls, he's out front there, but on stage, he's perfectly happy to take a back seat. He had one moment that got a round of applause, that's where he sort of addressed the media questions about comments he's made about his own past.
Let's listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, first of all, thank you not asking me what I said in the 10th grade. I appreciate that.
(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
NEIL CAVUTO, DEBATE MODERATOR: I'll just forget that follow-up there.
(LAUGHTER)
CARSON: The fact of the matter is, you know, what -- we should vet all candidates. I have no problem with being vetted. What I do have a problem with is being lied about and then putting that out there as truth.
(APPLAUSE)
And I don't even mind that so much --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: It's interesting. You know, that was Ben Carson, the one that got the most applause from him last night.
[05:05:00] You haven't heard anyone, any of these debates say Ben Carson emerged a winner from the debate. Nevertheless, after each one, he's the one who seems to rise in the polls the most.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, absolutely. Nobody wanted to challenge Ben Carson and one reason for that is he has such high favorability rating.
He, you know, voters really like him, even the ones that don't support him, necessarily, think he is a good guy and they like him. So, going after him and attacking him probable isn't going to be the best tactic.
And that's why I think Ben Carson last night kind of stuck with his playbook. You know, it wasn't like Jeb Bush who did terribly in the last debate by most accounts, and had to launch a campaign slogan, "Jeb can fix it", you know, kind of a campaign reboot. Ben Carson is kind of sticking with a if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's what he did last night when he really didn't -- you know, stuck to his playbook and it seems to be working so far. So, we'll see if he continues to rise on the polls from that.
ROMANS: Stuck to his playbook, and really, he had the least amount of airtime last night. He had nine minutes, 22 seconds of air time. The least of all the candidates. Jeb Bush right above him at nine minutes and 50 seconds.
And Rand Paul came out with ten minutes. And I got to tell you, there was a Paul/Rubio moment where and Paul really showed a difference in his strategy. His Republican brand than the other people on that stage. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You can not be a conservative if you're going to keep promoting new programs that you're not going to pay for.
(APPLAUSE)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can't even have an economy if we're not safe. There are radical jihadists in the Middle East beheading people and crucifying Christians. A radical Shia cleric in Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon, the Chinese taking over the South China Sea.
(APPLAUSE)
RUBIO: Yes, I believe the world is a safer -- no, no, I don't believe, I know that the world is a safer place when America is the strongest military power in the world.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
ROMANS: There is Rand Paul. The essence of his brand.
BERMAN: And Marco Rubio.
ROMANS: There is really good debating from Marco Rubio.
DIAMOND: Yes, absolutely. This is one of the really interesting debates within the Republican Party right now, is do we stick with the track that the Republican Party has been on, which is, you know, the neo-conservative, hawkish kind of foreign policy where you do intervene in foreign conflict. You do put boots on the ground to combat groups like ISIS. Or do you do what Rand Paul is arguing for? He still is in favor of going after ISIS in some way like with the bombing campaign, but you know he wants a lesser role for the U.S. in the world and being the policeman of the world.
So, he raised some serious questions last night, and that was kind of to his -- you know, he played up to his strength because he was questioning, you know, some of these candidate's conservatism for wanting to spends a lot of money on the military, which in Rand Paul's view of the world is not a conservative policy.
BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. One of the people who had to show up with Jeb Bush. People saying he did much better last night. Was it good enough? That will be discussed over the course of the day.
The other big change was Chris Christie off the main stage on the undercard debate. People thought he was strong. He mentioned Hillary Clinton as much as he possibly could.
But he had this weird head-to-head with Bobby Jindal who accused Chris Christie of not being conservative enough and had one of the most curious debate zingers of the night. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOBBY JINDAL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Chris, look, I'll give you a ribbon for participation and a juice box. In the role world, it's about actually cutting spending. Not just talking about government spending.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIAMOND: I forgot to pack my juice box this morning.
BERMAN: Yes, no. Chris Christie didn't look like he wanted a juice box right there. That kind of exploded Twitter last night after that.
DIAMOND: Yes, it totally took over Twitter. It was a really funny moment. I really enjoyed your tweets about it, John, actually.
But, you know, beyond --
ROMANS: Including John's Twitter last fight.
DIAMOND: But it was interesting, you know, that undercard debate, Chris Christie, you know, you know, he won that debate I think that that was pretty much the consensus.
And he really was, you know, trying to rise above the fray. Every single answer that he gave, he was pivoting to Hillary Clinton, kind of trying to, even though he is at the case I kids table for that debate. He was kind of saying, I shouldn't be here, where I really should be as a Republican Party's nominee, facing off against Hillary Clinton.
So, it was an interesting strategy and he certainly did well in that debate. So -- but the juice box moment was, you know, took the cake, obviously.
BERMAN: A win but maybe no juice box.
Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much. We'll talk to you in a bit.
We want to know what people watching the debate thought in a crucial early voting state. We're going to hear from some undecided voters in Iowa, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:14:15] ROMANS: All right. A big night last night. Reaction to last night's Republican debate coming in from across the country. One key constituency for the candidates, evangelical Christians.
CNN's Randi Kaye got some reaction from voters in Iowa.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John, Christine. I am here in Marshalltown, Iowa.
We watched the debate last night with about 20 folks, evangelical Christian voters, some undecided. Some undecided. So, let's get a feel for what you thought.
Nick, are you any closer after watching the debate? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure if I'm closer on deciding on one
particular candidate. But I've definitely narrowed the field down I think to maybe two or three candidates instead of the four to five. There is such a large field to choose from. A lot of good people.
[05:15:00] KAYE: You are a fan of Marco Rubio. How'd he do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was hoping for a little more from him. I am a fan, but I'm concerned about his financial aspect of things. I just -- I don't think he did as well he could have on the front to move closer in his direction.
KAYE: How about you, Judy, did you get closer to deciding?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually I believe I did. I have been a big fan of Ben Carson. I continued that. I think he -- I was a little disappointed. He's pretty soft spoken. Maybe he can carry a big stick, I don't know.
KAYE: How do you think he handled the criticism and the early years and the stories he told about that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe him. I have been reading. I read a couple books that he's written. I believe he's a good Christian man and I trust him.
I'm also now interested in Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, which I liked before. I've always liked him. So, I need to do more research.
KAYE: Just a sampling of our voters here in Marshalltown, Iowa.
John and Christine, back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Lovely Marshalltown, Iowa.
I love it when voters allow us into their living room, so they can talk to us about their process. So cool.
BERMAN: I think it was great. It was really to hear it.
All right. From Rex to ex. Bills coach Rex Ryan has been tweaking his former Jets team before Thursday. What is up with this get-up that made the press conference on Tuesday?
Andy Scholes, who is the best dressed this morning, explains it all in the bleacher report, that's coming up in a little bit.
CRISTINA ALESCI, CNNMONEY CORRESPONDENT: Well, you wouldn't know it from last night's debate, but the America banking is very strong. That's the message from the CEO of the biggest bank of America and one of the keys to success -- hiring veterans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: One of the admirals told me, we're great to bring people in, teach them how to work, teach them how to use equipment and weapons, they said, it's time to go, you pick them out. Let them go into their world. That prepares them for their world.
ALESCI (voice-over): Even under the best circumstances, service men and women returning from war face huge challenges transitioning to civilian life.
But as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon knows well, vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were walking into an economy in shambles.
DIMON: They bore an unbelievable price of the rest of us. And, you know, something like 200,000 coming out of the system. Every year and for a while, they have very high unemployment rates.
ALESCI: In 2011, joblessness among the youngest vets was 15 percent higher than civilians in the same age group. That's when the private sector and the nation's biggest bank formed Veterans Jobs Mission.
DIMON: I think we should all do this. And there are 200 companies involved in this effort. Start as ten, JPMorgan was one of the founders. One of the beautiful things is everyone is equal, we want 1,000 companies and we want a million jobs. So, it originally started 100,000 jobs. We've now actually created 300,000 and we want to help get to a million.
ALESCI: Navy veteran Jay Siembieda joined JPMorgan as a private banker in 2009. He helped the company's HR team recruit and mentor troops walking off the battlefield and into corporate America.
JAY SIEMBIEDA, RET. NAVAL AVIATOR: The military does a great job of training their people. That's the purpose, to defend the country. But it is difficult to know what your options are when you leave the military.
ALESCI (on camera): What's not in the manual that you would urge hiring managers to do when they interact with veterans, especially early on.
SIEMBIEDA: Early on is have patience. Realize again the types of stresses that these veterans who have had when they were in service and look beyond that the real tangibles that will make them a wonderful employee over time. They're going to come with enough of their background. They will have had leadership opportunities very early on in their career. They're going to be disciplined and they are eminently trainable.
DIMON: The veterans are among the best in America. And as you know, since 9/11, they have been carrying a tremendous burden. We want to do our share to bring them back into society and give them jobs. So, the mission has been a wonderful thing for the company and for the veterans.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ALESCI: Now, some of the other companies that are part of the program, PepsiCo, Southwest Airlines and GM Resorts, banding together to bring veteran unemployment rates down even further.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:23:51] BERMAN: A new problem for daily fantasy sports sites. New York's attorney general ordering DraftKings and FanDuel to stop accepting entries in the state, saying that daily fantasy amounts to illegal gambling.
ROMANS: Andy Scholes has more on this morning's bleacher report.
Hey, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDEN: Hey, good morning, guys.
Hey, good morning, guys. At 10 percent of DraftKings and FanDuel users reside in New York. So, this is a big deal. And after investigating both companies, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman hey ruled that the sights are illegal gambling operations and they must stop accepting entries from New York residents.
In a statement, he said, "It is clear that DraftKings and FanDuel are the leaders of a massive multibillion dollar scheme intended to evade the law and fleece sports fans across the country." He added it will not happen on his watch.
Both DraftKings and FanDuel released statements saying they disagree with the ruling and will fight.
All right. The second addition of the college football rankings are out and Notre Dame has now ranked the top four. The Irish at 8-1, taking the place of LSU who fell out of the top four after losing to Alabama. The other three teams remain the same, Clemson still number one, Alabama is now two, Ohio State remaining at three.
The first four out right now would be Iowa at five, Baylor still getting no love there at 6, Stanford seven, and 9-0 Oklahoma State is eight. Still plenty of time to move up and down the rankings before the final ones are released on December 6th.
All right. A tough blow for the Indianapolis Colts. Andrew Luck will miss between two-to-six weeks after lacerating his kidney on this big hit against the Broncos on Sunday. He also tore an abdominal muscle on the play. Coach Chuck Pagano says Luck shouldn't require surgery. Forty-year-old Matt Hasselbeck is going to start for Luck while he is on the shelf.
All right. Bills coach Rex Ryan also keeps his conferences entertaining. Yesterday, he wanted to talk Clemson football.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REX RYAN, BILLS HEAD COACH: I like to focus on Clemson. For some reason, just pop to my head, if you are a parent out there and you got one of the best kids in the country. We want the complete package, academics. Not so much my kid, but academics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Rex's son is actually a wide receiver for the Clemson Tigers. He's trying to help them recruit. They don't need much help, right now. They're ranked number one in the country.
BERMAN: They look good. Not as good as Andrew Luck.
You know, that hit, every time I see it, Andy, I just shake my head. It's a brutal sport.
SCHOLES: Always scary when you lacerate an organ.
BERMAN: All right. Thanks, Andy.
SCHOLES: All right.
BERMAN: Republicans running for president. They faced off the economy, immigration. So much to talk about a big debate last night. We will break it down for you, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
