Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump Will Keep Campaigning, Focused on Clinton; Bernie Sanders Upsets Hillary Clinton in Indiana; U.S. Forces Targeting ISIS in Iraq. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired May 04, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[05:00:02] SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: We gave it everything we've got, but the voters chose another path.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump delivering the final blow to Ted Cruz's campaign. Trump wins Indiana and is now, according to the RNC, the presumptive nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bernie Sanders, he beat Hillary Clinton in Indiana. What does that mean? Perhaps momentum, perhaps money, but what about the math?

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. What a morning. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: Math at 5:00 a.m. in the East. I'm Christine Romans. It's Wednesday, May 4th. Welcome to EARLY START this morning.

Breaking news this morning, Donald Trump has knocked Ted Cruz out of the race, winning the Indiana primary. Now, according to the chair of the Republican Party, he will be the presumptive Republican nominee. Trump beat Cruz by 16 points, more than 180,000 votes, picking up at least 51 delegates in the process. Cruz delivered the hard news to his crushed supporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: But with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Late last night, Donald Trump praised Cruz, calling his withdrawal a brave thing to do.

CNN's Jim Acosta is with the Trump campaign. He's got the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Let's talk about last night. I got to say, if you went to bed, big surprise to wake up this morning and see Ted Cruz had dropped out of the race.

Joining us, CNN senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers, senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES", and political columnist, Greg Valliere, he is the chief strategist at Horizon Investments.

Good morning, gentlemen. Great to see you.

I think we all saw the Trump win in Indiana coming. The polls certainly pointed to that, but Ted Cruz, Greg, was saying he was going to fight to the bitter end. You know, he didn't. He fought until Indiana and he quit.

What did he see, why did he get out, and what does it mean? GREG VALLIERE, CHIEF STRATEGIST, HORIZON INVESTMENTS: Well, I think,

John, he saw first of all polls in California losing by maybe 30 points. I think he realized he would lose also on June 7th in New Jersey, a winner-take-all primary.

So, I think Cruz realized there was no plausible path. Maybe he's thinking about 2020 or beyond, doesn't want to be a spoiler. He saw the handwriting on the wall quite clearly.

ROMANS: Brian, he's clearly looking ahead. He's already talking about -- he's starting to look like a general election candidate.

BERMAN: Donald Trump is.

ROMANS: Donald Trump is, right. And frankly you've got Hillary Clinton, who is still fighting with Bernie Sanders for her nomination, but now, it looks as though he has this advantage of being able to just target her at this point.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, an advantage at least for now. We have six months of Clinton verse Trump we can all either look forward to or dread, right? I don't think we can overestimate the kind of fear and anxiety in the country. Some people fearing Clinton, others fearing Trump.

It feels different in the U.S. than it did in 2008 or 2012. I was with one of the late-night hosts, sort of at his private dinner last night, when Cruz dropped out. You kind of feel the tension in the room, even if we're trying to joke about it, when this news came.

You saw Mitt Romney, for example, the 2012 nominee of the party, tweeting at Ted Cruz, thanking him for his service, but making no mention of Donald Trump. Mitt Romney, a never Trump person, and yet, we'll see what the never Trump coalition does in the weeks and months to come.

BERMAN: Let's talk about that, Dylan. Reince Priebus put out a tweet last night that got a lot of attention. He said, "Real Donald Trump will be the presumptive GOP nominee. We all need to unite and focus defeating Hillary Clinton. Never Clinton."

[05:05:01] That's from the chair of the Republican Party.

However, there are other people, Mark Salter, you know, John McCain's speech writer, Ben Howe, who say, I'm with her, they're going to vote for Hillary Clinton. There is a real schism here with some Republicans saying they're going to bolt.

BYERS: There's an immense schism. There's been a schism when it comes to Donald Trump for the entirety of his campaign. I think what the Republican National Committee needs to do and what we see the chairman doing, the Republican national committee needs to put on a good face. They need to respect the process. The process has decided on Donald Trump.

So, for the good of the process, they're going to come and rally behind Donald Trump. But that by no means suggests that the -- that Republicans or sort of the thought leaders of the Republican establishment are going to do the same thing. I think, in fact, many of them will either openly oppose Donald Trump or sort of just, you know, bow this one out. Now, I don't think those people are going to necessarily -- all of them are necessarily going to rally behind Hillary Clinton, although certainly as we've seen some of them will, but again, I think they'll sit this one out. I think they'll do a lot of soul searching about what the future of the Republican Party needs to be.

Now, of course, much of that soul searching was done in the wake of 2012 election. There was a lot of discussion about needing to reach out to Hispanics, needing to sort of broaden the base of the Republican Party, and then, of course, they a nominee who's offended and ostracized many of the people who they were hoping to reach out to just four years ago.

ROMANS: Greg, this has so far been a personality primary, and to lesser degree and anti-trade primary. From where you sit inside the beltway, but covering Wall Street and covering the economy, what does Washington, what does Wall Street want to see? What do they assume, the conventional wisdom in the general?

VALLIERE: Well, neither Washington nor Wall Street want to see a trade war with China. They don't want to see a candidate who bashes Janet Yellen. There are a lot of aspects to Trump that are very controversial.

So, the issue to me is, is it going to be the Trump we have seen for the last year, or is it a new Trump? Last night, I thought he was astonishingly subdued. If this is the new Trump, if he tones it down a notch, if he's less bombast, if he's a little more moderate on policy, that's a new dynamic.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Brian Stelter, they came hours -- I'm sorry, the new Trump that we saw last night was hours after he accused Rafael Cruz of conspiring with Lee Harvey Oswald, you know, the Kennedy assassination.

There's is no new Trump. There is Donald Trump. Correct? That's what we're seeing again and again.

STELTER: This is a candidate who embraces conspiracy theories, false information, right-wing memes, et cetera, et cetera. This latest conspiracy about Rafael Cruz came from "The National Enquirer" and the fever swamps of the right-wing internet. This is a very strange thing to be seen for the nominee of a party.

And yet, at the same time, he did have a different tone at that press conference, didn't he? There are sort of multiple flavors of Donald Trump. His supporters can embrace one and not the other. Maybe that's what we'll see going forward.

ROMANS: Dylan? BYERS: I would argue there are nine to ten months of Donald Trump

1.0. There's a lot of material for the Hillary Clinton campaign and for the remaining members of the stop Trump or never Trump movement to use in terms of combating his general election bid.

We're not talking -- historically, you've had candidates who pivot toward their base during a primary and pivot back or tact back toward the center in a general election. That's not Donald Trump. Donald Trump has said that Muslims shouldn't be able to enter the country.

You know, he said so many terrible things about women. I mean, he failed to rebuke the KKK. There's a lot here to deal with. While American voters' memories are short, I don't think they're that short.

STELTER: Notice what Elizabeth Warren did last night. A tweet storm, Clinton sort of sitting the night out, sort of saying there's more enthusiasm for Donald Trump among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political party he now control. She went on and on with examples. That's just a preview of the next six months.

BERMAN: Greg, last word.

VALLIERE: But who would have thunk it? Donald Trump gets to pivot before Hillary gets to pivot.

ROMANS: Interesting.

BYERS: I don't -- if I can, just very quickly, I think we overstate how much of a problem that is for Hillary Clinton. She has a lot of room to expand her base in a way that Donald Trump doesn't. He has a core base of support. There's not necessarily a ton of room left for him to expand.

She needs to bring in the Bernie Sanders speak. She needs to bring in the 18 to 29-year-old progressives. The more time she spends with Bernie Sanders, that might not necessarily be a bad thing for her, proving her bona fides to that.

[05:10:03] BERMAN: We'll get a chance to talk about that right after the break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the Indiana primary. He beat her by five points there. Since Democrats award their delegates proportionately, he didn't really make up much ground. You can see, he has at 43 delegates right now. Hillary Clinton won 38. A net gain of five. This is why he still trails Hillary Clinton by about 300.

And it could give Bernie Sanders a bit of a morale boost and perhaps a fundraising boost as well, and it might give him a chance to boost his influence at the Democratic convention in July.

Sanders says this is all good for the party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[05:15:02] 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Back to help us sort through Indiana's Democratic primary, Dylan Byers, Greg Valliere, and Brian Stelter.

And, Brian, right before the break, we were talking about this Twitter storm from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, where she was going after Donald Trump. You have Hillary Clinton, who still has a fight on her hands even if it is a symbolic or moral fight with Bernie Sanders. But Trump pivoting to the general.

This is what Elizabeth Warren said. She said Trump incites supporters to violence, praises Putin, and is cool with being called an authoritarian. She said, he's built his campaign on racism, sexism and xenophobia." You didn't hear from Hillary Clinton last night, but you heard from Elizabeth Warren.

STELTER: Yes, that's right. In fact, she was the loudest voice in many ways, at one point, saying what happens next will test the character of all of us, she says, Republican, Democrat and independent. That's a different message than we were hearing from Clinton or Sanders.

Sanders was talking about how we're going to continue to fight uphill against Clinton, trying to win the nomination. I think it's nearly unanimously agreed upon that Sanders is not in this to win the nomination. That he's in this to influence the convention. The Clinton will be the nominee, although we can't quite call her the presumptive nominee the way Trump is now being called that.

BERMAN: Dylan, Bernie Sanders won in Indiana. You have to win to win. Bernie Sanders did win that election. He might get some money out of this, might get a morale boost. Why doesn't this help him with the math?

BYERS: Well, it doesn't help him with the math because the way the Democratic primary works, he needed to win by a much bigger margin. He needed to win by 25, 30 points. That, of course, was never going to happen.

And, you know, we talk about the sort of delegate math here and how we only wins, you know, a few five more delegates than Hillary Clinton here. This sort of gets to a fundamental difference between how Donald Trump has been able to secure his party's nomination, how Hillary Clinton is still having to battle Bernie Sanders. So many of these primary states for the Republicans are either winner-take-all or winner-take-most. That has accelerated Donald Trump's path toward the nomination.

That was a decision that was put in place by the RNC because they didn't want to have a lengthy primary process. Of course, when they made that decision, I don't think they ever anticipated a phenomenon like Donald Trump.

For the Democrats, it's a much different story. And what it means is that even when Bernie Sanders wins a state, they effectively split the delegates. And that's why the math doesn't work out in his favor.

But again, like you said, it does give him that momentum. It does allow him to continue the narrative that he has built this movement, that it's a serious movement, and it's one that Hillary Clinton needs to take seriously.

ROMANS: Greg, let's talk about that movement. When you look at the exit polls, as we do every morning after these primaries, you can see where that coalition of Bernie supporters is.

Democratic men, 57 percent break for Sanders. With Democratic men, 50/50, they split that vote. Young people, Bernie Sanders wins young people again. Bernie Sanders wins independents, again.

What does or does Hillary Clinton have to do something to get those -- to get those demographics, or will they turn to her against Donald Trump in a general?

VALLIERE: I think they'll turn to her. We've disagreed this morning about whether the Republicans will unify. I think it'll be really messy. It'll be ugly, but they probably will.

But I don't think there's any doubt about the Democrats. They will come together. Even though Hillary is the candidate from Wall Street, according to Bernie Sanders, I think that the tremendous antipathy toward Donald Trump on the part of Democrats, especially females like Elizabeth Warren, means the Democrats will come together.

BERMAN: All right, guys. Stick around. A lot more to discuss coming up.

ROMANS: All right. Indiana has the highest percentage of manufacturing jobs in the country. Those jobs have been disappearing and we're seeing the fear and worry in our exit poll.

Sixty-seven percent of Republican primary voters say they're very worried about the U.S. economy. Now, another 25 percent are somewhat worried. Added up, it's 92 percent seriously concerned about the economy. Of that majority, 52 percent voted for Donald Trump, a sizable lead over the other candidates.

For Democratic primary voters in Indiana, 84 percent worried about the economy. Bernie Sanders won that vote. Look at the breakdown when we asked about trade with other countries. 47 percent in Indiana say trade kills U.S. jobs. That group voted for Bernie Sanders. Ninety- three percent say trade creates U.S. jobs. That group split 50/50. Trade, jobs, that will continue to be the big theme, I think, into the general election.

ROMANS: All right. On the front lines, new information about the Navy SEAL killed while fighting ISIS in Iraq. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: U.S. forces moving dangerously close to the front lines in the fight against ISIS in Iraq. More than 4,000 U.S. troops in the region right now. Some of them supporting the Iraqi army as the Iraqi army claims it's preparing to retake.

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

I want to get the latest from CNN's Jomana Karadsheh.

Jomana, you have new details about just how Charlie Keating.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we're learning from U.S. officials this was a coordinated and complex attack by ISIS militants on an area about 20 miles north of the city of Mosul.

[05:25:05] Roughly about 100 ISIS militants launched this attack on the Peshmerga forces there. They managed to breakthrough the Peshmerga defense lines. And this is where the Navy SEALs were.

According to standard practice, they're not on the front lines. U.S. officials say they're about two to three miles back from the front line at a Peshmerga base where they were visiting and providing assistance to the Peshmerga forces. ISIS militants broke through and a fire fight ensued. That is how Navy SEAL Charlie Keating IV tragically died.

We're also hearing from Iraqi Kurdish officials that there were also Peshmerga casualties in this attack.

The U.S. responded, John, with an F-15 and drones, dropping more than 20 bombs and also hearing that there were several other attacks similar to this one on other Peshmerga positions around northern Iraq. Really highlighting the ability of ISIS to still carry out major assaults like this and, of course, the dangers facing U.S. forces even in that advisory role.

BERMAN: That's right. Even not in specific combat operation, but still very much in harm's way.

Jomana Karadsheh, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. Breaking news this morning, Donald Trump knocks Ted Cruz out of the race as Bernie Sanders pulls off an upset against Hillary Clinton. But does the math matter? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)