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GOP Campaigns Demand More Control Over Debates; CNN Special Report, "Bush V. Gore: The Endless Election". Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 02, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:58] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN SPICER, RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Look, I think there's no question that last week's debate was a complete disaster. And I think our candidates are rightly upset. Anyone who thinks that we can sort of put words in moderators' mouths is crazy. The candidates have confidence in what the RNC's doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, that was Sean Spicer of the RNC on NEW DAY last hour talking about the candidates, calling for changes to the debate format. So what are the candidate's biggest beeves? Let's ask Republican Presidential Candidate Senator Lindsey Graham.

Senator, great to see you this morning.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Is Sean Spicer right, do you still have confidence in the RNC?

GRAHAM: Well, I think we're moving forward in a - in a productive fashion. We have too many people on one stage and too few on the other. I don't mind being asked hard questions and challenging questions. I think some of the questions have been downright silly. And this thing has gone on too long. The second debate went on too long. The last debate was just a complete food fight. So we're trying to take control over the process and Reince Priebus is a good friend. My beef is not with him.

CAMEROTA: I know that what you've called for is splitting the number into two.

GRAHAM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Having seven people, seven candidates in the first debate, seven candidates in the second. Just mix it up. And that does sound like a good idea. Was there any suggestion last night that they will do that?

GRAHAM: Well, I think there were some. I think we're making progress so that the candidates can input about how the debate is structured, how long opening statements, closing statements. I think over time this is going to get better. CNN has a debate coming down the road, and I hope CNN will look at an evenly divided seven and seven, whatever the numbers are by then, and give everybody a fair shot, ask us all hard questions and you can understand who we are better in smaller groups.

CAMEROTA: I know - look, you have been on the early debate and I know that your beef has been that you haven't been on the main stage. But to be honest, you being on the early debate has allowed you to bust out some great zingers and jokes. I mean a lot of people thought that you stole the show. You know, it gave you more air time that you wouldn't actually get on the main stage, in fact. It also distinguished you in terms of substance. Mitt Romney recently tweeted. He said, "after hearing Lindsey Graham talk foreign policy tonight at the last debate, it's clear he belongs on the big stage."

GRAHAM: Right.

CAMEROTA: But, you know, that's a double-edged sword. I mean you have been able to get a lot of attention for how you've conducted yourself in that early debate.

GRAHAM: Well, one, Mitt has been very kind to me, and I appreciate what Mitt and Ann have done to be supportive of a process that would include Lindsey Graham. But when a million and a half people watch the first debate and 14 million watch the second, your ability to break out is fairly limited. When you're called the undercard candidate, it sort of puts you in a different spot too.

I don't think I'm an undercard candidate. I'd love to have a discussion with my - my colleagues up there about Syria. What would you do differently regarding Syria than Obama? And this whole strategy in Syria's failing and it's never going to work. It's a complete disaster. But do the - do the other people running for president have much of a different plan? That's the question.

[08:35:02] CAMEROTA: Before we get to Syria, I do just want to tell you what two of your fellow GOP candidates are suggesting about the debates and the format and the moderators moving forward. So, please -

GRAHAM: OK.

CAMEROTA: So listen to this sound bite.

GRAHAM: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now how about if we say, from now on, if you have never voted in a Republican primary in your life, you don't get to moderate a Republican primary debate.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We should have moderators who are interested in disseminating the information about the candidates, as opposed to, you know, gotcha. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so that was Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. Senator, is that the answer, only let Republicans ask Republicans questions?

GRAHAM: No, not really, because journalists are not supposed to be Republicans or Democrats. I know there's media bias. You know there's media bias. But I thought the CNN debate was a well-done debate by Jake Tapper. I have no problems with what he did. At the end of the day, we're trying to grow the party. And one way to grow the party is be challenged by people who are not in it. So I - I think it's not the political bias of the moderator that's driving the problem here, it's sort of this gotcha stuff.

CAMEROTA: Senator, we've heard that the new conditions will not apply to the next debate. That's nine days from now. That's on the Fox Business Network. And "The Washington Post," this morning, suggests that the reason that there will not be new rules is because some of the campaigns are afraid of Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News. Are some of the campaigns afraid of Roger Ailes?

GRAHAM: I like Roger Ailes, but I'm not afraid of him. I have told him and others at Fox, I don't like the idea of splitting the group in two based on national polling where the difference between fourth place and last is within the margin of error. There's only two candidates consistently polling outside of double digits. The rest of us are from zero and 10. So to the extent that Fox News uses that as a criteria, I think it's wrong.

CAMEROTA: Senator, I know that you wanted to get to Syria, so tell -

GRAHAM: Yes, I do.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about what the president has announced, 50 more U.S. military special ops heading to Syria. What's the problem?

GRAHAM: Well, one, it won't work. ISIL is a direct threat to our homeland. They want to destroy the Christian faith, and they're doing it. They want to purify the Islamic faith. They're slaughtering people in their own faith who disagree with them. They want to attack Israel. But, most importantly, they want to attack us. You know, ISIL's very radical. They make al Qaeda look like the rotary club. So I want to destroy these guys before they hit us. Fifty people is not going to turn the tide of battle. You need a ground force. The air campaign is not working.

Here's what I would do. I'd have a no-fly zone in Syria to better train people, to stop the flow of refugees. I would enlist regional armies who have the same goal as we do, to destroy ISIL, and I would be part of that ground force that - there'd be three groups of ground forces, people inside of Syria, regional armies and American troops. We'd be about 10 percent of that force. I'd go in on the ground and destroy the guys. What Obama's doing is not going to work.

CAMEROTA: Senator, last, on a sad note, we know that you were a dear friend of Senator Fred Thompson - GRAHAM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Who we lost this weekend. I remember you guys being on John McCain's "straight talk express" in 2000 and just how much fun you guys had together.

GRAHAM: One of the reasons it was fun was bought of Fred Thompson. He was incredibly funny, policy wise, brilliant, great voice of conservatism. But more than anything else, he was just a hell of a good friend. I was on a radio station with Fred and Cindy McCain in South Carolina and Bush called in by mistake in 2000 and all I can say is that Fred had a good time. He will be missed. He was a giant of a man. He was a talented fella. But more than anything else, he was a great public servant and a dear friend.

CAMEROTA: We're sorry for your loss.

Senator Lindsey Graham, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY this morning.

GRAHAM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

GRAHAM: Thank you very much.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We are all thinking of the senator this morning, that's for sure.

All right, Alisyn, so you remember the hanging chad? Well, you were too young. But CNN has exclusive new info about those really gripping 36 days that America waited for a president, and whether something like that could ever happen again. You will want a peek at this. It's really well done.

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[08:43:21] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: It's time for your five things for your new day on Monday.

Number one, investigators believe the Russian passenger jet that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula Saturday broke apart midair. The airline points to external factors. Terrorism is not being ruled out. Two hundred and twenty-four people on board died.

Republican presidential candidates agreeing on a series of demands aimed at giving them great control of debates going forward. They include largely bypassing the RNC to negotiate the format directly with network hosts.

Former U.S. senator and actor Fred Thompson has died at age 73. He served two terms in the Senate and ran for president in 2008. Perhaps best known for his role as a no nonsense D.A. in the hit TV series "Law & Order."

An E. Coli outbreak leading Chipotle to temporarily close all 43 of its restaurants in Oregon and in Washington state. Chipotle says it's working with the health departments to determine the source.

Kansas City set to honor the World Series champion Royals with a parade Tuesday. The Royals winning the series against the Mets in five games. Their first title in 30 years. Second in franchise history.

You can get more on the five things to know by visiting newdaycnn.com.

Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Mic, it was the 36 days our nation will never forget. Remember waiting to find out if George W. Bush or Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election? The hanging chads. What's going to get recount and by who? Was it by hand or by what? There is a great new CNN report exploring those days. You're going to want to relive it with us. Come back.

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[08:48:21] PEREIRA: Hard to believe, but it has been 15 years since the controversial presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Tonight, CNN takes an inside look at what happened during those 36 chaotic days that it took to declare the winner.

Here's a look at the CNN Special Report, "BUSH V. GORE: THE ENDLESS ELECTION."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD (chanting): We want Gore! We want Gore!

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): It's after 3:00 in the morning on November 8th, 2000. The war memorial in Nashville, Tennessee. Vice President Al Gore is inside, getting ready to publicly concede the presidential election to George W. Bush.

BILL DALEY, GORE CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: It was total chaos as we were trying to get into the war memorial. Pouring rain. The vice president and Lieberman's family and that whole group had gone in, the Secret Service, the police, everybody was on edge.

MICHAEL WHOULEY, GORE NATIONAL FIELD DIRECTOR: And I got on the phone and Bill Daley and he said, what's up, Mike? And I said, Billy, we haven't lost. This thing is going to be an automatic recampus. I said this thing is too close to call.

DALEY: I just see my life kind of flash in front of me. Kind of break out in a sweat, thinking, oh my god, what do we do here?

WHOULEY: That's when he contacted David (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything was ringing at once and vibrating.

DALEY: Told him, grab the vice president. Get him into a holding room with Joe Lieberman. Don't let anyone out. Just everybody freeze.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Feldman was trying to get ahold of me. Feldman said, you know, you need to stop the vice president from conceding.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He cannot go out on stage. You have got to bring him to hold.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: Here to tell us more is CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger. You're talking to all the key players in this.

[08:50:00] I'm curious, after 15 years, what are they say saying? What are they saying about those 36 days?

BORGER: What was stunning to me, first of all, is how honest they are about it. I live in the spin zone every day in politics, right?

PEREIRA: Sure.

BORGER: We all do. Right? And these folks who fought a bitter, hard- fought fight, look back on it and the Democrats are saying, for example, you see Bill Daley there talking about how Al Gore had conceded. Right? And Bill Daley admits that he shouldn't have had Al Gore make that initial phone call to concede. Why did he do it? Because all the networks said that Florida had gone to Bush, right? Well of course, his own numbers guy said, wait a minute, that's not true. They were not communicating. In this day of Twitter and instant messaging and texting and all the rest --

CUOMO: Wasn't like that then.

BORGER: No. So he had his folks in the boiler room looking at the numbers. They didn't know that their own candidate had already conceded and was on his way to make a speech.

CAMEROTA: So that's what they're talking about. That high-stakes moment that they're all talking about, like hold him, don't let him go out, that's before the very end.

BORGER: That's before the very end.

CAMEROTA: The election night.

BORGER: So he goes to the war memorial, getting ready to do the concession speech. They all say to me, it was like we're going to our own funeral. It was so awful. They get this call from Michael Whouley, whom you saw there, saying stop. Don't do this. Don't do this. And they're like, why? We lost. And he said, no, you didn't lose. This goes to an automatic recount.

So from the war memorial, he has to call George W. Bush and, if this is a word, unconcede (ph) the election, which he did. Bush, at the other end of the line, and we have people who were with Bush at the time, was, as you can imagine, incredulous. Bush saying, you're taking it back? Which is exactly what he did. And then the fight went on for 36 days.

CUOMO: It's interesting that it was definitely legitimate issue. BORGER: Sure.

CUOMO: It going to the court was unprecedented, but the decision, while not popular with Democrats, was certainly well reasoned on the grounds of equal protection. The irony is, what changed?

PEREIRA: Right.

BORGER: Right. Well -

CUOMO: What changed? Such a screwed up system. What changed?

PEREIRA: And I think that there would be a whole, you know, (INAUDIBLE), everything would have just been redone.

BORGER: It would have. It would have. There are lots of studies done. There has been election reform in certain states. But every four years we go through this. We go through the lines at the voting booths and all the rest. I was asking the folks who were involved in recount, who had been involved in election reform why it hasn't happened at a national level. And he said because elections are controlled by state and local officials. State and local officials are partisans, right? And each state remains different. This is not a federal thing at this point. So you may have early voting in a lot of the western states, absentee ballots becoming more and more prominent now. But in terms of an entire sort of electoral system that actually works, we still don't do that very well, which is one of the reasons we're doing the documentary, honestly. Because people think, oh, it may only affect my local mayoral race if my vote doesn't count. But the truth of the matter is, it determined a presidency.

CAMEROTA: Right.

PEREIRA: Wow.

BORGER: And by 537 votes or whatever count you use, it was important. And this story shows -- and, by the way, of course, when we ask people, could it happen again?

PEREIRA: The answer is?

BORGER: Yes. Of course it could happen again.

PEREIRA: Well we want you to tune in tonight because I think it will -- Especially if you lived it, like we all did, you can tune in tonight for a special CNN report. "BUSH V. GORE: THE ENDLESS ELECTION." It airs right here on CNN.

Gloria, really a treat. Thanks for helping us relive those days.

BORGER: Sure.

CUOMO: Listen to this one. I don't care whether you like baseball or not. This is just a great World Series story. A 90-year-old Royals fan stands outside the stadium for decades to get autographs.

CAMEROTA: For decades?

[08:54:08] CUOMO: You know who is not going to stand for that? "The Good Stuff." Coming up.

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CUOMO: Oh, this is so good. It's gooder (ph). A good deed for a dedicated fan that gets duplicated. Meet 90-year-old Charlie Blystone, war vet, loves everything Royals. He's lined up outside Kauffman Stadium for every home game for years. Why? Autographs. He's a fan, baby. But he's never been inside because he just can't afford it.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

CUOMO: Well our affiliate told his story. Fellow fans lined up to help him, strangers. First, this guy in the blue hat, Jeremy. Nice stash. He says Charlie is him in 60 years. So what does he do? Sent him a ticket to the game one.

PEREIRA: How about that?

CUOMO: Yup. Then this guy, Jerry, heard about what Jeremy did. Guess what he does? Sends him to game two.

CAMEROTA: Awesome.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got two more for you tonight. I think you might like those.

CHARLIE BLYSTONE, 90-YEAR-OLD KANSAS CITY ROYALS FAN: Well, I sure appreciate it.

I get kind of thrilled. Kind of thrilled about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Isn't that nice?

CAMEROTA: Oh.

PEREIRA: Oh, I can't with this one.

CUOMO: He wound up not going to the games. It turns out he's outside because he's a scalper. No, no, no.

PEREIRA: Oh, come on.

CUOMO: He went to the games and he loved it. We haven't heard yet about how Charlie feels about the Royals beating the Mets, but we're sure he's -

PEREIRA: Toy with my emotions. You work me up, you beat me down.

CUOMO: How funny would that have been, though?

CAMEROTA: There's always a (INAUDIBLE) zinger you insert in there.

CUOMO: I love it.

CAMEROTA: We never see it coming.

PEREIRA: No, we never do.

CAMEROTA: Which is astonishing, really.

PEREIRA: We should know better.

CAMEROTA: I know.

PEREIRA: I love that those fans did that for this man. Dedication. I love it.

CAMEROTA: All right. As if that wasn't good stuff enough, we want to congratulate our technical director Beth. Beth and her husband just welcomed their first child, who she calls 'minion.' Olivia Autumn came into this world --

PEREIRA: Oh, how precious.

CAMEROTA: -- October 22nd. 7 pounds, 4 ounces, 20 inches long.

CUOMO: Nice. Nice.

CAMEROTA: Tall baby.

PEREIRA: Their first baby.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Look at that little baby.

CUOMO: Look at the little legs.

PEREIRA: Love bug.

CUOMO: Awe, give me the little legs.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: We have babies all over the place. Don't drink the water.

CAMEROTA: I know. I guess not. Maybe there's something on the sofa.

PEREIRA: Hey now.

CUOMO: Oh that's -- Again --

PEREIRA: I'm going to leave it there. Time for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello on this Monday. Good morning, Carol.