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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump Wins Indiana, Cruz Drops Out; Bernie Sanders Wins Indiana; U.S. Forces Targeting ISIS in Iraq. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired May 04, 2016 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:03] SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: We gave it everything we've got, but the voters chose another path.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Cruz campaign over. Donald Trump wins Indiana and overnight, the Republican Party chair declares Donald Trump will be the presumptive Republican nominee.

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think we can pull off one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States.

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Bernie Sanders winning Indiana. A big upset against Hillary Clinton, keeping his campaign and momentum alive.

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: Great to see you. I'm John Berman. It is Wednesday, May 4th, 4:00 a.m. in the East.

And the breaking news this morning: Donald Trump, he has knocked Ted Cruz out of the race. Donald Trump won the Indiana primary. He won it huge.

And now according to the chair of the Republican Party, Donald Trump will be the presumptive Republican nominee. Look at this. Donald Trump beat Cruz by more than 16 points, 180,000 votes in Indiana. He picked up at least 51 delegates, probably 57 by the time it's all over.

And Cruz delivered the hard news to his crushed supporters.

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CRUZ: And so, with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign.

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BERMAN: You hear the shouts from the surprised audience there.

Late last night, Donald Trump praised Ted Cruz, calling this withdrawal a brave thing to do.

CNN's Jim Acosta with the Trump campaign has the latest.

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Donald Trump and his entire family were caught completely by surprise by Ted Cruz's announcement that he was dropping out of the GOP race. Trump trounced Cruz in the Indiana primary, a contest that the Texas senator had basically described as a must win.

Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., told CNN that his father and the entire family were shocked as they watched Cruz make his announcement, and Trump sounded very gracious as he praised Cruz for getting out of the race. A big contrast compared to what he was saying about Cruz earlier in the day.

Here's what he had to say.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ted Cruz, I don't know if he likes me or he doesn't like me, but he's one hell of a competitor. He's a tough, smart guy.

(APPLAUSE)

And he has got an amazing future. He's got an amazing future. So I want to congratulate Ted.

ACOSTA: Trump also made the pivot to the general election campaign, saying he was ready to take on Hillary Clinton, and he even reached out to African-American and Hispanic voters in his remarks. But Trump still plans to keep on campaigning, saying he will continue on with stops in West Virginia and Nebraska set for later this week -- John and Christine.

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ROMANS: All right, Jim Acosta -- thanks, Jim.

Let's talk about last night's developments in Indiana. CNN senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers, senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", and political economist, Greg Valliere, he's the chief strategist to Horizon Investments.

All three of you, good morning.

Let's start with you, Brian. Your headline from the GOP side of this race grace overnight, Donald Trump nailed it again. BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and the Never

Trump movement loses again. Whether this is the end of the GOP race or whether it will officially end in a few weeks from now with the California race, the Never Trump movement once again losing in a very dramatic way.

And $75 million in TV ads were spend just on broadcast TV trying to stop Trump in recent weeks and months. That has failed. You see that with Ted Cruz getting out of this race, acknowledging Trump is the presumptive nominee.

BERMAN: And, Greg, you know, perhaps the most important development came last night, besides Donald Trump sweeping Indiana. A tweet from Reince Priebus, Reince Priebus is the Republican Party chair, who we'll hear from a little in "NEW DAY," tweeted this, "Real Donald will be presumptive GOP nominee. We all need to unite and focus on defeating Hillary Clinton. Never Clinton," he says.

This essentially, Greg, right, the Republican Party officially lining behind Donald Trump. Who would have seen this coming?

GREG VALLIERE, CHIEF STRATEGIST, HORIZON INVESTMENTS: Right. I think that for now, the big story is going to be, will the Republican Party coming to, will they unify. I think they will. It's not going to be pretty. There are going to be a lot of people, Bush Republicans, John McCain Republicans, who will never support Trump.

I think by and large, the party will hold its nose and unify behind Trump.

ROMANS: Unify behind Trump.

You know, I got to tell you, Dylan, when you look at some of the exit poll, it shows the primary season so far had been contentious for Republicans. When asked if whether they're energized by the campaign or divided, 56 percent said it's divided the party.

Can they unify here and move forward? Can they rally behind, Dylan, their candidate now?

[04:05:01] DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: Yes, I mean, look, I disagree. I think for many Republicans, certainly the ones who rallied behind the never Trump or stop Trump cause, I don't see them coming around to Donald Trump.

I do think what we called -- the so-called Republican establishment, you know, the RNC, Republican National Committee, I think they have to rally behind the candidate who has the most delegates, or who has 1,237 delegates, and that will be Donald Trump. You can see that in the RNC chairman's statement.

But I think there are a lot of Republicans out there who believe that in order to save the party, they actually have to stand up against Donald Trump. I don't think that necessarily means fighting for Hillary Clinton but I do think it means sort of standing on the principles of what the Republican Party has historically been about. I think if you look, for instance, at the Republican media, say "The

Weekly Standard", if you look at "The National Review", if you look a lot of conservative media throughout the country, conservative radio, those are people who have vowed forever not to stand with Trump, and I'm not sure all of those people are going to be willing to go back on that pledge.

BERMAN: Look, you know, Mark Salter, who was John McCain's speech writer, Ben Howe, who's a blogger at RedState.com, they both tweeted yesterday using the hashtag #Imwithher, meaning I'm with Hillary, indicating they will vote for Hillary Clinton. Ben Sasse, the senator from Nebraska, the next voting primary, a week from now, in Nebraska, Ben Sasse has made clear that he has no plans to vote for Donald Trump.

And Ted Cruz, in his victory speech or -- not victory speech -- in his concession speech, in his dropping speech last night, Brian Stelter, did not mention Donald Trump by name. And Ted Cruz just yesterday called Donald Trump a pathological liar.

STELTER: Yes, these last hours of Cruz's race and Trump's treatment of Cruz in the last hour was astonishing -- these claims involving Oswald and the JFK assassination, really disturbing stuff. It was only hours before Trump praised Cruz on stage once Cruz had left the race. I mean, to see it end like this is partly what makes it so historic.

The word historic is overused, but we are talking about a billionaire businessman, reality TV star, who will be the GOP nominee. That is a once in a generation sort of moment for this country, a true outsider, right?

We assume it's always going to be a governor, or a senator, or a congressman or someone else who has a political background. That actually for once in our lifetime is not happening, and one of the reasons why this is extraordinary.

Yet at the same time, people like Bill Kristol already calling for a third party, calling for someone else to enter the race. We saw people posting pictures of themselves burning their Republican voter ID information. That kind of thing, we certainly have not seen that before.

ROMANS: Greg, let's talk about the angst he's tapped into here, because he has, if you look at Indiana, it has the highest percentage of manufacturing jobs of any state in the country. It's where Carrier, that air-conditioning company, is located. Revival that video of the economy on the factory floor being told, these workers being told that their jobs were going to be moving to Mexico.

That tapped right into what Donald Trump is selling here, this -- what some would call an isolationist view of going backwards to an old days view of what manufacturing looks like in America. That's really been working for him.

Are we going to hear more about that from him? Is that going to be the kind of story line, the policy story line of this election?

VALLIERE: Absolutely. And you've got to say Bernie Sanders also tapped into that last night, this great antipathy toward free trade that even has dragged Hillary into opposing free trade.

I think that's going to be a dominant theme. I think Trump obviously has to win Michigan and some Rust Belt states, a long shot. But this really strong opposition to free trade, this economic angst, as you say, is one of the major, major plot lines of this election.

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stand by. A lot more to discuss coming up.

ROMANS: That's right. And Bernie Sanders winning Indiana, pitching his path to victory over Hillary Clinton in the race for president.

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SANDERS: So, we feel great about tonight, not only in winning here in Indiana and accumulating more delegates, but also gaining the momentum we need to take us to the finish line.

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[04:13:24] ROMANS: Breaking overnight, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the Indiana Democratic primary by five points. You know, since the Democrats award delegates proportionately, that means Sanders picks up 43 pledged delegates. Clinton, 38.

Yes, that's not enough to make a real dent in Sanders' huge delegate deficit, but the win could give him a morale and fundraising boost. It will also maximize his influence to the Democratic convention in July, which Sanders says will be good for the party.

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REPORTER: Any concern that by extending the Democratic primary that it's going to set Democrats at a disadvantage in July?

SANDERS: Not at all, not at all. I have no doubt, zero doubt that what we have done in this campaign, what we're doing now, and what we will do in the next six weeks is good for the Democratic Party, and it will result in a higher voter turnout.

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BERMAN: All right. Let's sort through the Democratic race.

Joining us again, Dylan Byers, Greg Valliere and Brian Stelter.

You know, Dylan, look, Bernie Sanders won in Indiana, perhaps giving him a fundraising boost, perhaps giving him some momentum, but he still has this math problem. In some ways, the math problem got even harder. He has to win an even greater percentage of the remaining delegates to get over the top. By CNN's estimate, also "Politico's" estimate, he needs to win more

than 100 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to get to the number he needs.

BYERS: I don't think Bernie Sanders is in this anymore because he believes he can win the nomination. But by the same token, Bernie Sanders is not the Democratic version of John Kasich. He's picked up an enormous amount of support. He's demonstrated he has a movement behind him.

[04:15:04] He has proven that the future of the Democratic Party, that there's a lot of interest, especially among the younger group, among those 18- to 29-year-olds, in the values that he is espousing in a sort of Democratic socialist world view, which frankly was a word that was not so easy tossed around at the beginning of this primary cycle. And that's one that Hillary Clinton is really going to have to court and going to have to reconcile her own platform, too, come the convention.

So, I think what Bernie Sanders is doing now and what his campaign is doing now is not so much thinking about how do we win the nomination, which is not something they can do. What they're thinking about, what sort of leverage do we have going into convention? When we go to the Hillary Clinton campaign, what sort of terms can we set, what sort of demands can we make in order to say, this is what you're going to need to do in order for us to give you our support.

And look, after winning Indiana, especially on the same night when Donald Trump won the Republican nomination effectively and when Ted Cruz dropped out of the race, he's got a ton of leverage going into that. I think there's a lot he can ask for from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

ROMANS: You know, let's listen to Bernie Sanders last night. He talked about how he does have an uphill battle here, but he says that Hillary Clinton has to do better with independents. He's got the independents. Let's listen to what Bernie says.

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SANDERS: We understand this is an uphill battle. But I think that you're going to see some sensible super delegates look at the objective facts. Bernie Sanders will not only win virtually all of the Democratic votes, he is much stronger among independents. We win independent votes over her by a two-point margin.

You know what? You cannot become president of the United States without winning voters.

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ROMANS: Greg, we're showing that exit poll right now. Seventy-two percent independents in Indiana going for Sanders, 28 percent for Clinton, and that clip right there was actually Bernie Sanders phoning in to CNN, not only with CNN, we're taping him coming on to CNN.

What do you make of that, Greg?

VALLIERE: Well, you got to say that Bernie Sanders has wounded Hillary Clinton on two fronts. Number one, Christine, I think Hillary was hoping by early May to pivot to the center. It makes it a lot tougher for her to make that pivot with Sanders still in the race. Number two, the longer he stays in the race, the longer he plants the seed among American voters that she is the candidate from Goldman Sachs. That is not a good place to be in 2016.

BERMAN: You know, Brian Stelter, you've seen supporters of the Hillary Clinton and some political analysts saying, the longer Bernie Sanders stays in the race, the longer it prevents Hillary Clinton from focusing on Donald Trump.

Look, no one thought the Republican race would be wrapped up before the Democratic race.

STELTER: Before the Democratic race.

BERMAN: That's exactly what's happened right now. Donald Trump will be focusing exclusively on Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton may not have that luxury.

STELTER: And Clinton aides are increasingly frustrated in private about this situation. The idea here was that after New York, they would be able to move on, that after Indiana, they'd be able to move on. Now, we're looking at, what, Nebraska and West Virginia.

Yes, the map is very favorable for Hillary Clinton, the electoral map for the fall, but they can't pay all the attention to that map while they're still paying attention to Bernie Sanders. That said, you know, in a report from "Politico" overnight about the organization in key swing states is ramping up, how the Clinton campaign is doing a lot of important things they need to do, laying the ground work for the fall already, even as they do that quietly so as not to disappoint or frustrate or anger Bernie Sanders supporters.

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stick around. A lot more to talk about.

You know, really, an historic night in American political history. Donald Trump all but wrapping up the Republican nomination. We'll discuss more coming up.

ROMANS: Absolutely. Let's look into Indiana. It has the highest percentage of manufacturing workers in the country. Those jobs have been disappearing.

And we're seeing the fear and worry on those exit polls, 67 percent of the Republican primary voters say they're very worried about the U.S. economy. Another 25 percent, somewhat worried. Add that up, that's 92 percent seriously concerned about the U.S. economy.

Of that majority, 52 percent voted for Donald Trump. It's a sizable lead over the other candidates.

For Democratic primary voters in Indiana, 84 percent worried about the economy. They broke, look at that, for Bernie Sanders.

But look at the breakdown when we asked about trade with other countries. Forty-seven percent says it takes away U.S. jobs. That group went for Bernie. Thirty-nine percent said trade creates jobs, that group split 50/50 between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

And, of course, Indiana has been sort of ground zero for the American jobs debate.

BERMAN: Now to frontlines, new information about the Navy SEAL killed fighting ISIS in Iraq. That's next.

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[04:24:05] ROMANS: U.S. forces moving dangerously close to the front lines of the fight against ISIS in Iraq. More than 4,000 American troops in the region right now. Some of them supporting the Iraqi army as it prepares to retake Mosul.

The U.S. suffering its third combat death in Iraq directly linked to ISIS. U.S. Navy SEAL Charlie Keating IV of Arizona was killed earlier this week.

Let's get the latest from CNN's Jomana Karadsheh. She joins us live from Amman, Jordan, this morning.

And this is a young man who served his country proudly, in a long line of men in his family who have served in the U.S. military.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Christine. He was killed in a coordinated and complex attack by ISIS militants early on Tuesday morning. About a hundred ISIS militants using suicide car bombs and bulldozers attacked a Peshmerga base.

[04:25:03] This is a Kurdish Peshmerga force base that is about 20 miles north of the city of Mosul that is under ISIS control, as you know. And they managed to breakthrough the defense lines of the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Navy SEALs who were visiting temporarily at a base for the Peshmerga. That is behind the frontlines as standard practice about a mile or two behind the frontlines.

And once the ISIS militants broke through, a firefight broke out. And the Navy SEAL was killed in this attack.

The U.S. responded with an F-15 and drones, dropping more than 20 bombs on ISIS fighting positions.

But, Christine, we're learning from Kurdish commanders in the area that this was not the only ISIS attack. The group launched several similar attacks on different Kurdish Peshmerga front lines early on Tuesday. What sounds like a major coordinated offensive by the group, Kurdish officials say that they managed with the help of U.S. air power and coalition air power, they managed to push ISIS back.

But this really highlights that the group may have suffered some losses in recent months. They've lost some territory in Iraq and Syria, but they still possess that ability to carry out deadly and devastating attacks like this and also, of course, highlighting the dangers that U.S. forces, even in an advisory face in Iraq.

ROMANS: These are the most highly trained military personnel on earth. Still very, very dangerous.

Jomana Karadsheh, thank you so much for that.

And Charlie Keating, you might remember the name, his grandfather Charles Keating was Charles Keating of the savings and loan scandal a couple decades ago. His family saying he's a hero in every sense of the word for them. They're mourning him deeply this morning, 31 years old.

BERMAN: Our thoughts with that family.

Breaking news this morning, Donald Trump, he is the likely presumptive nominee, will be the presumptive nominee in the Republican Party, so says the Republican chair. He has knocked Ted Cruz out of this race. More coming up.

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