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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
CNN Republican Town Hall in Wisconsin; Brussels Death Toll Now 32; Warriors' Quest for History Continues. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired March 30, 2016 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:02] ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's get on with more. EARLY START continues right now.
(MUSIC)
KOSIK: All three GOP candidates taking the stage in a CNN town hall, walking away from their pledges to support whoever becomes the Republican nominee. And just hours before the live event, Trump's campaign manager arrested. Trump responds.
Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Alison Kosik.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: So nice to have you here today, Alison.
KOSIK: Happy to be here.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It's Wednesday, March 30th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
Breaking overnight, the three remaining Republican candidates taking the CNN town hall stage the state that holds the next presidential primary on Tuesday. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich taking questions from voters on everything from terrorism to jobs.
Trump defending his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. His campaign manager was arrested and charged with simple battery after roughly grabbing the arm of a reporter. Trump says he won't fire Lewandowski and he even mocked the reporter, Michelle Fields.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would be so easy for me to terminate this man, ruin his life, ruin his family. He's got four beautiful children in New Hampshire. Ruin his whole everything and say you're fired, OK? I fired many people, especially on "The Apprentice."
But, look what she says, Michelle Fields. Oh, by the way, she's not a baby, OK? In her own way, exactly, "I was jolted backwards." Well, she wasn't -- I mean, she's standing there. "Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm", tightly, "and yanked me down." She wasn't yanked down. She was like, she didn't even have any expression.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Trump also walking away, walking away from his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee, repeating that he's been treated very unfairly by the Republican Party.
In fact, big news last night, all three candidates stepped back from the pledge. Cruz refusing to say he would back Donald Trump if Trump becomes the nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family. I think that is going beyond the line. I think our wives, I think our kids should be off limits. They don't belong in the attacks. Donald is not going to be the GOP nominee and we're going to beat him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Trump and Cruz both challenged on their rhetoric in the so- called war of wives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I didn't start it.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: That's --
TRUMP: I didn't start it.
COOPER: But, sir, with all due respect, that's the argument of a 5- year-old.
TRUMP: I didn't start it. No, it's not.
COOPER: The argument of a 5-year-old is he started it.
TRUMP: You would say that. That's the problem with our country. That's not a 5-year-old.
COOPER: Every parent know the kid who says, he started it.
TRUMP: Excuse me, no, no. That's the problem.
Exactly that thinking is the problem this country has.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Meantime, John Kasich tried to stay above the fray.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can say all kinds of things to get people stirred up. But leaders don't do that. Leaders tell people the way that they see it. Even if it means for a while, you're unpopular. (END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: All right. There were so many memorable moments last night at the town hall event here on CNN. Let's break it all down with CNN political analyst Josh Rogin. He's a columnist for "Bloomberg View." And he is joining us from our Washington bureau.
Good morning.
JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
KOSIK: All right. Let's get this Lewandowski stuff out of the way. The timing I guess was impeccable for the town hall event, because this made news yesterday. Lewandowski arrested and charged for basically manhandling this reporter.
Listen to Trump's reaction because he's standing by his man.
TRUMP: And by the way, she was grabbing me! Am I supposed to press charges against her? Oh, my arm is hurting.
Anderson, my arm is just killing me. It's never been the same.
COOPER: You've suggested you might --
TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me! I didn't suggest.
COOPER: Oh, yeah, you did.
TRUMP: I tweeted. No, no, I tweeted.
COOPER: A tweet is a suggestion.
TRUMP: Should I press charges?
COOPER: Are you going to?
TRUMP: Sure! I don't know. Maybe I should, right? Because you know what?
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: She was grabbing me. And just so you understand, she was off base because she went through the Secret Service. She had a pen in her hand which Secret Service is not liking because they don't know what it is, whether it's a little bomb --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: This campaign, Josh, getting more surreal by the moment. You know, I did hear the crowd clapping, though, with his response. Did it fly?
ROGIN: Yes, well, I think what this shows is that the Trump campaign, Trump himself, are incapable of de-escalating these conflicts. This sort of dispute feeds into three really bad narratives for the Trump campaign.
They have a terrible relationship with the press, they mistreat the press, one, second is they mistreat women, and the third is that there's violence at the rallies that is perpetrated by staff and supporters alike, and they just lean into this controversy and sort of escalate and escalate and escalate. So, they don't know how to do anything else. Sort of for them they see it as fitting their sort of narrative that they're at war with the media. And that the supporters seem to be OK with that.
But the negatives here are really starting to inch up more and more on Donald Trump and that presents a serious long-term problem for his campaign, especially should he get to the general election.
[05:05:09] So, he may think he's won the battle, but in doing so, he may be losing the war.
KOSIK: And it takes maybe getting a little longer there, too, even for his supporters.
ROMANS: Where you find the consistency for Donald Trump is the style and the confidence that he projects. That has been consistent.
Where you don't find the consistency or clarity is when you dig within his foreign policy and his worldview on what kind of a president Donald Trump would be. A couple of things that jumped out last night. One of them is, you know, backing away from NATO, backing away from these big alliances the U.S. has and also his sort of world view on nuclear proliferation.
Let's listen to the NATO comment first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: NATO is obsolete. It was 67 years or it's over 60 years old.
It is -- many countries, doesn't cover terrorism, OK?
KASICH: To walk away from that alliance, are you kidding me? If we walk away and it gets weaker, how long do you think it will take the Islamists to come over here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: You make a point that the core of Donald Trump's argument here that it doesn't cover terrorism is just wrong.
ROGIN: Right. So, he's wrong on the facts here. We're at a point where NATO is begging for more American leadership and involvement. I was in Europe last week, people there are concerned about Trump's comments.
But let's give Trump the benefit of a doubt. People ask me, is there a Trump foreign policy doctrine? And the truth is, there is one. He believes in a smaller road for the U.S. abroad, less commitments, less alliances, less funding of missions abroad. There's an argument for that. That makes sense by itself. It's not
where the GOP has been for seven decades, it's not where most of the GOP establishment is now.
But that's at least an intellectually honest argument. The problem is when Trump makes these mistakes on the details, and gets numbers wrong and misstates the facts, it undermines his argument that he's the competent one to deal with this.
You saw Trump question on his tweet that he said that he's the only one that can solve the problem of Pakistani nuclear proliferation. He doesn't have an answer for how he would actually do that.
On the one hand, we can say that Trump has vision for America's role in the world. You can agree with it, not agree with it. I don't think it's a continuation of the role that America has played in the last seven decades.
But that is separate from the fact that he doesn't seem to have a grasp on the basic facts of the way America works in the world and the way that all these organizations and alliances work. And that's perhaps the troubling thing to people who are not already Trump supporters.
KOSIK: One big moment that I remember from last night is all three candidates, not one, not two, but all three backing off their support for the GOP nominee.
Let's go ahead and listen to what they said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Do you still stand by the pledge to support the nominee, even if it's Donald Trump?
CRUZ: Well, Anderson, as you mentioned, what I said is true. I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family.
TRUMP: Obviously, he doesn't have to support me. I'm not asking for his support. I want the people's support.
COOPER: Do you pledge to support whoever the Republican nominee is?
TRUMP: No, I don't. Look --
COOPER: You don't?
TRUMP: No, we'll see who it is.
KASICH: If the nominee is someone who is hurting the country and dividing the country, I can't stand behind them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: Josh, this is a big deal because this is going to directly impact the nomination process.
ROGIN: Exactly. And I think this was the biggest news of the night and I think what this shows, and this is something that has been going on beneath the surface for days if not weeks, is that all the agreements and rules about all these candidates working together on a common process, those are out the window. That doesn't really exist.
The pivot point was Louisiana, when Trump won the vote but lost the delegate count to Cruz. That's when the Trump campaign realized that the GOP establishment, the Cruz and the Kasich campaigns are playing a whole another game behind the scenes prevent -- to try to prevent Trump from getting the number of delegates and change the rules potentially from him getting the nomination. That's the real fight behind the scenes.
And now that everyone knows that and realizes that, they're no longer pretending that they're working off the same role book. And now, everyone knows they're not working on the same rule book. So, that will change the tenor of the race going forward for sure.
ROMANS: All right. Josh Rogin, nice to see you. Talk to you again in a few minutes. It's so nice when he gets up early for us.
KOSIK: It is great.
ROMANS: Have a cup of coffee, come back in a few minutes.
All right. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump both facing tough questions from dairy producers last night. Wisconsin is dairy country. It's big business for the state's economy. The main issue, how their immigration policies would take -- could take workers out of the dairy industry, leaving small businesses struggling to find workers.
Ted Cruz cites a "Wall Street Journal" article in his response, said Arizona saved hundreds of millions of dollar after enacting tough immigration laws. His point, state spending on prison, schools and hospitals fell and wages rose because business owners had to pay legal workers more.
[05:10:04] A little misleading. That story says the savings from fewer hospital visits and incarcerations is far less, under hundred a million dollars.
Disappearing manufacturing jobs also brought up last night, it's an issue resonating with angry voters. Those jobs are still disappearing, the ones still here, harder to get, take more skills, higher education. Cruz says education is the key. Training is the key. Trump blamed it, though, on bad trade deals. This idea that there's not a place for millions of working class voters, that's something that has been really resonating through this campaign season.
KOSIK: It has been, definitely.
All right. At least eight terrorists still on the loose, two bombers still unidentified. Authorities frantically conducting raids throughout Brussels. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:15:02] ROMANS: Authorities in Brussels desperately trying to find two unidentified suspects linked to last week's deadly terrorist attacks. The death toll now from those bombings, 32.
With the FBI heavily involved in this case now, analyzing phones and hard drives seized by Brussels police, American Airlines announcing all of its flights to and from Brussels are canceled now through April 7th.
I want to go live to Brussels and bring in Alexandra Field for the very latest.
Good morning, Alexandra.
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine.
It's been months that people in this city have been living under heightened terrorism levels, with extra security on their streets as these manhunts unfold in their city. It's been happening here since the Paris attacks and continues now, a week after the double attacks in Brussels. Police say that they're still searching for that third suspected bomber from the airport and for a possible second suspected bomber from the metro station.
Along with both of those suspects, they're looking for another eight people who are believed to have links to either the Brussels or the Paris attacks or perhaps both. So you're seeing these raids being carried out across this city, across the country and well beyond that as authorities try to cast this wide net, and bring in anyone who could have information that might be helpful to them, certainly about the attacks that have already unfold and also about potential future attacks.
At the same time, you've got 94 people who remain hospitalized after being wounded in those attacks, 32 people killed. The blasts again happening at the metro station and the airport.
The word now is that the airport might not be fully operational for months. They are looking at ways to get it open at least partially, but it will be on a more limited basis, certainly with fewer people passing through as they make every effort to make that a safe place again.
ROMANS: All right. Alexandra Field, thanks so much for the update, from Brussels for us this morning.
KOSIK: Supreme Court decisions in high profile cases could begin to be handed down beginning later this morning, including a possible ruling on contraception coverage mandate in Obamacare. The death of Justice Antonin Scalia is already having a big impact. Organized labor celebrating a big win on Tuesday as the justices split 4-4 in a case involving a public union's right to collect fees from workers who don't want to join. The tie leaves a lower court ruling favoring unions intact.
ROMANS: Mark Kirk is the first Republican senator to break ranks and meet with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. And the Illinois lawmaker is blasting his party's leadership for stonewalling the nomination process. Senator Kirk calling for rationale, adult, open- minded consideration for the president's pick to replace Judge Scalia. He believes 15 or 16 other GOP senators may follow his lead.
KOSIK: North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory facing intense fire over a controversial new state law that eliminates discrimination protections for gays and lesbians. The ACLU just sued the state and Bank of America, headquartered in Charlotte, is now publicly condemning the measure as bad for business, joining 80 other corporations. Governor McCrory not backing down, calling the opposition a smear campaign and insisting the measure does not remove any existing protections.
ROMANS: All right. Eighteen past the hour.
The Golden State Warriors one step closer to doing something that's never been done before in the NBA. Coy Wire with this morning's bleacher report, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:22:47] ROMANS: The Golden State Warriors continuing their quest for 73 wins and the NBA's all-time best record.
KOSIK: Whoo. Coy Wire has more in this morning's bleacher report.
Good morning, Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alison and Christine.
Going into the game against the Wizards last night who were 36-37, the Warriors needed to win 7 of the last 9 games to become the all time best regular season team in NBA history.
And, you know, we're used to seeing Steph Curry knock down the threes. But Curry is out there still playing Easter bunny. Check out the sneaky hop coast to coast. Curry hit his three-pointers, too. You knew that.
Check this step-back. The banks are open, Christine Romans, that's money. Curry finished 6 of 8 from the three-point district. Warriors win 102-94. Now, they need just to win six of their last eight to break the Bulls all-time win mark.
There was a touching moment after the game last night. Craig Sager was on the sideline for TNT's coverage of the game. Now, Craig is battling leukemia. He announced last week that it's no longer in remission. He's inspiring to see him out there doing what he loves to love to do and simply awesome for one of the game's very best. Steph Curry acknowledging and recognizing Craig's fight during his postgame.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHEN CURRY, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS: Seeing what you're doing, I mean, we've got no excuses. So, you're an inspiration for us. Just keep doing what we're doing. Keep fighting. That's the mentality we have. It's kind of contagious. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Outstanding.
To hockey we go, scary moment in the Chicago/Minnesota game. First period, Wild's Charlie Coyle knocks the Blackhawks Duncan Keith knocked to the ice. Keith seemed to retaliate, swings his stick and it hits Coyle in the face. Keith was given a match penalty for intense injury. He was injected and he's now suspended independently. Coyle bleeding from the bridge of his nose.
The league is reviewing the play. Keith could be looking at a multiple game suspension, especially considering he was previously suspended for hitting a player with his stick during the 2013 playoffs.
Final four action in Houston. Just three days away, people. Check out this cool time lapse video of the court at the stadium. The court being put together. It's portable, interlocking, essentially a jigsaw puzzle. It's stained, painted and decaled by a company called Conner Sports.
[05:25:03] They've been the official supplier for the tournament for the last ten years.
First game Saturday night, guys, will be Villanova/Oklahoma at 6:09 Eastern, and then Syracuse and North Carolina going to tip off around 9:00. Both games on our sister network, TBS.
Yes, yes, yes. Can't wait.
ROMANS: Yes, yes, yes. Coy Wire, thanks so much. Nice to see you, Coy.
WIRE: You're welcome, you're welcome.
ROMANS: GOP candidates dropping their side pledge to support the Republican nominee. The contest more contentious than ever, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Republican presidential candidates all backing off their pledge to support the eventual party nominee at a CNN town hall and Donald Trump standing by a top staffer. His campaign manager arrested hours earlier.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
KOSIK: Good morning. I'm Alison Kosik. It's 30 minutes past the hour. Breaking overnight, the three remaining Republican candidates taking
the CNN town hall stage in Wisconsin, the state that holds the next presidential primary on Tuesday.
