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Hillary's New Campaign Strategy; Marco Rubio Joins the 2016 Race; Preview of CNN documentary "Blowout". Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 14, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

JULIE PACE, AP WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What does she get out of these small events? Is she going to be actually trying to learn from the public?

[07:30:00] Is she just going to be trying to project a certain image? I just think every piece of this week is going to be really fascinating for Hillary.

RON FOURNIER, NATIONAL JOURNAL: From talking to her people, there's something else going on here. This isn't just about optics, it isn't about what she might get out of today. If you look at the long course of the campaign, this is about trying to fix her as a candidate.

As we know, she's been awfully stiff, and tight, and too calculating as a candidate. What her aides are trying to do, what she's hoping to do, is that she can put herself in settings where she feels more comfortable, where she feels less tight, where she feels more relaxed so that she can learn to be a happy warrior, which is what a good candidate is, what her husband was. She has to learn in these next couple weeks how to enjoy being a candidate. If she can, and she can learn how to be a candidate who connects authentically, she's going to be a good candidate. If the next two weeks she reverts back to type --

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": And there were some flashes of that. I said the other day that, you know, she wasn't that great of a candidate in 2008 and I got a lot of feedback from people out there saying, well, wait a minute, remember Pennsylvania.

FOURNIER: Yes.

KING: There were flashes of it in 2008. And part of it, you know, people are saying that she had the wrong staff or the staff was too controlling.

FOURNIER: It's all in here.

KING: Or the staff said do this, don't do that. And my point is, that's probably true and she's got a better staff this time. But she's the CEO of the operation. She has to enjoy it. It's a long slog. We've only covered campaigns for president, none of us have run for president, but it is a long slog. It beats you up, it wears you down, it keeps you away from your family, you lose your temper sometimes. FOURNIER: And that's, real quick, that's why I think what they're

doing is so smart, not so much for the optics, it's trying to get her to be a better candidate.

PACE: And to that point, you know, I've talked to a lot of friends of Hillary Clinton's over the last couple of weeks, and the one thing they say is that when she's in these smaller settings that she actually feeds off energy from people, that this is something that will help her feel more comfortable, that she will get policy ideas but she will also feel a connection to voters.

FOURNIER: Well see, that's important.

KING: She made the stop yesterday at the Chipotle on the drive, and, you know, Maggie Haberman of "The New York Times" had to call the manager of the place and said, you know, Hillary Clinton was there for lunch, and he said, oh no, she wasn't. And he goes back and looks at the closed circuit camera and there she is. Chicken burrito bowl sales with either go up or down today, and I guess that's where we'll figure out--

FOURNIER: I'll check my wedding photos to see if she was there.

(LAUGHTER)

FOURNIER: I'm starting to wonder now.

KING: You have a great nugget in your piece about how she decided to make this, and again, you know, this is not to be snarky, this is just a nice little detail, but she says she wants to be about the voters this time and she says she wants to get out there and listen to them. But you have this nugget about where she made the final decision, at the Oscar de la Renta compound.

PACE: Yes. Hillary and Bill Clinton are friends with the late Oscar de la Renta and they spend the holidays at his beach front estate in the Dominican Republic. And that's where she went with a 500-page binder to make her decision. And, you know, it's funny because this is just part of her life. This is the life, the space that they occupy. And yet, for most Americans the idea of jetting off to a beach front mansion in the Dominican Republic for the holidays is just very different than their experiences.

KING: Maybe they're just getting this stuff out of the way now. I was joking with the staff if you look at the "Town and Country" magazine this month, Bill Clinton is on the cover, "Elle" magazine this month, Chelsea Clinton on the cover in a Gucci dress with some Cartier jewelry. Get this part out of the way and go out and be candidates of the people, I guess, we would do this (ph).

Interesting yesterday, the day after Hillary Clinton announces Joe Biden does a round table with reporting. He has said consistently I might run, I'm not going to rule it out, my decision will not be influenced by Hillary Clinton. Listen to what he says here, because I read in the end here a little bit of truth from Joe Biden. He said at this round table, "I haven't made up my mind on that,"

whether to run in 2016, "I have plenty of time to do that in my view. If I'm wrong, I'm dead wrong, but there's a lot the president and I care about that has to get done in the next two, three months, and when you run for president, you've got to run for president," meaning it's all consuming and he's right about that, "and I'm not ready to do that," Joe Biden said, "if I am ever going to be ready to do that."

You can go back over the last six years and scrub his answers when he's asked this question. You won't find that last part, if I am ever going to be ready to do that. For me, that was the beginning of Joe Bidden saying, okay, Hillary actually ran, she's in, I'm not going to do this.

PACE: Yes and, you know, we've been waiting for this moment for Joe Biden. He's been do none of the things that a candidate has to do to actually prepare for running for president. He's not setting up state operations, he's not trying to line up donors. This is a bit of reality from him. I think that people in the party want to give him the space to kind of make his announcement that he's not running in his own time. I think this was the start of that.

FOURNIER: If I was him, I would not do it now. I'd keep my powder dry. You just don't know what's going to happen.

KING: You don't know what's going to happen, keep your power dry. And also, remember, Dick Cheney was clear he was not going to run and he lost his influence to some degree as vice president because nobody feared him out there in the political apparatus. The other big candidate who got in yesterday, lower key day today, but Marco Rubio got in last night in Miami, and he very clearly had Secretary Clinton in mind when he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: A leader from yesterday began a campaign for president by promising to take us back to yesterday. Yesterday is over.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

KING: It's a good line. It's a smart line from the political construct. We've talked about this before, about Marco Rubio's great potential. He's the guy on your opening day roster, you say this is a great athlete.

[07:35:01] Some of those guys hit 187, some of them go on to have, you know, MVP style years. That's the question for Marco Rubio in my view. Can he raise enough money, and can he execute?

FOURNIER: Yes, I thought his speech was relatively uneven, it wasn't as inspirational as I thought it would be, the performance. And his big problem is a lack of experience, which was Obama's big problem, and can you follow Obama who's been proven, you know, not to be the most effective leader because of his lack of experience? But I will say, he, like a guy you and I both covered in the '90s, really understands the time, is really connecting with people in a really smart way.

Two quick lines, when he said some people say I shouldn't wait, boy, was he speaking to the millenials. If you know anybody under 35 years old, you know that's exactly how they feel. And then that wonderful story that he tells all the time about my father who started working in a bar in the back of the room, and now I'm in front of the podium, it gives me chills just thinking about it because, you know what, we all want to think that our families can still do better than we are. And we know that's not happening anymore.

KING: And some people in Washington, in New York, they might think maybe you have a lot of money in your pocket, you might think that that American dream story is corny. You go into a small room in this country, that is the gnawing anxiety of small town America.

PACE: Absolutely.

FOURNIER: You bet.

KING: Parents looking at their children saying, I'm better than my parents, I'm way better than my parents. I owe my parents everything I have. You look at your kids sometimes and think, are they going to have a better chance?

PACE: And there's a sense that Rubio is connecting with the mood of the country. And the thing I think he has in his favor in terms of just the pure message is that this generational argument is one that he can make both against Hillary Clinton and one he can make against Jeb Bush. And he can split this, both be focusing on the primary and the general with the same message.

KING: But does he grow as a candidate? Can he find his place in a very crowded Republican field, Michaela? It's interesting, you know. This is like it's the second week of the baseball season, this is kind of like the first official week of campaign 2016.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: That's true.

KING: With Secretary Clinton in there, everyone else getting in. Time to have some fun.

PEREIRA: And I guess your point is we have to pace ourselves, right? It's a long few months we've got ahead of us, right, John?

KING: Pace, pace, pace, and caffeine.

PEREIRA: Marathon, not a sprint. And caffeine, big friend of that.

All right, so, meanwhile, it is a big day for Hillary Clinton as she re-introduces herself to voters in Iowa. We'll talk about what challenges she's going to face going forward with Clinton's one-time chief of staff. He joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:41:04] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton is set to hold her first actual, genuine, official campaign event today, that's after the official road trip driving in the Scooby van from New York all the way to Iowa.

Will this campaign resonate with voters, this new style? What challenges will she face in the coming months? Joining us to talk about the campaign and the candidate, someone who knows the former secretary of state very well, Melanne Verveer, who served as chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton when she was first lady. She's now executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

Thank you so much for being with us. Good morning.

MELANNE VERVEER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY: Good morning, John. It's a pleasure.

BERMAN: We saw a remarkable photo yesterday, the likes of which I've never seen on the campaign trail. Hillary Clinton ordering a burrito bowl at Chipotle. I hope we can put that picture up so everyone understands the historical significance of this. I believe she also got an iced tea. Let's leave that as a side note here.

I think the campaign is letting us see these photos to send a message that Hillary Clinton is just like all of us. Is it possible for voters to get that message when Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye for decades and decades? A senator, a first lady, a secretary of state, can she really be just like all of us when she drove to Chipotle with the Secret Service behind the wheel?

VERVEER: Well, I think she can indeed. And in fact, it's the role that she's been in over many, many years. She's never lost a connection to where she came from. A middle class family growing up in the Midwest, someone who had to work hard to get to where she is, put herself through school with some help from her family but not lots of help.

She's somebody who can relate to the everyday lives of Americans, and I think getting back, making these connections, doing it retail, earning each vote, this is who she is. She is someone who has been in the public eye, obviously. But she's also someone who has not lost touch.

BERMAN: The fact that the campaign feels the need to send this message indicates that somehow over the last years or decades that voters haven't received that message.

Why then don't voters see her as, like, the rest of us?

VERVEER: Well, you know, I think she has been secretary of state for the last four years. It's not a position in which she's been in the political fray so much, but she has been in politics for a long time. She has been someone who easily connects with people. You know, I so often hear from folks who say I didn't think I would like her, but then I got to know her, I got to work with her, and I'm in her corner as long as I need to be and then some.

She is someone who can quickly win people over because she has a great sense of humanity. She has a great commitment to service. She has great resilience. And she has a big heart. And I think that comes across. And so, when she can sit in diners or meet with people one- on-one, they really get to know her. So, a lot of politics is retail. And it's connecting.

BERMAN: Have you ever been to Chipotle with the first lady before? Do you know if she's ever been to Chipotle before?

VERVEER: I have not been with her to Chipotle, but I have spent many times in small places, and diners, and restaurants. And she is not uncomfortable in any of those places, it's really who she is.

BERMAN: Let me move beyond Chipotle politics, if that's possible here.

VERVEER: Good.

BERMAN: I want to play some sound from President Obama yesterday, of course ran against Hillary Clinton, but also worked with her. He was asked flat out if he would he endorse her. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's a little early for endorsement since she just announced yesterday, but here's what I can say.

[07:45:00] She is talented, tenacious, was a great Secretary of State, she is a friend of mine, and I think she would be an excellent president.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BERMAN: This is going to be really interesting to watch over the next couple of months. You see the president right there, that wasn't an endorsement, but boy it was awfully close there. So, he can embrace her but not fully embrace her. You have Hillary Clinton who can't fully embrace the White House, but wants to embrace parts of it. How do you navigate that difficult path there?

VERVEER: Well, you know, one of the things that she was always asked as secretary when she would travel the world was how could you join the administration of a president who ran against you and you were in a tough campaign together? And she always answered that in terms of -- we had far more in common than we had the differences. And this is all about our country and our values.

And she has been a stalwart supporter of the president's policy, she has also put the differences out when there have been differences. But I recall so many times when she was being considered for secretary and about to become, and I would get questions like, well, how is this going to work? She was his opponent. She won't be loyal to him.

She has been consistently there. And when they've had differences she's expressed them in private. So, I think she will mount this campaign in a way that shows the consistencies, and where there are some differences she will articulate those differences.

BERMAN: Melanne Verveer, great to have you with us on NEW DAY this morning. Thanks so much.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John.

Almost five years since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Do we have any answers? How bad was it really? What has changed? We're going to take you to the Gulf and you're going to get a unique look as we preview CNN's documentary, "BLOWOUT" about the B.P. oil spill.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

[07:50:25] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's easy to be fooled by an image. One of the challenges ocean conservation is the old adage, out of sight out of mind, and it's important to remember that a lot of the oil now is not floating on the surface, is not sticking to the marshes, but it is existing down at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

(END VIDEPCLIP)

CUOMO: That's the question, what was the impact of the B.P. oil spill? You remember the pictures, the coverage, all that oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico following that B.P. oil disaster. You know, it was almost five years ago, it will be next week. So, we have CNN's senior investigative correspondent, Drew Griffin. He went back to the Gulf for an update and made a documentary out of it "ON BLOWOUT: THE GULF OIL DISASTER," of course on CNN.

We have Drew with us now. Now, the big situation here when we're looking at this, because this was a very controversial thing, they're just digging up things now, stretches of the beach, five years later. Why?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The deal is, it's still there, right?

This oil is still there, it's unbelievable that they're still finding this stuff and the fact of the matter is that B.P. is saying, the oil company that spilled it, we knew where this oil was, we knew that this tar mat was there, and we're being told to wait until the natural erosion takes it away, shows its presence, and then we will go in and scoop it up. Here's what they are doing.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): So, we're showing some of the footage of the documentary here, obviously going through it. The big speculation, and I know what drove you to go back there was to come to some type of conclusion about what the exposure had been, because first there was supposed to be big pools of it on top of the water. Then it was there's some types of organisms that eat oil and that's why it's all gone. And then it was no, it's trapped in big clouds of it under the sea. What did you find?

(END VIDEOCLIP)

GRIFFIN: You know what, more than 4 million barrels of oil came out of that well and it went somewhere, right? Now, B.P. would like to tell you that it went away, that nature actually eroded so much of this oil. Scientists are saying, look, there's 1,200 square miles where this oil exists in splotches and in patches all across the bottom of the Gulf, we don't know where it is. We're still digging up oil.

Five years later, it's too early to tell if there is going to be any long-term kind of repercussions. But what is amazing, and you'll find in this documentary, is the resiliency of mother nature, of the Gulf coast population. We keep throwing crap at these people, they keep bouncing back, so does mother nature.

It is not as bad, as dire as people thought it would be five years later, but it's certainly not over. We're still digging up oil, the oil is still on the bottom, we still don't know what's going to happen or what is happening to the fish, to all the aquatic life that lives there. So, it's really much still a question. We'd like to button it up and put this away like a hurricane, but we can't, Chris.

CUOMO: But we can keep asking the questions and that's why it's so important to have you, Drew. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see it, especially as someone who covered it and spent time down there. It is called "BLOWOUT: THE GULF OIL DISASTER." It airs tonight, 9:00 Eastern, of course only on CNN. Drew, thank you very much.

Mick?

PEREIRA: All right, the Senate posing a direct challenge to President Obama with a vote that may derail the Iran nuclear deal. Ahead, we're going to speak with the top who would hold the fate of the deal in his hands.

[07:54:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We have two months more to negotiate, which has high stakes for hour country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At some point, Congress is going to have to lift the sanctions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the get a deal at all costs that I think has lots of countries around the world concerned.

OBAMA: I think she would be an excellent president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If she wants to be different, she's going to have to prove it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is about every day Americans. It is not about Hillary.

RUBIO: I announce my candidacy for President of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His policies really are taking us back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Underestimating Marco Rubio is a mistake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got me! You got me!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last thing my brother heard: F your breath. As if he didn't matter.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, April 14, 8:00 in the East. Alisyn's off. J.B. is here with us this morning and we've got a lot of news for you.

A big vote could come today on the Iran deal. The question is, should Congress have final say on any deal? Now, President Obama's deputies are pleading for more time to negotiate, to be left alone as they head back to Capitol Hill, though, to brief members of the Senate.

PEREIRA: Well, all of this no doubt of great interest to the newly- minted presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton kicking off her first campaign event in Iowa, Senator Marco Rubio meanwhile who could have to vote on Iran legislation throwing his hat into the ring on the Republican side.

We have every angle covered for you, only the way CNN can. We'll begin with Michelle Kosinski live from the White House. Michelle?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Michaela. We are still playing deal or no deal here. I know that at this point Congress is very close to taking action that could substantially change a nuclear deal with Iran or derail it entirely.

I mean, today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee could vote on this bill that would give Congress the up or down vote on a deal that they've been looking for, could prevent President Obama from removing sanctions that were imposed by Congress while Congress considers this. Others could add more restrictions to it, and the Senate is close to having a veto-proof majority.

So, now is the time for the White House to really be working to try to convince members of Congress otherwise. They've been having these classified briefings, yesterday with the House, today with the Senate.

[08:00:03] And what the White House says they need are simply time and space to try to hammer out all the details of this deal with Iran without Congress getting involved, at least not for now.